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Updated: May 14, 2025
There was no sign from Kreynborg or the rocket-ship. Thorn panted. "He can't reach us with gas, now, and it looks like he doesn't dare use a gun. They'd know he wasn't a Martian. At night he'll use that helicopter, though. If we can only make those ships see us...." They toiled on. The sun was already slanting down toward the western sky.
The heavy-weight champion of the United Nations was warned that his title would be forfeited if he further dodged a fight with his most promising contender. And ... Thorn Hard had not reported to Watch headquarters in twelve hours. He was, as a matter of fact, cautiously parting some bushes to peer past a mountain-flank at the red rocket-ship. Sylva West lay on the ground behind him.
He fought his way savagely toward higher ground. The white vapor reached his waist.... It reached his shoulders.... He slung Sylva upon his shoulder and fought more madly still to get out of the wide white current.... It submerged him in its stinging, bitter flood.... As he felt himself collapsing his last conscious thought was the bitter realization that the bulbous white tower had upheld television lenses at its top, which had watched his approach and inspection of the rocket-ship, and had enabled those in the red monster to accurately direct their spurt of gas.
The Com-Pubs were preparing an ultimatum to be delivered to the government of the United Nations. Thorn and Sylva were hunted fugitives within the inner dome of force, which protected the red rocket-ship from the seven combat squadrons it had imprisoned.
Newspaper vendor-units were screaming raucously, "Martians land in Colorado!" and the newspapers themselves printed colored-photos of hastily improvised models in their accounts of the landing of a blood-red rocket-ship in the widest part of the Rockies. The inter-continental tennis matches reached their semi-finals in Havana, Cuba.
As Thorn watched, that cloud drew close. As his eyes glowed, it resolved itself into its component specks. Small, two-man patrol-scouts. Larger, ten-man cruisers of the air. Huge, massive dreadnaughts of the blue. A complete combat-squadron of the United Nations Fighting Forces was sweeping to position about the dome of force above the rocket-ship.
The canteen top was slightly convex, so the sunlight-beam would spread. Accuracy was not needed, therefore. He covered and uncovered it, and covered and uncovered it.... "They answered!" said Sylva eagerly. "They said 'Thorn Hard report at once!" There was a hissing, roaring noise over the hillside, where the red rocket-ship lay. Thorn paid no attention.
Both of them weary to the point of exhaustion. They had started their descent from Mount Wendel at the first gray streak of dawn in the east. They had toiled painfully across the broken country between, to this point of vantage. Now Thorn looked down upon the rocket-ship. It lay a little askew upon the ground, seeming to be partly buried in the earth.
This information was duly flashed to the Council of Callisto, and the projection was then hurled across the intervening reaches of space and into the cavern in which was being built the enormous rocket-ship in which the Terrestrial refugees were to attempt the long voyage back to their own distant planet.
First, to attempt it as soon as we shall have strengthened our armament as much as is now possible. That would invite a massed attack, and in my opinion would be foolish probably suicidal. Second, to stand by at a distance until the rocket-ship is launched, then to escort it back to the Earth. Third, to aid the Callistonians as much as possible while awaiting the completion of the rocket-vessel.
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