"All right, you win," agreed Morey. "Now let's see if we can find the other nations on this world more friendly."
Arcot looked at the sun. "We're now well north of the equator. We'll go up where the air is thin, put on some speed, and go into the south temperate zone. We'll see if we can't find some people there who are more peaceably inclined."
Arcot cut off the invisibility tubes. Instantly, all the enemy ships in the neighborhood turned and darted toward them at top speed. But the shining Ancient Mariner darted into the deep blue vault of the sky, and a moment later was lost to their view.
"They had a lot of courage," said Arcot, looking down at the city as it sank out of sight. "It doesn't take one-quarter as much courage to fight a known enemy, no matter how deadly, as it does to fight an unknown enemy force—something that can tear down mountains and throw their forts into the air like toys."
"Oh, they had courage, all right," Morey conceded, "but I wish they hadn't been quite so anxious to display it!"
They were high above the ground now, accelerating with a force of one gravity. Arcot cut the acceleration down until there was just enough to overcome the air resistance, which, at the height they were flying, was very low. The sky was black above them, and the stars were showing around the blazing sun. They were unfamiliar stars in unfamiliar constellations—the stars of another universe.
In a very short time, the ship was dropping rapidly downward again, the horizontal power off. The air resistance slowed them rapidly. They drifted high over the south temperate zone. Below them stretched the seemingly endless expanse of a great blue-green ocean.
"They don't lack for water, do they?" Wade commented.
"We could pretty well figure on large oceans," Arcot said. "The land is green, and there are plenty of clouds."
Far ahead, a low mass of solid land appeared above the blue of the horizon. It soon became obvious that it was not a continent they were approaching, but a large island, stretching hundreds of miles north and south.