Suddenly the camera whirled dizzyingly upward for a look at the sky. Kennedy was jolted. Jupiter filled a vast segment of the sky, a great heavy ball hanging like a brooding giant just above.

“Ganymede was about six hundred and fifty thousand miles distant from Jupiter at the time of this film’s making,” Brewster said dryly. “At this distance Jupiter takes up quite a chunk of the heavens.”

Kennedy stared uneasily at the monstrous cloud-wrapped planet, whose velvety pearl-gray surface gave hint of unimaginable turbulence deep beneath the outer band of atmosphere. To his relief, the camera finally left the huge world and returned to the Ganymedean landscape.

For perhaps five minutes more the film drifted on over the lonely, bleak land. Then eight spacesuit-clad figures appeared, faces nearly hidden behind their breathing masks, bodies shrouded by the metal-impregnated suits.

“The members of the expedition,” Brewster commented.

The camera panned to a spaceship, standing slim and tall on a bare patch of rock. The ship bore dark green numerals painted on its shining silver flank.

“The expeditionary ship,” Brewster said.

After a survey of the outer skin of the ship from various angles, and a few more glimpses of the spacesuit-clad crewmen, the camera shifted to pick up a strangely cold-looking pool of greasy liquid.

“One of the occasional Ganymedean paraffin lakes,” said Brewster.

The camera skirted the pool’s edge, doubled back through a snowfield, and centered suddenly on four weird figures—four creatures vaguely man-shaped, their faces noseless, their eyes hooded by folds of flesh. They were pale white in color, hairless, virtually naked except for some sort of woven cloth girdle round their middles. They were staring sadly at the camera, faces devoid of any understandable expressions.