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the other planets.
"The accumulators and the transmitters," said Burl.L "We'll have to get them both."
"Getting the transmitters will be easy," said Haines. "After we shut off the station, we'll just bomb the mountain masts out of action."
Burl choked. "Why, it never occurred to me, but why can't we bomb the station from the air? One atomic bomb should finish it off." He almost added, And you wouldn't have needed me after all, but squashed the thought. He wouldn't have given up coming along for anything, he now realized.
"There's a distortion, as there was at the Andes station, that would make it hard to hit. But I imagine we could do it if we tried hard enough. But that isn't what we want at first. It's important, very important, that we get pictures and details of this station from inside. We can't just break up the enemy installations we've got to learn from them, we must find out how they do it and how we can use it." This was Lockhart speaking. "You'd better start the job," he added to Haines. "Are you ready?"
Haines nodded reluctantly. "Yep," and turning to the three who would accompany him, he ordered, "let's go."
The four explorers gathered near the exit port. They had put on space suits and strapped on various items of equipment, weapons and work tools. They passed through the airlock into the cargo section of the ship. Communicating through the helmet radios, Haines directed each what to do, and also directed Lockhart where to bring the ship for the landing.
Burl heard Lockhart's voice warn them that he did not want to hold the ship too long over the sunny hot side. "We've already noticed a buildup of heat from the solar radiation on the skin. And the heat radiating from Mercury is accumulating too fast. We can't get rid of it if both sides of this ship are going to be heated up. As soon as you make your landing, I'm taking the ship back to the cold side."
"Uh huh," came Haines's voice. "We don't want to hang around here any too long, either."