"Most emphatically," replied Jeter. "Company that is an unknown quantity. Company that will be wholly and entirely interesting."
So they waited. They could now feel themselves sinking faster into the substance. They settled on an even keel, however, but more rapidly than before, as though the directing intelligence behind all these had tired of showing them his wonders and was eager to get on with the business of the day.
Eyer happened to look down at one of the ports in the floor of the cabin.
"Good God!" he yelled, "Lucian!"
He was pointing. His face had gone white again. His eyes were bulging. Jeter stared down into the floor ports—and gasped.
"I expected it, but it's a shock just the same, Tema," he said softly. "Get hold of yourself. You'll need all your faculties in a minute or two."
Through the ports they found themselves staring down all of twenty feet upon a milky white globe, set inside the greater, softer globe through which they were passing, like a kernel in a shell.
The plane was oozing through the "rind" which protected the strange globe below against the cold and discomfort of the stratosphere.
"They'd scarcely bring us this far to drop us, would they?" asked Eyer.