Valley of the Sun," she
said, "lies a secret place known only to our women. Our mother says that
she and I and Anina can spread the news among our virgins to gather there
to-morrow at the time of sleep. Only to those we know we can trust will we
speak--and they will have no men to whom to tell our plans. To-morrow they
will gather up there in the clouds, among the crags, unseen by prying
eyes. And you and our--our friend Ollie"--she smiled as she used the
nickname by which he had asked her to call him--"you two we will take
there by the method you have told us. We will arrange, up there in secret,
what it is we are to do to help our world and yours."

This, in effect, was our immediate plan of procedure. Nearly all the next
day Mercer and I stayed about the house, while the three women went
through the city quietly, calling forth all those they could reach to our
conclave in the mountains.

They returned some time after midday. Miela came first, alighting with a
swift, triumphant swoop upon the roof where Mercer and I were sitting.

One glance at her face told me she had been successful.

"They will come, my husband," she announced. "And they are ready and
eager, all of them, to do what they can."

Anina and Lua brought the same news. When we were all together again
Mercer and I took them to the garden behind the house and showed them what
we had done while they were away.

It was my plan to have the girls carry Mercer and me through the air with
them. For that purpose we had built a platform of bamboo, which now lay
ready in the garden.

Miela clapped her hands at sight of it. "That is perfect, my husband. No
difficulty will there be in taking you with us now."

The platform was six feet wide by ten long. It rested upon a frame with
two poles of bamboo some forty feet in length running lengthwise along its
edges. These two poles thus projected in front and back of the platform
fifteen feet each way. Running under them crosswise at intervals were
other, shorter bamboo lengths which projected out the sides a few feet to
form handles. There were ten of them on a side at intervals of four feet.

I found it difficult to realize the difference between night and day,
since here on Mercury the light never changed. I longed now for that
darkness of our own earth which would make it so much easier for us to
conceal our movements. Miela relieved my mind on that score, however, by
explaining that at nearly the same hour