The approach was made, and the fourth planet out from that strange sun was selected as a ground. That planet was not at all like Earth. It had very little water, very little atmosphere, and very little vegetation. It was twice as massive as Earth; its surface was rugged and jagged; one of its stupendous mountain ranges had sharp peaks more than forty thousand feet high.
"There's one thing more we must do," Adams said. "I have barely begun to study this zeta field, and this one may very well be unique—irreplaceable. We must, therefore, launch all the lifecraft—except Number Two, of course—into separate orbits around this sun, so that a properly-staffed and properly-equipped expedition can study it."
"Your proper expedition might get its pants burned off, too."
"There is always that possibility; but I will insist on being assigned to the project. This information, young man, is necessary."
"O. K., Doc," and it was done; and in a few days the Procyon hung motionless, a good five hundred miles high, directly above the highest, sharpest mountain peak they had been able to find.
The Bailey boom, with its spider-web-like network of grounding cables and with a large pulley at its end, extended two hundred feet straight out from the side of the ship. A twenty-five-mile coil of Graham wire was mounted on the remote-controlled Hotchkiss reel. The end of the wire was run out over the pulley; a fifteen-pound weight, to act both as a "senser" and to keep the wire from fouling, was attached; and a few hundred feet of wire were run out.
Then, in Lifecraft Two—as far away from the "business district" as they could get—the human bodies were grounded and Deston started the reel. The wire ran out—and ran—and ran—and ran. The full twenty-five miles were paid out, and still nothing happened. Then, very slowly, Deston let the big ship move straight downward. Until, finally, it happened.
There was a blast beside which the most terrific flash of lightning ever seen on Earth would have seemed like a firecracker. In what was almost a vacuum though she was, the whole immense mass of the Procyon was hurled upward like the cork out of a champagne bottle. And as for what it felt like—since the five who experienced it could never describe it, even to each other, it is obviously indescribable by or to anyone else. As Bernice said long afterward, when she was being pressed by a newsman: "Just tell 'em it was the living end," and that is as good a description as any.
The girls were unwrapped from their silver-mesh cocoons and, after a minute or so of semihysterics, were as good as new. Then Deston stared into the 'scope and gulped. Without saying a word he waved a hand and the others looked. It seemed as though the entire tip of the mountain was gone; had become a seething, flaming volcano on a world that had known no volcanism for hundreds of thousands of years.