"I can, too. Don't know—must be from using that thought telephone of theirs so much, I guess. Here comes Barkovis—I'll ask him."
The Titanian commander had been in earnest conversation with a group of fellow-creatures and was now walking toward the Terrestrials, carrying the multiple headsets. Placing them upon the white sward, he backed away, motioning the two visitors to pick them up.
"It may not be necessary, Barkovis," Stevens said, slowly and clearly. "We do not know why, but we can understand what your people are saying, and it may be that you can now understand us."
"Oh, yes, I can understand your English perfectly. A surprising development, but perhaps, after all, one that should have been expected, from the very nature of the device we have been using. I wanted to tell you that I have just received grave news, which makes it impossible for us to help you immediately, as I promised. While we were gone, one of our two power-plants upon Saturn failed. In consequence, Titan's power has been cut to a minimum, since maintaining our beam at that great distance required a large fraction of the output of the other plant. Because of this lack, the Sedlor walls were weakened to such a point that in spite of the Guardian's assurances, I think trouble is inevitable. At all events, it is of the utmost importance that we begin repairing the damaged unit, for that is to be a task indeed."
"Yes, it will take time," agreed Stevens, remembering what the Titanian captain had told him concerning the construction of those plants—generators which had been in continuous and automatic operation for thousands of Saturnian years.
"It will take more than time—it will take lives," replied Barkovis, gravely. "Scores, perhaps hundreds, of us will never again breathe the clear, pure air of Titan. In spite of all precaution and all possible bracing and insulation, man after man after man will be crushed by his own weight, volatilized by the awful heat, poisoned by the foul atmosphere, or will burst into unthinkable flames at the touch of some flying spark from the inconceivably hot metals with which we shall have to work. A horrible fate, but we shall not lack for volunteers."
"Sure not; and of course you yourself would go. And I never thought of the effect a spark would have on you—your tissues would probably be wildly inflammable. But say, I just had a thought. Just how hot is the air at those plants and just what is the actual pressure?"
"According to the records, the temperature is some forty of your centigrade degrees above the melting-point of water, and the pressure is not far short of two of your meters of mercury. I find it almost impossible to think of mercury as a liquid, however."
"You find it impossible, since you use it as a metal, for wires in coils and so on. But plus forty, while pretty warm, isn't impossible, by any means; and we could stand double our air pressure for quite a while. Both my partner and I are pretty fair mechanics and we've got quite a line of machine tools, such as you could not possibly have here. We'll give it a whirl, since we owe you something already. Lead us to it, ace—but wait a minute! We can't see through the fog, so couldn't find the plants, and probably your wiring diagrams would explode if I touched them."
"I never thought of your helping us," mused Barkovis. "The idea of any living being existing in that inferno has always been unthinkable, but the difficulties you mention are slight. We have already built in our vessel communicators similar to yours, and radio sets. With these we can guide you and explain the plants to you as you work, and our tractor beams will be of assistance to you in moving heavy objects, even at such distances from the surface as we Titanians shall have to maintain. If you will set out a flask of your atmosphere, we will analyze it, for the thought has come to me that perhaps, being planet-dwellers yourselves, the air of Saturn might not be as poisonous to you as it is to us."