, miles in extent.

"Eros," explained Wade laconically to Torlos. "Part of an ancient planet
that was destroyed before the time of man, or life on Earth. The planet
got too near the sun when its orbit was irregular, and old Sol pulled it
to pieces. This is one of the pieces. The other asteroids are the rest.
All planetary surfaces are made up of great blocks; they aren't
continuous, you know. Like blocks of concrete in a building, they can
slide a bit on each other, but friction holds them till they slip with a
jar and we have earthquakes. This is one of the planetary blocks. We see
Eros from Earth intermittently, for when this thing turns broadside it
reflects a lot of light; edge on it does not reflect so much."

It was a desolate bit of rock. Bare, airless, waterless rock, of
enormous extent. It was contorted and twisted, but there were no great
cracks in it for it was a single planetary block.

Arcot dropped the ship to the barren surface, and anchored it with an
attractive ray at low concentration. There was no gravity of consequence
on this bit of rock.

"Come on, get to work. Space suits, and rush all the apparatus out,"
snapped Arcot. He was on his feet, the power of the ship in neutral now.
Only the attractor was on. In the shortest possible time they got into
their suits, and under Arcot's direction set up the apparatus on the
rocky soil as fast as it was brought out. In all, less than fifteen
minutes were needed, yet Arcot was hurrying them more and more. Torlos'
tremendous strength helped, even on this gravitationless world, for he
could accelerate more quickly with his burdens.

At last it was up for operation. The artificial matter apparatus was
operated by cosmic power, and controlled by mental operation, or by
mathematical formula as they pleased. Immediately Arcot set to work. A
giant hollow cylinder drilled a great hole completely through the thin,
curved surface of the ancient planetary block, through twelve miles of
solid rock--a cylinder of artificial matter created on a scale possible
only to cosmic power. The cylinder, half a mile across, contained a huge
plug of matter. Then the artificial matter contracted swiftly,
compressing the matter, and simultaneously treating it with the
tremendous fields that changed its energy form. In seconds it was a
tremendous mass of cosmium.

A second smaller cylinder bored a plug from the rock, and worked on it.
A huge mass of relux resulted. Now other artif