One of his first steps was to set about developing the vein of coal he had discovered. He organized a band of miners and a motor transport train. It was a strange sight when the latter for the first time rolled forth. Robur and he went with it, and saw to the starting of the work. Save for his faith in Jason the new governor of Aphur would have doubted. Laughing, Croft gave him and the staring bands of miners and captains a demonstration, and allayed their doubts. On the second day, after the strippers were uncovering the vein and others of the men were erecting cabins to house the workers, Robur and he drove back.
Copper wire and rubber, or a substitute, were what he next required. The first was easily gained. For generations the Tamarizians had worked in metal, as shown by their couches, their molded doors, their carriages and chariots and their tempered swords and spears. Croft set hundreds of the workers to the task of making wire. The second requirement was far less readily gained. But he did not despair. Aphur's climate was tropical in the main. He believed he might find some vegetable product such as he needed for the insulation of his wires and set about an extensive questioning of the city's learned men. So in the end he learned of a tree which exuded a milk-like sap, in the forests south along the Na. Thither he and Robur went straightway in a motor-driven galley, and the thing was done in theory at least, depending for its practical working out on the efforts of an army of local natives, whom the two set to gathering sap.
Back again in Himyra, save at night, Croft gave himself little rest. And even at night since, on Robur's insistence, he had taken up residence at the palace rather than in the Himyran pyramid, Robur and he discussed their plans, unless the governor was called by his duties somewhere else. Occasionally when this happened, Croft talked with Gaya instead.
In this way he succeeded in winning her sympathetic understanding of his position, even as concerning his love for Naia he had won it once before. And Gaya, whose nature was characterized by a sweet simplicity, questioned him frankly concerning the episode of Naia's attempted suicide in the pool:
"Robur swore by Zitu, he believed you present, in the same guise in which you have told me, you move when your body sleeps."
"Yes, Robur was right," Croft told her and described step by step what had occurred.
The princess nodded. "Now that Lakkon remains with Jadgor at Zitra, the maid grows lonely," she declared. "She has asked me to visit her. May I speak with her concerning these things if she mentions to me her dreams?"
Croft smiled. On Palos, or on earth, woman he thought was the same. And Gaya, happy beyond question in the arms of the man of her choice, stood ready to lead or drive Naia, a sister-woman to a mating if she could. And, smiling, he nodded assent, but added a caution. "Yet speak not of it save as of a dream—wife of my true friend. For the growth of the soul must be as the growth of a flower, which the light of truth expands."
His wire being made, his rubber gathered, Croft turned next to the harnessing of the mountain stream. He chose copper for his penstocks instead of wood, furnishing specifications to the molders for the sections of the pipe and designing the model of the turbines to be mounted in the pits.