The passing days seemed interminable. We were allowed apparent liberty of movement on the vehicle. Boc had given Jimmy and me each a small cylinder of the heat-ray and shown us how to operate it. We kept them hidden, and I still had my revolver, which even Roc did not know.
Outwardly we were Roc's prisoners. Dorrek and his men were subordinates. But it was all thinly disguised. The mutinbus Dorrek obeyed Rocbut always with a sneering confident smile.
There were times when Jimmy, Roc and I thought that it would be best to rush Dorrek and his men at once. Kill them and have done with it.
We had for instance, little bombs of blinding light and fragile bombs with fumes which would have stricken Dorrek and all his men into catalepsy. But to release one of them here would have endangered or killed us, as well as our enemies.
Both Jimmy and Rowena tried to find out from Muta what she had meant by her queer hints that she had something to say. But her face was blankexasperating. She had changed her mind; she only shook her head and would not answer.
The days passed. It was now March 22nd by Earth time.
The Earth had dwindled to a star, a dot of white tinged with yellow. The Moon, to the naked eye, was invisible. To one . side, Venus hung with dazzling glory, a trifle larger than she appears as the brilliant evening star from Earth. The Sun had expanded to a great round pot of fire with flames leaping from itslow streamers of flaming gas-tongues licking into space with a reach the distance from the Earth to the Mooni Ahead of us hung Mercurylarger now, even, than the Sun. We had swung in a line almost between the two. The bronze-red Mercurian disk was nearly full-round. Expanding hourly: becoming convex.
Other hours, and Mercury was a disk spread well across the firmament. Cloud areas hid the sharply convex surface.
The Fire Country, facing us, was hidden beneath grayblack vapor masses. The great celestial ball here in space, was waiting to receive us.
By Earth time, March 23rd. We swung lower, with the Mercurian atmosphere in its heavy layers close beneath us.
The world here under us now half filled the firmament. The sense of falling and traveling sideways was soon distinctreal movement now, to which our human senses are accustomed.
Gazing down at the great spread of vapor masses, I saw a gray-black tumbling sea, with rifts of fire in itelectrical storms tossing the clouds. Gigantic whirlpools of vapor appeared sucking huge circular holes with tossing flames edging them. Leaping bolts of lagged lightning slit the atmosphere.
And then, a sea of mist, shining opalescent with the sunlight on it; and a chasm in the clouds, with rain beating across it, and the sunlight catching the raindrops, spreading them with great shafts of prismatic color.
There was a vast area where the sea of clouds hung lower to the fiery surfacea boiling, bubbling sea, the spread of a giant caldron with red-green volatile liquid boiling up its crimson sediment.
The surface of the Fire Country was seldom visible; but once, through a great rift, I saw a spread of rockspeaks and spires. As the blistering sun-rays went down, diffused and radiated by the heavy air, it seemed that one of the mountain peaks burst with a )et of steam, edged with green burning gases. And then the clouds closed the rift.
We swept on, still above the upper atmosphere levels, heading toward the Light Country.
Grenfell had made sure that Mercury was his destination.
And as we fell into position over the planet, the Cube drew again into sight above us, following us down. And then we plunged into the cloud masses. The Cube was lost to our sight.
Descending the atmosphere, a rush of new problems came to the interior of our tiny falling world. Roc was tensely active, giving orders for the handling of the controls, which Dorrek and his men anxiously obeyed. Jimmy and I and the two girls were for a time ignored. We made plans for escape, and watching the activity around us.
This plunge from the cold of interplanetary space to the friction-heat of the atmosphere brought the temperature controls of the vehicle into constant operation. And with the swift-changing temperatures, for all Roc could do to keep them equalized, came pressure changes of our interior air.
This required skillful manipulation.
Dorrek and the others did Roc's bidding with an eager desire to make no errors. It was obvious that the safety of the ball depended now on Roc's skilland Dorrek had not dared cross him. Roc had told us so with his cynical smile.
But once into the lower atmosphere, with the door and windowports open. Roc would no longer be needed. Dorrek and his men could then safely fly the vehicle.
I whispered to Jimmy and to the girls, "Be careful, now! We'll land in an hour or somake the rush. Don't turn your back on anyone for a second)" We were in the largest room in the lower tier of the ball.
Most of the Mercurians were dispersed elsewhere at the various controls. Dorrek was in and out of the room, relaying his .orders. In a corner angle, Muta sat on a low setteea shapeless lump with her deformed wings spread out behind her. Her eyes clung to us with that expressionless, fathomless gaze.
I had my cylinder m a trouser pocket, and the revolver m the flap of my boot. Jimmy, in his tight-fitting trousers, puttees, and thin gray shirt, with sleeves rolled up and collar wide, sat dejectedly beside me and mopped his forehead in the heat.
"Hot, Jack! My heavens" I knew that he was tense, with his hidden cylinder ready for instant action. In outward aspect, to the gaze of Dorrek and Muta, we were docile prisoners.
We had found an opportunity of purloining a small knife for each of the girls. Even Roc did not know they had them.
For use if the worst should come. I prayed that it might not.
We burst presently through the clouds. The landscape of Mercury lay spread in the half-light of day beneath the ball.
We crowded to one of the window ovals, and in a moment Roc joined us. Dorrek, in command of the ball now, had momentarily left the room; but Muta did not move.
"I will open the door soon," Roc whispered. He gazed down through the window. "We are not far from the Water City." I glanced out, but at once turned back. "Roc, is that woman armed?"
"No, I do not think so. A knife, perhaps." I strode across the room.
"Muta!" She lifted her dark gaze. "What you want?"
"Roc says, go to another room." I gestured. "You go and make food for us. For mehungry" She did not move. It seemed that the shadow of a smile plucked at her heavy, shapeless mouth. Her eyes, like vacant dark pools, gazed at me. Then she looked away. But she did not move.
"Do you understand me, Muta?"
"Yes." Roc joined me and gave her a brusque command in Mercurian. She gazed at him suUenly.
Dorrek came in. I saw Roc hesitate. Then evidently he told Dorrek that she was to go. My breath stopped; my hand went to my hidden weapon. Across the room Jimmy took a tense forward step. It seemed in that breathless instant that the conflict we feared was upon us. I saw in the inner doorway three Mercurians crowding forward.
Then Roc laughed, waved at Dorrek and pulled me away.
Muta sat motionless. The giant Dorrek's gaze swept us all.
But he did not speak, and turning, he pushed his fellows back and left the room.
Roc whispered, "They will no longer obey me. You saw it?" We went back to the window.
"God, I thought it had startedl" Jimmy exclaimed.
To fire these ray cylinders here in these tiny rooms was doubtless as terrifying to Dorrek as to any of us.