midnight
Within the Red Veil Nevia , the home planet of the marauding space-ship , would have appeared peculiar indeed to Terrestrial senses . High in the deep red heavens a fervent blue sun poured down its flood of brilliant purplish light upon a world of water . Not a cloud was to be seen in that flaming sky , and through that dustless atmosphere the eye could see the horizon -- a horizon three times as distant as the one to which we are accustomed -- with a distinctness and clarity impossible in our Terra 's dust-filled air . As that mighty sun dropped below the horizon the sky would fill suddenly with clouds and rain would fall violently and steadily until midnight . Then the clouds would vanish as suddenly as they had come into being , the torrential downpour would cease , and , through that huge world 's wonderfully transparent , gaseous envelope , the full glory of the firmament would be revealed . Not the firmament as we know it -- for that hot blue sun and Nevia , her one planet-child , were many light-years distant from Old Sol and his numerous brood -- but a strange and glorious firmament containing not one constellation familiar to earthly eyes . -LSB- Illustration : Many bridges and more tubes extended through the air from building to building , and the watery `` streets '' teemed with surface craft , and with submarines . -RSB-