Lockhart brought the _Magellan_ down gradually, closer, closer, and finally sank it into the soupy atmosphere of Venus. Now, from every viewplate, nothing reflected but a glare of white mist. But the ship was not operating blind. Radar pierced the clouds, and from the wide screens the crew could see that they had not yet touched the surface. "Watch out for mountains," whispered Russ, hanging over Lockhart's shoulder. Their progress was slow but steady. The cloud bank around them did not clear, but still glowed gray. After a descent of nearly two hours, there was a flicker on the radar. It registered no features, no mountains, nothing but a seemingly flat plain. Above and around them the white clouds still blanketed everything. But now Burl thought he saw a pale glow. Gradually the white faded away into wisps and shreds, and in a flash the ship broke out of the clouds. They hung beneath a grayish-white sky. Below them, scarcely a half mile of visibility in misty, thin air, they saw the surface of Venus. They were over water. An ocean stretched below them as far as the eye could see, with neither a rock nor an island. Venus was a water world! Chapter 9. _The Ocean Primeval_ The _Magellan_ hung in the air while the men studied the surface of this world that had so long been a mystery. The air was not the clear air of Earth; rather, it was the kind that precedes the coming of a fog, thick, heavy with moisture, the horizons fading into gray. Below them lay a mottled expanse of water, reflecting the gray sky, and verging almost to a deep brown. The water was still, occasionally stirred by a slight wave. "No tides have ever moved these waters," commented Russ quietly to Burl. "There is no moon to pull and sway them. The motion of this world, so slow in the passage of its day, hardly disturbs the water." "It looks shallow to me," said Burl. "The darker sections look as if the bottom must be close." "I imagine it is. We'll take soundings," Russ answered. "I have a feeling the whole world may be like this ... one vast, shallow, swampy sea. See the scum floating on it?" "See it? Now that you mention it, there's hardly a part that hasn't something on it," was Burl's reply. "There're patches of muck all over it, like floating oil, or even drifting masses of weeds." It was true. The water showed on its surface a strange filth unlike anything one would expect on the surface of a Terrestrial sea. There were wide areas of brownish-gray slime and little floating blobs of green. Shining flecks of yellow, like bright oil drops, seemed to flow through and between the masses of scum. At the radar, Haines began to call out figures. As Russ had guessed, it was a shallow sea. In places, the bottom was only a dozen feet beneath. For a while, all the men of the crew were quiet, watching the silent waters beneath them. "Unclean, the whole place looks unclean," Lockhart said finally. "We've got work to do. Let's find the Sun-tap station."