An audiphone buzzer interrupted him, a call from the duty man in the instrument room of the nearby building.

Grantline clicked the receiver. The room fell into silence. Any call was unusual--nothing ever happened here in the camp.

The duty man's voice sounded over the room.

"Signals coming! Not clear. Will you come over, Commander?"

Signals!

It was never Grantline's way to enforce needless discipline. He offered no objection when every man in the camp rushed through the connecting pa.s.sages. They crowded the instrument room where the tense duty man sat bending over his helio receivers. The mirrors were swaying.

The duty man looked up and met Grantline's gaze.

"I ran it up to the highest intensity. Commander. We ought to get it--not let it pa.s.s."

"Low scale, Peter?"

"Yes. Weakest infra-red. I'm bringing it up, even though it uses too much of our power." The duty man was apologetic.

"Get it," said Grantline shortly.

"I had a swing a minute ago. I think it's the _Planetara_."

"_Planetara!_" The crowding group of men chorused it. How could it be the _Planetara_?

But it was. The call presently came in clear. Unmistakably the _Planetara_, turned back now from her course to Ferrok-Shahn.

"How far away, Peter?"

The duty man consulted the needles of his dial scale. "Close! Very weak infra-red. But close. Around thirty thousand miles, maybe. It's Snap Dean calling."

The _Planetara_ here within thirty thousand miles! Excitement and pleasure swept the room. The _Planetara's_ coming had for so long been awaited so eagerly!

The excitement communicated to Grantline. It was unlike him to be incautious; yet now with no thought save that some unforeseen and pleasing circ.u.mstance had brought the _Planetara_ ahead of time; incautious Grantline certainly was.

"Raise the ore-barrage."

"I'll go! My suit is here."

A willing volunteer rushed out to the ore-shed. The Gamma rays, which in the helio-room of the _Planetara_ came so unwelcome to Snap and me, were loosed.

"Can you send, Peter?" Grantline demanded.

"Yes, with more power."

"Use it."

Johnny dictated the message of his location which we received. In his incautious excitement he ignored the secret code.

An interval pa.s.sed. The ore was occulted again. No message had come from us--just Snap's routine signal in the weak infra-red, which we hoped Grantline would not get.

The men crowding Grantline's instrument room waited in tense silence.

Then Grantline tried the telescope. Its current weakened the lights with the drain upon the distributors, and cooled the room with a sudden deadly chill as the Erentz insulating system slowed down.

The duty man looked suddenly frightened. "You'll bulge out our walls, Commander. The internal pressure--"

"We'll chance it."

They picked up the image of the _Planetara_! It came from the telescope and shone clear on the grid--the segment of star-field with a tiny, cigar-shaped blob. Clear enough to be unmistakable. The _Planetara_!

Here now over the Moon, almost directly overhead, poised at what the altimeter scale showed to be a fraction under thirty thousand miles.

The men gazed in awed silence. The _Planetara_ coming....

But the altimeter needle was motionless. The _Planetara_ was hanging poised.

A sudden gasp went about the room. The men stood with whitening faces, gazing at the _Planetara's_ image. And at the altimeter needle. It was moving. The _Planetara_ was descending. But not with an orderly swoop.

The image showed the ship clearly. The bow tilted up, then dipped down.

But then in a moment it swung up again. The ship turned partly over.

Righted itself. Then swayed again, drunkenly.

The watching men were stricken into horrified silence. The _Planetara's_ image momentarily, horribly, grew larger. Swaying. Then turning completely over, rotating slowly end over end.

The _Planetara_, out of control, was falling!

CHAPTER XXI

_The Wreck of the_ Planetara

On the _Planetara_, in the helio-room, Snap and I stood with Moa's weapon upon us. Miko held Anita. Triumphant. Possessive. Then as she struggled, a gentleness came to this strange Martian giant. Perhaps he really loved her. Looking back on it, I sometimes think so.

"Anita, do not fear me." He held her away from him. "I would not harm you. I want your love." Irony came to him. "And I thought I had killed you! But it was only your brother."

He partly turned. I was aware of how alert was his attention. He grinned. "Hold them, Moa--don't let them do anything foolish. So, Anita, you were masquerading to spy upon me? That was wrong of you." He was again ironic.

Anita had not spoken. She held herself tensely away from Miko; she had flashed me a look--just one. What horrible mischance to have brought this catastrophe!

The completion of Grantline's message had come unnoticed by us all.

"Look! Grantline again!" Snap said abruptly.