The midnight sun
Instead , the storage of supplies , a checking and rechecking of lists , additional careful testing of generators -- such details absorbed them . And the heavy , gray powder with its admixture of radium that transformed it to super-detonite -- this must be carefully charged into the magazines of the generators . A thousand such responsibilities -- and yet the moment finally came when all was done . The midnight sun shone redly from a distant horizon . It cast strange lights across the icy waste . And it flashed back in crimson splendor from the gleaming hull that floated from the hangar and came to rest upon the snowy world . The two men closed the great doors , and it was as if they were shutting themselves off from their last contact with the world .