Then they were through the clouds, and a thousand feet below the ocean tossed and tumbled with a majestic silence that was thrilling and menacing.
Don Denton's breath escaped with a tiny sigh of relief, and his eyes flashed to the girl's face, then back again to the window. He was conscious of the close scrutiny she had given him during those tense moments, and he wondered, irrelevantly, if he measured up to her standards.
"Where's all of the light coming from?" she asked curiously.
"From some sort of minute animal life in the oceans. The water is so filled with tiny worm-like forms of life that I doubt if you could find one cupful of clear water anywhere. They glow like fireflies, and the light generated is reflected back from the low clouds." Don Denton grinned. "I used to call Venus the 'Light bulb planet'!"
"It's beautiful!" Jean breathed in rapture.
Don Denton nodded, swung the Comet directly North. Beneath them, the ocean was a shifting, white-capped wash of silvery light, gleaming with a phosphorescent sheen, its turbulence a shifting kaleidoscope of shattered colors.
And then the water was broken, and a scaly, blunt something darted out of the water, fell crashing in a spray of light.
"What was that?" Jean whispered.
Don Denton swallowed heavily. "I don't know," he said slowly. "Probably some deep sea monster; and he must have been fully three hundred feet long!"
He sent the Comet flashing ahead, the memory of the scaly monster tensing his broad shoulders in a shiver of disquiet. Jean sat silently at his side, quiet for once, and he felt a quick stab of emotion when he read the worry that lay deep in her eyes.