“Eh?” Wolfe followed the other’s gaze. The needle of a gauge was jumping. “Radiation, eh?”

“Radiation. Dunno what type. The Geiger counters are quiet, so it either doesn’t register or it’s too weak to be dangerous.” Quade fiddled with the instruments. “It’s coming from the south. We passed over a good-sized crater a while back, didn’t we?”

“That’s right. It wasn’t volcanic, either. Meteoric. Suppose there’s a radioactive meteor buried down under it?”

“Possibly. But it doesn’t look like ordinary radioactivity. Let’s see.” Quade tested. “No alpha, beta or gamma types. It’s too weak to bother us, but have one of the men check on it. How about going outside? Get your suit.”

Outside the ship Quade and Wolfe sweated in the protective armor, till the refrigo-thermal systems got hold. Then they felt better. These were light-weight outfits, designed for protection against temperature and poisonous atmospheres, not the bulky, reinforced spacesuits used in pressure-work. Saturn was almost at zenith. Quade looked up at the ringed planet, squinting against the wan, yet curiously intense light.

“Have to use special filters,” he remarked. Diaphragms in the spherical transparent helmets made it possible to converse. In this atmosphere it wasn’t necessary to use radio.

Spongy pumice crackled under their feet. A bellow of crashing ice thundered from the snowy ramparts to the west. It died and there was silence. No movement stirred in the valley. Quade peered from under his palm.

“There’s a lake,” he said. “The Zonals are amphibious. Let’s try it.”

If the surface of Titan seemed a bleak desert, the waters of the satellite provided a strange contrast. The lake was an oval nearly a mile long. Its surface seethed and bubbled with glowing light—no wonder Udell had wanted to experiment with dyes! Plant-life made islands on the surface. There was ceaseless activity in the water and, every few moments, a bulky glistening body would appear briefly and vanish again.

Quade hesitated on the edge. There had been a tribe of dangerous Zonals, he remembered. In fact, there were several, news from Macao had told him—nomadic groups wandering murderously around from sea to lake to river. But most of the Zonals were peaceful enough.

And in this lake—

“Tony!” Wolfe 

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