The thing that was to change our lives was about to happen. The first intimation of it was a sudden lightening of the sky far ahead. We noticed it simultaneously.

"What is that?" asked Duare.

"It looks as though the Sun were trying to break through the cloud envelopes of Amtor," I said. "I pray Heaven that he doesn't succeed."

"It has happened in the past," said Duare. "Of course our people knew nothing of the Sun of which you tell me. They thought it the all-enveloping fire which rose from the molten mass upon which Amtor is supposed to float. When a break came in our protective cloud envelopes, the flame struck through, destroying all life beneath the cloud rift."

I was at the controls. I banked sharply and headed north. "I am going away from there," I said. "The Sun has broken through one of the cloud envelopes; he may break through the other."

Chapter II

WE WATCHED the increasing light upon our left. It illumined the whole sky and the ocean, but it was intensest at one spot. As yet it resembled only bright sunlight such as we are accustomed to on Earth; then, suddenly, it burst through like blinding flame. There had been coincidental rifts in both cloud envelopes!

Almost instantly the ocean commenced to boil. We could see it even at a distance. Vast clouds of steam arose. The heat increased. It was fast becoming unendurable.

"The end," said Duare, simply.

"Not yet," I replied, as, with throttle wide, we raced toward the north. I had chosen flight to the north because the rift was a little southwest of us and the wind was from the west. Had I turned back toward the east, the wind borne heat would have followed us. In the north lay what hope we had.

"We have lived," said Duare. "Life can hold nothing better for us than that which we have enjoyed. I am not afraid to die. Are you, Carson?"

"That is something that I shall never know until it is too late," I said, smiling down at her, "for while I live I shall never admit the possibility of death. Somehow, it doesn't seem to be for me--at least not since Danus injected the longevity serum into my veins and told me that I might live a thousand years. You see, I am curious to know if he were right."

"You are very silly," she said, "but you are also reassuring."

Enormous clouds of steam blotted out everything in the southwest. They rose to the clouds, dimming the sunlight. I could imagine the devastation in the sea, the myriad of living things destroyed. Already the effects of the catastrophe were becoming plainly discernible below us. The fleeter reptiles and fishes were fleeing the holocaust--and they were fleeing north! Instinct or intelligence, or whatever it was, it filled me with renewed hope.

The surface of the ocean was alive with them. Mortal enemies raced side by side.