tes of artificial matter had closed upon it, destroying the
apparatus, lest some unwelcome finder use it. There was little about it,
the gravity apparatus alone perhaps, that might have been of use to
Thett, and Thett already had the ray--but why take needless risk?

Then once more they were racing toward Venone. Soon the giant star of
which it was a planet loomed enormous. Then, at Morey's direction, they
swung, and before them loomed a planet. Large as Thett, near a half
million miles in diameter, its mass was very closely equal to that of
our sun. Yet it was but the burned-out sweepings of the outermost
photospheric layers of this giant sun, and the radioactive atoms that
made a sun active were not here; it was a cold planet. But its density
was far, far higher than that of our sun, for our sun is but slightly
denser than ordinary sea water. This world was dense as copper, for with
the deeper sweepings of the tidal strains that had formed it, more of
the heavier atoms had gone into its making, and its core was denser than
that of Earth.

About it swept two gigantic satellite Worlds, each larger than Jupiter,
but satellites of a satellite here! And Venone itself was inhabited by
countless millions, yet their low, green tile and metal cities were
invisible in the aspect of rolling lands with tiny hillocks, dwarfed by
gigantic bulbous trees that floated their enormous weight in the
water-dense atmosphere.

Here, too, there were no seas, for the temperature was above the
critical temperature of water, and only in the self-cooling bodies of
these men and in the trees which similarly cooled themselves, could
there be liquid.

The sun of the world was another of the giant red stars, close to three
hundred and fifty times the mass of our sun. It was circled by but three
giant planets. Its enormous disc was almost invisible from the surface
of the world as the _Thought_ sank slowly through fifteen thousand miles
of air, due to the screening effect on light passing through so much
air. Earth could have rested on this planet and not extended beyond its
atmosphere! Had Earth been situated at this planet's center, the Moon
could have revolved about it, and would not have been beyond the
planet's surface!

In silent wonder the terrestrians watched the titanic world as they
sank, and their friends looked on amazed, comprehending even less of the
significance of what they saw. Already within the titanic gravitational
field, th