The Aesir king's iron-strong face was anxious.
"I pray the Norns that you return with it, Jarl Keith."
Thor had stepped out onto the floating disk. I followed, moving stiffly in my hampering garments, and feeling more than a little uneasy as I boarded the disk which floated in empty air.
"Crouch by the standard with me, Jarl Keith," came Thor's muffled voice. "Cling to the hand-grips."
I followed his example and crouched down beside the squat pillar which rose from the center of the disk. Upon that pillar was a single lever, movable in a graduated slot, which seemed to be the only control of the strange vehicle. There were protecting hand-grips on the pillar and across the whole disk, for passengers to cling to. Thor's lead-gloved hand clutched the lever and moved it slightly. It operated a simple mechanical device which slid open scores of tiny doors in the disk, which until now had been half — open.
At once the disk began to fall into the pit. Faster and faster we fell, the air whistling around us, and the blazing green radiation streaming violently up through the many tiny openings in the disk.
"How in the world does this thing operate?" I shouted to Thor over the roar of air. "Is it by radiation-pressure?"
I heard his muffled answer.
"You have guessed it, Jarl Keith. The metal of this disk is one that is extremely light and opaque to radiation. The pressure of the radiation from below is so terrifically powerful as to drive the disk upward. By opening the little doors and controlling the radiation through the disk, the vehicle can be poised motionless against the pressure, or caused to fall."
"Certainly Loki is a clever scientist, to have devised such a thing," I declared.