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reacting with chemicals in the rock, causing an effect similar to that of phosphorescence,” the Professor mused.
    I couldn’t say, myself, but was heartily glad for every bit of light I could get. For the shaft had narrowed considerably in the last half-mile, and steering Babe on a safe descent had become increasingly tricky.
    At the depth of about thirty-eight miles, the queer, seemingly sourceless light had strengthened almost to the intensity of late afternoon sunlight. We could clearly make out the veins and contours and variegated hues of the mineral strata as we sank past them, even without the use of artificial light.
    At about forty-two miles down, we began to notice something else that was every bit as exciting to the professor. Rock-mold and spongy lichens grew in scabrous patches along the fissures in the rock walls of the crater shaft, and we descended past a level shelf-like outcropping covered with fantastic paleyellow mushrooms a foot high.
    “Dear Darwin! Just think of it, my boy,” the Professor marvelled in hushed tones. “There is life even at this depth within the earth…!”
    It had grown increasingly warmer until the temperatures within the cabin of the helicopter were swampy and tropical. Sweat poured off us, soaking through our khaki clothing; but the heat was nothing at all like the suffocating warmth I had imagined we would find here beneath the earth’s crust.
    And the air still smelled fresh and moist.
    * * * *
    Although the volcanic shaft narrowed a bit more, somewhere around the depth of sixty or seventy miles beneath the surface, it still afforded sufficient leeway for Babe to continue descending.
    I began to wonder if the shaft had any bottom at all, and entertained wild fantasies of flying directly through the earth until we came out the other side! This was sheerest nonsense, of course; but, still and all, it did begin to seem that we could keep on going down into the earth’s core forever.
    Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be much worry about our running out of fuel. I had loaded Babe with subsidiary gas tanks everywhere subsidiary gas tanks could be tied, strapped, bolted or stored aboard the chopper. And this sort of straight-down descent didn’t really consume much gas at all.
    But after some hours of this, I began to get weary. The nervous tension of inching Babe down, keeping one eye on the walls and the other peeled for unexpected spurs and projections, had begun to wear my strength down.
    The Professor volunteered to spell me at the controls while I napped. I taught him exactly what to do and impressed upon him the importance of keeping his mind on what he was doing and ignoring the scenery.
    “Leaping Lindbergh, my boy!” he said scoffingly. “I was flying before you were born—”
    “Yeah, but not helicopters, I don’t think,” I retorted rather ungrammatically.
    I suppose it was pretty dumb of me to turn the controls over to the living stereotype of the “absentminded professor,” but I was bushed and simply had to get a little shut-eye. And I didn’t think anything much could possibly happen: the shaft was still roomy enough to make it easy for a pilot to steer Babe’s rotors away from dangerous projections, and the descent was actually a lot easier and less risky now that the peculiar luminosity had increased almost to the strength of daylight.
    So I climbed in the back, curled up among the gas tins, pulled my flight jacket over my shoulders, and dozed off.
    * * * *
    I awoke with a sudden start when the world turned upside down with a bang and I flew out the cabin door, which had sprung open.
    I ended up on my back on a mossy bank, head throbbing to the reverberations of the crash. I looked around wildly, wondering if I was still in my dream.
    Whatever it was, this was surely no dream! I have had a few wild ones in my time, but never a dream to match the likes of this baby.…
    Above me stretched an oddly luminous sky, with clouds aplenty but no sun in