"But you feel all right, don't you?" He grinned like an ape in his delight.
"Why, yes."
"I feel unusually good," said Kim happily.
The vision-screens were utterly blank. The ports opened upon absolute blackness—blackness so dead and absorbent that it seemed more than merely lack of light. It seemed like something horrible pressing against the ports and trying to thrust itself in.
And, suddenly, a screen glowed faintly, and then another....
Then there was a greenish glow in the ports, and Dona looked out and down.
Above was that blackness, complete and absolute. But below, seen with utter clarity, because of the absence of atmosphere, lay a world. Nothing grew upon it. Nothing moved. It was raw, naked rock with an unholy luminescence. Here and there the glow was brighter where mineral deposits contained more highly active material. The surface was tortured and twisted, in swirled stained writhings of formerly melted rock.
They looked. They saw no sign of human life nor any sign that humans had ever been there. But after all, even five thousand years of mining on a globe six thousand miles through would not involve the disturbance of more than a fraction of its surface.
"We did it," said Kim. "The shield can be broken through by anything with a strong enough magnetic field. We won't disturb the local inhabitants. They undoubtedly have orders to kill anybody who incredibly manages to intrude. We can't afford to take a chance. We've got to get back to Ades!"
He pointed the Starshine straight up. He drove her, slowly, at the ceiling of impenetrable black. He worked upon the transmitter-drive relay. He adjusted it to throw the Starshine into transmitter-speed the instant normal starlight appeared ahead.