"It will, though," I snapped. "Kincaide will obey my orders to the letter. It'll be a wholesale slaughter, if we're not there by the specified time."

"I know! I know!" groaned Tipene. "But I can't make them understand that. They can't appreciate the meaning of such discipline."

"I believe that," put in Brady. "Their state of society is still low in the scale. You shouldn't have come, Commander. Better the two of us than the whole group."

"It may not be so simple as they think. Mr. Correy, shall we make a dash for it?"

"I'd be in favor of that, sir!" he grinned.

"Very well, you take three of the enlisted men, Mr. Correy, and give us a brisk rear-guard action when we get into the main pa.s.sage--if we do. Use the grenades if you have to, but throw them as fast as possible, or we'll have the roof coming down on us.

"The two ray operators and myself will try to open a way, backed up by Inverness and Brady. Understand, everybody?" The men took the places I had indicated, nodding, and we stood at the mouth of the side tunnel, facing the main pa.s.sage which intersected it at a right angle. The mouth of the pa.s.sage was blocked by a crowded ma.s.s of the spider creatures, evidently eager to pounce on us, but afraid to start an action in those narrow quarters.

As we came toward them, the Aranians packed about the entrance gave way grudgingly, all save two or three. Without an instant's hesitation, I lifted my pistol and slashed them into jerking pulp.

"Hold the ray," I ordered the two men by my side, "until we need it.

They'll get a surprise when it goes into action."

We needed it the moment we turned into the main corridor, for here the pa.s.sage was broad, and in order to prevent the creatures from flanking us, we had to spread our front and rear guards until they were no more than two thin lines.

Seeing their advantage, the Aranians rushed us. At a word from me, the ray operators went into action, and I did what I could with my comparatively ineffective pistol. Between us, we swept the pa.s.sage clean as far as we could see--which was not far, for the reddish dust of disintegration hung in the quiet air, and the light of our _ethon_ lamps could not pierce it.

For a moment I thought we would have clear sailing; Correy and his men were doing fine work behind us, and our ray was sweeping everything before us.

Then we came to the first of the intersecting pa.s.sages, and a clattering horde of Aranians leaped out at us. The ray operators stopped them, but another pa.s.sage on the opposite side was spewing out more than I could handle with my pistol.

Two of the hairy creatures were fairly upon me before the ray swung to that side and dissolved them into dust. For an instant the party stopped, checked by these unexpected flank attacks.

And there would be more of these sallies from the hundreds of pa.s.sages which opened off the main corridor; I had no doubt of that. And there the creatures had us: our deadly ray could not reach them out ahead; we must wait until we were abreast, and then the single ray could work upon but one side. Correy needed every man he had to protect our rear, and my pistol was not adequate against a rush at such close quarters.

That fact had just been proved to me with unpleasant emphasis.

It was rank folly to press on; the party would be annihilated.

"Down this pa.s.sage, men," I ordered the two ray operators. "We'll have to think up a better plan."

They turned off into the pa.s.sage they had swept clean with their ray, and the rest of the party followed swiftly. A few yards from the main corridor the pa.s.sage turned and ran parallel to the corridor we had just left. Doors opened off this pa.s.sage on both sides, but all the doors were open, and the cubicles thus revealed were empty.

"Well, sir," said Correy, when we had come to the dead end of the pa.s.sage, "now what?"

"I don't know," I confessed. "If we had two ray machines, we could make it. But if I remember correctly, it's seven hundred yards, yet, to the first of the tunnels leading to the surface--and that means several hundred side pa.s.sages from which they can attack. We can't make it."

"Well, we can try again, anyway, sir," Correy replied stoutly. "Better to go down fighting than stay here and starve, eh?"

"If you'll pardon me, gentlemen," put in Inverness, "I'd like to make a suggestion. We can't return the way we came in; I'm convinced of that. It was the sheerest luck that Commander Hanson wasn't brought down a moment ago--luck, and excellent work on the part of the two ray operators.

"But an a.n.a.lysis of our problem shows that our real objective is to reach the surface, and that need not be done the most obvious way, by returning over the course by which we entered."

"How, then?" I asked sharply.

"The disintegrator ray you have there should be able to cut a pa.s.sage for us," said Inverness. "Then all we need do is protect our rear while the operators are working. Once on the surface, we'll be able to fight our way to the ship, will we not?"

"Of course! You should be in command, Inverness, instead of myself."

His was the obvious solution to our difficulty; once proposed, I felt amazingly stupid that the thought had not occurred to me.

I gave the necessary orders to the ray men, and they started immediately, boring in steadily at an angle of about forty-five degrees.

The reddish dust came back to us in choking clouds, and the Aranians, perhaps guessing what we were doing--at least one of their number had seen how the ray could tunnel in the ground--started working around the angle of the pa.s.sage.

At first they came in small groups, and our pistols readily disposed of them, but as the dust filled the air, and it became increasingly difficult to see their spidery bodies, they rushed us in great ma.s.ses.

Correy and I, shoulder to shoulder, fired at the least sign of movement in the cloud of dust. A score of times the rushes of the Aranians brought a few of them scuttling almost to our feet; inside of a few minutes the pa.s.sage was choked, waist high, with the riddled bodies--and still they came!

"We're through, sir!" shouted one of the ray operators. "If you can hold them off another fifteen minutes, we'll have the hole large enough to crawl through."

"Work fast!" I ordered. Even with Inverness, Brady, and the three of the _Ertak's_ crew doing what they could in those narrow quarters, we were having a hard time holding back the horde of angry, desperate Aranians. Tipene was useless; he was cowering beside the ray operators, chattering at them, urging them to hurry.

Had we had good light, our task would have been easy, but the pa.s.sage was choked now with dust. Our _ethon_ lamps made little more than a dismal glow. The clattering Aranians were almost within leaping distance before we could see them; indeed, more than one was stopped in mid-air by a spray from one pistol or another.

"Ready, sir," gasped the ray man who had spoken before. "I think we've got it large enough, now."

"Good!" I brought down two scuttling Aranians, so close that their twitching legs fell in an untidy heap almost at my feet. "You go first, and protect our advance. Then the rest of you; Mr. Correy and I will bring up the--"

"No!" screamed Tipene, shouldering aside the ray men. "I...." He disappeared into the slanting shaft, and the two ray men followed quickly. The three members of the crew went next; then Brady and Inverness.

Correy and I backed toward the freshly cut pa.s.sage.

"I'll be right behind you," I snapped, "so keep moving!"

Correy hesitated an instant; I knew he would have preferred the place of danger as the last man, but he was too good an officer to protest when time was so precious. He climbed into the slanting pa.s.sage the ray had cut for us, and as he did so, I heard, or thought I heard, a cry from beyond him, from one of those ahead.

I gave Correy several seconds before I followed; when I did start, I planned on coming fast, for in that shoulder-tight tube I would be utterly at the mercy of any who might attack from behind.

Fairly spraying the oncoming horde, I drove them back, for a moment, beyond the angle in the corridor; then I fairly dived into the tunnel and crawled as fast as hands and knees could take me toward the blessed open air.

I heard the things clatter into the s.p.a.ce I had deserted. I heard them scratching frantically in the tunnel behind me, evidently handicapped by their long legs, which must have been drawn up very close to their bodies.

Light came pouring in on me suddenly, and I realized that Correy had won free. Behind me I could hear savage mandibles snapping, and cold sweat broke out on me. How close a terrible death might be, I had no means of knowing--but it was very close.

My head emerged; I drew my body swiftly out of the hole and s.n.a.t.c.hed a grenade from my belt. Instantly I flung it down the slanting pa.s.sage, with a shout of warning to my companions.

With a m.u.f.fled roar, the grenade shook the earth; sent a brown cloud spattering around us. I had made a desperate leap to get away, but even then I was covered by the shower of earth.