At last the ship set down on Callisto. The young Shannons went back to the game room. Then with the bird on Steve’s shoulder, the twins looked out the window at the strange new world.
They saw a land bathed in ghostly twilight. Very little light was coming from the sun. It was so far away that it was only a small circle. Most of the light came from a huge shape that looked like somebody’s lost beach ball resting on the ground. Its bottom edge just touched the horizon.
Sue and Steve were joined by their father, who worked for the space freight company.
“That’s His Majesty, Jupiter—the king of planets,” Mr. Shannon told them. “He’s over a million miles away and yet he looks close enough to touch, doesn’t he?”
“Let’s go outdoors, Dad!” Steve begged.
“No reason why we can’t,” Mr. Shannon replied.
After they had put on their space clothes, Steve popped Bud into his warm, air-tight cage.
As they all went outside, they saw the crewmen unloading the cargo.
“There’s the colony over there,” Mr. Shannon said, pointing to a high framework that looked something like an oil derrick.
“They mine here for a mineral called magna. It’s very valuable, because without it we couldn’t have atomic engines. Magna is what keeps our rocket tubes from melting under the terrific heat that goes through them.”