The next moment the sun and stars seemed to halt in their courses.

The great golden-grey crescent, which had been increasing in size every moment, appeared to remain stationary, and then, when he was satisfied that the engines were developing the Force properly, he sent another signal down, and the _Astronef_ began to descend.
The half-disc of Venus seemed to fall below them, and in a few minutes they could see it from the upper deck spreading out like a huge semi-circular plain of light ahead and on both sides of them.

The _Astronef_ was falling at the rate of about a thousand miles a minute towards the centre of the half-crescent, and every moment the brilliant spots above the cloud-surface grew in size and brightness.
"I believe the theory about the enormous height of the mountains of Venus must be correct after all," said Redgrave, tearing himself with an evident wrench away from his telescope.

"Those white patches can't be anything else but the summits of snow-capped mountains.

You know how brilliantly white a snow-peak looks on earth against the whitest of clouds." "Oh, yes," said Zaidie, "I've often seen that in the Rockies.