"Yes. For heaven's sake, yes!"
He placed her on her feet. She brushed her black hair from her eyes, straightened her white tunic with a wriggle.
"Oh!" she said, "of all the indignities!" But the corners of her lips kept trying to break into a grin. "Would you really have hauled me to your car like that in front of everybody?"
"Yes," he replied seriously.
In spite of herself Jennifer burst into laughter. "You know, sometimes you're the most amazing rogue I've ever met. I can't stay angry at you for ten minutes."
The city of Behrl had been built around the enormous blow hole through which escaping gasses in some distant geological age had burst to the surface of Neptune. Beyond its outskirts lay a hilly country matted with undergrowth. The road kept getting worse and worse until finally it ended abruptly on the slope of a hill.
Norman brought the car to a stop. "End of the line," he said and hopped out. Jennifer followed him.
"Well," said Jennifer glancing at the weird vegetation about them. "Where do we start?"
"I don't know," he confessed. His eyes swept the country. A thick growth of small shrubs matted with creepers cloaked the hillside. The air smelled rich, hot, fertile.
"By Jove," he exclaimed, "what's that?" He pointed to a bare spot a quarter of a mile away. It was several acres in extent. And even in the rosy sunlight it seemed to pulse with a phosphorescent light.