ly along under leaden skies--perpetual,
dim, dark clouds. Despite the brightness of the sun above them, the
clouds made the light dim and gray. They reflected such an enormous
percentage of the light that struck them that the climate was not as hot
as they had feared.

The ground was dark under its somber mantle of clouds; the hills, the
rivers that crawled across wide plains, and the oddly stunted forests
all looked as though they had been modeled in a great mass of
greenish-gray putty. It was a discouraging world.

"I'm glad we didn't wait for our swim here," remarked Wade. "It sure
looks like rain."

Arcot stopped the ship and held it motionless at ten miles while Wade
made his chemical analysis of the air. The report looked favorable;
plenty of oxygen and a trace of carbon dioxide mixed with nitrogen.

"But the water vapor!" Wade said. "The air is saturated with it! It
won't be the heat, but the humidity that'll bother us--to coin a
phrase."

Arcot dropped the ship still farther, at the same time moving forward
toward a sea he had seen in the distance. Swiftly, the ground sped
beneath them. The low plain sloped toward the sea, a vast, level surface
of gray, leaden water.

"Oh, brother, what a pleasant world," said Fuller sarcastically.

It was certainly not an inspiring scene. The leaden skies, the heavy
clouds, the dark land, and the gray-green of the sea, always shaded in
perpetual half-light, lest the burning sun heat them beyond endurance.
It was a gloomy world.

They turned and followed the coast. Still no sign of inhabitants was
visible. Mile after mile passed beneath them as the shining ship
followed up the ragged shore. Small indentations and baylets ran into a
shallow, level sea. This world had no moon, so it was tideless, except
for the slight solar tides.

Finally, far ahead of them, and well back from the coast, Arcot spotted
a great mountain range.

"I'm going to head for that," he told the others. "If these people are
at war with our very inimical friends of the other planet, chances are
they'll put their cities in the mountains, too."

They had such cities. The _Ancient Mariner_ had penetrated less than a
hundred miles along the twisted ranges of the mountains before they saw,
far ahead, a great, cone-shaped city. The city was taller, larger than
those of the other planet, and the cone ran up farther from the actual
city buildings, leaving the aircraft more room.

Arcot stopped and wat