CHAPTER XVI

_Playground of Venus_

After a trip uneventful--save that to me, taking it for the first time,

it was an experience never to be forgotten in a lifetime--we landed at

the Great City of Venus. We had sent no messages during the trip, and

with our grey-blue color, I think we escaped telescopic and even radio

observation by the Earth. Into our vessel's small instrument room, where

Tarrano spent most of his time, reports of the news occasionally drifted

in. But his connection--small and inadequate--was often broken. Nor did

Tarrano this time seem interested in having Wolfgar, Elza and me learn

the news. Yet it was not unfavorable to him. I gathered that the Earth

formally had accepted his declaration of war. Relations with Venus--and

with Mars also, had been discontinued. The mails no longer left. The

helios were stopped. But, so far as I could learn, the Earth was

undertaking no offensive action. For the present, certainly.

Soon we were beyond reach of all messages save helios, which were not in

operation. And in another day news began reaching us from Venus. But

from this Tarrano barred us.

I saw Venus, as we dropped upon it, first as a tremendous lovely

crescent of silver beneath us. A crescent first, and, as hours passed,

the darkened area took shape. A ball hanging there in space. Growing

almost momentarily larger. Soon we could distinguish cloud areas. Then

the land--the water. A ball filling half our lower segment of sky. Then

all of it.

We reached the Venus atmosphere, passed through cloud masses, and out

again into the brilliant sunshine. Below us, glowing with the glory of

mid-day, lay the Venus Central State. Rolling hills with distant

mountain peaks, the highest of them far-away, glittering white with the

sunlight on their snow-caps.

A land of warmth and beauty. Dazzling green, with a luxuriant

vegetation, tropical yet strange.

As we dropped lower, I sat alone, gazing downward. We were passing over

the land now, at an altitude of no more than twenty thousand feet. A

vivid land. Vivid sunlight; inky shadows; a green to everything--a

solid, brilliant green. Amid it, spots of other colors; splashes of

yellow; patches of scarlet as though some huge field were massed with

scarlet blossoms. And trailing silver threads--rivers and streams. Or

again glittering silver lakes nestling in the hills.

A fairyland of beauty. Yet as I gazed, it seemed not the fairyland of a

child. Not childish, but mature; for I could not miss in its aspect, a

warmth, a quality of sensuousness. A land of dalliance and pleasure of

the senses. And I realized then why the Venus people derived all their

advancement of science and industry from Earthly and Martian sources. A

hand of luxury and physical ease. People, not primitive--but decadent.

I became aware of Wolfgar at my elbow. "It is very beautiful, eh, Jac

Hallen?"

"Beautiful--yes. You've been here before, Wolfgar?"

He nodded. "Oh yes. Soon we will reach the Great City. That too is

strange and beautiful."

Elza saw us together and joined us. The Great City presently came into

distant view. Wolfgar, with that gentle voice and smile characteristic

of him began to describe to us what we should see. Abruptly Elza said:

"I have never really thanked you, Wolfgar. You saved my life--there when

Tara attacked me."

He gestured. "Your thanks are more than such a service deserves."

As though the subject had suggested Georg and Maida to him, he added,

"I am wondering where Georg Brende and the Princess Maida may be."

I fancied then that I saw a quality of wistfulness in his eyes. A gentle

little fellow, this Mars man. Queer and brooding, with strange thoughts

not to be fathomed. He added as though to himself: "I have often

wondered--" Then stopped.

Elza and I had discussed it. We felt sure that Georg and Maida had been

taken to Venus. They could have had only a few hours' start of

ourselves. Yet this vessel we were in was unusually slow. We felt

convinced that they had already arrived on Venus--had been there perhaps

already for a day.

We discussed it now with Wolfgar as the Great City came under us; but

soon we fell silent, gazing down into this beautiful capital of the

Central State.

It lay in a broad hollow, a large, irregular circular bowl surrounded by

gently sloping hillsides. The bowl was entirely filled by water--a broad

flat lake of silver which from this height showed us its pearly bottom.

On the water--seen from above--the houses seemed floating--clusters of

lily pads on a placid shining pool. They were, in reality, flat cubical

buildings solidly built of rectangular blocks of stone, standing just

above the water level on solid stone foundations. Always green and

white--stones like blocks of smooth, polished marble, set in green and

white patterns. Balconies and cornices of what might have been gleaming,

beaten copper. Flat roofs, edged with scarlet flowers.

Some of the buildings were low and small. Others of several stories,

pretentious and ornate. One very large, like a palace, standing alone on

its verdant island.

The houses were mostly gathered in clusters of various shapes and sizes.

Yet a semblance of order prevailed. Winding streets of open water lay

between the groups. There were trellised walks and arching spider

bridges, sometimes over the streets, sometimes joining one house to

another.

Here and there I saw lagoons of open water, dotted with small green

islands like parks--islands on which the vegetation grew far higher and

more luxuriant than any even in the tropics of our Earth. Vegetation

always under careful training and control. Profuse with flowers, vivid

and gigantic. The houses too, were roofed with gardens--sometimes

with pergolas and trellises of the aerial scarlet blossoms.

Occasionally--these latter details I observed as we descended close upon

the city--I saw houses with a tiny swimming pool on the roof--a private

pool hidden in masses of colored flowers.

A playground--the playground of Venus. It seemed very

backward--uncivilized. And then Wolfgar pointed out the surrounding

hillsides. On them, cleared of their vegetation, our modern civilization

stood gaunt and efficient. Towers, aerials, landing stages, aerial

trams, factories, tall stacks over the dynamo houses belching thick

black smoke, which artificial wind-generators carefully blew away from

the city.

In the midst of their hillside ring of necessary modernity, the people

of the Great City had kept their playground inviolate. Work, science,

industry--all necessary. But the real business of life was pleasure.

Art, music, beauty.... And I am not far from thinking that unless

abused, their formula is better than ours.