By the end of the third dark phase I was getting more than a little tired of seeing nothing but the inside of our portable range. I asked Paul for some time off.
Hank had been helping me since the start of the third dark phase. He had been working as a topographical assistant; flash contour pictures were on the program at the start of that dark phase. He was supposed to get an open-lens shot across the valley from an elevation on the south just as a sunburst flash was let off from an elevation to the west.
Hank had a camera of his own, just acquired, and he was shutter happy, always pointing it at things. This time he had tried to get a picture of his own as well as the official picture. He had goofed off, missed the official picture entirely, and to top it off had failed to protect his eyes when the sunburst went off. Which put him on the sick list and I got him as kitchen police.
He was all right shortly, but Finkelstein didn't want him back. So I asked for relief for both of us, so we could take a hike together and do a little exploring. Paul let us go.
There had been high excitement at the end of the second light phase when lichen had been discovered near the west end of the valley. For a while it looked as if native life had been found on Ganymede. It was a false alarm—careful examination showed that it was not only an Earth type, but a type authorized by the bionomics board.
But it did show one thing—life was spreading, taking hold, at a point thirty-one hundred miles from the original invasion. There was much argument as to whether the spores had been air borne, or had been brought in on the clothing of the crew who had set up the power plant. It didn't matter, really.
But Hank and I decided to explore off that way and see if we could find more of it. Besides it was away from the way we had come from camp number one. We didn't tell Paul we were going after lichen because we were afraid he would veto it; the stuff had been found quite some distance from camp. He had warned us not to go too far and to be back by six o'clock Thursday morning, in time to break camp and head back to our landing point, where the Jitterbug was to meet us.
I agreed as I didn't mean to go far in any case. I didn't much care whether we found lichen or not; I wasn't feeling well. But I kept that fact to myself; I wasn't going to be done out of my one and only chance to see some of the country.
We didn't find any more lichen. We did find the crystals.
We were trudging along, me as happy as a kid let out of school despite an ache in my side and Hank taking useless photographs of odd rocks and lava flows. Hank had been saying that he thought he would sell out his place and homestead here in Happy Valley. He said, "You know, Bill, they are going to need a few real Ganymede farmers here to give the greenhorns the straight dope. And who knows more about Ganymede-style farming than I do?"
"Almost everybody," I assured him.
He ignored it. "This place has really got it," he went on, gazing around at a stretch of country that looked like Armageddon after a hard battle. "Much better than around Leda."
I admitted that it had possibilities. "But I don't think it's for me," I went on. "I don't think I'd care to settle anywhere where you can't see Jupiter."
"Nonsense!" he answered. "Did you come here to stare at the sights or to make a farm?"
"That's a moot point," I admitted. "Sometimes I think one thing, sometimes the other. Sometimes I don't have the foggiest idea."
He wasn't listening. "See that slot up there?"
"Sure. What about it?"
"If we crossed that little glacier, we could get up to it."
"Why?"
"I think it leads into another valley—which might be even better. Nobody has been up there. I know—I was in the topo gang."
"I've been trying to help you forget that," I told him. "But why look at all? There must be a hundred thousand valleys on Ganymede that nobody has looked at. Are you in the real estate business?" It didn't appeal to me. There is something that gets you about virgin soil on Ganymede; I wanted to stay in sight of camp. It was quiet as a library—quieter. On Earth there is always some sound, even in the desert. After a while the stillness and the bare rocks and the ice and the craters get on my nerves.
"Come on! Don't be a sissyl" he answered, and started climbing.
The slot did not lead to another valley; it led into a sort of corridor in the hills. One wall was curiously flat, as if it had been built that way on purpose. We went along it a way, and I was ready to turn back and had stopped to call to Hank, who had climbed the loose rock on the other side to get a picture. As I turned, my eye caught some color and I moved up to see what it was. It was the crystals.
I stared at them and they seemed to stare back. I called, "Hey! Hank! Come here on the bounce!"
"What's up?"
"Come here! Here's something worth taking a picture of."
He scrambled down and joined me. After a bit he let out his breath and whispered, "Well, I'll be fried on Friday!"
Hank got busy with his camera. I never saw such crystals, not even stalactites in caves. They were six-sided, except a few that were three-sided and some that were twelve-sided. They came anywhere from little squatty fellows no bigger than a button mushroom up to tall, slender stalks, knee high. Later on and further up we found some chest high.
They were not simple prisms; they branched and budded. But the thing that got you was the colors.
They were all colors and they changed color as you looked at them. We finally decided that they didn't have any color at all; it was just refraction of light. At least Hank thought so.
He shot a full cartridge of pictures then said, "Come on. Let's see where they come from."
I didn't want to. I was shaky from the climb and my right side was giving me fits every step I took. I guess I was dizzy, too; when I looked at the crystals they seemed to writhe around and I would have to blink my eyes to steady them.
But Hank had already started so I followed. The crystals seemed to keep to what would have been the water bed of the canyon, had it been spring. They seemed to need water. We came to a place where there was a drift of ice across the floor of the corridor —ancient ice, with a thin layer of last winter's snow on top of it. The crystals had carved a passage right through it, a natural bridge of ice, and had cleared a space of several feet on each side of where they were growing, as well.
Hank lost his footing as we scrambled through and snatched at one of the crystals. It broke off with a sharp, clear note, like a silver bell.
Hank straightened up and stood looking at his hand. There were parallel cuts across his palm and fingers. He stared at them stupidly.
"That'll teach you," I said, and then got out a first-lid kit and bandaged it for him. When I had finished I said, "Now let's go back."
"Shucks," he said. "What's a few little cuts? Come
I said, "Look, Hank, I want to go back. I don't feel good."
"What's the matter?"
"Stomach ache."
"You eat too much; that's your trouble. The exercise will do you good."
"No, Hank. I've got to go back."
He stared up the ravine and looked fretful. Finally he said, "Bill, I think I see where the crystals come from, not very far up. You wait here and let me take a look. Then I'll come back and well head for camp. I won't be gone long; honest I won't."
"Okay," I agreed. He started up; shortly I followed him. I had had it pounded into my head as a Cub not to get separated in a strange country.
After a bit I heard him shout. I looked up and saw him standing, facing a great dark hole in the cliff. I called out, "What's the matter?"