The _Viking_ had to go up to a level of 18,000 feet above this lonely Venusian sea before she was above the peaks of the mountains. Then Gerry turned her inland. Just before they left the shoreline they passed some sort of a flying _thing_ that swooped down to prey on the sea-birds. It had a reptilian body, and a spread of leathery wings about twelve feet across. "Will you look at that!" Steve Brent muttered. "I'd hate to meet that on a dark night!" Gerry said grimly. Along the shoreline as they flashed inland he could see monstrous, crawling things that moved sluggishly along the beaches or in the shallows. It began to seem that life on Venus was on a different level than that of the Outer Planets. The _Viking_ drove steadily westward across the mountains. From the lower control room windows Gerry could see only drifted snow and naked boulders, and the gauntly lonely peaks. The air was thin and cold. The canopy of yellow clouds was only a little way above them. Then, across the mountains at last, they dropped down toward a broad table-land covered with patches of forest and alternate stretches of open grass-land. "Cut rockets!" Gerry snapped. "Prepare to land!" A few minutes later the _Viking_ settled gently down in a broad clearing, where the coarse grass was knee high. For the first time in over six weeks the sound and vibration of the motors ceased. The expedition had landed on Venus! * * * * * The landing party filed out a door that opened in the lower part of the hull. The moist air was a little warmer than that of Earth, and it had an unfamiliar smell of growing things, but its density seemed about the same. Since the size of Venus was similar to that of their own planets, neither Earth-man nor Martian had much trouble in walking as soon as they became accustomed to a slightly lesser gravity. Gerry found he could leap eight feet in the air without any trouble. Gerry split the landing party into four groups, sending them spreading out like the spokes of a fan. "Don't go more than three miles from the ship without further orders. Study the countryside thoroughly, and then report back on board." All the landing party wore light armour of steel coated with duralite, and carried ray-tubes at their belts. Every third man had a heavier ray-gun with its cylindrical magazine, not unlike the old-fashioned machine gun. Their polished armor took on a golden tinge as they tramped away across the grass-land, while behind them the _Viking_ lay motionless in the grass like a great torpedo of steel and blue.