Later, Watson understood. He watched as the craft continued to climb; the Jan Lucar was steering without the aid of any outside lights whatever, there being only a small light illuminating his instruments. Chick presently turned his gaze outside again; whereupon he got another jolt. He saw a NEGATIVE sky! At first he thought his eyes the victims of an illusion; then he looked closer. And he saw that it was true; instead of the familiar starry points of light against a velvet background, the arrangement was just the reverse. Every constellation was in its place, just as Chick remembered it from the earth; but instead of stars there were jet-black spots upon a faint, grey background. The whole sky was one huge Milky Way, except for the black spots. And from it all there shone just about as much total light as from the heavens he had known. Of all he experienced, this was the most disturbing. It seemed totally against all reason; for he knew the stars to be great incandescent globes in space. How explain that they were here represented in reverse, their brilliance scattered and diffused over the surrounding sky, leaving points of blackness instead? Afterward he learned that the peculiar chemical constituency of the atmosphere was solely responsible for the inversion of the usual order of things. All of a sudden the Jan Lucar switched the craft to a level. He held up one hand and pointed. “Look, my lord, and the Rhamda! Look!” Both men rose from their seats, the better to stare past the soldier. Straight ahead, where had been one of the corruscating peaks, a streak of blue fire shot skyward, a column of light miles high, differing from the beams of a searchlight in that the rays were WAVY, serpentine, instead of straight. It was weirdly beautiful. Geos caught his breath; he leaned forward and touched the Jan Lucar. “Wait,” he said in an awed tone. “Wait a moment. It has never come before, but we can expect it now.” And even as he spoke, something wonderful happened. From the base of the column two other streaks, one red and the other bright green, cut out through the blackness on either side. The three streams started from the same point; they made a sort of trident, red, green, and blue--twisting, alive--strangely impressive, suggestive of grandeur and omnipotence--holy. Again the Rhamda spoke. “Wait!” said he. “Wait!” They were barely moving now. Watson watched and wondered. The three streams of light ran up and up, as though they would pierce the heavens; the eye could not follow their ends. All in utter silence, nothing but those beams of glorified light, their reality a hint of power, of life and wisdom--of the certainty of things. Plainly it had a tremendous significance in the minds of the Geos and the Lucar.