A chill came back to Ken’s skin. The satellite had been frightening; the planet itself could be little if any warmer since it must be about the same distance from the sun. An atmosphere would help a little, of course; but still — cold enough to freeze potassium, and lead, and tin! He had not given real thought to that. His imagination was good— perhaps a little too good; and it began conjuring up out of nothing in particular an image of a world chilled to the core. It was rough, and an icy blizzard played over it, and nothing moved in the dim reddish light — a planet of death.
But that couldn’t be right; there were natives. Ken tried to imagine the sort of life that could exist under such hideous conditions, and failed completely. Maybe Laj Drai was wrong about the temperature; after all, he hadn’t been sure. It was just a mechanic’s opinion.
“Let’s see this place, since we’re so close to it. I might as well learn the worst,” he said at this point in his imagining. Laj Drai gestured to the pilot, and the hull of the Karella rotated slowly. The airless satellite slid out of sight, and stars followed it across the field of view. The ship must have spun a full hundred and eighty degrees before Planet Three itself hung in the apparent center of the port. They must be floating directly between planet and satellite, Ken thought. Not wise if the inhabitants had telescopes.
Since the sun was now behind them, the disc of the great world was fully illuminated. Unlike the bare moon, a fuzziness of outline showed that it possessed an extensive atmosphere, though Ken could not imagine what gases might be present. In spite of the definitely reddish sunlight, most of the surface had a decided blue tint. Details were impossible to make out; the atmosphere was extremely hazy. There were definite patches of white, and green, and brown, but there was no way of telling what any of them represented.
And yet, foggy as it was, there was something about the sight of the world which caused the shiver to caress the scientist’s skin once more. Perhaps it was the things he had been told, and the things he had deduced from the appearance of the sun; perhaps it was nothing objective at all. Whatever it was, the very sight of the world made him shudder, and he turned away abruptly.
“Let’s go to One, and look over that data,” he said, striving to control his voice diaphragm. The pilot obeyed without comment.
Earth, really, is not as bad as all that. Some people are even quite fond of it. Ken, of course, was prejudiced, as anyone is likely to be against a world where water is a liquid — when he has grown up breathing gaseous sulfur and, at rare intervals, drinking molten copper chloride.
2
Roger Wing, for example, would probably have been slightly shocked at Ken’s attitude. He was strongly in favor of Earth, at least the rather small portion which he knew. He had some justification, for the country around Lake Pend’ Oreille is very much worth knowing, particularly in spring and summer. The first glimpse of the lake each June was something to look forward to; all the way up the highway from Hayden Lake the children maintained shrill rivalry over who would be the first to sight the Ear Drop. Even with only four of them this year, the noise was nearly as great as usual; for the absent Donald had never contributed too much to the racket. Roger, left the senior member by his older brother’s absence, was determined to make the most of the opportunity; the more so since it was to last only another forty miles or so. Don was expected to fly to Sandpoint with a friend and meet the family there.
It was, all in all, a hilarious group; and the parents in the front seat had only moderate success in maintaining order. However, the northbound highway from Coeur d’Alene is a good one, and the disturbance in the rear was never really dangerous. The principal interruption occurred when the right rear tire of the station wagon went flat near Cocolalla. John Wing was a little slow in stopping the heavily loaded vehicle, and Roger got the first whiff of the sulfurous odor of burning rubber. He was to became much more familiar with sulfur during the course of the summer.