But now our cylinder and the ten that drove close behind it were passing the vast pit, the huge force-ray. I noted that they took extreme care to pass pit and mighty ray at a respectable distance, and knew, too, the reason for it, knew that any luckless cylinder that blundered into that colossal out-stabbing ray would be driven instantly at terrific speed and force out through the solar system and into the sun that the ray was striking! So that it did not surprise us that the cylinders veered far to the side of the huge ray, picking up speed once more when they had passed it, and racing on around Triton's metal-shielded surface and through the cold, dense atmosphere outside it. But as the cylinders drove on the eyes of Marlin and myself now were turned backward, back toward that gigantic pale ray of awful force that shot ceaselessly up and out from that vast pit in Triton's metal side.
"We've found it—the great ray we came out here to find—the source of that ray," I exclaimed to Marlin, "but we've found it too late! Whitely and Randall and the space-flier annihilated—we captured——"
He bent toward me. "Keep your courage up, Hunt," he said. "We may have a chance yet to get free—to get away from this world of Triton before they take us down inside it."
"But what—?" I began, when with a gesture he cut me short. "No more now, Hunt—the guards are watching. But be ready to act if a chance shows itself, for once down in Triton, we'll probably have no chance."
I saw that the four disk-bodied Neptunians who sat about us and guarded us were indeed watching us closely now with their strange bulging eyes, so gave over for the moment our whispered conversation, though with a slight gleam of hope. Glancing back again toward the great force-ray that was almost invisible behind us as the eleven cylinders raced on around Triton's metal surface, I was aware that Marlin was staring back toward it also, intently, shaking his head a little, as though puzzled by something concerning that giant beam of force. In a moment he turned his attention ahead. Our cylinders now were flashing around Triton from its sunward side to its dark side, and as we rushed on Marlin and I could see that to all appearances Triton was not rotating, or at least not above a low rate of speed. Then as we entered into the deeper shadow of the dark side, the sun's little disk vanishing behind us as we shot around Triton's curving surface into the shadow, Marlin uttered a low exclamation once more, and as I turned to look in the same direction I saw that far ahead there was stabbing out and upward into the black void of outer space a second giant force-ray like that one we had already seen shooting toward the sun!
Stupefied, I gazed toward it. For the first giant force-ray, amazing as it was, had yet been expected by us, more or less, since we had known from the first that such a colossal force-beam was stabbing from the region of Neptune toward the sun. But this second mighty force-ray, which seemed exactly the same in size and appearance and which rose from a giant pit or well in the vast metal roof even as did the first, was not directed toward the sun. For it was on the other side of Triton from the first ray, was exactly half around Triton from the first and was going out into space in an exactly opposite direction! Thus while the first colossal force-ray, springing out from Triton's sunward side, shot straight toward the sun, this second huge force-ray, on Triton's dark or outer side, was radiating straight out into the vast void of interstellar space, was radiating straight out, to all appearances, toward the unthinkably distant stars of Sagittarius that burned in that mighty void!
What could be the meaning of this other colossal force-ray, of equal size and power, going out into the vast void outside the solar system? The first great ray that was shooting toward the sun and turning the sun ever faster—its purpose was at least comprehensible, but what purpose could there be in sending an opposite and equal ray out into the mighty void from Triton's other side? That was the question that whirled in my astounded brain in that moment as the eleven cylinders shot on toward that second great ray, over Triton's metal surface. Marlin, though, on seeing that second great ray, seemed to be less puzzled than before. It seemed to have solved for him some problem which the sight of the first huge ray had suggested. To me it was utterly incomprehensible, and perplexed and awed I watched that huge pale ray and the vast pit from which it sprang as we raced toward them. I saw that on that pit's curving walls there jutted forth a score of cube-like projections or control-rooms similar to those in the pit of the first ray. Then I forgot pit and rays alike as the cylinder in which we were and all those behind it slowed suddenly in mid-air and then dipped sharply downward.
Down and down they shot, toward the vast gleaming metal roof of great Triton; down, until we saw that just beneath us there was outlined in that roof a great circle, slightly sunken. Toward this the cylinders dropped, and then as they came to a pause just above it I saw that set beside that circle in the roof was a transparent section beneath which was a small cage-like room, brightly lit. In this were a half-dozen Neptunians, and as they saw the eleven cylinders dropping and pausing above the circle in the roof they turned swiftly, pressed what seemed a series of knobs in their cage-room, and at once the great sunken circle beneath us was sliding along beneath the roof to one side, sliding smoothly away and leaving thus beneath us a great circular opening in the roof.
Instantly up from that opening around our cylinders was rushing a torrent of air, a torrent of uprushing air that I understood well was caused by the warmer air beneath the roof rushing up into the colder outside atmosphere. But now down through that opening and through the air-currents the cylinders were swiftly dropping, and we could see far below in dim light a great compartment-city like the one we had found upon Neptune! In a moment more we would be below the roof, the opening closed above us, prisoned hopelessly in Triton to meet whatever fate our captors decreed. Already two of our four guards, and two of the Neptunians at the control-standard, had left the cylinder's upmost section and had clambered down the ladder to the lowest section in preparation for emerging. There was left with us in the upmost section of the cylinder only two guards and the Neptunian leader of the crimson-circle insignia at the control-standard. And as I saw that, I was leaning quietly toward Marlin.