Tendrils of vapor touched the ports, were whipped aside, then were replaced by heavier fingers of cloud. Kerry Blane pressed a firing stud, and nose rockets thrummed in a rising crescendo as the free fall of the cruiser was checked. Heat rose in the cabin from the friction of the outer air, then dissipated, as the force-screen voltometer leaped higher.
Then, as though it had never been, the sun disappeared, and there was only a gray blankness pressing about the ship. Gone was all sense of movement, and the ship seemed to hover in a gray nothingness.
Kerry Blane crouched over the control panel, his hands moving deftly, his eyes flicking from one instrument to another. Tiny lines of concentration etched themselves about his mouth, and perspiration beaded his forehead. He rode that cruiser through the miles of clouds through sheer instinctive ability, seeming to fly it as though he were an integral part of the ship.
Splinter Wood watched him with awe in his eyes, seeing for the first time the incredible instinct that had made Kerry Blane the idol of a billion people. He relaxed visibly, all instinctive fear allayed by the brilliant competence of his companion.
Seconds flowed into moments, and the moments merged into one another, and still the clouds pressed with a visible strength against the ports. The rockets drummed steadily, holding the ship aloft, dropping it slowly toward the planet below. Then the clouds thinned, and, incredibly, were permeated with a dim and glowing light. A second later, and the clouds were gone, and a thousand feet below tumbled and tossed in a majestic display of ruthless strength an ocean that seemed to be composed of liquid fluorescence.
Kerry Blane heard Splinter's instant sigh of unbelief.
"Good Lord!" Splinter said, "What—"
His voice stilled, and he was silent, his eyes drinking in the weird incredible scene below.
The ocean was a shifting, white-capped wash of silvery light that gleamed with a bright phosphorescence of a hundred, intermingled, kaleidoscopic colors. And the unreal, unearthly light continued unbroken everywhere, reflected from the low-hanging clouds, reaching to the far horizon, bathing every detail of the planet in a brilliance more bright than moonlight.