As our space-flier dropped slowly toward that mighty structure beneath my controlling hands, as it dropped toward the swarms of bright-lit aircraft that were moving to and fro over the great city, so familiar was the scene beneath to us four cosmic voyagers that almost did our great journey, our mighty flight out through the sun's planets through the countless leagues of space to great Neptune, and our grotesque and dream-like adventures upon Neptune and its moon, seem to us indeed no more than dreams. But as we shot lower we were startled from this strange state of mind by one of the aircraft beneath, showing the customary red and green position-lights along its hull, driving up through the darkness toward our smoothly falling space-flier. We saw the three men in the control-room of the craft gazing amazedly toward the gleaming, faceted metal ball of our flier as they circled us, and then from their craft had burst out a score of brilliant vari-colored signal-lights. And as these blazed out there came a moment later an answering blaze of lights from each of the swarming craft below, that shot up now in hundreds toward our falling flier, crowding crazily about it! Down through the darkness we dropped still, those swarms of aircraft almost jostling us as they seethed thickly in terrific excitement about us. As we shot downward over New York's surface we saw that across all the vast city, and far across the great air-docks to the south even, signal-lights were blazing out, a wild panorama of bursting lights stretching out in all directions! From beneath, too, there came up to us now a terrific roar of mingled voices, the vast crowds in the streets of the huge city sending their cheering cries up to us in a great thunder-roll of sound as we fell toward them. And as I held the space-flier to its smooth drop downward amid the swarming aircraft, I saw that Marlin and Randall, and even Whitely, were gazing across those vast, shouting throngs and across the swarms of madly-darting aircraft that encircled us, with somber, thoughtful faces. Now we were falling a few hundred feet above the roof of the World Government building, on which a little knot of figures awaited us, and as I gazed from it across the other roofs of the great city I uttered a low exclamation. "On the roofs--you see?" I asked. "Those things of metal--those space-fliers----!" But they too were gazing toward the roofs, toward the innumerable crystal-like metal forms that we could half-recognize on those roofs in the darkness. But a glimpse only we had of them before the space-flier was sinking downward to the great roof itself, and as Marlin saw the knot of figures on that roof he half-turned. "The World President," he said, quietly, "waiting for us on the roof."