our
front building-wall, clung momentarily to our shielded windows and
pried with its revealing glow into Snap's workshop.

"Looking us over," Grantline commented. "I hope they like what they
see."

I knew he did not feel the bravado that was in his tone. We had
nothing but small hand weapons: heat-rays, electronic projectors, and
bullet projectors. All for very short-range fighting. If Miko had not
known that before, he could at least make a good guess at it after the
careful zed-ray inspection. With his ship down there two miles away,
we were powerless to reach him.

It seemed that Miko was now testing the use of all his mechanisms. A
light-flare went up from the dome-peak of the ship. It rose in a slow
arc over the valley, and burst. For a few seconds the two-mile circle
of crags was brilliantly illumined. I stared, but I had to shield my
eyes against the dazzling actinic glare, and I could see nothing. Was
Miko making a zed-ray photograph of our interiors? We had no way of
knowing.

He was testing his short-range projectors now. With my eyes again
accustomed to the normal Earthlight in the valley, I could see the
stabs of little 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 shift
sidewise as a Benson curve-light spread its glow about the ship, with
a projector curve-beam coming up and touching the window through which
I 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. Anita
and Venza were riding a midget flying platform! Anita, in her boyish
black garb; Venza with a flowing white Venus-robe. They lay on the
tiny, six-foot oblong of metal, one manipulating its side shields, the
other at the controls. As we arrived, the platform came sliding down
the narrow confines of the corridor, lurching, barely missing a
door-grid projection. Up to skim the low vaulted ceiling, then down to
the floor.

It sailed past our heads, rising over us as we ducked. Anita waved her
hand.

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 of