Henry looked again at the terrain over which they were flying. The ship was in descent, and their present altitude of some three thousand feet gave him a close view.
Distant seas, land locked tropical harbors, islands, and the great land mass below with its rivers and lakes and jungles and very low, pagan looking hills. Here below them was an apparently uninhabited Eden--a Paradise that continued endlessly. No ship, sailboat or canoe could be discerned on any visible body of water. No city, town or village. No highways, country roads or footpaths. There were only brilliant flowers, on the ground and in the trees, and a few birds.
The sky was blue, but without a sun, although the brilliance of the day was equivalent to that of high noon. It was as though a curtain had been drawn across the heavens--as though they were adventuring within a shell that encircled the world.
"The absence of the sun," said Henry, "is one basis for conjecture. The absence of inhabitants is another. But the last announcement they made over the P.A. system gives us the most conclusive evidence of all."
Dr. Edwards looked at him quickly. "That announcement merely revealed the fact that no radio contact has been made with anyone," he said. "What does it prove?"
"It was not announced that the radio is not functioning properly," replied Henry. "Given a radio that is in working order, and no reception; given a primitive looking country such as this one below us, with no signs of inhabitants, plus a bright blue sky without a sun--and the answer is obvious."
"I wish it were as obvious to me," said Valerie Roagland. "What do you make of it, Henry? What _is_ the answer?"
"Man, you's got more complications!" protested the negro G.I. "Come on! It's a impossibility to scare me any futher, 'cause I got goose pimples clear out on my fingernails! Let's have it!"
Henry looked expressionlessly through the observation panels and wondered, as he had wondered all his life, how he knew, _a priori_, what it took those around him so long to figure out.
"This is another world," he said. "If it is not another planet--"
"Oh, Henry, for the love of God!" exclaimed Dr. Edwards. "You and your extrapolations! How could this be another planet? What inhabitable planet would not reveal a sun in its sky? And how could we be transported there in the twinkling of an eye?"