The five of them stood before the display screen that covered one entire wall of the room de Falla was using as his geology laboratory. It was a fair-sized room, with a floor-to-ceiling window that opened onto one of the city’s gracious, tree-lined plazas. Although it was well past sunset, the scene outside was clearly lit by the glow of the Pup, riding high above the silvery clouds.
Shelves filled with rocks, pebbles, containers of dirt lined the two other walls. The room had two long worktables covered with a spectrograph, microscopes, and other equipment, plus a sizeable desk that bore a humming computer. The ceiling lights were off, the lab was lit only by the wall screen, which showed a map of the planet, slowly rotating, garishly daubed in false colors and marked with a scattering of bright blue dots.
“The colors indicate different types of terrain,” de Falla was explaining, “and the dots show where we’ve taken soil and rock samples.”
“We?” Jordan asked.
“Robots, mostly. I’ve done a few quick field trips, but most of the work’s being done by robots.”
Jordan pulled up one of the stools lining the nearer worktable and rested his rear on it.
Brandon said, “So now you want to dig deep cores?”
De Falla nodded. “Six of them.” To the computer he commanded, “Display deep core sites.”
Three bright red dots began to flash on the sphere. Another one appeared over its northern rim as the image slowly rotated.
“I intend to drill these cores myself,” de Falla said. “The robots can do the heavy work, but I’ll have to be on-site to direct them.”
Brandon said, “Suppose I help you? We could cut down the time it’d take.”
After a moment’s hesitation, de Falla agreed with an easy smile. “Sure. I could use all the help I can get.”
Turning to Jordan, Brandon asked, “You want to come along, Jordy? See how science really gets done?”
He glanced at Aditi, then said, “All right. Providing it doesn’t take too long.”
“A few days,” said de Falla. “Maybe a week.”
“You can be away that long,” Brandon coaxed. Looking straight at Aditi, he added, “You’ve got nothing else to do.”
Jordan seethed inwardly, but said nothing.
Elyse spoke up. “I can’t leave my work at the observatory. The Pup is entering an active cycle, from what the astronomers tell me.”
Grinning at her, Brandon said, “You wouldn’t like it out in the field, anyway. Jordy and I will have to rough it. Tents. Latrines. That sort of thing.”
“I’ll stay here in the city, thank you,” Elyse said.
Aditi said, “We could provide you with energy shields. You wouldn’t need tents.”
Jordan could see that Aditi wasn’t happy about being separated from him for a week.
Later, as they prepared for bed, he asked her, “You don’t want to come out with us, do you?”
She countered, “You don’t want me to come with you, do you?”
Stretching out on the bed, Jordan answered, “It might be a bit awkward, your being with me while Elyse stays here in the city.”
She slipped into bed beside him. “You go with your brother, Jordan. I’ll miss you, though.”
“I’ll miss you, too, darling.”
“But not tonight. Tonight we’re together.”
“Together,” he murmured, reaching for her. But in the back of his mind he realized that one day he would have to return to Earth. Will Aditi go with me? he wondered.
“I’ve got to learn how to fly one of these birds,” Brandon muttered as they soared high above a mountain range in one of the rocketplanes.
“Hazzard seems to do the job quite well,” said Jordan, sitting in the right-hand seat beside his brother. Hazzard’s image filled the main screen on the control panel. He appeared to be quite happy controlling the plane from the bridge of Gaia.
Brandon shook his head. “It still kind of bothers me, letting Geoff pilot us remotely. No reflection on you, Geoff,” he said to the screen.
“Any time you want to fly one of the birds yourself, just let me know,” Hazzard said, with a malevolent grin. “Just tell me where you want the bodies sent.”
“Thanks a lot,” said Brandon.
Jordan watched the jagged peaks go past. There were patches of snow huddled in hollows that were sheltered from sunlight; otherwise the rocks were bare. Jordan thought he saw what looked like a herd of mountain goats peacefully negotiating the steep slopes.
Suddenly Brandon sat up straighter and pointed. “There’s the sea!”
Jordan saw a broad expanse of water glittering beneath the afternoon sun. A rim of white beach ran along its edge, and the swells appeared to run up smoothly onto the sand without breaking. A gentle, peaceful sea, Jordan thought. No surfing, but the sparkling water looked warm, inviting.
De Falla had chosen this spot for drilling because his geology profile indicated the planet’s crust was thinner here.
“If the damned planet really is hollow,” he had told Brandon and Jordan, “then you might be able to break through the crust and prove it.”
Brandon had laughed at the geologist. “It’s not hollow, Silvio. You know that and I know that.”
De Falla had nodded grudgingly. “But nobody’s told the damned computer program.”
Jordan couldn’t help picturing in his mind what would happen if the planet really was hollow and they punctured its thin shell. He saw a balloon collapsing, whizzing every which way as the air inside it escaped.
Not very likely, he told himself. Still, he couldn’t shake the image.
With Hazzard piloting remotely, the plane made a long, swooping turn out over the water, then glided in for a smooth landing on the hard-packed beach sand. Even before the engines had completely shut down, Brandon unbuckled his seat harness and headed for the hatch.
“Looks like a tropical paradise out there,” he said over his shoulder. “We should have brought the women.”
Fine time to think of that, Jordan grumbled silently as he got up from his seat.
He followed Brandon to the hatch. His brother swung it open and Jordan heard the murmur of surf. Looking past Brandon’s shoulder, he saw that the waves lapping up on the beach were only a few centimeters high. Babies could play here, he thought. Then he remembered that Aditi’s people had no babies, not at present.
The beach was as lovely as a video scene, with graceful palmlike trees fringing it, swaying gently in the warm breeze blowing in off the sea. Sirius was high in the brazen sky, bright and hot. Jordan welcomed its warmth on his shoulders, although he had to put on a pair of dark glasses to cut down the glare.
Turning, he saw a pair of humanform robots already at work, unloading equipment from the plane’s cargo hatch. The crates looked big, heavy.
“What’s that?” he asked as they walked toward the hardworking robots.
Brandon peered at the nearest crate. “Laser drilling equipment. For de Falla’s deep core.”
“How far down will it drill?”
“Tens of kilometers, unless there’s a hitch.”
“You mean, unless the beam strikes especially hard rock?”
Brandon shook his head vigorously. “No, Jordy. The beam’s powerful enough to vaporize any kind of rock. The only problems we might encounter will be equipment breakdowns. Once we’ve got the laser running, it’ll cut through anything like butter.”
Jordan felt impressed.
With a wicked grin, Brandon punned, “Now we’re going to get down to the core of the matter.”
“Can we go deep enough to disprove that the planet’s hollow?”
“Yes indeed, Jordy.” Brandon couldn’t suppress another pun. “We’re going to knock the stuffing out of the hollow planet idea.”