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strange creature had vanished.
It was Kranz, peering in astonishment over Gerry's shoulder, who named
it in a burst of inspiration.
"Call it a Rotary Mole!"
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r r
Chapter VII
Mystery of Life
The Rotary Moles - there were four in the local family - proved quite a
nuisance with their constant burrowing into the mine shaft. When driven
out, they sat around staring curiously at the operations like so many sidewalk
superintendents watching an excavation. In desperation, Gerry was forced
to devise a method of capturing them.
She abhorred the wanton killing of wild life, which rendered useless her
high-powered hypodermic rifles. They would destroy any animal as small
as the Mole. Also, the anesthetic gas dispersed too quickly in the thin
Titanian air to be of much good.
After brooding awhile over a method to catch the things harmlessly, one
of the men gave Gerry the clue. To scare the Moles away, he threw a half-
empty can at them. They darted off, then came racing back to the splotch
where the pineapple juice had soaked into the ground. At once they all up-
ended and began to spin, boring madly into the damp spot. Unquestionably
they had a passion for fruit juices.
That made it easy. Gerry built a box trap and filled it with soil. Then she
set it out the second night and emptied two cans of juice on it. The next
morning they had four Rotary Moles in a sadly battered trap. Another hour
would have enabled them to win to freedom.
"What a testimonial for the pineapple people!" Gerry gloated, as she
stowed the Rotary Moles out of harm's way. "They ought to be glad to pay
plenty for it."
After the boiler-generator-furnace hook-up had begun to function, another
interruption occurred. The first batch of neutroxite had been poured into
sand molds. The smelting of more ore was proceeding satisfactorily, when
the electricity unaccountably weakened. Checking along the wires from the
generator to the furnace, Strike found what appeared to be a rather slender
copper bar lying across the wires. With the toe of his boot he kicked it
aside.
Three minutes later there was another short in the circuit. Tommy again
was forced to remove the apparent copper bar from the wires. This time,
after kicking it away, he bent down to pick it up. He received a mild electric
shock. When he dropped the thing hastily, the copper bar began to walk
away.
"So," murmured Strike grimly. "You want to play."
He pursued the perambulating bar. It ducked swiftly into the pile of wood
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r r
used to fire up the boiler. With one sweep Strike spread the fuel about the
landscape, but there was no copper bar to be seen.
He began to swear softly as be peered around. Gerry, fascinated by his
antics, came over.
"What goes on now?" she demanded.
Strike explained briefly.
"It must be a sort of chameleonlike thing," he concluded. "First it
imitated the wires. Now it's imitating the sticks of wood. Probably
generates a current within itself like an electric eel. Maybe if we wait
around, it'll move again."
Gerry snorted in exasperation.
"And no doubt it amuses and warms itself by shorting our wires at every
opportunity. Another monkey-wrench in the machinery that we'll have to
dig out."
Carefully they began to sort the woodpile, searching for a stick that would
give them a mild jolt. A loud complaint from Baumstark warned them.
Behind their backs, the chameleon had sneaked over to absorb the juice from
the furnace lead-ins again.
They tried to surround the thing, which now resembled a copper bar. But
it scuttled away lizard-fashion much too rapidly to be caught. Thoroughly
annoyed by these alarming delays, Gerry said reluctantly:
"We've got no time to waste in studying that little beggar, and find out
how to capture it. If I don't get an inspiration within an hour or two, well
just have to kill it outright."
Fortunately the inspiration came. In Gerry's quarters was a large mirror,
her one concession to vanity while on expedition. This she carried outside
and set up alongside the chameleon's favorite spot - the electric wires -
tilting it so it would reflect nothing but the dark-blue sky.
The third brief night passed, and Gerry awoke to the sound of hilarious
laughter. Hurrying out, she found Tommy guffawing and pointing
inarticulately. The chameleon, in its natural state looked like an ordinary
chunk of flesh with legs. It lay twisting futilely before the mirror, sputtering
feeble electric sparks. Part of it was blue as the sky, while the rest shaded
into a rapidly shifting mottled color.
"The poor devil tried at first to imitate nothing, looking up at space,"
Strike explained finally. "Then it must've caught sight of its reflection in the
mirror and tried to imitate itself! The natural result was a complete nervous
breakdown!"
After this interlude, nothing arose to interrupt their work. Metals were
smelted, poured into molds. Emery wheels howled as the little rotors were
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