Air, rising in a vertical shaft, bore us aloft for the few feet that, to us, stretched into seeming miles. Against what appeared to be a green hillside, we soon found what we sought, a great, clear ovoid, glinting like a lens in diffused sunshine.
It almost proved true that we could not swim, here; for the relativity of smallness gave water a terrific surface-tension. It was difficult even to get wet! You could lunge at the dewdrop, and it would throw you back like a net of rubber. Even with android strength, we tried several times before we penetrated it. But then things went well.
Jan glided like a little pink nymph, silvery bubbles clinging to her face. We did not breathe. The greater relative viscosity of water did not trouble us. Our eyes did not need to close. Inside the dewdrop swam Xians who had followed us. And extending in crystal vistas were the furry green bulks of water algae.
Maybe there was no moment or place, yet, as beautiful as this. We enjoyed ourselves immensely. But grim questions about our future remained in my mind, though here and now the charm of fantastic difference reached a pinnacle.
"Now I'd like to go up and out on the surface of the asteroid, Jan," I said when we had emerged from the water. "The real test. Game?"
"Why not?" she answered.
So we found our way upward to a surface airlock. It's Xian guard did not stop us. The lock's mechanism was automatic. We crept out onto bleakness, with harsh space all around. Icy stars, silence, deep, dry cold. Huge Jupiter, gray-white, and streaked. The far-off but still dazzling sun. And blotting out a third of the sky by its nearness, Ganymede, murked by its moving surface mists, almost congealed.
"A test for the android—unprotected in the raw void," I said.
No sound came from my mouth; the vacuum made it impossible. Speech was purely a matter of lip reading, here.
But Jan nodded.