"I'm bringing the ship around to the sunward side," Arlen said. "It's best to land about noon--that is the noon point. The planet turns once in thirty hours and that will give us a little more than seven hours of daylight to orient ourselves after the landing." Renzu nodded in agreement. All this had been threshed out before. "Very well," he said, "but it is best that you pierce the clouds at about forty-five degrees north latitude. There's ocean there that nearly circles the planet and there's fewer chances of running into mountains beneath the clouds. Once we're through the cloud belt, we'll have no difficulty. The clouds are three or four miles above the surface and there's plenty of room to maneuver beneath them." Arlen twisted the valves and the deceleration became uncomfortably violent. Renzu's first trip had determined the existence of a breathable atmosphere on the surface of Venus, although the cloud belt was filled with gases given off by Venusian volcanoes, and many of these gases were poisonous to man. In a few minutes the rocket ship stood off just above the cloud belt. McFerson checked the landing mechanism and made his final report to the captain. Arlen checked the gravity gauge, which now would be used as an altimeter during the blind flying in the Venusian clouds. "Okay!" Captain Arlen called. "Okay!" echoed McFerson. _The Traveler_ nosed downward into the rolling clouds. A whistling whine arose as the craft struck the atoms of the atmosphere. Repulsion jets set up their thunder and the landing operation began. The ship settled slowly through the clouds. The mist completely obscured everything outside the craft and Arlen flew blind, trusting his meteor detection devices to warn him of mountain peaks, which he feared despite Renzu's assurance that there were no high ranges at this latitude. At last the craft dropped through the wispy canopy to float serenely over a calm ocean which bulged upward toward them in the solar flood tide. To the northwest was a dim coastline. High mountains were faintly visible against the horizon. "Perfect!" said Renzu. "That is my continent--our destination. Sail toward it." The ship zoomed toward the land at the comparatively slow speed of five hundred miles an hour. In a few minutes it was decelerating again, with the continent before them. The high mountain range clambered up from a narrow plain that skirted the sea. This plain was sandy, a desert waste, but Renzu indicated it was the spot for the landing. Arlen brought _The Traveler_ down gently alongside a broad stream that emptied into the sea. When the dust of the landing cleared away, he looked with dumbfounded amazement at the Venusian scene. As far as his eyes could see were barren rocks and sand: there were no trees, no grass, no signs of life. The planet was as sterile as an antiseptic solution. Even seaweed and mosses were missing from the seashore.