The matter transmitter was already set up. Upon its folding framework the screen glittered like woven quicksilver, vibrating to the hum of electro magnetic flow.
"Will this take us directly to Roper?" asked Grannar.
"Not quite," said Torry, grinning. "It's a delicate adjustment. Mars and Neptune both in motion, and Triton's orbit and axial rotation to consider. We'll be somewhere on Triton—"
"But Triton has more land surface than Earth. Can we find—"
Torry gestured. "She'll find him for us. Have your men stand by and switch on the transmitter every three hours."
Dressed for space, the three entered the screen.
V
Planet X—or Neptune's moon, Triton—was a vast mirage with many facets. Atmosphere was as dense and still as water in ocean deeps. Sky was cloudless, but not clear, apparently built up of different layers of gases, and the light was both glaring and erratic. At a distance of over three and a half billion miles from the Sun, most of the light was not sunlight, and the little that came through the air ocean was filtered and absorbed into curious colors and intensities. Other illumination sources were auroral displays, radioactive hotspots that glowed like eery ghosts, and volcanic outbursts of crimson or gold.
Surface pressure of the atmospheric ocean was extreme, and the gas densities and weird light gave an uncanny submarine illusion. Venturing onto the surface of Triton, Torry felt like a diver in that long-past period when man's last frontier on Earth had seemed the ocean deeps. Gravity, greater than on Mars, but less than Earth's, gave a sense of buoyancy; the spacesuiting was not unlike ancient diving costume; and the thickness of the atmosphere itself suggested deep, still water.