THE COSMIC COMPUTER

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between life and death. Jeeps and lifters and manipulators and things
floated out of her. Scows began landing and unloading prefab-hut
elements. A water tank landed, and the cook-shed began going up beside
it; a lorry came in with scanning and probing equipment, and a couple of
men jumped off and huddled over a photoprint copy of one of Conn's maps.

Conn lifted the car again and coasted it half a mile to where the cleft
in the mesa started. There were half a dozen claw-armed manipulators
already there, and two giant power shovels. Jerry Rivas and one of the
engineers Kurt Fawzi had hired had gotten out of a jeep and were looking
at another photoprint of the map. Rivas pointed to the head of the
canyon, where a mass of rock had slid down.

"That's it; you can still see where they put off the shots."

The canyon was long enough and wide enough for the /Lester Dawes/ to
land in it; she could be loaded directly from the tunnel. The