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The form of its dome over the illuminated deck was visible, and the line of its tiny hull ovals. On the rocks near the ship, helmet lights of prowling brigands occasionally showed. Whatever activity was going on down there we could not see with the naked eye. Grantline did not use our telescope at first. To connect it, even for local range, drew on our precious ammunition of power.
A last minute change made Grantline order six of his men to remain to guard the buildings. The instruments, the Erentz system, all the appliances had to be attended. It left four platforms, each with three men Grantline at the controls of one of them. And upon two of the others, Venza rode with Snap and I with Anita. We crouched in the shadows outside the port.
And Grantline's searchbeam was going full power, clinging to the ship to dazzle them. Snap circled them. As we came back I dropped another bomb. Its silent puff seemed littered with flying fragments of the two projectors and the bodies of the men. We swiftly flew back to our base. It decided Grantline. For an hour past Snap and I had been urging our plan to use the gravity platforms.
He laughed when I told him that we had dared to invade the Grantline camp, had smashed its exit ports, had even gotten up to have a look where the treasure was piled. "Well done, Haljan. You're a fellow to my liking!" But his gaze was on Anita. "You dress like a man or a charming boy." She still wore the dark clothes of her brother. She said, "I am used to action. Man's garb pleases me.
Gregg, tonight when the passengers are asleep, come here to me. Snap will be here, and Dr. Frank. We can trust him." "He knows about about the Grantline treasure?" "Yes. And so do Balch and Blackstone." Balch and Blackstone were our first and second officers. "We'll all meet here, Gregg say about the zero hour. We must take some precautions." Then he dismissed me.
Coming back, you'll stop at the Moon and transport whatever radiactum ore Grantline has ready. The Grantline Flyer is too small for ore transportation." Halsey's voice turned grimly sarcastic. "Doesn't it seem queer that George Prince and a few of his Martian friends happen to be listed as passengers for this voyage?" In the silence that followed, Snap and I regarded each other.
He sent up a signal you saw it, didn't you? just before Miss Prince and I came aboard. He was trying to pretend he was your Earth party, Miko and Coniston." "Why?" The fellow turned his scowl on me, but Anita brought his gaze back to her. She put in quickly: "Grantline, as brother always said, has no great cunning. I believe now he plans to creep up on us unawares, by pretending that he is Miko."
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.
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 brigand had been seen. Grantline touched me just as we emerged. "Don't wait for orders? Get him." "That fellow with the torch " "Yes. I'm with you."
Its interior door panel swung open for him. But the door did not close after him! Cursing the man's slowness, he waited a few seconds. Then he turned to the corridor. The duty man came running. Grantline took off his helmet. "What in hell " "Broken! Dead!" "What!" "Smashed from outside," gasped the duty man. "Look there my tubes "
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