He murmured an order to the plane, which veered sufficiently to put Nemesis farther to the rear, out of direct view.
Marlene took a last, thoughtful glance at Nemesis, then turned her eyes to Erythro's vista stretched out below.
She said, ‘You get used to the pink color of everything. It doesn't look so pink after a while.’
Genarr had noticed that himself. His eyes caught differences in tint and shade so that the world began to seem less monochromatic. The rivers and small lakes were ruddier and darker than the land surface, and the sky was dark. Little of the red light of Nemesis was scattered by Erythro's atmosphere.
The most hopeless thing about Erythro, however, was the barrenness of the land. Rotor, even on its tiny scale, had green fields, yellow grain, varicolored fruit, noise-making animals, all the color and sound of human habitation and structures.
Here there was only silence and inanimation.
Marlene frowned. ‘There is life on Erythro, Uncle Siever.’
Genarr couldn't tell whether Marlene was making a statement, asking a question, or answering his thought as revealed by his body language. Was she insisting on something or seeking reassurance?
He said, ‘Certainly. Lots of life. It's all-pervasive. It's not only in the water either. There are prokaryotes living in the water films about the soil particles, too.’
After a while, the ocean made its appearance on the horizon ahead, first as simply a dark line, then a thickening band as the air vehicle approached it.
Genarr cast careful sidelong glances at Marlene, watching her reaction. She had read about Earth's oceans, of course, and must have seen images on holovision, but nothing can prepare anyone for the actual experience. Genarr, who had been on Earth once (once!) as a tourist, had seen the edge of an ocean. He had never been over one, out of sight of land, however, and he wasn't sure of his own reactions.
It rolled back below them and now the dry land shrank behind into a lighter line and, eventually, it was gone. Genarr looked down with a queer feeling in the pit of his stomach. He remembered a phrase from an archaic epic: ‘the wine-dark sea’. Below them the ocean certainly did look like a vast rolling mass of red wine, with pink froth here and there.
There were no markings to identify in that vast body of water, and there was no place to land. The very essence of ‘location’ was gone. Yet he knew that when he wanted to return, he need do no more than direct the plane to take them back to land. The plane's computer kept track of position in accurate reckoning of speed and direction and would know where land was - even where the Dome was.
They passed under a thick cloud deck and the ocean turned black. A word from Genarr, and the plane lifted through and above the clouds. Nemesis shone again, and the ocean could no longer be seen beneath them. There was, instead, a sea of pink water droplets, billowing and rising here and there, so that bits of fog moved, occasionally, past the window.
Then the clouds seemed to part and between their edges, glimpses of the wine-dark sea could again be seen.
Marlene watched, her mouth partly open, her breath shallow. She said in a whisper, ‘That's all water, isn't it, Uncle Siever?’
‘Thousands of kilometers in every direction, Marlene - and ten kilometers deep in spots.’
‘If you fall into it, I suppose you drown.’
‘You needn't worry about that. This vehicle won't fall into the ocean.’
‘I know it won't,’ said Marlene matter-of-factly. There was another sight, Genarr thought, to which Marlene could well be introduced.
Marlene broke in on his thought. ‘You're getting nervous again, Uncle Siever.’
Genarr felt amused at the manner in which he was learning to take Marlene's penetration for granted. He said, ‘You've never seen Megas, and I was wondering if I ought to show it to you. You see, only one side of Erythro faces Megas, and the Dome was built on the side of Erythro that doesn't face it, so that Megas is never in our sky. If we continue to fly in this direction, however, we'll enter the cis-Megan hemisphere and we'll see it rise above the horizon.’
‘I would like to see that.’
‘You will, then, but be prepared. It's large. Really large. Nearly twice as wide as Nemesis and it looks almost like it's about to fall on us. Some people simply can't endure the sight. It won't fall, though. It can't. Try to remember that.’
They moved along at a higher altitude and a heightened speed. The ocean lay below in wrinkled sameness, occasionally obscured by clouds.
Eventually, Genarr said, ‘If you'll look ahead and a little to the right, you'll see Megas beginning to show at the horizon. We'll turn toward it.’
It looked like a small patch of light along the horizon at first, but grew like a slow upward swell. Then the widening arc of a deep red circle lifted itself above the horizon. It was distinctly deeper than Nemesis, which could still be seen to the right and in back of the plane, and somewhat lower in the sky.
As Megas loomed larger, it soon became apparent that what was being revealed was not a full circle of light, a bit more than a semicircle.
Marlene said with interest, ‘Now that's what they mean by “phases,” isn't that right?’
‘Exactly right. We only see the part that's lit by Nemesis. As Erythro goes around Megas, Nemesis seems to move closer to Megas and we see less and less of the lit half of the planet. Then when Nemesis skims just above or below Megas, we just see a thin curve of light at Megas' boundary; that's all we see of its lighted hemisphere. Sometimes Nemesis actually moves behind Megas. Nemesis is then eclipsed, and all the dim stars of night come out, not just the bright ones that show even when Nemesis is in the sky. During the eclipse, you can see a large circle of darkness with no stars in it at all, and that shows you where Megas is. When Nemesis reappears on the other side, you begin to see a thin curve of light again.’
‘How marvelous,’ said Marlene. ‘It's like a show in the sky. And look at Megas - all those moving stripes.’
They stretched across the lighted portion of the globe, thick and reddish brown, interspersed with orange, and slowly writhing.
‘They're storm bands,’ said Genarr, ‘with terrific winds that blow this way and that. If you watch closely, you'll see spots form and expand, drift along, then spread out and vanish.’
‘It is like a holovision show,’ said Marlene raptly. ‘Why don't people watch it all the time?’
‘Astronomers do. They watch it through computerized instruments located on this hemisphere. I've seen it myself in our Observatory. You know, we had a planet like this back in the Solar System. It's called Jupiter, and it's even larger than Megas.’
By now, the planet had lifted entirely above the horizon, looking like a bloated balloon that had, somehow, partially collapsed along its left half.
Marlene said, ‘It's lovely. If the Dome were built on this side of Erythro, everyone could watch it.’
‘Actually not, Marlene. It doesn't seem to work that way. Most people don't like Megas. I told you that some I people get the impression that Megas is falling and it frightens them.’
Marlene said impatiently, ‘Only a few people would have such a silly notion.’
‘Only a few to begin with, but silly notions can be contagious. Fears spread, and some people who wouldn't be afraid if left to themselves, become afraid because their neighbor is. Haven't you ever noticed that sort of thing?’
‘Yes, I have,’ she said with a touch of bitterness. ‘If one boy thinks a bimbo is pretty, they all do. They start competing-’ She paused, as if in embarrassment.