Men toiled in the uranium mines in the Styx Valley and men fought the low passes of the Devil's Range to bring the ore to Mephisto, and in Mephisto, children were just getting out of school. Women were shopping, and chatting with their friends and haggling with the shopkeepers over the prices and quality of their proposed dinners. Two hundred miles down the River Styx, at the twin cities of Hell and Sharon, men and women lolled in the warm river and played on the perfect miles of beach. The Sulphur Sea, which was as misnamed as any of the other places on Pluto, was dotted with the white sails of pleasure craft, and the occasional white wake of a power speedboat.
A foursome on the fifth green at the Tantalus Country Club was arguing about a handicap, since one of their number was ten strokes better than the rest. A big league baseball game was in progress at Imps Park in Hell, and the home team was beating the Red Devils by a score of 9 to 8. It cannot be recorded that Satan was pitching, though that would have been a nice touch. The pitcher's name was a staid and simple Jones.
And there were the sordid sides, too. Three men and a woman had been hit by automobiles during the course of the afternoon between the twin cities. A burglar had plied his trade to the tune of thirty-three hundred dollars from Faust's Playhouse, and was later apprehended trying to make a getaway along the Road to Hell, which connected the twin cities and was always spoken of as being named "The Road To Hell" because it permitted the citizens of either city to go across the bridge to the opposite side. The planned name of Bifrost Bridge now appeared only on maps and formal writings since the informal name was by far the more popular.
Then without warning, the scintillating sun went out, and left Pluto once more the God of Darkness. It came on again, as the rear element extended and shortened the focal length once more to a degree slightly less than the length of the complex lens. It oscillated, and it wavered, and it danced from spot to spot on Pluto. Where it touched with perfect focus, it seared the ground and sent up huge gouts of flame and tortured earth as the whole output of the sun bore down upon a small circle. It hit the Sulphur Sea, and sent great steaming clouds of vapor floating across the twin cities. It cut a sear across the center of Bifrost Bridge, and cut the famed bridge in the middle of the span. Bifrost broke and fell into the River Styx—and like the famed tale of Ragnarok, the falling of Bifrost Bridge preceded a period of terror.
The dancing spot of pure solar hell settled down, and with the characteristic perversity of uncontrolled things, it came to a perfect focal point of some six hundred feet in diameter, under which spot everything went molten.
Without waiting for any further information, the astronomers at the Pluto Observatory made rapid and precise calculations, and issued orders to the effect that all people must evacuate along the expected trail of destruction.
It was their quick work that stopped the casualty list short.