water. No signs of habitation were visible as far as the eye could reach.
“Now to pick out a location for our power-plant. We must have a waterfall for
power, a good place to hide our ship from observation, and I’d like to have a little seam
of coal. We can use wood if we have to, but I think we can find some coal. This is all
sedimentary rock—it looks a lot like the country along the North Fork of the Flathead, in
Montana. There are a lot of coal outcrops, usually, in such topography as this is.”
“We want to hide in a hurry, though, don’t we ?”
“Not particularly, I don’t think. If they had missed us at all they would have had us
long ago, and with all the damage we did with those projectors they won’t be surprised
at one piece being missing—I imagine they lost a good many.”
“But they’ll know that somebody caused all that disturbance. Won’t they hunt for
us?”
“Maybe, and maybe not—no telling what they’ll do. However, by the time they
can land and get checked up and ready to hunt for us, we’ll be a mighty small needle,
well hidden in a good big haystack.”
For several hours they roamed over that mountainous region at high velocity,
seeking the best possible location, and finally they found one that was almost ideal—a
narrow canyon overhung with heavy trees, opening into a wide, deep gorge upon a level
with its floor. A mighty waterfall cascaded into the gorge just above the canyon, and
here and there could be seen black outcrops which Stevens, after a close scrutiny,
declared to be coal. He deftly guided their cumbersome wedge of steel into the retreat,
allowed it to settle gently to the ground, and shut off the power.
“Well, little fellow-conspirator against the peace and dignity of the Jovians, we’re
here. We got away clean, and as long as we don’t use any high-tension stuff or anything
else that they can trace, I think we’re as safe as money in a bank.”
“I suppose that I ought to be scared to death, Steve, but I’m not—I’m just too
thrilled for words,” Nadia answered, and the eager sparkle in her eyes bore out her
words. “Can we go out now ? How about air ? Shall we wear suits or go out as we are ?
Have you got a weapon of any kind ? Hurry up—let’s do something!”
“Pipe down, ace! Remember that we don’t know any more about anything around
here than a pig does about Sunday, and conduct yourself accordingly. Take it easy. I’m
surprised at the gravity here. This is certainly Ganymede, and it has a diameter of only
about fifty-seven hundred kilometers. If I remember correctly, Damoiseau estimated its
mass at about three one-hundredths that of the Earth, which would make its surface
gravity about one-sixth. However, it is actually almost a half, as you see by this spring-
balance here. Therefore it is quite a little more massive than has been ‘. . . ”
“What of it ? Let’s go places and do things!”
“Calm yourself, Ginger, you’ve got lots of time—we’ll be here for quite a while, I’m
afraid. We can’t go out until we analyze the air—we’re lucky there’s as much as there is.
I’m not quite the world’s foremost chemist, but fortunately an air-analysis isn’t much of a
job with the apparatus we carry.”
While Nadia controlled her impatience as best she could, Stevens manipulated
the bulbs and pipettes of the gas apparatus.
“Pressure, fifty-two centimeters—more than I dared hope for—and analysis all x,
I believe. Oxygen concentration a little high, but not much.”
“We won’t have to wear the space-suits, then?”
“Not unless I missed something in the analysis. The pressure corresponds to our
own at a height of about three thousand meters, which we can get used to without too
much trouble. Good thing, too. I brought along all the air I could get hold of, but as I told
you back there, if we had to depend on it altogether, we might be out of luck. I’m going
to pump some of our air back into a cylinder to equalize our pressure—don’t want to
waste any of it until we’re sure the outside air suits us without treatment.”
When the pressure inside had been gradually reduced to that outside and they
had become accustomed to breathing the rarefied medium, Stevens opened the airlock
and for some time cautiously sniffed the atmosphere of the satellite. He could detect
nothing harmful or unusual in it—it was apparently the same as Earthly air—and he
became jubilant.
“All x, Nadia—luck is perched right on our banner. Freedom, air, water, power,
and coal! Now as you suggested, we’ll go places and do things!”
“Suppose it’s safe?” Her first eagerness to explore their surroundings, had
abated noticeably. “You aren’t armed, are you?”
“No, and I don’t believe that there was a gun of any kind aboard the Arcturus.
That kind of thing went out quite a while ago, you know. We’ll take a look, anyway—
we’ve got to find out about that coal before we decide to settle down here. Remember
this half-gravity stuff, and control your leg-muscles accordingly.”
Leaping lightly to the ground, they saw that the severed section of fifty-inch armor
which was the rim of their conveyance almost blocked the entrance to the narrow
canyon which they had selected for their retreat. Upon one side that wall of steel
actually touched the almost perpendicular wall of rock; upon the other side there was
left only a narrow passage. They stepped through it, so that they could see the waterfall
and the gorge, and stopped, silent. The sun, now fairly high, was in no sense the
familiar orb of day, but was a pale, insipid thing, only one-fifth the diameter of the sun to
which they were accustomed, and which could almost be studied with the unshielded
eye. From their feet a grassy meadow a. few hundred feet wide sloped gently down to
the river, from whose farther bank a precipice sprang sheer upward for perhaps a
thousand feet—merging into towering hills whose rugged grandeur was reminiscent of
the topography of the moon. At their backs the wall of the gorge was steep, but not
precipitous, and was covered with shrubs and trees—some of which leaned out over the
little canyon, completely screening it, and among whose branches birds could now and
then be seen flitting about. In that direction no mountains were visible, indicating that
upon their side of the river there was an upland plateau or bench. To their right the river,
the gorge, and the strip of meadow extended for a mile or more, then curved away and
were lost to sight. To their left, almost too close for comfort, was the stupendous
cataract, towering above them to a terror-inspiring height. Nadia studied it with awe,
which changed to puzzled wonder.
“What’s the matter with it, Steve? It looks like a picture in slow motion, like the
kind they take of your dives— or am I seeing things?”
“No, it’s really slow, compared to what we’re used to. Remember that one-half
gravity stuff!”
“Oh, that’s right, but it certainly does look funny. It gives me the creeps.”
“You’ll get used to it pretty quick—just as you’ll get used to all the rest of the
things having only half their normal weight and falling only half as fast as they ought to
when you drop them. Well, I don’t see anything that looks dangerous yet—let’s go up
toward the falls a few meters and prospect that outcrop.”
With a few brisk strokes of an improvised shovel he cleared the outcrop of
detritus and broke off several samples of the black substance, with which they went
back to the Forlorn Hope.
“All x—it’s real coal,” Stevens announced after a series of tests. “I’ve seen better,
but on the other hand, there’s lots worse. It’ll make good gas, and a kind of a coke. Not
so hot, but it’ll do. Now we’d better get organized, partner, for a long campaign.”
“Go ahead and organize—I’m only the cheap help in this enterprise.”
“Cheap help! You’re apt to be the life of the party. Can you make and shoot a
bow and arrow ?”
“I’ll say I can—I’ve belonged to an archery club for five years.”
“What’d I tell you? You’re a life saver! Here’s the dope—we’ve got to save our
own supplies as much as possible until we know exactly what we’re up against, and to
do that we’ve got to live off the country. I’ll fake up something to knock over some of
those birds and small game, then we can make real bow-strings and feathered arrows
and I’ll forge some steel arrowheads while you’re making yourself a real bow. We’d
better make me about a hundred-pound war bow, too . . .”
“A hundred!” interrupted Nadia. “That’s a lot of bow, big boy—think you can bend