Chapter 4

Suddenly the blazing sun was gone and they were floating in a vast world of rolling mists--mists that brushed the car with tiny clicks, which, with the millions of particles that struck simultaneously, merged into a steady roar.

“Ice--ice clouds!” Morey exclaimed.

Arcot nodded. “We’ll drop below the clouds; they’re probably miles deep. Look, already they’re changing--snow now--in a moment it will be water--then it’ll clear away and we’ll actually see Venus!”

For ten miles--an endless distance it seemed--they dropped through clouds utterly impenetrable to the eye. Then gradually the clouds thinned; there appeared brief clear spots, spots into which they could see short distances--then here and there they caught glimpses of green below. Was it water--or land?

With a suddenness that startled them, they were out of the clouds, shooting smoothly and swiftly above a broad plain. It seemed to stretch for endless miles across the globe, to be lost in the far distance to east and west; but to the north they saw a low range of hills that rose blue and misty in the distance.

“Venus! We made it!” Morey cried jubilantly. “The first men ever to leave Earth--I’m going to start the old sender and radio back home! Man--look at that stretch of plain!” He jumped to his feet and started across the control room. “Lord--I feel like of ton of lead now--I sure am out of condition for walking after all that time just floating!”

Arcot raised a restraining hand. “Whoa--wait a minute there, Morey--you won’t get anything through to them now. The Earth is on the other side of Venus--it’s on the night side, remember--and we’re on the day side. In about twelve hours we’ll be able to send a message. In the meantime, take the controls while I make a test of the air here, will you?”

Relieved of the controls, Arcot rose and walked down the corridor to the power room where the chemical laboratory had been set up. Wade had already collected a dozen samples of air, and was working on them.

“How is it--what have you tested for so far?” asked Arcot.

“Oxygen and CO. The oxygen is about twenty-two per cent, or considering the slightly lower air pressure here, we will have just about the right amount of oxygen. The CO is about one-tenth of one per cent. The atmosphere is O.K. for terrestrial life apparently; that mouse there is living quite happily. Whatever the other seventy-five per cent or so of diluting gas is, I don’t know, but it isn’t nitrogen.”

Briefly Arcot and Wade discussed the unusual atmosphere, finally deciding that the inert gas was argon.

“No great amount of nitrogen,” Arcot concluded. “That means that life will have a sweet time extracting it from the air--but wherever there is life, it finds a way to do the impossible. Test it more accurately, will you--you try for nitrogen and I’ll try the component inert gasses.”

They ran the analyses rapidly, and in a very short time--less than an hour--their results stood at 23 per cent oxygen, .1 per cent carbon dioxide, 68 per cent argon, 6 per cent nitrogen, 2 per cent helium, 5 per cent neon, .05 per cent hydrogen, and the rest krypton and xenon apparently. The analyses of these inert gasses had to be done rather roughly in this short time, but it was sufficient to balance fairly accurately.

The two chemists reported back to the control cabin.

“Well, we’ll be able to breathe the atmosphere of Venus with ease. I believe we can go on now. I have been surprised to see no water in sight, but I think I see my mistake now. You know the Mississippi has its mouth further from the center of the Earth than its source; it flows up hill! The answer is, of course, that the centrifugal force of the Earth’s spin impels it to flow that way. Similarly, I am sure now that we will find that Venus has a vast belt of water about the middle, and to the north and south there will be two great caps of dry land. We are on the northern cap.

“We have the microphone turned way down. Let’s step up the power a bit and see if there are any sounds outside,” said Arcot and walked over to the power control switch. An instant later a low hum came from the loudspeaker. There was a light breeze blowing. In the distance, forming a dull background for the hum, there came a low rumbling that seemed punctuated now and then by a greater sound.

“Must be a long way off,” said Arcot, a puzzled frown on his face. “Swing the ship around so we can see in what direction the sound is loudest,” he suggested.

Slowly Morey swung the ship around on its vertical axis. Without a doubt, something off in the direction of the hills was making a considerable noise.

“Arcot, if that’s a fight between two animals--two of those giant animals that you said might be here--I don’t care to get near them!” Fuller’s narrowed eyes strove to penetrate the haze that screened the low hills in the blue distance.

The microphone was shut off while the Solarite shot swiftly forward toward the source of the sound. Quickly the hills grew, the blue mistiness disappearing, and the jagged mounds revealing themselves as bleak harsh rock. As they drew nearer they saw beyond the hills, intermittent flashes of brilliant light, heard shattering blasts of sound.

“A thunderstorm!” Wade began, but Arcot interrupted.

“Not so fast, Wade--Fuller’s animal is there--the only animal in all creation that can make a noise like that! Look through the telescope--see those dots wheeling about there above the flashing lights? The only animal that can make that racket is man! There are men over there--and they aren’t in a playful mood! Turn on the invisibility while we can, Morey--and let’s get nearer!”

“Look out--here we go!” Morey began to close a tiny switch set in one side of the instrument panel--then, before the relay below could move, he had flipped it back.

“Here, you take it, Arcot--you always think about two steps ahead of me--you’re quicker and know the machine better anyway.”

Quickly the two men exchanged places.

“I don’t know about that, Morey,” said a voice from vacancy, for Arcot had at once thrown the ship into invisibility. “The longer we’re here, the more mistakes I see we made in our calculations. I see what put me off so badly on my estimate of the intelligence of life found here! The sun gives it a double dose of heat--but also a double dose of other radiations--some of which evidently speed up evolution. Anyway, we may be able to find friends here more quickly if we aid one side or the other in the very lively battle going on there. Before we go any further, what’s our decision?”

“I think it is a fine idea,” said Fuller. “But which side are we to aid--and what are the sides? We haven’t even seen them yet. Let’s go nearer and take a good look.”

“Yes--but are we going to join either side after looking?”

“Oh, that’s unanimous!” said Wade, excitedly.

The invisible ship darted forward. They sped past the barrier of low hills, and were again high above a broad plain. With a startled gasp, Arcot cut their speed. There, floating high in the air, above a magnificent city, was a machine such as no man had ever before seen! It was a titanic airplane--monstrous, gargantuan, and every other word that denoted immensity. Fully three-quarters of a mile the huge metal wings stretched out in the dull light of the cloudy Venerian day; a machine that seemed to dwarf even the vast city beneath it. The roar of its mighty propellers was a rumbling thunder to the men in the Solarite. From it came the flashing bursts of flame.