Against the blazing backdrop of ten thousand stars, a black planet loomed!
It was completely featureless, and would have been invisible to the unaided eye, had not its rounded bulk occulted so many stars. Obviously, the mysterious tenth planet of the System had the lowest albedo, or factor of reflected light, of any other world.
"No wonder the astronomers could never find it visually," muttered Dr. Zoar thoughtfully, half to himself. Fingering his jaw, he studied the circle of darkness with a measuring, calculating gaze.
"Phath, put us in parking orbit around the planet," ordered Star Pirate crisply, taking a seat before the 'scope, while the little Martian scientist seated himself at his own station, before the banks of detectors that received, measured and recorded all electromagnetic energy and radioactivity in the immediate vicinity of the spacecraft.
There were also banks of sensors which could probe the surface of a planet, moon or asteroid with long-range, delicately attuned vibrations, reporting back to the telemetry of Zoar's control board. With a curt nod, the diminutive green dwarf thumbed his sensors to full power and began examining the dials and meters to learn everything that he could about the mystery world about which they would soon be circling.
"Right, chief!" grinned the Venusian, and took the big chair behind the central control panel. His voice was vibrant with excitement—almost breathless, in fact. A little action at last! Poor Phath had already had about all he could stomach of being cooped up in the little two-by-four cabin with the likes of that hot-tempered horn-toad of a Martian! He hoped the chief would order them down—who knew what excitement might lie ahead? Anything, any danger or peril, was better than boredom, to Phath’s straight-forward way of thinking.
"The surface is hidden behind a thick layer of opaque clouds, lad," muttered Dr. Zoar, studying the dials-readings of his sensor beams. "Whatever may lie beneath the cloud-layer, my instruments can’t say; the vapor is too opaque.
"I thought the black sphere looked too smooth and featureless to be the real surface," said Star Pirate, turning up the magnification on the ’scope to full volume.
"Only way to find out what’s under the clouds is to go down and see, chief," suggested the Venusian hopefully. Star Pirate grinned, but said nothing. He knew exactly how his white-skinned sidekick had chafed raw from the exasperating tedium of their long journey, and how the possibility of some danger and a little action was tempting to Phath. Indeed, he felt the same temptation himself ...
Zoar gave him a glance from cold black eyes.
"Might as well have a look, lad," he murmured. "What harm can it do?"
"Finish taking your readings," said the redheaded adventurer. "Any radio signals from the planet? Any artificial radiation, to suggest the natives—if there are any natives, that is—might have achieved atom power? Any sign of spacecraft, space buoys, or artificial satellites?"
Zoar bent his cold unwinking gaze on the dials and meters which studded the tilted board before him. Finally he had to admit there was not the slightest sign of any of these indications of a high, technological civilization.
"If there are any natives, they would be simple savages," he mused. "Or at least planet-bound, pre-atomic cultures ..."
"You said you figured probably Persephone was nothin’ more than a chunk of frigid hydrogen ocean with a few continents of methane ice floating around on top ... no life could live in that frozen gunk," remarked the Venusian.
"You’re probably right," mused Zoar, too caught up in the tantalizing mystery of the black planet to bother responding with his usual sharp tongue, or to provoke yet another round in their endless argument .
"Keep checking," advised Star Pirate.
But the black planet proved to have no satellites, either natural or artificial, and no sign of a high technology could be discovered by their sensitive instruments. The planet was either a lifeless frozen hell, or, if not, then the home of a pre-space people.
There was really only one thing to do—
"All right, take her down, Phath," said Star.
"Yakdar's beryllium belly-button, but now yer talkin’, chief!" yipped the excitable Venusian.
10. Frozen World
White fire gushed from the rocket tubes of the Jolly Roger, deftly nudging the trim little craft out of her parking orbit about the equator of Persephone. She sank towards the thick blanket of impenetrable black clouds which surrounded the dark world; ere long, she plunged into them.
Darkness closed about the cabin of the little craft. The ’scope was useless now, for nothing could be seen except for scudding ebon mist. Not visually, that is—but still Dr. Zoar clung to his sensors, probing with delicate vibrations the unknown surface far beneath their keel, and still hidden by the seething swirls of black vapor.
"Coming out of the cloud-layer now, chief!" said Phath cheerfully. And no sooner had those words left his lips, than an eerie yellow light broke about them. The Earthling, the Martian and the Venusian blinked incredulously, and found their craft floating down from a strange sky of sourceless yellow glare.
"Where does all the cursed light come from?" demanded Phath in baffled tones. Zoar studied his meters closely.
"Electromagnetic forces causing excitation in the bottom layer of the clouds," announced the Martian savant. "That layer seems to be one of the heavy metallic vapors, like argon or—"
"—Neon?" hazarded Star Pirate.
The Martian savant permitted himself a slight, approving smile. "Precisely," he rasped in his hoarse, bullfrog voice.
"Well, it gives plenty of light, sure enough," grunted Phath, sounding rather disgusted. "Too bad there’s nothing to see with all that light—"
And so it was: the surface was nothing but one enormous, endless snowfield, broken only here and there by the raw, sharp outcroppings of black mineral deposits, and swept by howling gales. There did not even seem to be mountains on this weird, shrouded world of yellow glare, endless ice, and remorseless wind.
Phath announced the temperature readings from the other side of their hull. It was nowhere near as cold as it would be on Pluto's surface—perhaps the electrical excitation of the neon layer had some sort of a mild warming effect on the planet's surface temperature—but it was cold enough.
"Take an orbit around the equator, Phath," Star Pirate said, "and turn on the cameras. We'll make a photomap, since we're here. Give us something, at least, to take back home."
"Righto!" chirped the Venusian. And the Jolly Roger began to trace a circle around the frozen world, skimming along above the endless snowfields, hurtling along under the uncanny glare of that luminous golden sky.
The trim Little speedster soared through the luminous skies of Persephone, and from time to time she shuddered from stem to stern as her flight was interrupted by the tremendous winds that seized her at random, shook her as a terrier shakes a rat by the throat, then flung her away.
Clutching a stanchion for support, during one of these furious gusts, Star grated: "Why all this wind, Doc? I would have thought it would be relatively peaceful here beneath the cloud-layers . . ."
Dr. Zoar peered at one of his meters that recorded temperature. "We have a severe temperature inversion," he rasped in his deep bullfrog voice. "I suspect Persephone has a molten core, and that erratic blasts of super-heated gas or lava escape to the surface from time to time through volcanic vents or geysers. The reaction between the heat of the core material and the permafrost of the surface evidently causes these gale-force winds—"