"That's a thought, too," and, the news broadcast, it was not long until the two ships leaped into the air, to the accompaniment of the cheers and plaudits of a watching multitude.
In a wide curve they sped toward Saturn. Passing so close to the enormous rings that the individual meteoric fragments could almost be seen with the unaided eye, they flashed on and on, slowing down long before they approached the upper surface of the envelope of cloud. The spherical space-ship stopped and Stevens, staring into his useless screen, drove the Forlorn Hope downward mile after mile, solely under Barkovis' direction, changing course and power from time to time as the Titanian's voice came from the speaker at his elbow. Slower and slower became the descent, until finally, almost upon the broad, flat roof of the power-plant, Stevens saw it in his plate. Breathing deeply in relief, he dropped quickly down upon a flat pavement, neutralized his controls, and turned to Nadia.
"Well, old golf-shootist, we're here at last—now we'll go out and see what's gone screwy with the works. Remember that gravity is about double normal here, and conduct yourself accordingly."
"But it's supposed to be only about nine-tenths," she objected.
"That's at the outer surface of the atmosphere," he replied. "And it's some atmosphere—not like the thin layer we've got on Tellus."
They went into the airlock, and Stevens admitted air until their suits began to collapse. Then, face-plate valves cracked, he sniffed cautiously, finally opening his helmet wide. Nadia followed suit and the man laughed as she wrinkled her nose in disgust as two faint, but unmistakable odors smote her olfactory nerves.
"I never cared particularly for hydrogen sulphide and sulphur dioxide, either," he assured her, "but they aren't strong enough to hurt us in the short time we'll be here. Those Titanian chemists know their stuff, though."
He opened the outer valves slowly, then opened the door and they stepped down upon the smooth, solid floor, which Stevens examined carefully.
"I thought so, from his story. Solid platinum! This whole plant is built of platinum, iridium, and noble alloys—the only substances known that will literally last forever. Believe me, ace of my bosom, I don't wonder that it cost them lives to build it—with their conditions, I don't see how they ever got it built at all."
Before them rose an immense, flat-topped cone of metal, upon the top of which was situated the power plant. Twelve massive pillars supported a flat roof, but permitted the air to circulate freely throughout the one great room which housed the machinery. They climbed a flight of stairs, passed between two pillars, and stared about them. There was no noise, no motion—there was nothing that could move. Twelve enormous masses of metallic checkerwork, covered with wide cooling fins, almost filled the vast hall. From the center of each mass great leads extended out into a clear space in the middle of the room, there uniting in mid-air to form one enormous bus-bar. This bar, thicker than a man's body, had originally curved upward to the base of an immense parabolic structure of latticed bars. Now, however, it was broken in midspan and the two ends bent toward the floor. Above their heads, a jagged hole gaped in the heavy metal of the roof, and a similar hole had been torn in the floor. The bar had been broken and these holes had been made by some heavy body, probably a meteorite, falling with terrific velocity.