king of
the men and women lying with lungs ruptured, cold and stiff, in the
interior of the _Althea_; of the possible few wretches who had managed
to huddle into space-suits, ignorant of the deadly gas that was soon
to search out their seemingly impenetrable habiliments.

Slowly, ever more slowly, they fell. Thin wisps of reddish vapor
rushed upward toward them, and then they were enveloped in vast swirls
of cloud masses. They were within the Great Spot!

Then the lurid clouds parted suddenly, revealing a deep hole, at the
bottom of which flamed and flared the mysterious yellow-orange
brilliance. Down the long shaft they fell, while all around its
invisible walls dark red cyclones stirred and beat in vain.

* * * * *

Just as it seemed as if they were doomed to fall headlong into the
blaze, they were swerved violently into an opening that angled off
from the main shaft. Down this branching shaft they continued to
fall--interminably--when suddenly it widened, and they were dropping
through the interior of a great dome of which the arched roof was the
swirling clouds they had just penetrated. Directly beneath floated a
flat island of smooth rock, supported and upheld by a shining sea of
vapors.

The girl exclaimed sharply, but Grant only nodded to himself with grim
satisfaction. He had expected something like this. For, clustered in
serried rows at the end of the island directly beneath them were
sleek, stream-lined grayhounds of the interplanetary traffic lanes,
now resting immovably on the smooth gray stone--the missing
space-liners!

The island was bisected by a huge forbidding wall, over which, at
their angle, Grant was unable to see.

The ground was encumbered too with clumps of intricate machinery, all
of the same polished gray stone; Ganymedan stone, Ganymedan machinery,
Pemberton recognized at once. Hundreds of figures were scurrying
awkwardly around, clad in the inevitable space-suit. Several were
working desperately at a huge concave glass reflector. Others were
pointing a stone nozzle, extending out of a pit, directly upward.

"I'm afraid." Nona shuddered and pressed closer to Grant.

"Don't be," he assured her. "Just say nothing when we land. Let me do
the talking."

All this while they had been floating gently downward toward what they
now saw to be a miniature replica of the vaster orange brightness at
the bottom of the main shaft from which they had been diverted.