. The distortions visible on
Mars, as well as the one from Mercury before its cutoff, had been worked
out directionally. There was no doubt that a line of force had been
channeled outward to a point in space that now proved to be that of a
planet. The planet was Pluto.

"Pluto!" That was the shocked word uttered by everyone within hearing
distance when the radio voice said it.

"Pluto! Why, that's the end of the line! The most distant planet," said
Oberfield, shocked. "We'll have to go there--all the way!"

That fact sobered everyone. It meant the trip must last many times
longer than anyone had expected. But they were a band of men who had
achieved great things--they had managed so far to work together in
harmony, and they felt that since they had conquered two planets--what
were a few more?

Mars gradually grew larger on their telescopic viewers as the _Magellan_
fell onward through space, riding the beam of gravity that was like a
pulling rope to them. The slow down and reverse was made in good
order--the sphere swinging around, readjusting, and the great, driving
Zeta-ring generators now pushing and braking.

Then one wake period, Russ and Burl went to the telescope and trained it
again on the oncoming planet. The now large disc of the ruddy world
swung onto the screen. It looked strange, not at all like the drawings.

Burl had never seen it through Terrestrial telescopes, but he sensed
something was wrong. He realized suddenly, "Both poles are enlarged!
It's winter on _both_ hemispheres! And that's impossible!"

Yet it was so. Both the Martian ice caps were present and both extended
down the northern and southern hemispheres of the world. The men stared
in silence.

Slowly Russ tried to figure it out, "The greenish-blue areas can
scarcely be seen. Where they should be, there're darker patches of
brown, against the yellowish-red that now seems to be the desert areas.
It seems to be winter on both sides and it looks bad. It looks to me as
if Mars were a fast-dying world."

Burl squinted his eyes. "Yet I see the canals. The straight lines are
still visible--see?"

Russ nodded. "They're real. But what's happened?"

Indeed, the planet seemed blighted. "It's the Sun-tap," Burl decided.
"We should have realized what it would do."

"Remember Earth the week it was working? The temperature fell several
degrees, began to damage crops? Remember how it snowed in places where
snow had never fallen in July? Remembe