"Come on," I said, "we'd better not waste any time." We had been able to charter an old-fashioned flutter-plane, which could land more or less vertically, and Harry had the approximate longitude of the place from Marjud. We could see it a long way off, fortunately, and it was like a big waterspout, except for its preternatural straightness, reaching up in a silvery, swirling column through the gray cloud layer twelve miles overhead. He didn't swing the flutter-plane too near to it. The updrafts around it, at this altitude, were supposed to move at terrific speed, and could shatter even a rocketship. There was some kind of gray stone building rising out of the gray-green forest at the foot of the column, and we landed a quarter of a mile away, so as not to attract attention. We walked in, and in a few minutes were able to make out the domes of the temple rising over the tops of the trees. The masonry was of a rough, dark basalt, crude and unbeautiful. The work of the primitive tribes that lived in the area. I had heard of giant towers and spired old cities which were supposed to have been the work of an ancient, long-dead, and highly evolved race, but there had never been any evidence of such places. Probably these native temples had started the stories. There was plenty of reason to believe that the planet Venus was new and in the first evolution when men from Earth arrived. Behind the temple itself rose a fifty foot wall of the same undistinguished stone, and inside this wall the mysterious column of mist rose. Within that mist lay the rainbow garden. The only entrance appeared to be through the temple itself. * * * * * We were in an enormous rotunda, a sort of congregational throne room where thousand of natives might gather during the orgies that were irregularly held. There was not a living thing in sight in all that domed vastness. Hundreds of idols of obscure primitive gods lined the walls. Harry cupped his hands to his mouth. "Anybody here?" The words bellowed and bounced against the lofty ceiling, echoing and reechoing. And they got results right away. From somewhere among those shadows at the other end of the room there was a blue flash. The air crackled and fried near my ear. We flopped on the floor and returned the fire. There was a scream. One of us had made a lucky hit. We waited ten minutes and advanced. We found the body of a Venusian in colonial garb, one of the slim, regular-featured northern tribesmen. I knew that he must be Marjud's agent, for Northerners were rarely found in these latitudes if they could help it. Beyond the dead Venusian lay a narrow passageway that must lead to the inner chambers. Harry wanted to rush the place. "Take it easy," I said. "These boys are tricky, and they have little poison spears that kill on contact. There's bound to be a few of them hanging around the garden--the priests. That was Marjud's underling back there. We haven't met the natives yet."