Skylark Three by E.E. Smith — Read

The capital city of the Fenachrone lay in a jungle plain surrounded by / towering hills. A perfect circle of immense diameter, its buildings of / uniform height, of identical design, and constructed of the same dull / gray, translucent metal, were arranged in concentric circles, like the / annular rings seen upon the stump of a tree. Between each ring of / buildings and the one next inside it there were lagoons, lawns and / groves -- lagoons of tepid, sullenly-steaming water; lawns which were / veritable carpets of lush, rank rushes and of dank mosses; groves of / palms, gigantic ferns, bamboos, and numerous tropical growths unknown to / Earthly botany. At the very edge of the city began jungle unrelieved and / primeval; the impenetrable, unconquerable jungle, possible only to such / meteorological conditions as obtained there. Wind there was none, nor / sunshine. Only occasionally was the sun of that reeking world visible / through the omnipresent fog, a pale, wan disk; always the atmosphere was / one of oppressive, hot, humid vapor. In the exact center of the city / rose an immense structure, a terraced cone of buildings, as though / immense disks of smaller and smaller diameter had been piled one upon / the other. In these apartments dwelt the nobility and the high officials / of the Fenachrone. In the highest disk of all, invisible always from the / surface of the planet because of the all-enshrouding mist, were the / apartments of the Emperor of that monstrous race.

Seated upon low, heavily-built metal stools about the great table in the / council-room were Fenor, Emperor of the Fenachrone; Fenimol, his / General-in-Command, and the full Council of Eleven of the planet. Being / projected in the air before them was a three-dimensional moving, talking / picture -- the report of the sole survivor of the warship that had / attacked the _Skylark II_. In exact accordance with the facts as the / engineer knew them, the details of the battle and complete information / concerning the conquerors were shown. As vividly as though the scene / were being re-enacted before their eyes they saw the captive revive in / the _Violet_, and heard the conversation between the engineer, DuQuesne, / and Loring.