XXXIV
It seemed, with that first shot from the enemy, that a great reliefcame to us--an apprehension fallen away. We had anticipated thismoment for so long, dreaded it. I think all our men felt it. A shoutwent up:
"Harmless!"
It was not that. But our building withstood it better than I hadfeared. It was a flash from a large electronic projector mounted onthe deck of the brigand ship. It stabbed up from the shadows acrossthe valley at the foot of the opposite crater wall, a beam of vaguelyfluorescent light. Simultaneously the searchlight vanished.
The stream of electrons caught the front face of our main building ina six foot circle. It held a few seconds, vanished, then stabbedagain, and still again. Three bolts. A total, I suppose, of nine orten seconds.
I was standing with Grantline at a front window. We had rigged anoblong of insulated fabric like a curtain; we stood peering, holdingthe curtain cautiously aside. The ray struck some twenty feet awayfrom us.
"Harmless!" The men shouted it with derision.
But Grantline swung on them: "Don't get that idea!"
An interior signal panel was beside Grantline. He called the duty menin the instrument room.
"It's over. What are your readings?"
The bombarding electrons had passed through the outer shell of thebuilding's double wall, and been absorbed in the rarefied, magnetizedaircurrent of the Erentz circulation. Like poison in a man's veins,reaching his heart, the free alien electrons had disturbed the motors.They accelerated, then retarded. Pulsed unevenly, and drew added powerfrom the reserve tanks. But they had normalized at once when the shotwas past. The duty man's voice sounded from the grid in answer toGrantline's question:
"Five degrees colder in your building. Can't you feel it?"
The disturbed, weakened Erentz system had allowed the outer cold toradiate through a trifle. The walls had had a trifle extra explosivepressure from the air. A strain--but that was all.
"It's probably their most powerful single weapon, Gregg," saidGrantline.
I nodded, "Yes, I think so."
I had smashed the real giant, with its ten mile range. The ship wasonly two miles from us, but it seemed as though this projector wereexerted to its distance limit. I had noticed on the deck only one ofthis type. The others, paralyzing rays and heat rays, were lessdeadly.
Grantline commented: "We can withstand a lot of that bombardment. Ifwe stay inside--"
That ray, striking a man outside, would penetrate his Erentz suitwithin a few seconds, we could not doubt. We had, however, nointention of going out unless for dire necessity.
"Even so," said Grantline, "a hand shield would hold it off for acertain length of time."
We had an opportunity a moment later to test our insulated shields.The bolt came again. It darted along the front face of the building,caught our window, and clung. The double window shelves were ourweakest points. The sheet of flashing Erentz current was transparent;we could see through it as though it were glass. It moved faster, butwas thinner at the windows than the walls. We feared the bombardingelectrons might cross it, penetrate the inner shell and, like alightning bolt, enter the room.
We dropped the curtain corner. The radiance of the bolt was dimlyvisible. A few seconds, then it vanished again, and behind the shieldwe had not felt a tingle.
"Harmless!"
But our power had been drained nearly an aeron, to neutralize theshock to the Erentz current. Grantline said:
"If they kept that up, it would be a question of whose power supplywould last longer. And it would not be ours.... You saw our lightsfade when the bolt was striking?"
But the brigands did not know we were short of power. And to fire theprojector with a continuous bolt would, in thirty minutes, perhaps,have exhausted their own power reserve.
"I won't answer them," Grantline declared. "Our game is to sitdefensive. Conserve everything. Let them make the leading moves."
We waited half an hour; but no other shot came. The valley floor waspatched with Earthlight and shadow. We could see the vague outline ofthe brigand ship backed up at the foot of the opposite crater wall.The form of its dome over the illuminated deck was visible, and theline of its tiny hull ovals.
On the rocks near the ship, helmet lights of prowling brigandsoccasionally showed.
Whatever activity was going on down there we could not see with thenaked eye. Grantline did not use our telescope at first. To connectit, even for local range, drew on our precious ammunition of power.Some of the men urged that we search the sky with the telescope. Wasour rescue ship from Earth coming? But Grantline refused. We were inno trouble yet. And every delay was to our advantage.
"Commander, where shall I put these helmets?"
A man came wheeling a pile of helmets on a small truck.
"At the manual port--in the other building."
Our weapons and outside equipment were massed at the main exit locksof the large building. But we might want to go out through smallerlocks too. Grantline sent helmets there; suits were not needed, asmost of us were garbed in them now.
Snap was still in the workshop. I went there during this firsthalf-hour of the attack. Ten of our men were busy there with thelittle flying platforms and the fabric shields.
"How goes it, Snap?"
"Almost all ready."
He had six of the platforms, including the one we had already used,and more than a dozen hand shields. At a squeeze, all of us could rideon these six little vehicles. We might _have_ to ride them! We plannedthat, in event of disaster to the buildings, we could at least escapein this fashion. Food supplies and water were now being placed at theports.
Depressing preparations! Our buildings uninhabitable, a rush out andaway, abandoning the treasure.... Grantline had never mentioned such acontingency, but I noticed, nevertheless, that preparations were beingmade.
Snap's voice was raised over the clang of the workmen bolting thegravity plates of the last platform:
"Only that one projector, Gregg?"
"They gave us four blasts; but just the one projector. Theirstrongest."
He grinned. He wore no Erentz suit as yet. He stood in torn grimy worktrousers and a bedraggled shirt, with the inevitable red eyeshadeholding back his unruly hair. Around his waist was the weighted belt,and there were weights on his shoes for gravity stability.
"Didn't hurt us much."
"No."
"When I get the tube panels in this thing I'll be finished. It'll takeanother half-hour. Then I'll join you. Where are you stationed?"
I shrugged. "I was at a front window with Johnny. Nothing to do asyet."
Snap went back to his work. "Well, the longer they delay, the betterfor us. If only your signal got through, Gregg, we'll have a rescueship here in a few hours more!"
Ah, that _if_!
I turned away. "Can't help you, Snap?"
"No.... Take those shields," he added to one of the men.
"Take them where?"
"To Grantline. He'll tell you where to put them."
The shields were wheeled away on a little cart. I followed it.Grantline sent it to the back exit.
"No other move from them yet, Johnny?"
"No. All quiet."
"Snap's almost finished."
The brigands presently made another play. A giant heat-ray beam cameacross the valley. It clung to our front wall for nearly a minute.
Grantline got the report from the instrument room. He laughed.
"That helped rather than hurt us. Heated the outer wall. Franck tookadvantage of it and eased up the motors."
We wondered if Miko knew that. Doubtless he did, for the heat-ray wasnot used again.
Then came a zed-ray. I stood at the window, watching it, faint sheenof beam in the dimness; it crept with sinister deliberation along ourfront wall, clung momentarily to our shielded windows, and pried withits revealing glow into Snap's workshop.
"Looking us over," Grantline commented. "I hope they like what theysee."
I knew that he did not feel the bravado that was in his tone. We hadnothing but small hand weapons: heat-rays, electronic projectors, andbullet projectors. All for very short range fighting. If Miko had notknown that before, he could at least make a good guess at it after thecareful zed-ray inspection. With his ship down there two miles away,we were powerless to reach him. It seemed that Miko was now testingall his mechanisms. A light flare went up from the dome peak of theship. It rose in a slow arc over the valley, and burst. For a fewseconds the two mile circle of crags was brilliantly illumined. Istared, but I had to shield my eyes against the dazzling actinicglare, and I could see nothing. Was Miko making a zed-ray photographof our interiors? We had no way of knowing.
He was testing his short range projectors now. With my eyes againaccustomed to the normal Earthlight in the valley, I could see thestabs of electronic beams, the Martian paralyzing rays and heat beams.They darted out like flashing swords from the rocks near the ship.
Then the whole ship and the crater wall behind it seemed to shiftsidewise as a Benson curve light spread its glow about the ship, witha projector curve beam coming up and touching the window through whichI was peering.
"Haljan, come look at these damn girls! Commander--shall I stop them?They'll kill themselves, or kill us--or smash something!"
We followed the man into the building's broad central corridor. Anitaand Venza were riding a midget platform! Anita, in her boyish blackgarb; Venza, with a flowing white Venus-robe. They lay on the tiny sixfoot long oblong of metal, one manipulating its side shields, theother at the controls. As we arrived, the platform came sliding downthe narrow confines of the corridor, lurching, barely missing a doorprojection. Up to the low vaulted ceiling, then down to the floor.
It sailed over our heads, rising over us as we ducked. Anita waved herhand.
Grantline gasped, "By the infernal!"
I shouted, "Anita, stop!"
But they only waved at us, skimming down the length of the corridor,seeming to avoid a smash a dozen times by the smallest margin ofchance, stopping miraculously at the further end, hanging poised inmid-air, wheeling, coming back, undulating up and down.
Grantline clung to me. "By the gods of the airways!"
In spite of my astonished horror, I could not but share Grantline'sadmiration. Three or four other men were watching. The girls wereamazingly skillful, no doubt of that. There was not a man among us whocould have handled that gravity platform indoors, not one who wouldhave had the brash temerity to try it.
The platform landed with the grace of a humming bird at our feet, thegirls dexterously balancing so that it came to rest swiftly, withoutthe least bump.
I confronted them. "Anita, what are you doing?"
She stood up, flushed and smiling. "Practicing."
"What for?"
Venza's roguish eyes twinkled at me. Her hands went to her slim hipswith a gesture of defiance.
She asked, "Are you speaking for yourself or the Commander?"
I ignored her. "What for?"
"Because we're good at it," Anita retorted. "Better than any of youmen. If you should need us, we're ready...."
"We won't!" I said shortly.
"But if you should...."
Venza put in, "If Snap and I hadn't come for you, you wouldn't behere, Gregg Haljan. I didn't notice you were so horrified to see meholding that shield up over you!"
It silenced me.
She added, "Commander, let us alone. We won't smash anything."
Grantline laughed. "I hope you won't!"
A warning call took us back to the front window. The brigands'searchlight was again being used. It swept slowly along the length ofthe cliff. Its circle went down the cliff steps to the valley floor,and came sweeping up again. Then it went up to the observatoryplatform at the summit above us, then over to the ore sheds.
We had no men outside, if that was what the brigands wanted todetermine. The searchbeam presently vanished. It was replacedimmediately by a zed-ray, which darted at once to our treasure shedsand clung.
That stung Grantline into his first action. We flung our own zed-raydown across the valley. It reached the brigand ship and the blurredinterior of the cabins.
"Try the searchbeam, Franck."
The zed-ray went off. We gazed down our searchlight which clung to thedome of the distant enemy vessel. We could see movement there.
"The telescope," Grantline ordered.
The dynamos hummed. The telescope finder glowed and clarified. On thedeck of the ship we saw the brigands working with the assembling oftiny ore carts. A deck landing port was open. The ore carts were beingcarried out through a port lock and down a landing incline. And on therock outside, we saw several of the carts, tiny rail sections and thesection of an ore chute.
Miko was unloading his mining apparatus! He was making ready to comeup for the treasure!
The discovery, startling as it was, nevertheless, was far overshadowedby an imperative danger alarm from our main building. Brigands wereoutside on our ledge! Miko's searchbeam, sweeping the ledge a momentbefore, had carefully avoided revealing them. It had been done justfor that purpose, no doubt--to make us feel sure the ledge wasunoccupied and thus to guard against our own light making the search.
But there was a brigand group close outside our walls! By the merestchance the radiating glow from our searchray had shown the helmetedfigures scurrying for shelter.
Grantline leaped to his feet.
We rushed from the rear port exit which was nearest us. The giantbloated figures had been seen running along the outside of theconnecting corridor, in this direction. But before we ever got there,a new alarm came. A brigand was crouching at a front corner of themain building!
His hydrogen heat torch had already opened a rift in the wall!