ifice that rose, a tremendous tower of black and gold, a full half
mile in the air.

The outer parts of the city were evidently the residential districts,
the low buildings and the wide streets with the little green lawns
showing the care of the individual owner. Then came the apartment houses
and the small stores; these rose in gentle slopes, higher and higher,
merging at last with the mighty central pinnacle of beauty. The city was
designed as a whole, not in a multitude of individually beautiful, but
inharmonious units, like some wild mixture of melodies, each in itself
beautiful, but mutually discordant.

V

The Terrestrians followed their escort high above these great buildings,
heading toward the great central tower. In a moment they were above it,
and in perfect order the ships of the Venerians shot down to land
smoothly, but at high speed. On the roof of the building they slowed
with startling rapidity, held back by electromagnets under the top
dressing of the roof landing, as Arcot learned later.

"We can't land on that--this thing weighs too much--we'd probably sink
right through it! The street looks wide enough for us to land there."
Arcot maneuvered the _Solarite_ over the edge of the roof, and dropped
it swiftly down the half mile to the ground below. Just above the
street, he leveled off, and descended slowly, giving the hurrying crowds
plenty of time to get from beneath it.

Landing finally, he looked curiously at the mass of Venerians who had
gathered in the busy street, coming out of buildings where they
evidently had sought shelter during the raid. The crowd grew rapidly as
the Terrestrians watched them--people of a new world.

"Why," exclaimed Fuller in startled surprise, "they look almost like
us!"

"Why not?" laughed Arcot. "Is there any particular reason why they
shouldn't look like us? Venus and Earth are very nearly the same size,
and are planets of the same parent sun. Physical conditions here appear
to be very similar to conditions back home, and if there's anything to
Svend Arrehenius' theory of life spores being sent from world to world
by sunlight, there's no reason why humanoid races cannot be found
throughout the universe. On worlds, that is, suitable for the
development of such life forms."

"Look at the size of 'em," Fuller commented.

Their size was certainly worth noting, for in all that crowd only the
obviously young were less than six feet tall. The average seemed