Larger and larger it loomed, a cratered, jagged globe of desolation indescribable; of sheer, bitter cold incarnate and palpable; of stark, sharp contrasts. Gigantic craters, in whose yawning depths no spark of warmth had been generated for countless cycles of time, were surrounded by vast plains eroded to the dead level of a windless sea. Every lofty object cast a sharply outlined shade of impenetrable blackness, beside which the weak light of the sun became a dazzling glare. The ground was either a brilliant white or an intense black, unrelieved by half-tones.
"I can't hand it much, either, Nadia, but it's all in the way you've been brought up, you know. This is home to them, and just to look at Tellus would give them the pip. Ha! Here's something you'll like, even if it does look so cold that it makes me feel like hugging a couple of heater coils. It's Barkovis' city the one we're heading for, I think. It's close enough now so that we can get it on the plate," and he set the communicator beam upon the metropolis of Titan.
"Why, I don't see a thing, Steve—where and what is it?" They were dropping vertically downward toward the center of a vast plain of white, featureless and desolate; and Nadia stared in disappointment.
"You'll see directly—it's too good to spoil by telling you what to look for or wh...."
"Oh, there it is!" she cried. "It is beautiful, Steve, but how frightfully, utterly cold!"
A flash of prismatic color had caught the girl's eye, and, one transparent structure thus revealed to her sight, there had burst into view a city of crystal. Low buildings of hexagonal shape, arranged in irregularly variant hexagonal patterns, extended mile upon mile. From the roofs of the structures lacy spires soared heavenward; inter-connected by long, slim cantilever bridges whose prodigious spans seemed out of all proportion to the gossamer delicacy of their construction. Buildings, spires, and bridges formed fantastic geometrical designs, at which Nadia exclaimed in delight.
"I've just thought of what that reminds me of—it's snowflakes!"
"Sure—I knew it was something familiar. Snowflakes—no two are ever exactly alike, and yet every one is symmetrical and hexagonal. We're going to land on the public square—see the crowds? Let's put on our suits and go out."
The Forlorn Hope lay in a hexagonal park, and near it the Titanian globe had also come to rest. All about the little plot towered the glittering buildings of crystal, and in its center played a fountain; a series of clear and sparkling cascades of liquid jewels. Under foot there spread a thick, soft carpet of whitely brilliant vegetation. Throngs of the grotesque citizens of Titania were massed to greet the space-ships; throngs clustering close about the globular vessel, but maintaining a respectful distance from the fiercely radiant Terrestrial wedge. All were shouting greetings and congratulations—shouts which Stevens found as intelligible as his own native tongue.
"Why, I can understand every word they say, Steve!" Nadia exclaimed, in surprise. "How come, do you suppose?"