Halfrich got to the 'scope fast. Kellard, looking through the scanner, saw the geyser of flame that was beginning to pour up from the rocks. It grew slowly, but steadily, in height.
"What is it?" Halfrich asked him.
"Can't you see for yourself?" said Kellard. "There's a blowhole out there and it throws off burning gases from the interior. It did it twice while I was waiting in the wreck."
Halfrich said, "It's in the same location where radar recorded you before, with those other blips. There's something about this—We'll go have a look."
"If you must," said Kellard. "You'll find it's just what I've said."
They got into the heat-armor. It was a clumsy outfit, for it had to have room for an efficient anti-heater, and the long tube of the heat-discharge was a nuisance. Kellard had spent days in one of these suits, waiting for the relief ship after the crack-up, and he did not like the feel of it at all.
Halfrich tested the radio and then said, "All right, Shay, lock us out and stand by. Morgenson, you keep watching."
They stepped upon Sunside.
There beat down upon them such a storm of radiation, such cataracts of heat and light, that instinctively they bowed their heads as before a deluge. It took an effort of will to step forward through that tempest, but Halfrich made it. They walked, slowly and heavily, and at first they saw only the blackened rocks beneath their feet, and the little puddles and rivulets of molten lead, and their own massive armored feet plodding.
Then, as they went forward, they straightened against the impact. Through the face-plate of his armor, dimmed by the many-layered filters, Kellard saw the column of flame ahead. It was a hundred feet high now, and growing higher, and though there was no air-borne sound on this almost airless world, the sound of it came through the rocks and the soles of their feet, a throbbing and roaring that quivered through all their bodies.