Part 3 (1/2)

Nona had listened intently to the long recital.

”But why,” she expostulated, ”was it necessary to have their own people on board? The meteors that riddled the s.h.i.+p were projectiles shot from their station on Jupiter. So was the attraction-ray that pulls the s.h.i.+p down.”

”Because they required a sufficient force to disable the radio apparatus. All radio waves used on interplanetary liners are s.h.i.+elded from interference. It is impossible to blank them out. And with the radio intact, every battle flier in s.p.a.ce would be on their trail in a hurry.”

Several hours pa.s.sed, and still they fell endlessly through s.p.a.ce, unaware of their motion except that Jupiter was now a huge orb blotting out the universe. The grim face of the giant planet was enswathed in endless billowing clouds. No one had ever penetrated to the real core. But what held their eager, straining attention was a vast blood red disk, cyclonic in character, directly beneath them. The Great Red Spot! And immediately in the center of it was the tiny, blindingly brilliant yellow orange oval, winking up at them with quick, steady pulsations.

”What can it be?” Nona wondered.

”The source of their power, evidently. But what interests me more just now is where the Ganymedans have their hangout in those clouds, and what they're doing with the s.h.i.+ps they capture.”

Jupiter was now a flat level stretch that reached on all sides as far as the eye could see. Grant felt a sudden sensation of weight again, as though something was pressing with crus.h.i.+ng force against his chest.

”h.e.l.lo,” he said, ”our fall is being checked. They're making sure their friends come to no harm.” And he laughed bitterly, thinking of the men and women lying with lungs ruptured, cold and stiff, in the interior of the _Althea_; of the possible few wretches who had managed to huddle into s.p.a.ce-suits, ignorant of the deadly gas that was soon to search out their seemingly impenetrable habiliments.

Slowly, ever more slowly, they fell. Thin wisps of reddish vapor rushed upward toward them, and then they were enveloped in vast swirls of cloud ma.s.ses. They were within the Great Spot!

Then the lurid clouds parted suddenly, revealing a deep hole, at the bottom of which flamed and flared the mysterious yellow-orange brilliance. Down the long shaft they fell, while all around its invisible walls dark red cyclones stirred and beat in vain.

Just as it seemed as if they were doomed to fall headlong into the blaze, they were swerved violently into an opening that angled off from the main shaft. Down this branching shaft they continued to fall--interminably--when suddenly it widened, and they were dropping through the interior of a great dome of which the arched roof was the swirling clouds they had just penetrated. Directly beneath floated a flat island of smooth rock, supported and upheld by a s.h.i.+ning sea of vapors.

The girl exclaimed sharply, but Grant only nodded to himself with grim satisfaction. He had expected something like this. For, cl.u.s.tered in serried rows at the end of the island directly beneath them were sleek, stream-lined grayhounds of the interplanetary traffic lanes, now resting immovably on the smooth gray stone--the missing s.p.a.ce-liners!

The island was bisected by a huge forbidding wall, over which, at their angle, Grant was unable to see.

The ground was enc.u.mbered too with clumps of intricate machinery, all of the same polished gray stone; Ganymedan stone, Ganymedan machinery, Pemberton recognized at once. Hundreds of figures were scurrying awkwardly around, clad in the inevitable s.p.a.ce-suit. Several were working desperately at a huge concave gla.s.s reflector. Others were pointing a stone nozzle, extending out of a pit, directly upward.

”I'm afraid.” Nona shuddered and pressed closer to Grant.

”Don't be,” he a.s.sured her. ”Just say nothing when we land. Let me do the talking.”

All this while they had been floating gently downward toward what they now saw to be a miniature replica of the vaster orange brightness at the bottom of the main shaft from which they had been diverted. It was a pool of liquid fire, so intense in its brilliance that their eyes were dazzled staring at it. It rose and fell in regular pulsations.

They were not far above it now, and still no one on the strange island seemed to be aware of their coming.

Nona cried out, ”Grant, we're going to fall right into it!”

Pemberton looked down at the small fiery pool with anxious eyes.

Unless something happened, and that quickly, they would be seared to a crisp. Already the heat was uncomfortable, even through their suits.

He tried to kick himself aside, but the pull of the liquid was too powerful for him. Then he resolved on a desperate expedient.

”Say, you fellows down there,” he cried in the smooth, slurred Ganymedan speech. ”What are you trying to do, fry us? Hurry up and prepare our landing.”

For a moment they were tense with the tenseness of imminent death.

Were the Ganymedans equipped with communication disks; would they sense the strangeness of the accent? Nona was gripping his hand with a pressure that penetrated the fabric. And every second brought them down closer and closer to the dread lake.

”Ah!” Nona's breath came in a shuddering sigh. For one of the figures glanced upward and saw them dropping. He shouted something to his fellows, and darted for a lever set in the stone next to the pool. He threw it over swiftly. Immediately what seemed to be a smooth slab of transparent gla.s.site shot into position over the pulsating flame, not an instant too soon, either, for it had barely covered the flaming death when the Earthlings' feet were already touching it.