"There's something dangerous there — terribly so,” Thorn said tautly. “If there weren't, this world wouldn't have swallowed up so many hundreds of explorers in the last nine centuries!"
"There's air of some kind down there, anyway,” old Stilicho quavered. “See them there whirling dust-devils?"
"But there can't be an atmosphere here!” Gunner declared. “That would mean that Erebus is comparatively warm, and what would keep it warm at this distance from the sun?"
"Everything about this world is wrong, somehow,” Thorn muttered. “The way it shines, its warmth and atmosphere, the way our instruments went dead when we neared it."
* * *
The Venture was now moving on an even keel a hundred miles above the surface of the ghostly blue planet. Stilicho handled the controls as they moved at reduced speed around the equator of the mystery world. Gunner Welk swept the terrain beneath with the ‘scope as they sped along.
The cruel, barren mountains swept back and disappeared in the glowing blue haze behind them. They moved on above the endless wastes of faintly shining desert.
"Thought I saw something shiny moving down there,” Gunner exclaimed in a moment. “My eyes must be playing me trick!"
"Cheerly's ship is what we want to find,” Thorn rapped. “It's somewhere here. He hasn't had time to lift the radite and leave, considering how fast we followed him."
Within a few hours, they had completely circumnavigated the equator of the little mystery world. They had seen nothing but the deathly deserts and mountains, wrapped in. the unchanging, shimmering blue haze.