yllium-steel casing slid
smoothly open, disclosing a thick flawless quartzite port. He stared
out at the dark pattern of space. Long he gazed, then a stifled
exclamation reached the girl.

"What is it?" she cried.

"Come and look," he told her gravely, and made room for her.

* * * * *

At first she saw only the unwinking stars of space. Then her eyes
shifted forward. Jupiter lay ahead, a vast cloud-girt disk. It was
ominously near. Somehow it gave the effect of rushing straight at her.

Right along the equator floated, or seemed to float, a huge red
oval--the Great Red Spot of Jupiter. She had heard of it before. But
what caught her immediate attention was a tiny flare of intense
illumination, right in the very heart of the Spot. Bright orange it
was, tinged with yellow, dazzling even at this distance. She watched
it eagerly. Then she gave a sudden start.

"You've seen it." Grant's voice sounded quietly in her helmet.

"Yes. Why, it--it pulsates!"

"Exactly. Now look along the hull of the ship."

She did so, and gasped again. The steel-shod sides were bathed in an
unearthly orange glow.

"Why, that must be the light from the orange spot down there."

Grant nodded. "Yes, and more than that. They are power waves of a
nature that we've known nothing of before. We are being pulled down
along that beam straight for Jupiter, straight for the source of that
light!"

"But that means there are intelligent beings on Jupiter."

"No doubt."

"But--but everyone know that there's no life on Jupiter. It's a frozen
waste swathed in impenetrable whirlwind clouds."

"How does everyone know?" Grant retorted. "Has anyone ever penetrated
through those clouds?"

"No," she admitted; "though there have been plenty of expeditions that
tried, and never came back."

"That of course doesn't prove anything. Mind you," he added. "I didn't
say there was native life existing on Jupiter. I merely said there
were intelligent beings operating that illumination."

"Who could it be then?"

"We'll find out when we get down there."

* * * * *

The very calmness of his matter-of-fact statement brought her back
abruptly to their precarious situation.

"But, great heavens, we'll smash and be killed. Can't we do
something?"

"We'll not smash." Grant said positively. "Though very likely we shall
be killed. As for doing something, we can only wait and take our
chances, i