robably by that other city. Now,
we've come nearly halfway around this world; certainly we couldn't have
gone much farther away and still be on the planet. And we find this city
in league with the other! Since this league goes halfway around the
world, and they expected us to do the same, isn't it fair to assume,
just on the basis of geographical location, that all this world is in
one league?"

"Hmmm--an interplanetary war," mused Arcot. "That would certainly prove
that one of the other planets is inhabited. The question is--which one?"

"The most probable one is the next inner planet, Aphrodite," replied
Morey.

Arcot fired the ship into the sky. "If your conclusions are
correct--and I think they are--I see no reason to stay on this planet.
Let's go see if their neighbors are less aggressive!"

With that, he shot the ship straight up, rotating the axis until it was
pointing straight away from the planet. He increased the acceleration
until, as they left the outer fringes of the atmosphere, the ship was
hitting a full four gravities.

"I'm going to shorten things up and use the space control," Arcot said.
"The gravitational field of the sun will drain a lot of our energy out,
but so what? Lead is cheap, and before we're through, we'll have plenty
or I'll know the reason why!"

Dr. Richard Arcot was angry--boiling all the way through!

XV

There was the familiar tension in the air as the space field built up
and they were hurled suddenly forward; the star-like dot of the planet
suddenly expanded as they rushed forward at a speed far greater than
that of light. In a moment, it had grown to a disc; Arcot stopped the
space control. Again they were moving forward on molecular drive.

Very shortly, Arcot began to decelerate. Within ten minutes, they were
beginning to feel the outermost wisps of the cloud-laden atmosphere. The
heat of the blazing sun was intense; the surface of the planet was, no
doubt, a far warmer place than Earthmen would find comfortable. They
would have been far better suited to remain on the other planet, but
they very evidently were not wanted!

They dropped down through the atmosphere, sinking for miles as the ship
slowed to the retarding influence of the air and the molecular power.
Down they went, through mile after mile of heavy cloud layer, unable to
see the ground beneath them.

Then, suddenly, the thick, all-enveloping mists that held them were
gone. They were flying smooth