the palace, where the vestibule had dropped its load. It was the sun
shining upon some broken bits of glass; the glass which, for untold
ages, had enclosed the throne of the Death-lord.



Part IV

THE QUEEN OF LIFE

I

NEXT STOP, VENUS!


When he first got the idea of the sky-car, the doctor never stopped to
consider whether he was the right man for such an excursion. Personally,
he hated travel. He was merely a general practitioner, with a great
fondness for astronomy; and the sole reason why he wanted to visit the
planets was that he couldn't see them well enough with his telescope. So
he dabbled a little in magnetism and so forth, and stumbled upon the
principle of the cube.

But he had no mechanical ability, and was on the point of giving up the
scheme when he met Smith. He was instantly impressed by the engineer's
highly commonplace face; he had had considerable experience with human
contrariness, and felt sure that Smith must be an absolute wonder, since
he looked so very ordinary.

Kinney's diagnosis proved correct. Smith knew his business; the