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Back at the Capital the Solarite again settled into the broad avenue that had been cut off to traffic now, and allotted to it as its resting place. Tonlos met them shortly after they had settled into place, and with him were five men, each carrying two large bottles.
Capturing so huge a machine with only the tiny Solarite but Arcot felt there was a good possibility of his doing it if he but had a supply of that gas. There was one difficulty one step in the synthesis required a considerable quantity of chlorine.
We'll get this one!" Arcot worked swiftly at his switches. "Wade strap yourself in the seat where you are don't take time to come up here." They followed the same plan which had worked so well before. Suddenly invisible, the Solarite flashed ahead of the great plane. The titanic wave of rushing sound engulfed them then again came the little hiss of the gas.
Mile after mile they flashed ahead at about a thousand miles an hour then suddenly they saw far off to the east a vast glow that reached into the sky, painting itself on the eternal clouds miles above. "There it is, Wade. Go high, and take it easy!" Swiftly the Solarite climbed, hovering at last on the very rim of the cloud blanket, an invisible mote in a sea of gray mist.
All six of the rocket tubes in the base of the ship had been opened wide, and streaming from them in a furious blast of incandescent gas, the atomic hydrogen shot out in a mighty column of gas at 3500 degrees centigrade. Where the gas touched it, the great plane flared to incandescence; and in an immeasurable interval the fall of the Solarite ended, and it rebounded high into the air.
Down from the Solarite there dropped a little canister, one of the bombs that Arcot had prepared the night before. To hit an invisible target is ordinarily difficult, but when that target is far larger than the proverbial side of a barn, it is not very difficult, at that. But now Arcot's companions watched for the crash of the explosion, the flash of light.
But these ships would require long hours, days, even weeks to build, and in that time the Kaxorian fleet would be ready. It would attack Earth within six days now! What hope was there to avert incalculable destruction if not outright defeat? In despair Arcot turned and strode quickly down the long hallway of the Solarite.
Then suddenly there came to the ears of the men a long drawn whine, faint almost inaudible and the ship began slowing down. The Solarite had entered the atmosphere of Venus the first man-made machine to thus penetrate the air of another world! Quickly Arcot snapped open the control that had kept the rockets flaming, turning the ship to the planet driving it into the atmosphere.
But to remind the men of the Solarite that they were not alone, there came a sudden report just behind them, and they turned to see that one of the energy bombs had barely fallen short! In an instant the comparative midget shot up at top speed, out of danger. It looped and turned, hunting, feeling with its every detector for that other ship. The great planes were spread out now.
As they saw the rolling ocean beneath them give way to low plains, they realized they were over Kaxorian land. The Solarite was flying very high, and as they showed no lights, and were not using the invisibility apparatus, they were practically undetectable. Suddenly they saw the lights of a mighty city looming far off to the east. "It's Kanor. Pass well to the west of it. That's their capital.
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