Chapter 4: Europa

When Carr opened his eyes it was to the normal lighting of his own sleeping cabin. The Nomad was intact, though an odor of scorched varnish permeated the air. They were unharmed--as yet. He turned on his side and saw that Mado was moving about at the side of his couch. Good old Mado! With a basin of water in his hand and a cloth. He’d been bathing his face. Brought him to. He sat up just as Mado turned to apply the cloth anew.

“Good boy, Carr! All right?” smiled the Martian.

“Little dizzy. But I’m okay.” Carr sprang to his feet where he wabbled uncertainly for a moment. “But the Nomad?” he asked. “Is she--are we safe?”

“Never safer. What in the name of Saturn did you do?”

Carr passed his hand across his eyes, trying to remember. “The D-ray,” he said. “I turned it on and dived into the thing with full attraction. Then--I forget. Where is it--the thing, I mean?”

“Look!” Mado drew him to the stern compartment.

Far behind them there shone a misty wreath, a ring of drifting matter that writhed and twisted as if in mortal agony.

“Is that it?”

“What’s left of it. You shot your way through it; through and out of its influence. D-ray must have devitalized the thing as it bored through. Killed its energies--for the time, at least.”

Already, the thing was closing in. Soon there would be a solid mass as before. But the Nomad was saved.

“How about yourself?” asked Carr anxiously. “Last time I saw you you were flat on the floor.”

“Nothing wrong with me now. A bit stiff and sore, that’s all. When I came to I put all the controls in neutral and came looking for you. I was scared, but the thing’s all over now, so let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Europa.”

“Where’s that?”

“Don’t you remember? The third satellite of the fifth planet. That’s Europa, third in distance from Jupiter, the fifth planet. It is about the size of Terra’s satellite--your Moon. We’ll find the city of the golden domes.”

Carr’s eyes renewed their sparkle. “Right!” he exclaimed. “I forgot the mental message. Poor devils! All over for them now. But we’ll carry their message. How far is it?”

“Don’t know yet till I determine our position and the position of Jupiter. But it’s quite a way. Jupiter’s 483 million miles from the Sun, you know.”

“We’re more than half way, then.”

“Not necessarily. Perhaps we’re on the opposite side of the sun from Jupiter’s present position. Then we’d have a real trip.”

“Let’s figure it out.” Carr was anxious to be off.

Luck was with them, as they found after some observations from the turret. Jupiter lay off their original course by not more than fifteen degrees. It was but four days’ journey.

Again they were on their way and the two men, Martian and Terrestrial, made good use of the time in renewing their old friendship and in the study of astronomy as they had done during the first leg of their journey. Though of widely differing build and nature, the two found a close bond in their similar inclinations. The library of the Nomad was an excellent one. Thrygis had seen to that, all of the voice-vision reels being recorded in Cos, the interplanetary language, with its standardized units of weight and measurement.

The supplies on board the Nomad were ample. Synthetic foods there were for at least a hundred Martian days. The supply of oxygen and water was inexhaustible, these essential items being produced in automatic retorts where disassembled electrons from their cosmic-ray hydrogen were reassembled in the proper structure to produce atoms of any desired element. Their supply of synthetic food could be replenished in like manner when necessity arose. Thrygis had forgotten nothing.

“How do you suppose we’ll make ourselves understood to the people of Europa?” asked Carr, when they had swung around the great orb of Jupiter and were headed toward the satellite.

“Shouldn’t have any trouble, Carr. Believe me, to a people who have progressed to the point of sending mental messages over five hundred miles of space, it’ll be a cinch, understanding our simple mental processes. Bet they’ll read our every thought.”