The ear-pieces and the microphone allowed him to hear. Another diaphragm in the center of the metal across his chest took his own voice and shouted it into the room.
"Sure, I know you want to go. Spud; but you'll have to stay in reserve. Now show me how well you can fly the ship. Lift her off; then drift over that crater, and we'll have a look-see!"
Spud O'Malley's face was glum as he obeyed. Spud had seen nothing but death in this place of horror—Chet had observed that plainly—yet it was equally plain that the Irish pilot was finding the order to live in safety a bitter dose. But Spud knew how to take orders; he lifted the little ball gently and swung the ship out toward the blackness of that deeper pit.
Chet was watching the changing terrain. He saw the place of solid-spouted rock end; saw it flatten out to an undulating surface that had rolled and heaved itself into many-colored shapes. Even in the earthlight the kaleidoscopic colors were vivid in their changing reds and blues and yellow sheens. Then this surface sloped sharply away, though here it was rough with broken rock where half-hardened lava, coughed from that throat, had fallen back and adhered to the molten sides.
This rock in the inner crater was gray, pale and ghostly in the earthlight. It went down and still down where Chet's eyes could not follow—down to an utter blackness. Chet was staring speculatively at that waiting dark when the first flash came.
Blindingly keen! A flash of white light!—another and another! It blazed dazzlingly into their cabin in vivid dashes and dots—the same signal as before was being repeated!
A hundred yards away was a little shelf of rock. Chet jerked at O'Malley's shoulder with his metal-cased hand and pointed. "Set her down!" he ordered "Let me out there! We can't put the ship down where those lights are; the throat is too narrow; there may be air-currents that would smash us on a sharp rock. I'll go down! You wait! I'll be back."
He was opening the inner door of the entrance port. Another closure in the outer shell made an air-lock. He took time for one grip at the hand of Spud O'Malley, one grin of excited, adventurous joy that wrinkled about his eyes behind the window of his helmet—then he picked up a detonite pistol, examined again its charge of tiny shells, jammed it firmly into the holster at his waist and swung the big door shut behind him.