Most disturbing of all were the mirages. All the familiar effects of Earth mirages were present but magnified and even multiplied into infinite complexities. To a scientist of optics or meteorology, Triton would be a superb laboratory. To Torry, it was—
Near madness...!
Mirages by hundreds and thousands floated between surface and zenith, or hugged the ground like captive nightmares. Pinnacled dream mountains rose from bases of empty air. Phantom battlements and mock castles stormed upward from nothing. Magnified rockeries became goblin cities, looming near or far in equal scale. Water glittered in the sky and on the ground, and floating debris became fleets of fairy argosies. Lateral mirages played eery jokes with distance. All images seemed unreal, and diffraction haloed them with misty, rainbow coloring.
Triton itself was bleak, savage, merciless, nearly windless but for vagrant currents of slow-moving dense air, like currents in an ocean.
By levels, temperatures were absurdly high or low, depending upon location or freak circumstances. It was a lifeless world, inhospitable to man. But it wore a mask and costume of exotic, lying beauty, and masquerade was hard to distinguish from the harsh reality. Anything definite was hard to distinguish.
Grannar turned up the microphone in his helmet, and his words rattled from Torry's speaker.
"How can we find Roper in such a madhouse as this?" he roared.
Torry winced as the amplified outburst thundered in his ears.
"Simple enough," he replied. "Fine detective you are. There's a radio compass built into Tharol Sen's suit. Roper's sending all the time. She'll go to him like a homing pigeon."
"Pigeon is right," muttered Grannar. "Hope it's not too far. A little more of this would make me neurotic. Can we trust her?"