MacVickers stopped at the brink of the dark round shaft.
It was cold, and he was stark n***d except for the silver collar welded around his neck. But it was more than cold that made him shiver and clamp his long bony jaw.
He didn’t know what the shaft was for, or where it led. But he had a sudden feeling that once he went down he was down for good.
The small, round metal platform rocked uneasily under his feet. Beyond the railing, as far as MacVickers could see to the short curve of Io’s horizon, there was mud. Thin, slimy blue-green mud.
The shaft went down under the mud. MacVickers looked at it. He licked dry lips, and his grey-green eyes, narrow and hot in his gaunt dark face, flashed a desperate look at the small flyer from which he had just been taken.
It bobbed on the heaving mu
