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Miko stood in the center of the radio room, triumphantly reading the little indicator. Its beam swung on the scale, which chanced to be almost directly over Anita's head. I saw Miko's expression change.... A look of surprise, amazement, came over him. "Why " He gasped. He stood staring. Almost stupidly staring, for an instant.
The scream of hand sirens sounded from his stateroom. It rang over the ship. His signal! I heard it answered from some distant point. And then a shot: a commotion in the lower corridors.... The attack upon the Planetara had begun! I was on my feet. The shouts of startled passengers sounded, a turmoil beginning everywhere. I stood momentarily transfixed. The door of Miko's stateroom burst open.
In ten days the other brigand ship, adequately manned and armed, would be here. Snap helped me connect the zed-ray. He did not dare even to whisper to me, with Moa hovering always so close. And for all Miko's sardonic smiling, we knew that he would tolerate nothing from us now. He was fully armed and so was Moa. I recall that several times Snap endeavored to touch me significantly.
I told her everything. "Oh Gregg! The Martian ship coming!" Her mind clung to that as the most important thing. But not so myself. To me there was only the realization that Anita was caught out here, almost at the mercy of Miko's ray. Grantline's men could not get out to help us, nor could I get Anita into the camp. She added, "Where do you suppose the ship is?"
Then he had seen Miko's signals from the crater base, seen the lights and the fight to capture Anita and me, and had come to rescue us. Back at the camp we were given food, and Grantline forced me to try to sleep. "They'll be on us in a few hours, Gregg. Miko wall have joined them by now. He'll lead them to us. You must rest, for we need everyone at his best."
Whether Miko's instruments showed him how badly damaged our front wall was, we never knew. But I think that he realized. His searchbeam clung to it, and his zed-ray pried into our interiors. The brigand ship was active now. We were desperate; we used our telescope freely for observation. Miko's ore carts and mining apparatus were unloaded on the rocks.
As though to answer my lie, from down on the Earthlit plains, some ten miles or so from the crater base, a tiny signal light shot up. Anita saw it and gripped me. "There is Miko's light!" It spelled in Martian, Come down. Land Mare Imbrium. Miko had seen the signaling up here and had joined it! He repeated, Land Mare Imbrium. I flashed a protest up to the ship: Beware. That is Grantline! Trickery.
Captain Carter and Balch were dead. The lookouts and course masters, also. And Blackstone. There remained only Dr. Frank and Snap. Their fate I did not yet know. And there was George Prince. He, perhaps, would help me if he could. But, at best, he was a dubious ally. "You are very foolish, Haljan," murmured Miko's voice.
In all the universe there could be no more dangerous an enemy. An incredible venom shot from her eyes. "That miserable mouselike creature! Well for her that my brother killed her." It struck me cold. If Anita were unmasked, beyond all the menace of Miko's wooing, I knew that the venom of Moa's jealousy was a greater danger. I said sharply, "Don't be simple, Moa!" I shook off her grip.
"Twenty or thirty thousand miles up, probably." The stars and the Earth were visible over us. Somewhere up there, disclosed by Grantline's instruments but not yet discernible to the naked eye, Miko's reinforcements were hovering. We lay for a moment in silence. It was horribly nerve straining. Miko could be creeping up on us. Would he dare chance my sudden fire?
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