"What do you mean?" demanded Lana. "You can't mean that we're trapped here with a fortune just in our grasp."
The whine of the lower motors mounted, and as a result the mud-submarine began spinning around like a top. Yet the depth pointer had not moved.
"It means that there's some sort of a skeletal core to Uranus after all," said Lonny with a vanquished sigh, snapping off the motors and pushing back from the controls. "Add what's more, it means that we've bumped into it."
"But how?" demanded Raeburn. "Even if there is a solid core, nothing would prevent our ship from floating up again."
"Unless our vessel happened to get caught under a ledge," returned Lonny pointedly. "We sank while the pressure was heavy, and then when it lessened, began to ascend. We climbed a short way and stopped. Then our horizontal screws sends the ship around in a short circle, indicating that we are in a shelving pocket. We can't descend unless the pressure storm gets violent again! And we can't climb through a shelving ledge of solid core. So our chances of getting out of here are rather slim."
Raeburn's furtive eyes were glowing, like those of a beast at bay. He whirled around, struck out wildly at the controls, started the engines and sent the mud-submarine spinning around again, but to no avail. Lana Hilton watched his every move, and she too was like a tigress at bay.
Like animals they glared around at the berylumin hulls, thinking of the millions of pounds per square inch waiting beyond—trying to press in upon them. An instant's exposure to that and a human body would be but a pulpy mass.
They felt helpless and insignificant. To the two who glared unbelievingly at the controls, the apparent unconcern of Lonny Higgens amounted to madness. He appeared not to be able to fully appreciate the true reasons for their violent perturbation. He was humming a tune through his teeth, and searching among tiny wall niches, from which he presently withdrew a tiny skillet.
"No use getting excited," he told them. "The chances are that the pressure storms won't come around soon enough to do us any good. At any rate, there's nothing to stop us from eating while we're hungry—that is, while the food supply holds out."