Planetara

“ The dome was over it. I could see from where I sat at the table that there was a forward observatory tower under the dome quite near here. The ship was laid out in rather similar fashion to the Planetara, though considerably smaller.
Potan had dismissed his men from his cubby so as to be alone with us. Out on the deck I could see them dragging apparatus about—bringing the mechanisms of giant projectors up from below, beginning to assemble them. Occasionally some of the men would come to our cubby windows to peer in at us curiously. ”

“ Clyde Tombaugh, working at Lowell's own observatory, was able to announce on March 13, 1930, that he had finally found this ninth world, which he named Pluto.
In the years that have followed, Pluto has proven to be a truly puzzling planet. Unlike its neighbors from Jupiter outward, it is not a giant world, light and gaseous in nature. Instead, it belongs physically to the small, dense inner planets of which Earth is one. ”

“ At two-ten he was thunderstruck by a special announcement sent from the Central Bureau to every observatory and astronomer of note throughout the world, proclaiming the discovery of an ultra-Plutonian planet. Phobar was incredulous. For centuries it had been proved that no planet beyond Pluto could possibly exist.
With feverish haste, Phobar ran to the huge telescope and rapidly focused it where the new planet should be. Five hundred million miles beyond Neptune was a flaming path like the beam of a giant searchlight that extended exactly to the eighth solar planet. Phobar gasped. ”

“ Again, and yet again they hued their mad ovation, until the scarlet form of Tranda, Emperor of Tridentia and of Neptune, stepped forward on firmly placed tubes and colored his aura with the silvery hue that commanded silence.
“Neptunians,” he glowed; “you have heard the message brought from Luna by Bar Steepa and the Princess Teena. Invaders from another star threaten the safety of our planet and all the other planets of the sun. We have been asked to join with the peoples of those planets in an attempt to defend our world and theirs while there is yet time! ”

“ And they say it seems to be the same mass as Earth—a solid world whose surface gravity would be the same as our own planet's."
Russ nodded. "It's an odd one, all right. There's now even some belief that it's not a true planet, but one that was once a satellite of Neptune. Its orbit is peculiar; it apparently may cut into that of Neptune. In fact, everything hints at Pluto not being a true child of our Sun. It may be a world captured from afar—a lonely wanderer cast off from some other star, captured by the Sun after millions of years of drifting lightless through space." ”

“ Out of the vacuum of space a fish-shaped vessel of the void--the vessel that was shortly to attack so boldly both the massed fleet of Triplanetary and Roger's planetoid--plunged into the rarefied outer atmosphere, and crimson beams of force tore shriekingly the thin air as it braked its terrific speed. A third of the circumference of Nevia's mighty globe was traversed before the velocity of the craft could be reduced sufficiently to make a landing possible. ”

“ Landing craft and snapper-boats swarmed to meet them, and within an hour after their arrival the Planeteers were surrounded by spacemen, cadets from the platform, and officers and men wearing Planeteer black.
A cadet approached Rip and looked at him with awe. "Sir, I don't know how you ever did it!"
And Rip, his eyes on the great curve of Earth, answered casually, "There's one thing every space chick has to learn if he's going to be a Planeteer. There's always a way to do anything. To be a Planeteer, you have to be able to figure out the way." ”

“ Then one day, about thirty years ago, they had been invaded by creatures that came in dumbbell-shaped spaceships, and which had destroyed their cities, and attempted to conquer the planet. They learned that these ships had come from Triton, the strange new moon that Neptune had acquired about a thousand years earlier, and from the new planet, Pluto, their astronomers had observed at that time.
For thirty years the Neptunians had fought against the invaders. For a while they almost succeeded, but then something new had developed. Their world grew hotter. ”

“ They had developed the pictures taken in the Mercury station, and the engineers and astronomers spent long hours debating their features, matching up what they had seen with what was known about the Andes station.
The shining face of Venus grew larger. It was a mysterious planet, the most mysterious in the system, even though it was the closest of the planets to Earth. Venus was a world whose atmosphere—of Earthly depth—was a solid mass of clouds. Never had the clouds lifted to reveal the surface. ”

“ It is a shield for the inhabitants against the fervors of an unsetting sun. Its presence prevents their real world from being seen from outside."
"Well," said Jack, laughing, "I never heard before that Venus was fond of a veil."
"Not only can they not be seen," continued Edmund, "but they cannot themselves see beyond the screen that covers them."
"Worse and worse!" exclaimed Jack. "The astronomers have certainly made a mistake in naming this bashful planet Venus." ”

“ It might, for one reason, have been not inappropriate to have commenced our review of the planetary system by the description of the planet Venus. This body is not especially remarkable for its size, for there are other planets hundreds of times larger. The orbit of Venus is no doubt larger than that of Mercury, but it is much smaller than that of the outer planets. Venus has not even the splendid retinue of minor attendants which gives such dignity and such interest to the mighty planets of our system. Yet the fact still remains that Venus is peerless among the planetary host. ”

“ That night—our first night on Venus—midway between the darkness of sunset and the dawn—we buried Wolfgar. The air was soft and warm, with a gentle breeze that riffled the placid waters of the lake. Overhead, the sky gleamed with a myriad stars—reddish stars, all of them like Red Mars himself as seen through the heavy Venus atmosphere. Largest of them, the Earth. My birthplace! Save Elza here with me on Venus, that tiny red spot in the heavens, red like the tip of a lighted arrant-cylinder, held all that was dear to me! ”

“ Ever more swiftly the stars closed in about the spot where Antares and Vega had vanished in a luminous haze, until that part of the sky had the semblance of a whirling mass of nebulæ, and ever before me yawned vaster gaps of vacant blackness, and the stars shone fewer and fewer. It seemed as if I moved towards a point between Orion’s belt and sword; and the void about that region opened vaster and vaster every second, an incredible gulf of nothingness, into which I was falling. Faster and ever faster the universe rushed by, a hurry of whirling motes at last, speeding silently into the void. ”

“ Pliny ascribes the usual astrological qualities to the planets. [460] Saturn is cold and rigid; Mars, a flaming fire; Jupiter, located between them, is temperate and salubrious. Besides their effects upon one another, the planets especially influence the earth. [461] Venus, for instance, rules the process of generation in all terrestrial beings. [462] Following the Georgics of Vergil somewhat, Pliny asserts that the stars give indubitable signs of the weather and expounds the utility of the constellations to farmers. ”

“ Night had descended when Penrun finally emerged from his little ship. The air was bitterly cold, and overhead the stars burned brilliantly. He paused to marvel a little that the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia, and the other constellations appeared just the same out here hundreds of millions of miles from Earth as they did at home. It made one feel infinitely small to realize the pinpoint size of the Solar Universe. ”

“ And then began the most bizarre attack in the history of six planets, for as the fleet attacked the swarm of atomo-fighters and aero-tanks of the Inner Circle, the last Venusian spacer had landed outside Plastica, and a multitude of Venusians each one leading a gigantic Calamar, the dreaded, armored tiger of Venus, launched themselves upon the besieging Scientists of the Inner Circle that awaited the propitious moment to enter Plastica during the battle and destroy the Irreconcilables by an attack from their rear. ”

“ You know already how dense the atmosphere of Venus is. It follows that balloons, and all sorts of machines for aerial navigation, can float much more easily here than over the earth. I was prepared to find the inhabitants of Venus skilled in such things, and I'm not surprised by what we see."
"Venus with wings!" cried Jack. "Now, Edmund, that sounds more like it. I guess we've struck the right planet after all." ”

“ If Jupiter too is present with them, and if Mars is under the sun's rays, they have commerce with slaves, men of lower classes, or foreigners; but if Venus is in this position, they consort with men of superior rank, or masters, playing the part of mistresses or adulteresses; if the planets are made feminine by their places or aspects, they are inclined only to take the passive part, but if the, planets are made masculine they are so depraved as actively to have commerce with women. ”

“ Their planet, she says, is closely similar to this, a trifle larger, moving in a somewhat longer orbit around a sun like ours. Two gleaming moons, smaller than ours—their orbits are such that two-moon nights come rarely; they are "magic," and she will ask her father to show me one, if he can. Because of a slower rotation, their day has twenty-six of our hours. Their atmosphere is mainly nitrogen and oxygen in the proportion familiar to us ”

“ Pluto was a brother of Jupiter and Neptune, and when the estate of Saturn was wound up, Jupiter wanted the earth, and he got it. Neptune wanted the codfish conservatory and the mermaid's home, so he took the deep, deep sea, and even yet he rides around in a gold spangled stone boat on the pale green billows of the summer sea, jabbing a pickerel ever and anon with a three pronged fork. He leads a gay life, going to picnics with the mermaids in their coral caves, or attending their full evening dress parties, clad in a trident and a fall beard. ”

“ There was no longer any reason for concealing from her the fact that he himself was a member of the I.F.P., and Quirl told Lenore of the adventurous life he and his companions had led. Of forays to far-away and as yet undisciplined Pluto, of tropical Venus and Mercury, where the rains never cease, of the hostile and almost unknown planet of Aryl, within the orbit of Mercury, where no man has ever seen a true image of the landscape because of the stupendous and never-ending mirages. ”

“ But, should Venus be conjoined or configurated with Mars alone, she will render women licentious and lustful; and if, to both these planets, when thus conjoined or configurated, Jupiter also present himself, Mars being at the same time under the rays of the Sun, women will then mingle in intercourse with servants, and persons meaner than themselves, or with aliens, or vagabonds: but, should it happen that Venus may be under the rays of the Sun, they will then connect themselves with their superiors or masters. ”

“ I perceived its flattened, whirling body, its disc-like belt, and seven of its little satellites. It grew and grew, till it towered enormous; and then I plunged amid a streaming multitude of clashing stones and dancing dust-particles and gas-eddies, and saw for a moment the mighty triple belt like three concentric arches of moonlight [121] above me, its shadow black on the boiling tumult below. These things happened in one-tenth of the time it takes to tell of them. The planet went by like a flash of lightning ”

“ Capture the new ship and—head for a planet. As long as she was alone in space Angelina was in constant danger. A planetfall and a change of personality were called for. When I looked up those two target stars in the catalog the planetary choice was obvious. A barbaric sounding place named Freibur.
There were a half dozen other settled planets around the two suns, but all eliminated themselves easily. Either too lightly settled, so that a stranger would be easily spotted, or organized and integrated so well that it would be impossible to be around long without some notice being taken. ”

“ With the emergence of human groupings, this Planetary Prince arrives to inaugurate human civilization and to focalize human society. Your world of confusion is no criterion of the early days of the reign of the Planetary Princes, for it was near the beginning of such an administration on Urantia that your Planetary Prince, Caligastia, cast his lot with the rebellion of the System Sovereign, Lucifer. Your planet has pursued a stormy course ever since. ”

“ The planet Venus was considered to be in 'the third heaven.' The 'heavens' or spheres were named, respectively, after the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the 'fixed stars;' beyond which was the Primum Mobile, the earth being in the centre of all, and immoveable. Sometimes the spheres of the seven planets were reckoned backwards from Saturn, Venus being then in the fifth heaven ”

“ Heat meant death and doom to every living frigi-plasmic thing on Neptune. Desperately, they increased their warfare, but the heat sapped their strength, destroying them, until now they knew it was but a matter of time before the Neptunians, beast and vegetable alike, would vanish totally.
"So that's it," breathed Burl. "That's where the Sun-tap energy is going. The Plutonians want Neptune because it's near their old moon, and they have to warm it up to live on it. Of course! And Neptune's too far from the Sun to explode when it novas, it will just get comfortable for the Plutonians!" ”