She was getting to her feet now. Her eyes were shining again, exultantly. You would have thought we were descending in a stratoplane above the green fields of Earth.
"I've a confession to make, Richard," she grinned. "Coming down, I was inwardly afraid we would find ourselves in a ghastly bubble and boil. And I was seriously wondering how long we could stand it."
"Oh, you were."
"Longer than you think, Richard. Did you know that human beings can stand simply terrific heat? Experimenters have stayed in rooms artificially heated to a temperature of four hundred degrees for as long as fifteen minutes without being injured in any way."
"Very interesting," I said. "But that doesn't concern us now. We've got to find out if our crewmen are injured or badly shaken up. Chances are they'll be needing splints. And we've got to check the atmosphere before we can think of going outside, even with our helmets clamped down tight.
"Chances are it's laden with poisonous gases which the activated carbon in our oxygen filters won't absorb. If the atmosphere contains phosgene we'll not be stepping out. I'm hoping we'll find only carbon monoxide and methane."
"Nice, harmless gases."
"I didn't say that. But at least they'll stick to the outside of the particles of carbon in the filter and not tear our lungs apart."
"A thought, Richard. Suppose we find nickel carbonyl. That's harmless until it is catalyzed by carbon. Then it's worse than phosgene."
"There are lots of deadly ingredients we could find," I admitted with some bitterness. "Gases in solid toxic form—tiny dust granules which would pass right through the filters into our lungs. Jupiter's atmosphere may well be composed entirely of gases in solid phase."