means ice, and always thinks of our real water as being molten?”
“Reasonable enough when you think about it. Temperature differences are
logarithmic, you know, not arithmetic— the effective difference between his body
temperature and ours is perhaps even greater than that between ours and that of
melted iron. We never think of iron as being a liquid, you know.”
“That’s right, too. Well, good night, Steve dear.”
” ‘Bye, little queen of space—see you at breakfast,” and the Forlorn Hope
became dark and silent.
Day after day the brilliant sphere flew toward distant Saturn, with the wreckage of
the Forlorn Hope in tow. Piece by piece that wreckage was brought together and held in
place by the Titanian tractors; and slowly but steadily, under Stevens’ terrific welding
projector, the stubborn steel flowed together, once more to become a seamless, space-
worthy structure. And Nadia, the electrician, followed close behind the welder. Wielding
torch, pliers, and spanner with practiced hand, she repaired or cut out of circuit the
damaged accumulator cells and reunited the ends of each severed power lead.
Understanding Nadia’s work thoroughly, the Titanians were not particularly interested in
it, but whenever Stevens made his way along an outside seam he had a large and
thrillingly horrified gallery. Everyone who could possibly secure permission to leave the
sphere did so, each upon his own pencil of force, and went over to watch the welder.
They did not come close to him-—to venture within fifty feet of that slow moving spot of
scintillating brilliance, even in a space-suit, meant death—but, poised around him in
space, they watched with shuddering, incredulous amazement the monstrous human
being in whose veins ran molten water instead of blood, whose body was already so
fiercely hot that it could exist unharmed while working, practically without protection,
upon liquefied metal!
Finally the welding was done. The insulating space was evacuated and held its
vacuum—outer and inner shells were bottle-tight. The two mechanics heaved deep
sighs of relief as they discarded their cumbersome armor and began to repair what few
of their machine tools had been damaged by the slashing plane of force which had so
neatly sliced the Forlorn Hope into sections.
“Say, big fellow, you’re the guy that slings the ink, ain’t you ?” Nadia extinguished
her torch and swaggered up to Stevens, hands on hips, her walk an exaggerated roll.
“Write me out a long walk. This job’s all played out, so I think I’ll get me a good job on
Titan. I said gimme my time, you big stiff!”
“You didn’t say nothing!” growled Stevens in his deepest bass, playing up to her
lead as he always did. “Bounce back, cub, you’ve struck a rubber fence! You signed on
for the duration and you’ll stick—see?”
Arm in arm they went over to the nearest communicator plate. Flipping the
switch, Stevens turned the dial and Titan shone upon the screen; so close that it no
longer resembled a moon, but was a world toward which they were falling with an
immense velocity.
“Not close enough to make out much detail yet—let’s take another look at
Saturn,” and Stevens projected the visiray beam out toward the mighty planet. It was
now an enormous full moon, almost a hundred times the size of Luna. Its visible surface
was an expanse of what they knew to be billowing cloud, shining brilliantly white in the
pale sunlight, broken only by a dark equatorial band.
“Those rings were such a gorgeous spectacle a little while ago!” Nadia mourned.
“It’s a shame that Titan has to be right in their plane, isn’t it ? Think of living this close •
to one of the most wonderful sights in the Solar System, and never being able to see it.
Think they know what they’re missing, Steve?”
“We’ll have to ask Barkovis and see,” Stevens replied. He swung the
communicator beam back toward Titan, and Nadia shuddered.
“Oh, it’s hideous!” she exclaimed. “I thought that it would improve as we got
closer, but the plainer we can see it the worse it gets. Just to think of human beings,
even such cold-blooded ones as those over there, living upon such a horrible moon and
liking it, gives me the blue shivers!”
“It’s pretty bleak, no fooling.” he admitted, and peered through the eyepiece of
the visiray telescope, studying minutely the forbidding surface of the satellite they were
so rapidly approaching.
Larger and larger it loomed, a cratered, jagged globe of desolation indescribable;
of sheer, bitter cold incarnate and palpable; of stark, sharp contrasts. Gigantic craters,
in whose yawning depths no spark of warmth had been generated for countless cycles
of time, were surrounded by vast plains eroded to the dead level of a windless sea.
Every lofty object cast a sharply-outlined shadow of impenetrable blackness, beside
which the weak light of the sun became a dazzling glare. The ground was either a
brilliant white or an intense black, unrelieved by half-tones.
“I can’t hand it much, either, Nadia, but it’s all in the way you’ve been brought up,
you know. This is home to them, and just to look at Tellus would give them the pip. Ha!
Here’s something you’ll like, even if it does look so cold that it makes me feel like
hugging a couple of heater coils. It’s Barkovis’ city, the one we’re heading for, I think. It’s
close enough now so that we can get it on the plate,” and he set the communicator
beam upon the metropolis of Titan.
“Why, I don’t see a thing, Steve—where and what is it?” They were dropping
vertically downward toward the center of a vast plain of white, featureless and desolate;
and Nadia stared in disappointment.
“You’ll see directly—it’s too good to spoil by telling you what to look for or wh . . .”
“Oh, there it is!” she cried. “It is beautiful, Steve, but how frightfully, utterly cold!”
A flash of prismatic color had caught the girl’s eye, and, one transparent structure
thus revealed to her sight, there had burst into view a city of crystal. Low buildings of
hexagonal shape, arranged in irregularly variant hexagonal patterns, extended mile
upon mile. From the roofs of the structures lacy spires soared heavenward; inter-
connected by long, slim cantilever bridges whose prodigious spans seemed out of all
proportion to the gossamer delicacy of their construction. Buildings, spires, and bridges
formed fantastic geometrical designs, at which Nadia exclaimed in delight.
“I’ve just realized what that reminds me of — it’s snowflakes!”
“Sure—I knew it was something familiar. Snowflakes —no two are ever exactly
alike, and yet every one is symmetrical and hexagonal. We’re going to land on the
public square—see the crowds ? Let’s put on our suits and go out.”
The Forlorn Hope lay in a hexagonal park, and near it the Titanian globe had also
come to rest. All about the little plot towered the glittering buildings of crystal, and in its
center played a fountain; a series of clear and sparkling cascades of liquid jewels.
Under foot there spread a thick, soft carpet of whitely brilliant vegetation. Throngs of the
grotesque citizens of Titania were massed to greet the spaceships ; throngs clustering
close about the globular vessel, but maintaining a respectful distance from the fiercely
radiant Terrestrial wedge. All were shouting greetings and congratulations—shouts
which Stevens found as intelligible as his own native tongue.
“Why, I can understand every word they say, Steve!” Nadia exclaimed, in
surprise. “How come, do you suppose ?”
“I can too. Don’t know — must be from using that thought telephone of theirs so
much, I guess. Here comes Barkovis—I’ll ask him.”
The Titanian commander had been in earnest conversation with a group of
fellow-creatures and was now walking toward the Terrestrials, carrying the multiple
head-sets. Placing them upon the white sward, he backed away, motioning the two
visitors to pick them up.
“It may not be necessary, Barkovis,” Stevens said, slowly and clearly. “We do not
know why, but we can understand what your people are saying, and it may be that you
can now understand us.”
“Oh, yes, I can understand your English perfectly. A surprising development, but
perhaps, after all, one that should have been expected, from the very nature of the
device we have been using. I wanted to tell you that I have just received grave news,
which makes it impossible for us to help you immediately, as I promised. While we were
gone, one of our two power-plants upon Saturn failed. In consequence, Titan’s power
was cut to a minimum, since maintaining our beam at that great distance required a
large fraction of the output of the other plant. Because of this lack, the Sedlor walls were
weakened to such a point that in spite of the Guardian’s assurances, I think trouble
inevitable. At all events it is of the utmost importance that we begin repairing the
damaged unit, for that is to be a task indeed.”