We provisioned the ship for a long cruise, said our goodbys, and took off early one morning. I knew that Duare didn't want me to go by the expression in her eyes and the way she clung to me. I promised her that I would be back in not more then three days; and with her kisses still warm upon my lips, I climbed into the forward cockpit with Ero. Shan and took off.
I had never flown very far west over Anlap, and as that part of the continent has never been thoroughly explored I decided to cruise in that direction and have a look at it. Sanara is at the extreme eastern end of Anlap, which, according to Amtorian maps, extends in a westerly direction for about three thousand miles. But as Amtorian maps are based upon an erroneous eon-eeption of the shape of the planet, I was sure that the distance was nearer six thousand miles than three thousand.
Barring accidents, I felt that we should make the round trip in something like twenty-five hours flying at full speed; but as I wished to map the country roughly, we would have to fly much slower on the way out.
However, I felt that three days would give us ample time. It would also be an adequate test flight for the anotir.
We passed over some very beautiful country the first day, and came down for the night in the center of a vast plain upon which there was no sign of human habitation and therefore no likelihood of our being attacked during the night. However, we took turns keeping watch.
When we awoke, the inner cloud envelope hung much lower than I had ever before seen it; and it was billowing up and down. I had never before seen it so agitated.
However, we took off and continued on toward the west with a ceiling of about two thousand feet.
We had not flown far before I noticed that our eom-pass was behaving most erratically. Though I knew that we were still flying due west, because of landmarks I had noted on our map the evening before, the compass indicated that we were flying south; and presently it gave up the ghost entirely, the needle swinging back and forth, sometimes a full three hundred and sixty degrees.
And to make matters worse, the inner cloud envelope was dropping lower and lower. In less than half an hour our ceiling had fallen from two thousand to a thousand feet.
"This," I said to Ero Shan, "is the end of our test flight. I am going to turn back. We've mapped the country well enough to fly back to Sanara without any compass, but I certainly won't take the risk of flying on any farther with those clouds dropping lower and lower all the time and with no compass to guide us if they should eventually envelop us."
"You're absolutely right," agreed Ero Shan. "Look at 'em now. They've dropped to within five hundred feet in the last.fifteen minutes."
"I'm going to land and wait it' out as soon as we get beyond this forest," I said.
We were flying over a considerable area of forest land where a forced landing would have meant a crackup, which, if we survived it, would mean a long 'walk of between five and six thousand miles back to Sanara through a savage wilderness inhabited by terrible beasts and, perhaps, even more terrible men. It was something we couldn't afford to risk. We must cross that forest before the clouds enveloped us.
With throttle wide we raced above that vast expanse of heliotrope and lavendar foliage which, like a beautiful mantle of flowers across a casket, hid death beneath!
And the clouds were settling lower and lower.
I estimated the height of the trees at about a hundred feet; and now, above the trees, we had a ceiling of about fifty feet. The forest stretched on interminably before us as far as the eye could reach. On the way out we had crossed this forest in fifteen minutes; so I realized that, flying without benefit of compass, our course was not due east and that we were probably now flying the long axis of the forest, either north or south. The indecision and suspense were maddening. I have seldom if ever felt so hell, less. Here was a situation in which no amount of efficiency or intelligence could prevail against the blind, insensate forces of nature. I wished that Roy Chapman Andrews were there to tell me what to do.
"Here she comes!" exclaimed Ero Shan, as the clouds belowed down ahead of us to merge with the pastels of the tree tops, cutting our visibility to zero.
I said nothing. There was nothing to say, as I glanced back and saw the clouds settling rapidly behind us shutting off our vision in all directions; but I pulled the stick back and zoomed into that semi-liquid chaos. At fifteen thousand feet I felt that we would be safely above the giant forests that are occasionally found on Venus as well as above most of the mountain ranges. We would have, at least, time in which to think and plan.
Now I was flying blind, without a compass, over unknown terrain; than which there can be nothing more baffling to the human mind and ingenuity.
I turned to Ero Shan. "Bail out, if you wish," I said.
"Are you going to?" he asked.
"No," I replied. "Even if we landed without spraining an ankle, or breaking a leg, or getting killed, the chances of our ever reaching Sanara would be practically nil.
The anotar is our only hope of salvation. I shall stick with it. I shall either live with it, or die with it."
"I think it will be the latter," said Ero Shan, with a grim laugh, "but I'd rather take that chance with you than the other; though if you had elected to bail out, I'd have gone with you."
Chapter Three
IF FATE HAD BEEN UNKIND to me in some respects, she had certainly not in the matter of a companion in misery.
You'd have to scour two worlds to find a finer chap or a more loyal friend than Ero Shan, soldier-biologist of Havatoo. Soldier-biologist! In Amtorian it is Korgan Sentar, and it is a title of high distinction.
We climbed rapidly, and at fifteen thousand feet we emerged into clear air with horizontal visibility limited only by the curve of the planet. Now we were between the inner and outer cloud envelopes. It was infinitely lighter and brighter here, but the air was hot and sticky.
I knew that at night it would be very dark and-cold, for I had dropped down through it that night that I had bailed out of my rocket ship before it crashed. What an experience that had been!
I hadn't the remotest idea of the direction in which I was flying, but I had the satisfaction of knowing that I could see mountains before I crashed into them. I flew on, hoping that there might come a break in the lower cloud envelope eventually that would permit me to come down again. I voiced this hope to Ero Shan.
"Such a thing might happen once or twice in a life-time," he replied. "I imagine that the chances that it would happen to us right when we needed it are about one to several billion."
"Well, I can always hope," I said. "I'm something of an optimist." How much of an optimist I am, you may readily judge when I admit that I have been hopefully waiting for years for seven spades, vulnerable, doubled, and redoubled. I might also add that at such a time my partner and I have one game to our opponents' none, we having previously set them nineteen hundred; and are playing for a cent a point-notwithstanding the fact that I never play for more than a tenth. That, my friends, is optimism."
"Keep on hoping," urged Ero Shan; "it doesn't cost anything, and it's an excellent tonic for one's morale.
Lovely scenery here," he added.
"Ever been here before?" I asked.
"No; nor anyone else."
"I have. It hasn't changed at all. There has been very little building activity since I passed through."
Ero Shan grinned; then he pointed ahead. "Look!" he said.
I had already seen. The inner cloud envelope was billowing up, gray and menacing. I nosed up to keep above it, and the first thing I knew the outer envelope billowed down and engulfed us. The two envelopes had met and merged.