a
series of thin, blue stalks, about half a foot in height. On each stalk
was a flat scalloped top like a little umbrella. It was sometimes bright
blue, and sometimes violet. As they drew nearer, these little stalks
began to sway, and turned their tops toward them.

"They look like plants," said Burl. "Plants made of something glassy and
plastic."

As Russ studied the strange growths, something moved across the dusty
tract behind them. It was long and thin and wiggly, with a ridge of tiny
crystalline hairs along its back. It was like a snake perhaps, but one
made of some unbelievably delicate glasswork.

It slid among the plants and wrapped itself around one. The growth
snapped suddenly, and then was absorbed by the creature.

Russ shook his head in amazement. "This is a great discovery," he said
incredulously. "This is life! It's life of a chemical type utterly
different from the protoplasm of Earth and Mars and Venus. It's life
designed to exist among liquid gases and frozen air--life which can't
have anything in common with protoplasm. Apparently it couldn't exist
even on Saturn's moons--they were too _hot_ for it!"

Russ was carried away with the possibilities. "This hints at great
things, Burl. Out near Pluto, where the system is even colder, there may
be other forms of this frigi-plasmic life, if I may coin a word. This
means a whole new science!"

They returned to the ship with their astonishing news. The _Magellan_
slowly skimmed over the surface of Oberon. They found whole forests of
this glassy frigid vegetation, but not much evidence of any animal life
larger than the creature the two explorers had seen.

Over the Sun-tap station--a ringed layout like the others, whose cluster
of masts caught the emanations of the distant Sun on the one hand and
directed them outward to the still unseen planet Pluto on the other--the
ship halted. It drew up fifty miles, pointed its tail and blasted forth
a rocket-driven, tactical atomic bomb.

The blast on Oberon was tiny compared to the one which had devastated
Iapetus, but it still left a deep indentation in the surface for future
space fliers to see.

They left it and the Uranian orbit behind them and headed outward once
again. Behind them now lay the worlds of the Sun's family, while far off
to one side lay the tiny light of Neptune. Ahead, between them and the
vast gulf of interstellar space, lay only the dark, mysterious ninth
planet, the enigmatic world name