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All this was done without any sound beyond the occasional thud of a nugget dropped in the scramble. Suddenly the Sanusian wheeled his machine about and started hurriedly up the slope. Van Emmon judged that the chap had been frightened by something, for he took flight as soon as he reached the top of the pit. And he left half a million in gold behind him!
Instead of a range which began and ended just above the horizon, his agent possessed the power of looking almost straight ahead. This told the geologist that his unsuspecting Sanusian was located in an aircraft much like the other.
Of course, the four still had the ability to communicate with each other while in the trance state; they had developed this power to a fair degree while investigating Capellette. However, each was so deeply interested in what he or she was seeing during the first hour of their Sanusian experiences that neither thought to discuss the matter until afterward.
He had put the great idea into a fertile mind. Presently they began to look for other minds. It seemed wise to get the notion into as many Sanusian heads as possible.
Three hours later according to the time kept by the watchers on the earth Rolla awoke and sat up in great alarm. And small wonder. It was broad daylight! The sun was well above the horizon; and not only the Sanusian but the people on the earth were vastly puzzled to note that it was the western horizon! To all appearances, Rolla had slept a whole day in that brief three hours.
Or were They, as the books from Venus seemed to indicate, another type of creature, entirely different from the humans, and yet, because of the peculiar Sanusian conditions, superior to the humans? "They have decided to move their city a little farther away from the forest," Rolla overheard Dulnop telling Cunora; which was the first indication that the planet boasted such a thing as a city.
Next moment she made out the figures of four humans on top of a knoll just below. A little nearer, and the architect was looking, from the air, down upon the same scene which the doctor was then witnessing through the eyes of Rolla, the older of the two Sanusian women.
By the time the four once more got together in the doctor's study, each had had a chance to consider the Sanusian situation pretty thoroughly. All but Billie were convinced that the humans were deserving people, whose position was all the more regrettable because due, so far as could be seen, the insignificant little detail of the barbless sting.
The Sanusian hesitated only a trifle with her reply: "It is, Supreme, that the big man and the older woman have seen fit to fall in love with one another, while the same is true of the youth and the girl." "This should not have been allowed!" "I admit it, Supreme; my force has somehow overlooked their case, heretofore. What is your will?"
In front was a terrace, seemingly paved with enormous slabs of stone; it covered a good many acres. Presumably Billie's agent had just brought her machine from the building, for, within a few seconds, she took flight in the same abrupt fashion which had so badly upset Smith and Van Emmon. When Billie was able to look closely, she found herself gazing down upon a Sanusian city.
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