practically a repetition of the earlier one, except that they were homing on the fixed transmitter and consequently were some eight miles east of their former point of landing. They stopped at a height of two miles above the nearest peaks, and looked around for the smoke cloud. Rather to Drai’s disappointment, they saw it; even their eyes could distinguish it from the regular clouds without much difficulty.
“It still seems to be burning,” Ken remarked innocently. “Are we going to drift here in full sight until they put it out?”
“No. We’ll go down and hide.”
“Among the plants? That doesn’t seem to work so well, as a method of concealing this ship.” Drai eyed the scientist for some time, obviously near the limit of exasperation.
“I’m looking after the matter, thank you. The vegetation does not grow everywhere, as even you should be able to see. There, for example.” He pointed to the south. A triangular patch which gave a metallic reflection of the sky light lay in that direction. It was one of those Ken had noticed on his first descent. “We’ll look that over. It seems to be lower than the surrounding territory, and would make a very good hiding place, if it’s really like the sort of ground the flatlanders live on, these other natives may very well avoid it. How about that, scientist?”
“You seem to have some logic on your side,” Ken replied equably. Drai made no answer to this; he simply gestured to Lee, and the pilot obediently slanted their line of descent toward the shiny patch.
With radio altimeter registering five hundred feet, Ken began a careful examination of the area. It was larger than he had guessed from a distance, and he found himself unable to decide on its nature. The planet had some queer minerals, of course; the brief look he had had of the specimens he had just brought in showed that. Directly below he could make out no details at all; but over near the edge of the area, the trees that rimmed it were reflected—
“What is it?” The eternal suspicion was lacking even from Drai’s, voice, this time.
“It’s a liquid — see how the reflection at the edge trembles in the air currents!”
“So what?”
“The only liquid I’ve encountered on this planet behaved an awful lot like that queer oxide we found on Four — the one that nearly froze my feet. I saw some before here, and dipped a handler in it; the stuff vaporized instantly, and it was minutes before I could put a tentacle in the sleeve again. I think its that heat-drinking stuff— hydrogen oxide.”
“Why didn’t you mention this before?” The suspicion was back in Drai’s tone.
“What chance have I had? Besides, I don’t care if you leave yourself a frozen memorial on this planet — it’s just that I’m with you at the moment. If you don’t want to believe me, at least put a torpedo down on it first. You must have plenty of those.”
Even Drai could find no fault with this suggestion, and he gestured to Feth. The mechanic, with a censorious glance at Ken, went to his control board and without comment launched another of the projectiles. The one Ken had used was available, but it was the only one fitted with manual control, and he did not want to waste it. He was already convinced of the correctness of Ken’s hypothesis.
The slim projectile appeared outside the control room port, and drifted gently down to the surface of the lake. It was still hot, having been stowed inside the ship; and contact with the liquid surface was heralded by a burst of steam. Feth hastily lifted it a short distance, and waited for it to cool somewhat.
“Hardly a fair test to cool it off that fast,” he said. “Something’s bound to give.”
Presently he lowered the machine again. This time only ripples marked the contact. Very cautiously Feth forced it still lower, while the others watched silently. Apparently the cold did not matter.
But something else did. Quite suddenly another cloud of steam arose, and a wave of considerable size spread from the place where the torpedo had been.
“It’s a pity that only the cargo compartments of those things are airtight. Apparently the liquid bothers electrical machinery. Maybe it dissolves insulation.” Laj Drai was looking as though he had seen a ghost. He made no direct answer to the mechanic’s remark.
“Ken!” he spoke suddenly, still looking preoccupied. “When you first described this patch of stuff, you said it’s appearance reminded you of the flat country. Right?”
Right.” Ken saw what the drug-runner had in mind.
“Would it — would it be possible for a planet to have so much liquid that three quarters of its surface would be covered?”
“I certainly can’t say it’s impossible. I admit it’s hard to imagine. Any liquid at all — and particularly something as rare as that stuff is with us. Still, this is a larger planet than Sarr, and would have a greater velocity of escape, and is colder, so the average speed of the gas molecules would be slower — let’s see—” His voice trailed off as he became involved in mental arithmetic. “Yes, this planet would hold the stuff easily enough; and hydrogen and oxygen are common elements in the universe. I’m afraid it’s very possible, Drai.” The other did not answer; everyone else knew what he was thinking. When he did speak, Ken felt smug — he had predicted the subject correctly.
“But the flatlanders — could they live in the stuff? — but maybe there aren’t any; the liquid must have destroyed the torpedoes — but their radar beams! We’ve detected those!” He looked at Ken suddenly, as though he had made a telling point in an argument. Ken had been following his thoughts well enough to answer.
“You have no evidence whatever that those beams were not generated by the same race with which you have been trading. I have already pointed out that they are competent astronomers. I think you have been developing a very interesting mythology for the last twenty years, though I admit the idea could do with a little more proof.”
Keeping one eye on the enigmatic liquid beyond the port, Drai rolled the other toward the pilot.
“Lee, go up about ten miles, and start travelling. It doesn’t matter which way, I guess.” He was obeyed in silence. Even though Lee did not take the shortest route to the ocean, the speed of the ship even within the atmosphere was such that only minutes passed before the fabulous “flatland” lay beneath them — the closest any of them had dared to approach it in twenty Sarrian years. Dumbly the commander gestured downward, and presently they hung a few hundred feet above the waves. Drai looked for a long time, then spoke three words to Ken: “Get a sample.”
The scientist thought for a moment; then he found the small bomb in which he had taken the frost sample on Mars, pumped out the air, and closed the valve. Redonning his armor, he clumped into the air lock after voicing dire warning to Lee about keeping the vessel level. He fastened a wire to the bomb itself and another to the valve handle; then, opening the outer door, he lowered away until the loss of weight told him the bomb was submerged. He pulled the other wire, waited a moment, pulled up the filled bomb, closed the valve again, and sealed the outer door of the air lock.
Naturally, the bomb exploded violently within a few seconds of the time that sulfur ceased condensing on its surface. Ken felt thankful that he had not yet removed the armor — parts of the bomb had actually scored the metal — and after some thought tried again. This time he let down a tiny glass wool sponge, hoping the liquid had a significant amount of natural capillary action. He placed the sponge in another bomb, and by the same method he had used with the Martina sample eventually determined the molecular weight of the substance. It came out higher then before, but eventually he found the deposit of salts on the sponge and allowed for their weight. The result this time left little doubt that the substance was indeed hydrogen oxide.
He looked down for a minute at the tossing blue expanse, wondering how deep it might be and whether it would have any real effect on the conditions of the Planet of Ice; then he turned, climbed out of the armor — he had stayed in it for the rest of his experiment, after the first blast — and went to report to Drai.
The drug-runner heard him in silence. He still seemed a little dazed by the overthrow of his former belief. It was many minutes before he spoke, and then he simply said, “Take us back to One, Lee. I have to think.” Ken and Feth eyed each other, but kept all expression of glee from their faces.
