t
extended for a quarter of a mile back through the great hull, and
completely across the fuselage. To the extreme nose it ran, and
throughout there were scattered little globes that gave off an intense
white light, illuminating all of the interior. Translucent bull's-eyes
obscured the few windows.

All about, among the machines, lay Venerians. Dead they seemed, the
illusion intensified by their strangely blue complexions. The two
Terrestrians knew, however, that they could readily be restored to life.
The great machines they had been operating were humming softly, almost
inaudibly. There were two long rows of them, extending to the end of
the great hall. They suggested mighty generators twenty feet high. From
their tops projected two-feet-thick cylinders of solid fused quartz.
From these extended other rods of fused quartz, rods that led down
through the floor; but these were less bulky, scarcely over eight inches
thick.

The huge generator-like machines were disc-shaped. From these, too, a
quartz rod ran down through the floor. The machines on the further row
were in some way different; those in the front half of the row had the
tubes leading to the floor below, but had no tubes jutting into the
ceiling. Instead, there were many slender rods connected with a vast
switchboard that covered all of one side of the great room. But
everywhere were the great quartz rods, suggesting some complicated water
system. Most of them were painted black, though the main rods leading
from the roof above were as clear as crystal.

Arcot and Wade looked at these gigantic machines in hushed awe. They
seemed impossibly huge; it was inconceivable that all this was but the
power room of an airplane!

Without speaking, they descended to the level below, using a quite
earthly appearing escalator. Despite the motionless figures everywhere,
they felt no fear of their encountering resistance. They knew the
effectiveness of Wade's anesthetic.

The hall they entered was evidently the main room of the plane. It was
as long as the one above, and higher, yet all that vast space was taken
by one single, titanic coil that stretched from wall to wall! Into it,
and from it there led two gigantic columns of fused quartz. That these
were rods, such as those smaller ones above was obvious, but each was
over eight feet thick!

Short they were, for they led from one mighty generator such as they had
seen above, but magnified on a scale inconceivable! A