The ribbed beryllium walls were exposed nakedly, with an oval window at the rear hung with curtains of silver cloth. Those curtains were Enid's contribution to the homeliness of an interior that presented an aspect of cheerlessness and austerity, characterized by the forbidding frigidity of unadorned metal walls and metal furnishings.

With the terrestrial value on Venus moon crystals so high, he had rarely used them during the ten daylight hours. These luxobe crystals were like radio-active minerals in a way, being continually dissipated through a radiated flow of energy, except that their rate of demolition, as compared with radium, was very rapid.

In a vapor of monoxide, these crystals radiated away as rays of sheer light. For a period varying from three months to a year of terrestrial Earth hours, these amazing little crystals would dwindle away as light, and then they would be gone.