y
paused and glanced about them, they saw that the _Skylark_ had alighted
in the exact center of a circular enclosure a hundred yards in diameter,
walled by row upon row of shrubbery, statuary, and fountains, all bathed
in ever-changing billows of light. At only one point was the circle
broken. There the walls did not come together, but continued on to
border a lane leading up to the massive structure of cream-and-green
marble, topped by its enormous, glassy dome--the observatory of Orlon.

"Welcome to Norlamin, Terrestrials," the deep, calm voice of the
astronomer greeted them, and Orlon in the flesh shook hands cordially in
the American fashion with each of them in turn, and placed around each
neck a crystal chain from which depended a small Norlaminian
chronometer-radiophone. Behind him there stood four other old men.

"These men are already acquainted with each of you, but you do not as
yet know them. I present Fodan, Chief of the Five of Norlamin. Rovol,
about whom you know. Astron, the First of Energy. Satrazon, the First of
Chemistry."

Orlon fell in beside Seaton and the party turned toward the observatory.
As they walked along the Earth-people stared, held by the unearthly
beauty of the grounds. The hedge of shrubbery, from ten to twenty feet
high, and which shut out all sight of everything outside it, was one
mass of vivid green and flaring crimson leaves; each leaf and twig
groomed meticulously into its precise place in a fantastic geometrical
scheme. Just inside this boundary there stood a ring of statues of
heroic size. Some of them were single figures of men and women; some
were busts; some were groups in natural or allegorical poses--all were
done with consummate skill and feeling. Between the statues there were
fountains, magnificent bronze and glass groups of the strange aquatic
denizens of this strange planet, bathed in geometrically shaped sprays,
screens, and columns of water. Winding around between the statues and
the fountains there was a moving, scintillating wall, and upon the
waters and upon the wall there played torrents of color, cataracts of
harmoniously blended light. Reds, blues, yellows, greens--every color of
their peculiar green spectrum and every conceivable combination of those
colors writhed and flamed in ineffable splendor upon those deep and
living screens of falling water and upon that shimmering wall.

As they entered the lane, Seaton saw with amazement that what he had
suppos