Stilicho Keene pointed a bony finger toward a misty glow of lights that lay slightly north of the equator.
"Them's the lights of Saturnopolis,” the old pirate declared.
"Run westward,” John Thorn ordered. “The fungus forests are in that direction, and if we three are to pose as slith-hunters, that's where we need to land."
The first Planeteer watched with emotion as the distant lights of Saturnopolis slid away to the left. Down there in the great capital city of Saturn, somewhere, was Lana Cain. She would likely be imprisoned in the citadel of Haskell Trask, dictator of the League — the big fortress-palace that was the very storm center of the gathering menace threatening the four inner worlds.
Thorn had had the girl in his mind every hour of the long flight out to Saturn. Again and again he had envisioned her eager white face as she had stood with him under the meteor-blazing night sky of Turkoon, telling him her dreams for the future. She had become much more to’ him, he realized deeply, than just the pirate girl who held the secret he must obtain.
The lights of Saturnopolis disappeared as the Venture throbbed westward through the night. They glimpsed the lights of another, smaller city far to the north. Then Stilicho sent the ship in a long, descending glide toward the far-stretching black wilderness that now lay beneath.
Air whistled thinly outside the walls. The ship dropped into thin mists. Then through the mists the surface rushed up toward them — a vast and endless forest of grotesque, towering growth, dimly lit by the radiance of three moons and the majestic arc of the ring.
With a prolonged flash from the keel tubes and a soft, bumping jar, the Venture landed. They were in silent darkness.
"Here's the fungus forest you wanted to be landed in,” said Stilicho doubtfully. “It's a long way from here to Saturnopolis, though."
"We'll get there,” Thorn told him grimly. “It would be inviting capture to land too near the capital. By landing here and working our way toward Saturnopolis as slith-hunters, we'll be much less likely to be suspected by the secret police."