They rode lightly to the surface on the external elevator, and Lynne’s impression of appalling desolation was reinforced when she looked at the scenery about her from ground-level. Callisto was a nightmare moon for anyone conditioned to the inner planets. The great curving bulk of Jupiter was shadowed but light reflected from its large inner moons made its appalling, ominous immensity all too evident. It looked as if it were going to fall on her and crush her to death. A couple of heavy-space-suited figures emerged from one of the two big ships a half-kilometer away and slowly descended on an exterior elevator. Rolf, speaking into his suit-mike, said, “Hello there--are you from Earth?” Lynne staggered under the force of a mental blow that threatened to black her out as Rolf spoke. From the plain beyond the shelter of the rock revetment behind which they had landed, came a sudden lavender flash, followed by a rolling roar. The two space-suited figures beckoned to them and she found herself running clumsily toward them. Moments later, they were being taken aboard the larger ship. Inside, in the compression chamber, suits were removed and a coarse-haired, pale-faced, young-old man said, “Welcome to headache satellite. I’m Lieutenant Patrick Suzuki, commandant pro tem of what’s left to Callisto Mission. Who are you?” Rolf explained, adding “I must add that we are unauthorized.” The lieutenant swore amiably, and added, “Never mind the red tape. Thank the gods of my ancestors you’re here.” He went on to explain that they were completely cut off from communication with the outside. “If we put on any circuit, we draw another blast. One more and the revetment may go and bury us. We can’t leave, we can’t send for help. We wouldn’t dare let anyone else land if we could get to them.” “What’s the cause of your trouble?” Lynne asked him, glancing around her at the unshaven faces and informal attire of the Earthmen in the big ship’s wardroom, to which they had adjourned after removing their heavy space-suits. She received impressions of boredom, of controlled fright, of lust toward herself. For the moment, the overpowering entity, whatever it was, was not blanketing all thought, though the pulse of its power never ceased. Suzuki told them. Callisto had been placed under strict E.I.A. restriction because of the discovery upon that satellite, by geologists of the first expedition to reach her, of a rare new element whose properties promised to outdo any of the radioactives. “It’s right out there,” he added, gesturing toward the plain. “Right on the surface. We didn’t want to risk an interplanetary rush. So E.I.A. sealed off the satellite and sent Callisto Mission out to make further study and begin test mining operations.”