I shouted, "Anita, stop!"

But they only waved at us, skimming down the length of the corridor, seeming to avoid a smash a dozen times by the smallest margin of chance, stopping miraculously at the further end, hanging poised in mid-air, wheeling, coming back, undulating up and down.

Grantline clung to me. "By the G.o.ds of the airways!"

In spite of my astonished horror I could not but share Grantline's obvious admiration. Three of four other men were watching. The girls were amazingly skillful, no doubt of that. There was not a man among us who could have handled that gravity-platform indoors, not one who would have had the brash temerity to try it.

The platform landed with the grace of a humming bird at our feet, the girls dexterously balancing so that it came to rest swiftly, without the least b.u.mp.

I confronted them. "Anita, what are you doing?"

She stood up, flushed and smiling.

"Practising."

Imperturbable girls! The product of their age. Oblivious to the brigand attack, they were in here practising!

"What for?" I demanded.

Venza's roguish eyes twinkled at me. Her hands went to her slim hips with a gesture of defiance.

She asked, "Are you speaking for yourself or the commander?"

I ignored her. "What for?" I reiterated.

"Because we're good at it," Anita retorted. "Better than any of you men. If you should need us...."

"We don't. We won't." I said shortly.

"But if you should...."

Venza put in, "If Snap and I hadn't come for you, you wouldn't be here, Gregg Haljan. I didn't notice you were so horrified to see me holding that shield up over you!"

It silenced me.

She added, "Commander, let us alone. We won't smash anything."

Grantline laughed, "I hope you won't!"

A warning call took us back to the front window. The brigand's search-beam was again being used. It swept slowly along the length of the cliff. Its circle went down the cliff steps to the valley floor, and came sweeping up again. Then it went up to the observatory platform at the summit above us, then back and crept over to the ore-sheds.

We had no men outside, if that was what the brigand wanted to determine. The search-beam presently vanished. It was replaced immediately by a zed-ray, which darted at once to our treasure sheds and clung.

That stung Grantline into his first action. We flung our own zed-ray down across the valley. It reached the brigand ship; this zed-ray and a search-light were our only two projectors of long range.

The brigand ray vanished when ours flashed on. I was with Grantline at an image grid in the instrument room. We saw the deck of the brigand ship and the blurred interior of the cabins.

"Try the search-beam, Franck. We don't need the other."

The zed-ray went off. We gazed down our search-light which clung to the dome of the distant enemy vessel. We could see movement there.

"The telescope," Grantline ordered.

The little dynamos hummed. The telescope-finder glowed and clarified.

On the deck of the ship we saw the brigands working with the a.s.sembling of ore-carts. A deck landing-porte was open. The ore-carts were being carried out through a porte-lock and down a landing incline. And on the rocks outside, we saw several of the carts--and rail-sections and the sections of an ore-shute.

Miko was unloading his mining apparatus! He was making ready to come up for the treasure!

The discovery, startling as it was, nevertheless was far overshadowed by an imperative danger alarm from our main building. Brigands were outside on our ledge! Miko's search-beam, sweeping the ledge a moment before, had carefully avoided revealing them. It had been done just for that purpose, no doubt--making us sure that the ledge was unoccupied and thus to guard against our own light making a search.

But there was a brigand group here close outside our walls! By the merest chance the radiating glow from our search-ray had shown the helmeted figures scurrying for shelter.

Grantline leaped to his feet.

We rushed for the rear exit-porte which was nearest us. The giant bloated figures had been seen running along the outside of the connecting corridor, in this direction. But before we ever got there, a new alarm came. A brigand was crouching at a front corner of the main building! His hydrogen heat-torch had already opened a rift in the wall!

CHAPTER x.x.xV

_Desperate Offensive_

"In with you!" ordered Grantline. "Get your helmets on! How many? Six?

Enough--get back there, Williams--you were last. The lock won't hold any more."

I was one of the six who jammed into the manual exit lock. We went through it: in a moment we were outside. It was less than three minutes since the prowling brigands had been seen.

Grantline touched me just as we emerged. "Don't wait for orders! Get them!"

"That fellow with the torch, the most dangerous--"

"Yes! I'm with you."

We went out with a rush. We had already discarded our shoe and belt weights. I leaped, regardless of my companions.

The scurrying Martians had disappeared. Through my visor bull's-eye I could see only the Earthlit rocky surface of the ledge. Beside me stretched the dark wall of our building.

I bounded toward the front. The brigand with the torch had been at this front corner. I could not see him from here: he had been crouching just around the angle.

I had a tiny bullet projector, the best weapon for short range outdoors. I was aware of Grantline close behind me.

It took only a few of my giant leaps. I landed at the corner, recovered my balance, and whirled around to the front.

The Martian was here, a giant misshapen lump as he crouched. His torch was a little stab of blue in the deep shadow enveloping him. Intent upon his work, he did not see me. Perhaps he thought his fellows had broken our exits by now.