I looked around. Trapdoors were open everywhere, and from hundreds of these openings, Aranians were scuttling toward us.

But the ray operators were working; not only the little portable machine, but the big projectors on the _Ertak_, five or six hundred yards away; laying down a deadly and impa.s.sable barrage on either side of us.

"They got Tipene, sir!" said Correy. "He dodged out ahead of the ray men, and two of them pounced on him. They were dragging him away, tearing him. The ray men wiped them out. Tipene was already dead--torn to fragments, they said. Back to the s.h.i.+p now, sir?"

"Back to the s.h.i.+p," I nodded, still rather breathless. "Let the ray men cover our retreat; we can take care of those between us and the s.h.i.+p with our pistols--and the _Ertak's_ projectors will attend to our flanks. On the double, men!"

We fought every step of the way, in a fog of reddish dust from the big disintegrator rays playing on either side of us--but we made it, a torn, weary, and bedraggled crew.

"Quite an engagement, sir," gasped Correy, when we were safely inside the _Ertak_. "Think they'll remember this little visit of ours, sir?"

"I know we'll remember it, anyway," I said, shaking some of the dust of disintegration from my clothes. "Just at the moment, I'd welcome a tour of routine patrol."

"Sure, sir," grinned Correy. "So would I--until we were a day or two out from Base!"