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disconnecting the balloons and replacing them with airship gasbags."
    "Excellent! That is the sort of positive attitude I like in my advisers." Daseene looked meaningfully at Cassyll. "Now, my lord, how many skyships can be made ready for the crossing within, say, fifty days?"
    Before Cassyll could speak Bartan coughed and said, "Forgive me, Majesty, I have something to report... a new development. . . something I feel should be brought to your attention at this point."
    "Has it any bearing on the discussions in hand?"
    Bartan shot Cassyll a worried glance. "It probably has, Majesty."
    "In that case," Daseene said impatiently, "you had better speak, but do it quickly."
    "Majesty, I ... A new world has been discovered in our own planetary system."
    "A new world?" Daseene frowned. "What are you prattling about, Mister Drumme? There can't be a new world."
    "I have observed it with my own eyes, Majesty. A blue planet ... a fourth world in our local system. ..." The normally fluent Bartan was floundering as Cassyll had never seen him do before.
    "How big is it?"
    "We cannot decide that until we are sure how far away it is."
    "Very well then." Daseene sighed. "How far away is this infant world of yours?"
    Bartan looked deeply unhappy. "We cannot calculate that until we—"
    "Until you know its size," the Queen cut in. "Mister Drumme! We are all indebted to you for that little excursion into the marvelously exact science of astronomy, but it is my earnest wish that you should confine your remarks to the subject already in hand. Is that clear?"
    "Yes, Majesty," Bartan mumbled, sinking down on to the bench.
    "Now . . ." Daseene suddenly shivered, drew her robes closer together at her throat and looked about the room. "No wonder we freeze to death in here! Who opened that window? Close it immediately before we perish from the cold."
    Lord Sectar, lips moving silently, got up and closed the window. His embroidered jacket was heavily stained with sweat and he was ostentatiously mopping his brow as he returned to his place.
    "You don't look well," Daseene told him tersely. "You should see a doctor." She returned her attention to Cassyil and repeated her question about the number of skyships that could be available within fifty days.
    "Twenty," Cassyil said at once, deciding that an optimistic estimate was called for while the Queen was in her present mood. As head of the Sky Service Supplies Board he was in a good position to judge the quantity of ships and associated materiel which could be made ready for an interplanetary crossing as well as being spared from normal function. Ever since the discovery that Farland was inhabited a number of defensive stations had been maintained in the weightless zone midway between the two sister worlds. For some years the great wooden structures had been manned, but as public fears of an attack from Farland had gradually abated the crews had been withdrawn. Now the stations and their atten dant groups of fighter jets were maintained by means of regular balloon ascents to the weightless zone. The schedule of flights was undemanding, and Cassyil estimated that about half the ships in the Sky Service fleet were available for extraordinary duties.
    "Twenty ships," Daseene said, looking slightly disap pointed. "Still, I suppose that's enough to be getting on with."
    "Yes, Majesty—especially as we are not obliged to think in terms of an invasion fleet. One can foresee continuous traffic between Overland and Land, sparse at first, but gradu ally building up until—"
    "It's no use, Lord Cassyil," the Queen interrupted. "Again you are advocating a sedate approach to this enterprise, and again I say to you I have no time for that. The return to Land has to be decisive, forceful, triumphant ... a clear-cut statement which posterity cannot misread. . . .
    "It may help you to gauge the strength of my feelings in the matter if I tell you that I have just given one of my granddaughters—the Countess