eserted. We passed over the Divide, and on the plateau beyond,
we landed. A region of rolling country beneath its snow and ice. The
mountains came down sharply to the inner plain--a crescent of mountain
range stretching off into the dimness of distance, half encircling this
white plateau in the center of which stood the City of Ice. We could
just see it at the horizon, the glittering spires of its Ice Palace.

Around the city, completely enveloping it, was a thick circular wall of
ice twenty times the height of a man. We were too far away to see it
plainly--a turreted wall doubtless armed with projectors throughout its
circular length. Our finders would not show it, for it was insulated
against them. It stood there grey-white, bleak and apparently deserted.

Georg said: "It's the man's accursed inactivity! Is he going to do
nothing?... Our power plant has landed, Jac--there in the foothills--see
it drop?" A call from Rhaalton took his attention.

We landed our entire force in the foothills of the mountains. The power
plant was there; it looked like a squat industrial building set upon a
ledge of ice--a shining cliff-face behind it, a precipice in front. At
the foot of the precipice our other vehicles were clustered.

We were there throughout three entire times of sleep, hours strangely
the same in that unaltered polar twilight. During them, with the tower
platforms set in a ring about us to make an armed camp, we unloaded our
apparatus, erected our power controls, prepared the individual circuits,
making ready for our offensive. And still--though we, were alert for
it--no move from Tarrano.

They were hours during which, with my lack of technical knowledge, I
found myself often with nothing to do. Our camp was bustling with
activity, but among the now idle girls and many of the young men, there
was an air of gayety. They laughed, shouted, played games amid the rocks
from which we had long since melted the snow. Once, in what would have
been early evening had not the Sun in these latitudes held level like a
burned-out ball near the horizon, Elza and I wandered from the camp to
climb the cliffs nearby.

Beyond the circle of the camp's heat, the deadly cold of the region
assailed us. We had not wished to equip with the individual heating,
which for battle would leave us free of heavy garments; instead we
swathed ourselves in furs, with the exercise of climbing to aid us in
keeping warm.

It was wonderful to be again