a lush, dank,
tropical jungle, and Brandon plugged into the Venerian room.

"Kenor? We've got a lot of use for you, if you can come down here for a
while. Thanks a lot." He turned to the Martians. "Luckily, we've got a
couple of infra-red transformers aboard, so we won't have to build one.
You fellows might break one out and shunt it onto this circuit while Dol
Kenor is hunting up something for us to look at.

"Hi, old Infra-Eyes!" he went on, as the Venerian scientist waddled into
the room in his bulging space-suit. "We've got something here that's
right down your alley. Want to see what you can see?"

"Ah, a beautiful scene!" exclaimed Dol Kenor, after one glance into the
plate. "It is indeed a relief, after all this coldness and glare, to
see such a soft, warm landscape--even though I have never expected to
behold quite such a violent bit of jungle," and under his guidance the
projection flashed over hundreds of miles of territory. To the eyes of
the Terrestrials the screen revealed only a blank, amorphous grayness,
through which at times there shot lines and masses of vague and
meaningless form; but the Venerian was very evidently seeing and
enjoying many and diverse scenes.

"There, I think, is what you wish to see first," he announced, as he
finally steadied the controls, and Brandon cut in upon the shunting
screen the infra-red transformer. This device, developed long before to
render possible the use of Terrestrial eyes in the opaque atmosphere of
Venus, stepped up the fog-piercing long waves into the frequencies of
light capable of affecting the earthly retina. Instantly the dull gray
blank of the shunting screen became transformed into a clear and
colorful picture of the great city of the Jovians of the South.

"Great Cat!" Brandon exclaimed. "Flying fortresses is right! They're in
war formation, too, or I'm a polyp! We've got to watch this, Mac, all
of it, and watch it close--it's apt to have a big bearing on what we'll
have to do, before they get done. Better we rig up another set, and put
a relay of observers on this job!"

CHAPTER XI

The Vorkul-Hexan War

Vorkulia, the city of the Vorkuls, was an immense seven-pointed
star. At its center, directly upon the south pole of Jupiter, rose a
tremendous shaft--its cross-section likewise a tapering seven-pointed
star--which housed the directing intelligence of the nation. Radiating
from the seven cardinal points of the building were short lanes