"I was sent here, masters, to guide you through hell." Immediately after this startling statement her face turned a brilliant red, then a deathly white. She half turned as if to flee, but, as if realizing the uselessness of flight, she faced them again, defiantly; "I don't care what happens to me!" she declared desperately. "I've told the truth at least once. Jovians call this place The Pleasure Bubble, but they don't have to live in the black half. Now tell them what I have said." "We will not tell anyone what you said, child," Lents rumbled comfortingly. "But tell us. You don't look like the Mugs we've seen so far--nor like the poor fellow we saw put through the airlock. They seemed--a different race. But you--why--on Earth we could hardly tell you from any other kid of your age." A flash of spirit illuminated the girl's tragic, immature face. "They call us a different race!" she exclaimed. "True--but not an inferior race! They are the inferior race, though the stronger. They depend on our knowledge, our labor, to live! My father told me so!" * * * * * Kass, who had been studying her silently, asked, "Your father?" "Yes. The technic in charge of the machinery below. He was ordered to escort you around. But his scars from the rays make it hard for him to breathe today. He is in his bunk. So he sent me in his place." Sine wondered if life under such unnatural and destructive conditions would some day reduce this graceful girl to a horrible parody of humanity. He asked; "Do you work below?" Her clear gray eyes fell on him. "No. I was selected by the Committee to work in the Baths when I am sixteen. I am fifteen now." "Holy twisted nebulae!" Sine swore under his breath. "The kid doesn't know what her work in the Baths is going to be! So the Committee selected her for the Baths!" He felt suddenly a violent dislike for the very rich Jovians, a feeling of fraternity with the Mugs. "We will be very glad to have you guide us," he said formally. "What is your name?" "Proserpina. My father said it is fitting for one who lives where we do." Strange anachronism! That name from the mythology of Earth's youth. Like that goddess of the underworld from misty antiquity, she led them down, down, until it seemed they must be near the bottom of the black hemisphere. It was a world of dim distances, of shadows, of pipes and girders, or grisly abysses from which came mysterious sounds; of locked chambers in which ghastly fires flared. Now and then they met the inhabitants of the place; misshapen Robolds going about unknown tasks. They stumbled suddenly out of unnoticed passages, carrying burdens, grotesque, apelike, weary. Most of them were hideously deformed. Several times, when their journey led them into a certain part of the hemisphere where they felt strange tingling of their nerves, the girl led them away.