"Matter of fact," said Haines dryly, "the records show the heat in the center of the Sun side reaches 770° Fahrenheit. Enough to keep tin and lead molten."
"The problem is how to reach the station over such a boiling landscape," summed up Burl. "It seems to me that the absence of an atmosphere could answer part of the problem."
Haines nodded. "Let's get to work on a plan of action, men. We've got a few days to get our equipment laid out."
Those few days passed quickly enough. When several possible schemes had been outlined, the men made lists of the types of equipment that might be used with each. Then, putting on pressurized space suits and carrying air tanks, they left the inner sphere and worked through the cargo space surrounding it within the outer frame of the spaceship. There had originally been air here, but now they found most of it was gone, thinned out from infinitely tiny leaks in the outer shell caused by the constant bombardment of microscopic bits of meteoric dust.
They located each piece of equipment and moved it into position for easy handling.
The ship came to its halting point, where the repulsion against the Sun finally braked it against the gravitational pull of the Sun. Then, by increasing the selective pull of the approaching planet Mercury, they moved off in that direction.
Mercury was changing in appearance. As they neared it from the outer side, its lighted half swung away from their view, and what they saw was a constantly narrowing crescent, growing larger even as it narrowed. Finally the hour came when they swung up close, coming in on the eternally sunless, night side of the little planet.
They swooped low over the dark surface, taking observations and measurements. "It's not as cold as we might suppose," said Oberfield after his first readings. "There's a certain amount of heat all along the rim of the dark side. Radiation, I suppose, as well as the fact that there's a certain amount of wobbling done by the planet."
Burl was studying the surface. "Seems to me that much of the dark side has a gleam to it. Something reflects the stars; I see little glints of light, shifting and blinking."
"I can guess what that is," said Russ. "It must be covered, at least in the central portions, with a sea of frozen gases. What atmosphere Mercury had long ago must have congealed there."