en meters was quite enough.

Now came the hard work.

On the outside of the _Nancy Bell_, locked into place, was a
specially-treated nickel-steel eye-bolt--thirty feet long and eight
inches in diameter. There had been ten of them, just as there had been
ten drills in the storage locker. Now the last drill had been used, and
there was but one eye-bolt left. The _Nancy Bell_ would have to go back
for more supplies after this job.

The anchor bolts had a mass of four metric tons each. Maneuvering them
around, even when they were practically weightless, was no easy job.

St. Simon again matched the velocity of the _Nancy Bell_ with that of
the planetoid, which had been accelerated by the drill's action. He
positioned the ship above the hole which had been drilled into the huge
rock. Not directly above it--rocket drills had been known to show spurts
of life after they were supposed to be dead. St. Simon had timed the
drill, and it had apparently behaved as it should, but there was no need
to take chances.

"Fire brigade, stand by!"

"Fire brigade standing by, sir!"

A nozzle came out of the nose of the _Nancy Bell_ and peeped over the
rim of the freshly-drilled hole.

"Ready! Aim! Squirt!"

A jet of kerosene-like fluosilicone oil shot down the shaft. When it had
finished its work, there was little possibility that anything could
happen at the bottom. Any unburned rocket fuel would have a hard time
catching fire with that stuff soaking into it.

"Ready to lower the boom, Mr. Christian!" bellowed St. Simon.

"Aye, sir! Ready, sir!"

"Lower away!"

His fingers played rapidly over the control board.

* * * * *

Outside the ship, the lower end of the great eye-bolt was released from
its clamp, and a small piston gave it a little shove. In a long, slow,
graceful arc, it swung away from the hull, swiveling around the pivot
clamp that held the eye. The braking effect of the pivot clamp was
precisely set to stop the eye-bolt when it was at right angles to the
hull. Moving carefully, St. Simon maneuvered the ship until the far end
of the bolt was directly over the shaft. Then he nudged the _Nancy Bell_
sideways, pushing the bolt down into the planetoid. It grated a couple
of times, but between the power of the ship and the mass of the
planetoid, there was enough pressure to push it past the obstacles. The
rocket drill and the eye-bolt had been designed to work together; the
hole made