"How long did it take to finish the job? And what did it cost?"
"Two centuries; and about twice the cost of your last war. I need only suggest to you that we colored the material so as to reflect most of the heat. That is why the material looks blue from below, although pink from above."
"Say"—from Billie—"how long are we to keep on dropping like this?"
"We will arrive in a moment or two," answered the smiling one. "The roof is raised several miles above the sea-level in order to cover all the mountains."
By this time the four were able to make out things pretty well. They saw that the dimness was only relative; the Venusian world was actually as well lighted as any part of the earth on a cloudy day. And they saw that they were descending in a locality of astonishing beauty.
The stranger halted the car so that they could inspect the scene as though from an airplane. In no way did the landscape resemble that of the earth. To begin with, pillars of huge dimensions were placed every quarter-mile or so; it was these that supported the intricate archwork above. They were made of the same translucent stuff as the crust, but had a light topaz tint. The Venusian said:
"You will not need to be told that the science of metallurgy has advanced quite far with us. All our metals can be made transparent, if we like; those pillars are colored variously in different regions so as to be clearly distinguishable and prevent collisions of flying apparatus."
But Van Emmon and Billie were both more interested in what lay between the columns. They scarcely noticed that there were no people in sight at the time. The ground was covered with an indescribable wealth of color; and it was only by a close examination that the buildings could be distinguished as such.
For they were all made of that semi-transparent stuff. Of every conceivable tint and shade, the structure showed an utter lack of uniformity in size, shape or arrangement. Moreover, the ground was absolutely packed with them; they spread as far as the eye could reach.
But if there was profusion, there also was confusion—apparently. Streets ran anywhere and everywhere; there was no visible system to anything. And where there was no space for a building, invariably there was a shrub, a bush or a small tree of some kind, all in full flower. The only sign of regularity to be seen was in the roofs—practically all of them were flat. Whether the building was some rambling, loosely gathered agglomeration of vari-colored wings, or a single, towering skyscraper of one tint, almost inevitably it was crowned with a perfectly level surface.