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But it was also evident that they resembled the inhabitants of earthly oceans in another respect, since it was easy to see that they preyed upon each other. "I don't like the look of those creatures at all," said Zaidie, when the Astronef had come to a stop and was floating about ten miles above the surface. "They're altogether too uncanny.
Redgrave turned the wheel back two or three inches and touched a second button. The Astronef stopped her descent instantly, and then she shot forward. The new greyhound was making her twenty-two and a half knots, hurling a broad white torrent of foam away from under her counters. But in half a minute the Astronef was alongside her.
"But look here, Zaidie," said Redgrave, "as we've found a world which is certainly much more delightful than our own, why shouldn't we stop here a bit? The air suits us and the people are simply enchanting. I think they like us, and I'm sure you're in love with every one of them, male and female. Of course, it's rather a pity that we can't fly unless we do it in the Astronef.
"As there's a fairly big problem to be solved shortly I'll see to the descent myself," he replied, going towards the stairway. In a couple of minutes she saw the cloud-belt below them rising rapidly. When Redgrave returned the Astronef was plunging into a sea of rosy mist. "The clouds of Mars!" she exclaimed. "Fancy a world with pink clouds! I wonder what there is on the other side."
It was now no longer necessary or even possible to steer the Astronef. She was directed solely by the repulsive force which would carry her with ever-increasing swiftness, as the attraction of the earth diminished, towards that neutral point at which the attraction of the earth is exactly balanced by the moon.
The Astronef ought to have sprung forward and driven her ram through the huge, brick-red body of the hideous creature which was now only a couple of hundred yards from them; but instead of that a slow, jarring, grinding thrill seemed to run through her, and she stopped.
It's quite too creepy and unearthly for my taste. Look at the horrors fighting and eating each other. That's the only bit of earthly character they've got about them; the big ones eating the little ones. I hope they won't take the Astronef for something nice to eat."
The planet seemed to swing round as the Astronef rushed into the blaze. In a few minutes it passed through the phases from "new" to "full." Venus became eclipsed in turn as they swung between Mercury and the Sun, and then Redgrave, after a rapid glance to either side, said: "If we can only keep the two pulls balanced we shall do it.
Their guests, without showing the slightest sign of any emotion, walked about the upper deck now, singly and now together, apparently absorbed by the strange scene about them. At length, after they had been dropping for some five hours by Astronef time, one of them, uttering a sharp exclamation, pointed to an enormous rift about fifty miles away. A dull, red glare was streaming up out of it.
They passed through the inner cloud-veil, and then the Astronef began to turn on her axis, and, just as the outer envelope came into view the enormously distended bulk of the monsters collapsed, and their fragments, seeming now like the tatters of a burst balloon than portions of a once living creature, dropped from the body of the Astronef, and floated away down into what had been their native element.
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