A soft, distant shimmering glow pierced through in arrows of jeweled
brilliance. A swirling mist swam toward and around him. It was a
beautiful, soft enchantment. A green world of gently swaying fronds and
phosphorescent bubbles climbing and bursting in clouds of multi-colored
flame.
It was an underwater city, a delicate coraled Babylon of some alien
beauty, with avenues of high dainty ferns swaying to the urgings of
invisible currents. Enmeshed in this strange ensorcelled dream of
jeweled, glimmering, glittering wonder, Venard's mind sped through
emerald halls....
And suddenly, by his side, there was Vale--her presence mistily
improbable, and yet somehow definite. He could not see, he could not
feel, but he could know--
He and Vale were being summoned, called by frantically urging minds.
They floated into a room that was nebulous, quivering now into plainer
sight, now withdrawing into indefiniteness. Then Venard saw a brilliant
flame that grew, hardened, crystallized, shone brighter and more
brilliantly strange. Mists of argent light, then floating shadowy
shapes of incredible delicacy swam into view. He knew it now.
The Undersea City of the Venusian Sea People.
Small, round, quasi-human faces looked with deep concern into his. Not
his face, but into his mind, his roving, battling mind. Opaque arms,
delicate and slender as flower stems, motioned with desperate urgency.
The reality of the apparent fantasy hit Venard like a projectile from
space with a shockingly familiar voice, a mental voice from the dead:
"Hey, Karl! It's me, Kewpie Doll Larson. We gotta move fast, see? It's
me and the Venusian Sea people. It's us! We're helping you fight the
Jovian."