Allen swayed along a rocky path which was slowly ascending. The turgid, black-green depths here were dimly lighted by a glow from some unseen source. It was a tumbled, honeycombed submarine slope. Clumps of vegetation stood like black thickets to the sides. Ahead, the glow seemed brighter.
Then suddenly Leh stopped his advance; stood rigid. Within the round, wholly transparent ball of his helmet his youthful face was tense. And his voice murmured.
"Allen, look there!"
They had no more warning than that. From a clump of tawny submarine vegetation nearby, two human figures suddenly emerged! Figures that stood as though startled for a second, and then came plunging to attack!
V
Festival of Love! On the swaying little anti-gravity platform I lay with Nereid, staring down at the strange, colorful scene that stretched beneath us. It was at the end of our escape-flight from the Spaceship, in time doubtless before Allen on that trip arrived in Tollgamo's mountain city.
What Allen saw of the grim little metal and rock city of the Gorts was in weird contrast to what I saw now of the riotous, colorful forest and water scene where the gay festival of Love and Music was in full progress.
There was only a brief glimpse at first, as we swooped down. We had already passed over the main city of Arron. It lay between the open sea and an area a mile or so inland, where there was a lagoon, little chains of lakes, threads of tiny streams and a myriad little dots of tropic islands. I had seen, down in the forest, lines of gay, pastel-tinted lights to mark the city streets. Then we came to the lagoon, where the festival was being held.
A watery failyland of gayety. The lagoon, a circular spread of water of perhaps five miles, was rippled with a soft night-breeze. The ripples were stained with the opalescent night-sheen from the overhead clouds, and stained like a painter's pallette with a riot of glorious tints from the strings of colored lights which connected the little islands.