the Saturnian
System was revolving round them. The arch seemed to sink beneath their
feet while the belts of the planet rose above them.

"What on earth is the matter?" said Zaidie. "Everything has gone upside
down."

"Which shows," replied Redgrave, "that as soon as the _Astronef_ became
neutral the rings pulled harder than the planet, I suppose because we're
so near to them, and, instead of falling on to Saturn, we shall have to
push up at him."

"Oh yes, I see that," said Zaidie, "but after all it does look a little
bit bewildering, doesn't it, to be on your feet one minute and on your
head the next?"

"It is, rather; but you ought to be getting accustomed to that sort of
thing now. In a few minutes neither you, nor I, nor anything else will
have any weight. We shall be just between the attraction of the rings
and Saturn, so you'd better go and sit down, for if you were to give a
bit of an extra spring in walking you might be knocking that pretty head
of yours against the roof," said Redgrave, as he went to turn the R.
Force on to the edge of the rings.

A vast sea of silver cloud seemed now to descend upon them. Then they
entered it, and for nearly half an hour the _Astronef_ was totally
enveloped in a sea of pearl-grey luminous mist.

"Atmosphere!" said Redgrave, as he went to the conning-tower and
signalled to Murgatroyd to start the propellers. They continued to rise
and the mist began to drift past them in patches, showing that the
propellers were driving them ahead.

They now rose swiftly towards the surface of the planet. The cloud-wrack
got thinner and thinner, and presently they found themselves floating in
a clear atmosphere between two seas of cloud, the one above them being
much less dense than the one below.

"I believe we shall see Saturn on the other side of that," said Zaidie,
looking up at it. "Oh dear, there we are going round again."

"Reaching the point of neutral attraction," said Redgrave; "once more
you'd better sit down in case of accidents."

Instead of dropping into her deck-chair as she would have done on Earth,
she took hold of the arms and pulled herself into it, saying:

"Really, it seems rather absurd to have to do this sort of thing. Fancy
having to hold yourself into a chair. I suppose I hardly weigh anything
at all now."

"Not much," said Redgrave, stooping down and taking hold of the end of
the chair with both hands. Without any apparent effort he raised her
about f