“Look at the earth. See that brilliance it’s throwing off? That’s earthlight, just as we call the moon’s reflected light moonlight. Rather weird, eh? Badger, I’m going to leave you tied up. Kendall, I’m trusting you. Get some sleep, both of you.”
The inner door slammed.
“Good night — Click,” called the girl’s voice.
Badger grunted.
“Crazy as a loon, him and the girl both. Mister, you and I have got to get control of this thing and take it back.”
Kendall laughed.
“Don’t count on me for any treachery. A ship can have but one skipper. I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way; and I’m not going to turn you loose. So shut up and get some sleep.”
And, rolling on his side, Click Kendall stretched his length on the floor of the weird craft and went to sleep with the light of a half full earth in his eyes.
Chapter 6
A New World
Hours later Click awoke. It was a sensation of spinning vertigo that brought him to his senses. He found himself suspended in mid-air. The shell was wobbling, twisting, and turning in spinning confusion.
He rubbed his eyes, started to swim through the atmosphere within, found drowsiness again sweeping over him, and dropped off to peaceful oblivion, his limbs gloriously relaxed.
Again he slept. Voices in his ears brought him to. He found himself lying against the floor of the shell. Through the thick glass window in the floor he could see the round surface of a globe.
At first he thought it was the earth; then he realized it was vastly different.
The surface showed a mass of piled-up clouds, and the reflected light from those clouds was such as to dazzle the eye. Through the tops of the cloud masses could be seen the snowcapped peak of a single towering mountain. But for miles and miles the clouds extended in tumbled masses.
Professor Wagner stood at the switchboard control and upon his face was a smile of serene tranquillity. The sun was about quartering, and a portion of the dark side of the planet could be observed.
The girl’s sparkling eyes regarded him with crisp enthusiasm.
“Oh, you’re awake. Lord, how you slept! It’s lucky the navigation wasn’t intrusted to you.”
“Venus?” asked Click.
“Venus,” answered the professor.
“Where’s Badger?”
“Asleep. I gave him an opiate. He was too much of a nuisance.”
Click glanced at the planet again.
“Why all the clouds?”
Professor Wagner squinted at the periscope image.
“Always clouds. That makes it seem logical that it’s inhabited. There’s water vapor in the atmosphere. There’s a high reflecting power. It’s scientifically known as the albedo. The albedo of Venus is 0.76. In other words, the light that is reflected is almost three-fourths of the light received. It’s just about the reflecting power of new snow.”
He flipped the lever, manipulated the slide.
The surface of the billowing clouds came up toward him, dazzling with their brilliance. Then a swirling streamer of cloud stretched misty tentacles toward the shell, swirled about it, and they were enveloped in a white mist.
Darker and darker became the mist. The eyes slowly adjusted themselves to the greater darkness after the white brilliance of the reflecting cloud banks. Lower and lower went the shell, but its progress could only be told by the slithering clouds of moisture which slipped past the sides of the shell.
“Keep a sharp watch for obstacles,” called Professor Wagner. “If you see anything, shout at once.”
Click pressed his face against the floor glass, watched below. There was nothing but fine drifting mist, and through that mist a strange, unreal light penetrated.
And then a bit of mist seemed to congeal, take color.
“Hold everything!” he yelled.
The girl saw it at the same time.
“Something dark below.”
The professor held the shell motionless, then joined them at the floor window.
“Humph,” he said. “The top of a tree. Watch it. We’ll try to avoid the branches.”
He returned to the controls. The shell settled lightly, down, down. The top of the tree slipped past to one side.
“Great heavens! It’s got a diameter of over ten feet right near the top, and some of those branches are regular trees in themselves,” said Dorothy.
Suddenly Click gave a shout. “Life!” he exclaimed. “A bird fell out below and flew away. It was an enormous bird, bigger than our eagles. And it looked as though it wore spectacles.”
Professor Wagner chuckled.
“If some of our contemporaries on the earth could only be with us! But that bird’s flying is a wonderfully favorable sign. It shows that the atmosphere must be equally dense with that of our earth. Gravitation we know is about the same. Ah, here’s another tree to one side. We’re going down between them, and look. Here’s the ground!”
The shell dropped rapidly, checked itself, fluttered to the ground as lightly as a snowflake, then was quickly sent up.
“It’s a regular morass!” exclaimed Click.
“We’ll bounce up and try it over a little farther. Watch out for trees, but I’ll have the gravitation at zero and the speed down to three or four miles an hour. There won’t be much momentum. Here we go.”
The shell drifted through the forest. Overhead the luminous sky reflected dusky light through the ever present mists.
The great trees stretched up in long spires of green. The shell was about twenty-five feet above the ground, floating along like a great soap bubble.
Dorothy gave a shriek.
“A man! Watching us from the tree. Quick, look!”
And there, perched on the limb of a small tree, regarding them with unblinking solemnity, was a man, some four feet in height, clothed in some peculiar texture which seemed a species of silk.
In appearance he was very like an earth man, save for the eyes. Those eyes were apparently without lids, were so large and protruding as to dominate the entire face. The pupils alone were almost an inch in diameter, and they regarded the drifting shell with an owl-like scrutiny of expressionless contemplation.
Professor Wagner guided the shell closer, brought it to a stop, lightly drifting against a tree branch.
The strange creature slipped from the branch, caught a twig with fingers that were somewhat like those of a monkey, and dropped to another branch, hit the trunk, went down it with an agility that no earth human had ever possessed, and disappeared in deep ferns.
Search as they might, they could find no sign of him. He had vanished.
The professor reluctantly set the shell in motion again, drifting at a slow rate of speed. Within half a mile the forest abruptly thinned to a clearing. Bare ground, hard and brown, cleared into a huge circle, was beneath.
“That is undoubtedly the work of man,” said Professor Wagner, and dropped the shell to the ground, brought it to a rest, slipped the gravitational control over to normal, and opened the door.
Moist air came pouring in, air that smelled of mists, dripping green stuffs, decaying wood. Dank, yet warm and pleasant, the air seemed to bathe them as a lukewarm shower.
“All out for Venus!” yelled Professor Wagner.
Click got to his feet, sighed, took a step, and then held back. For into the clearing had suddenly debouched a row of men, marching gravely from the fern-rimmed forest.
“Ah,” sighed Professor Wagner, and stepped to the ground of the planet.
The line of men advanced.
“Look here,” insisted Click, “I don’t like their looks. We’ve got some weapons inside. Let’s get them ready. We may have to fight.”