The rocket stood in the center of the bowl-shaped indentation that had been blasted by the fierce wash of her supporting jets. Barlennan could remember the way snow had swirled out of the way when the cargo rocket landed near Lackland’s “Hill.” He could appreciate the fact that the lifting power used here must have been far mightier in order to ease the bulk of this machine down, smaller though it was. There were no large boulders near it, though a few reared up near the sides of the bowl. The ground inside was bare of pebbles; the soil itself had been scooped out so that only four or five of the projectile’s twenty feet of height rose above the general run of rocks covering the plain.
Its base diameter was almost as great as its height, and remained so for perhaps a third of the way upward. This, Lackland explained when the vision set had been brought to bear on the interior of the blast crater, was the part housing the driving power.
The upper part of the machine narrowed rapidly to a blunt point, and this housed the apparatus which represented such a tremendous investment in time, intellectual effort, and money on the part of so many worlds. A number of openings existed in ‘this part, as no effort had been made to render the compartments airtight. Such apparatus as required either vacuum or special atmosphere in which to function was individually sealed.
“You said once, after the explosion in your tank that wrecked it so completely, that something of the sort must have happened here,” Barlennan said. “I see no signs of it; and if the holes I see were open when you landed it, how could enough of your oxygen still be there to cause an explosion? You told me that beyond and between worlds there was no air, and what you had would leak out through any opening.”
Rosten cut in before Lackland could answer. He and the rest of the group had been examining the rocket on their own screen.
“Barl is quite right. Whatever caused the trouble was not an oxygen blast. I don’t know what it was. We’ll just have to keep our eyes open when we go inside, in the hope of finding the trouble — not that it will matter much by then, except to people who want to build another of these things. I’d say we might as well get to work; I have a horde of physicists on my neck simply quivering for information. It’s lucky they put a biologist in charge of this expedition; from now on there won’t be a physicist fit to approach.”
“Your scientists will have to contain themselves a little longer,” Barlennan interjected. “You seem to have overlooked something.”
“What?”
“Not one of the instruments you want me to put before the lens of your vision set is within seven feet of the ground; and all are inside metal walls which I suspect would be rather hard for us to remove by brute force, soft as your metals seem to be.”
“Blast it, you’re right, of course. The second part is easy; most of the surface skin is composed of quick-remove access plates that we can show you how to handle without much trouble. For the rest — hmm. You have nothing like ladders, and couldn’t use them if you had. Your elevator has the slight disadvantage of needing at least an installation crew at the top of its travel before you can use it. Offhand, I’m afraid I’m stuck for the moment. We’ll think of something, though; we’ve come too far to be stumped now.”