Page:Amazing Stories Volume 15 Number 12.djvu/29

Rh windshield. On the hard surface of his eyes was mirrored the sight that he saw: A great ball rolling majestically through the heavens; a cloudy sphere ten times the size of Earth!

Dane sank into the chair. What world was this? His glance dumbly took in the fuzzy outlines of it. He could feel its terrible gravity seizing the ship. Four great stripes of brownish gas belted the body. Then Dane saw a gaping red hole on the far horizon, and suddenly he knew. This was Jupiter, the planet of Great Red Spot.

But surely this couldn't be his destination; Sweat-droplets burst out on Dane's forehead. Had the robot ship wandered? Jupiter's gravity would crush a man as surely as if he were under a hydraulic press.

The world of gas and fogs rolled nearer. Dane could see down into the ugly red crater, and the sight made his flesh crawl. The Red Spot appeared to him like a cancer on Jupiter's barren surface; as big as a continent it was, and unfathomably deep.

A voice broke through the ringing of the bell:

"The controls are now unlocked. You will land the ship yourself. The largest lever is the accelerator. Determine the use of the other levers by testing them. You will land on Io, nearest to Jupiter of the major satellites. At this time Io should be directly above The Great Red Spot."

Somewhere in the ship an electrical contact broke, and the voice died.

Dane's hands leaped to the levers. He twisted the accelerator. The motion caused the cruiser to leap ahead. Dane slacked off on it and tried the other controls. The system was simple; a few moments and he was eagerly swinging the ship toward the Red Spot.

Against the raw scarlet of the crater he made out a small moon swinging through its orbit. Dane drove the ship forward. Io swelled rapidly, until he was slowing above it and scanning, through floor-ports, a jumpled world of broken crags. Where, in that basalt jungle, Dane wondered, would life be found?

Slowly he circled the satellite. His eye finally picked out a spot of greenery. Stopping directly above it, he let the ship drop. The green spot grew into a mighty valley hemmed in by towering scarps. Now he could make out buildings that seemed to cover almost the entire valley floor. Then a hummock that rose from the middle of the city, and on the top of it—

Dane uttered a startled gasp. It was the city of his dream! The same great bowl supported by stone columns. The same ramshackle houses. The same glass vats of red liquid in the shadow of the bronze bowl. And, in an excited cluster—the same group of people he had seen!

E forgot caution and dropped the ship so fast it bounced on the ground. He tore the door open and sprang out. A giant hand seemed to pick him up and hurl him twenty feet into the air. He had forgotten the reduced gravity of the tiny world. When he came down, men and women were running toward him. At their head was a spare, white-haired figure Dane could never forget.

For the next thirty seconds, neither Dane nor his father had a voice to speak with. For Dane, it was a meeting he had never dreamed possible. To Samuel Cabot, the moment meant the culmination of fifteen years of waiting.

At last the old man held him back at arms' length. His leathery cheeks were wet with tears he didn't attempt to hide.

"Fifteen years, Dane!" he mur-