hem over. Allenby put them to the shield of his mask
and adjusted them.

After a moment he sighed again. "There's a hole. On a plane surface
that catches the Sun. A lousy damned round little impossible hole."

"Those hills," Burton observed, "must be thousands of feet thick."

* * * * *

The argument lasted all the way back to the ship.

Janus, holding out for his belief that the whole thing was of religious
origin, kept looking around for Martians as if he expected them to pour
screaming from the hills.

Burton came up with the suggestion that perhaps the holes had been made
by a disintegrator-ray.

"It's possible," Allenby admitted. "This might have been the scene of
some great battle--"

"With only one such weapon?" I objected.

Allenby swore as he stumbled. "What do you mean?"

"I haven't seen any other lines of holes--only the one. In a battle, the
whole joint should be cut up.

That was good for a few moments' silent thought. Then Allenby said, "It
might have been brought out by one side as a last resort. Sort of an ace
in the hole."

I resisted the temptation to mutiny. "But would even one such weapon, in
battle make only _one_ line of holes? Wouldn't it be played in an arc
against the enemy? You know it would."

"Well--"

"Wouldn't it cut slices out of the landscape, instead of boring holes?
And wouldn't it sway or vibrate enough to make the holes miles away from
it something less than perfect circles?"

"It could have been very firmly mounted."

"Hugh, does that sound like a practical weapon to you?"

Two seconds of silence. "On the other hand," he said, "instead of a war,
the whole thing might have been designed to frighten some primitive
race--or even some kind of beast--the _hole_ out of here. A
demonstration--"

"Religious," Janus grumbled, still looking around.

We walked on, passing the cactus on the low ridge.

"Interesting," said Gonzales. "The evidence that whatever causes the
phenomenon has happened again and again. I'm afraid that the war
theory--"

"Oh, my God!" gasped Burton.

We stared at him.

"The ship," he whispered. "It's right in line with the holes! If
whatever made them is still in operation...."

"Run!" yelled Allenby, and we ran like fiends.

* * * * *

We got the ship into the air, out of line with the holes to what we
fervently hoped was safety, and then we realized we were admitting our
fe