Pesquisador looked just as he had seen her from space, floating in lunar orbit with the Moon taking up half of the sky. There was one slight change; he could not be sure, but some of the paint of her external lettering, announcing the purpose of various hatches, connections, umbilical plugs, and other attachment, had faded during its prolonged exposure to the unshielded Sun.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpvutIv271B
That Sun was now an object that nobody would have recognized. It was far too bright to be a star, but one could look directly at its tiny disk without discomfort. It gave no heat at all; when Dhala held his ungloved hands in its rays, as they streamed through the bola's window, he could feel nothing upon his skin. He might have been trying to warm himself by the light of the Moon; not even the alien landscape 50 miles below reminded him more vividly of his remoteness from Earth. Now he was leaving, perhaps for the last time, the metal world that had been his home for so many months. Even if he never returned, the ship would go on performing its duty, broadcasting instrument readings back to Earth until there was some final, catastrophic failure in its circuits.
What if he did return? He could stay alive, even sane (maybe?) for a few more months. But that was all, as the hibernation systems were useless without a computer to monitor them. He could not possibly survive until Pesquisador II made its rendezvous with Japetus, four or five years from now.
He put all those thoughts behind him, as the golden crescent of Saturn rose in the sky ahead. In all of history, he was the only man to have seen this sight. To all other eyes, Saturn had always shown its whole illuminated disk turned full toward the Sun. Now it was a delicate bow, with the rings forming a thin line across it....like an arrow about to be loosed, into the face of the Sun itself.
Also in the rings' line was the bright star of Titan, and the fainter sparks of the other moons. Before this century was over, men would have visited all of them; but whatever secrets they might hold, he would never know.
The sharp-edged boundary of the blind white eye was sweeping toward him; there was only 100 miles to go, and he would be over his target in less than ten minutes. Oh, if only there was some way of telling if his words were reaching Earth, now 90 minutes away via the speed of light. It would be the ultimate irony if, through some breakdown in the relay system, he vanished into silence, and nobody ever knew what had happened to him.
Pesquisador was still a brilliant star in the black sky far above. He was pulling ahead as he gained speed during his descent, but soon the bola's braking jets would slow him down and the ship would sail on out of sight---leaving him alone on this shining plain with the dark mystery at its core.
A golden trapezoid was climbing above the horizon, eclipsing the stars ahead. He rolled the bola around its gyros, and used full thrust to break his orbital speed. In a long, flat arc, he descended toward the surface of Japetus.
On a planet of higher gravity, the maneuver would have been far too extravagant of fuel. But here the bola weighed only a score of pounds; he had several minutes worth of hovering time before he would cut dangerously into his reserves and be stranded with no hope of returning to the still-orbiting Pesquisador. Not, maybe, that it had made much difference....
His altitude was still about five miles, and he was heading straight toward the huge, golden mass that soared in such geometrical perfection above the featureless plain. It was as blank as the flat white surface beneath; until now, he had not appreciated how enormous it really was. There were very few single buildings on Earth as big as this; his carefully measured photographs indicated a height of almost 2,000 feet. And as far as could be judged, its proportions were exactly the same as AMT-1's.
"I'm only 3 miles away now, altitude holding at 4,000 feet. Still no sign of activity---nothing on any of the instruments. The face of this, uh, pylon seems absolutely smooth and polished. Surely you'd expect some meteorite damage after all this time!
"And there's no debris on the, ah, the roof. No sign of any opening, either. I'd been hoping there might be some way in.
"All right, I'm right above it now, hovering 500 feet up. I don't want to waste any time, since Pesquisador will soon be out of range. I'm going to land. It's surely solid enough--if not, I'll blast.....474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPiqApjvvMY
"O que?!"474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr7H5cY1RFe
Dhala's voice died into the silence of utter bewilderment. He was not alarmed; he literally could not describe what he was seeing.
He had been hanging above the roof of a large, golden pylon, a structure made out of something that looked, to the untrained eye, like solid gold and just as solid. But now it seemed to be receding from him; it was exactly like one of those optical illusions, when a 3D object can, by an effort of will, appear to turn inside out--its near and far sides suddenly interchanging.474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhRlNt4stbx
That was happening to a huge, apparently solid structure. Impossibly, incredibly, it was no longer a pylon rearing high above a flat plain. What had seemed to be its roof had dropped away to infinite depths; for one dizzy moment, he seemed to be looking down into a vertical shaft--a rectangular duct that defied the laws of perspective, for its size did not decrease with distance....474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGNeYkVIjsw
The Mighty Eye of Japetus had blinked, as if removing an annoying speck of dust. Maisam Dhala had time for just one broken sentence which the waiting men in Central Mission, 900 million miles away and 80 minutes in the future, were never to forget:474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡED7oePxEoi
"The thing is hollow---it goes on forever--and---oh meu Deus! Está cheio de estrelas!"*474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi6xX7o9pzs
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474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEZOZjS8IFi
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*(oh my God!--it's full of stars!)474Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTGruUHRiLk
