hurried
furtively into the desert of red sand.

Making a wide circuit about the fantastic city of green metal, which
Larry had seen from the air, they struck out eastward across the
desolate ocherous waste. The food in the urn, eaten sparingly, lasted
until the end of the eighth day.

On the morning of the ninth, they came in view of the green line of
the ancient canal. It was hours later that they staggered weakly over
its wall of crumbling masonry, clambered down into the muddy,
weed-grown channel, and drank thirstily of green, tepid water.

Larry found his old trail, beyond the canal. They followed it back. In
the middle of the afternoon they stumbled up to the thicket of spiky
desert growth, in which Larry had hidden the plane.

The machine was undamaged.

* * * * *

Before sunset, Larry had removed the stake ropes, slipped the canvas
cover from the motor, turned the plane around, inspected it, and
examined the strip of smooth, hard red sand upon which he had landed.

Agnes pointed out the dim band of crimson across the sky, from north
to south, slowly rising toward the zenith.

"That's the red ray," she said. "We fly into it."

"And a happy moment when we do," Larry rejoined.

He roused the motor to life.

As the bar of crimson light neared the zenith, the plane rolled
forward across the sand and took off. Climbing steeply, Larry
anxiously watched the approach of the red band. The gravitation of the
Pygmy Planet seemed to diminish as he gained altitude, until presently
he could fly vertically from it, without circling at all. He set the
bow toward the scarlet bar across the sky before him.

And suddenly he was flying through ruby flame.

His eyes went to the little scale at the corner of the instrument
board. He saw the little ebon needle waver, leave the mark designated
"Pygmy Planet Normal" and start toward "Earth Normal."

For what seemed a long time, he was wheeling down the crimson ray. A
few times he looked back at Agnes, in the rear seat. She had gone to
sleep.

Then a vast, circular field was below--the crystal platform.

Larry landed the plane upon it, taxied to the center and stopped
there, with the motor idling. The laboratory, taking shape in the blue
abyss about him, seemed to contract swiftly.

* * * * *

Presently the plane covered most of the crystal disk. He taxied
quickly off, stopped on the floor nearby, and cut