through thedarkness toward the island. Nothing was visible in the faintphorphor-glow that marked the Venusian night, but they could just hear adistant singing as of many voices lifted in chorus.
"What do you think happened to the city so suddenly?" Steve asked. Gerryshrugged.
"I suppose some mist hid it."
"There wasn't any mist," Steve said flatly, "anyway--we could see thelow hills on shore just as clearly after the city disappeared as before.Anyway...."
"Listen!" Gerry interrupted.
Now they could again hear the sound of bells coming across the water.Half the time the sound was swept away by the night breeze, half thetime they could just hear it. The bells were of many blended tones andnotes, an immense carillon. They were singing some outland melody thatwas full of the surge of ocean breezes and the cries of the sea birds.It rose, and swelled, and died away again.
"The city's there, all right," Gerry said slowly. "Though I can'timagine why we don't see any lights with the sound of the bells thatclose. But we'll see in the morning."
"I tell you there is no city," Closana said, her voice troubled. "Wehave often sailed ships into these waters from the Savissan coast, andwe know that none of these Outer Isles are inhabited. What you haveheard must be the ghosts of the Old Ones, ancient phantoms speedingthrough the skies. There is a legend that the bells of their phantomships can sometimes be heard off the coast at night."
"Ghosts or no ghosts, we're going ashore there in the morning!" Gerrysaid stubbornly.
* * * * *
All night the _Viking_ rode to a crude anchor that Angus had improvisedfrom some spare parts on board. The space-ship's designers had neverexpected her to lie in water. Most of the crew were on deck as soon asit grew light enough to see. Ahead of them, less than half a mile away,stretched a sandy shore backed by a line of low hills. The island had awealth of the yellow vegetation typical of the mainland of Venus, sothat it had a more friendly appearance than the other specks of landwhich dotted the Great Sea and were only bare rock, but there was nosign of life. Certainly there was no trace of any city! There was noteven an indication of human habitation at all. As the dawn-mists clearedaway they could see that another range of hills stretched along thehorizon some miles behind. Their greenish-yellow slopes were clear andsharp against the cloudy sky beyond, and they were located well in therear of where the city had appeared to be in that hasty glimpse thenight before.
"Ready the landing party!" Gerry commanded. "Full armor and equipment!"
They gently beached the space-ship on the sloping expanse of sand,running her nose a little way up above the water level while the lightsurf lapped her dripping sides. Some giant crabs scurried away acrossthe beach in startled surprise.
"Want to go ashore, Angus?" Gerry asked as McTavish's red bearded facecame up through an escape hatch. The big engineer shook his head.
"I'll just stay aboard here and brood over my broken helicopters,thanks. My last trip ashore took care of all my wanderlust for thepresent."
Gerry took half the vessel's crew with him, leaving the other half onguard. Closana went with the landing party. With their armor gleaming inthe golden light, ray-guns and other weapons ready, they tramped upacross the loose sand of the beach. Beyond the shore line was firmerground, a field of some low plants that grew in orderly yellow rows.
"I'll swallow my ray-tube if this isn't a field cultivated by man!Nature was never that orderly," Steve Brent muttered. Gerry shrugged.
"Lord knows! If we ever get those helicopters fixed, I'm all for a quickreturn to Earth. This planet is certainly no peaceful garden of Eden,and I've had pretty near all I want of it. Savissa was the only place Ireally liked. I wonder what's happening there now!"
"We'll know if anything very exciting turns up," Steve said. "When westarted out on our search after you disappeared that night, I left Tandabehind with a portable radio to keep us posted. Sort of figured it wasour base on Venus, and anyway there was always the chance you mightwander back there."
"Great planetoids--I just thought of something! As soon as we get backto the ship, remind me to radio Tanda to tell Rupin-Sang that the ScalyOnes had learned to use the old sewers, and that he must either blockthem off or place a heavy guard there."
For a mile they walked inland, across those odd fields. The orderly rowsof plants stretched off to the horizon on both sides. And then they cameto a kind of level plain. The ground before them was strange looking, sostrange that Gerry called a halt while he stared down the slight slopeat it.
* * * * *
Most of the plain was of bare rock, rock that was absolutely smooth andlevel without any sign of weathering at all. Along the outer edge it waspitted at regular intervals by what looked like shallow wells a foot indiameter. Beyond that zone were many excavations of many sizes andshapes, all cut down into the solid rock with the sides perfectlystraight and smooth. Gerry took off his helmet and scratched his head.
"Now what do you make of that?"
"I know what it looks like to me," Steve said. "It looks just like thefoundations of a city--without the city. Those round pits are theanchorages of the outer wall. Those square holes are the basements oftall buildings. Only--somebody has lifted the whole city away."
"You're crazy!" Gerry growled. Steve shrugged.
"Maybe we all are! Anyway, I'm going to take a look into one of thoseholes."
Steve walked quickly forward toward the nearest of the round pits.Suddenly, just as he reached the very edge of the zone of bare rock,there was a dull clash of steel. Something had seemed to pick Steve upbodily and hurl him backward. He landed flat on his back on the ground,his helmet bouncing off and rolling a few feet away.
"It hit me," he shouted.
"What did?"
"I don't know." Steve sat up and rubbed his head. "Y' know, Chief, itreally felt more as though I'd just walked squarely into a solid stonewall."
"It has just occurred to me," Gerry said slowly, "that maybe that'sexactly what you _did_ do!"
Gerry walked forward cautiously, a foot at a time, one hand stretchedout before him. When he reached a spot on line with the place whereSteve had been stopped, his hand encountered something cool and firm andsmooth. It was like the surface of a highly polished stone wall. Or asheet of heavy and invisible glass. He ran both his hands over it. Thething was continuous and solid. There was nothing visible to the eye,and he could see far ahead of him across the strangely surfaced rockyplain, but there was an impenetrable barrier blocking the path.
Stepping back a few feet, Gerry picked up a pebble and tossed it upward.The stone bounced sharply back as soon as it came in line with theinvisible barrier. He threw the pebble higher and the same thinghappened. There was something mysterious and disquieting about the waythe stone would soar up into the clear air--and then sharply bounceback from a point in space where nothing at all was visible.
"Magic!" Closana said nervously. Even the Earth-men of the landing partyhad drawn together in a compact group, ray-tubes ready and eyes alert.
Gerry moved back a few feet farther, then hurled the stone forward andupward as high as he could. This time the pebble did not bounce back. Itsimply vanished in thin air. And then, from somewhere off in theemptiness of space above them, there came the sound of a deep andmocking laughter!
* * * * *
As though that first laugh had somehow eased the necessity for acarefully enforced silence, there came a whole burst of unseen and eeriemerriment. There was a murmur of many voices. Then it died away again.There was still nothing visible, and the silence was once more unbroken.
"For Lord's sake, let's get out of here!" Portok gasped. "This place isghost ridden!"
"There are no ghosts here, little red-faced man!" boomed a voice.
The sound had seemed to come from somewhere overhead. From the emptyvoid above, where there was nothing at all until the cloud canopy wasreached many thousands of feet up. O
ne of the _Viking's_ crew bared histeeth in a sudden panic and lifted his ray-gun to fire blindly upward.Before he could pull the trigger there was a blinding blue flash and acrash like summer thunder. Captive lightning! The ray-gun flew from theman's hands and landed a few feet away, its wooden stock badly charredand its barrel a glowing mass of fused metal.
"Let your weapons rest, for they are useless here!" commanded that samebooming voice from above. "Whence came ye, strangers in odd clothing whohave traveled in a ship like a blue whale? What do ye seek here in theOuter Isles?"
Gerry stepped forward, a few feet ahead of the group. He shouted thatthey were a scientific exploring party who had come from Earth in