es would doubtless be repaired by now. I could
get her inside.

She had bounded away from me, leaped down some thirty feet into the
broken gully, to cross it and then up on the other side. I stood for
an instant watching her fantastic shape, with the great rounded,
goggled, trunked helmet and the lump on her shoulders which held the
little Erentz motors. Then I made after her.

It did not take us long--two or three miles of circling along the
giant wall. The ship lay only a few hundred feet above our level.

We stood at last on a buttelike pinnacle. The hull-porte lights of the
ship were close over us. And there were moving lights up there, tiny
moving spots on the adjacent rocks. The brigands had come out,
prowling around to investigate their location.

No signal yet from Miko. But it might come at any moment.

"I'll flash now," I whispered.

"Yes."

The brigands had probably not yet seen us. I took the lamp from my
helmet. My hand was trembling. Suppose my signal were answered by a
shot? A flash from some giant projector mounted on the ship?

Anita crouched behind a rock, as she had promised. I stood with my
torch, and flung its switch.

My puny light-beam shot up. I waved it, touched the ship with its
faint glowing circle of illumination.

They saw me. There was a sudden movement among the lights up there.

* * * * *

I semaphored:

"_I am from Miko. Do not fire._"

I used the open Universal Code. In Martian first, and then in English.

There was no answer, but no attack. I tried again.

"_This is Haljan, once of the_ Planetara. _George Prince's sister is
with me. There has been disaster to Miko._"

A small light-beam came down from the brink of the overhead cliff
beside the ship.

"_We read you._"

I went steadily on: "_Disaster--the_ Planetara _is wrecked. All killed
but me and George Prince's sister. We want to join you._"

I flashed off my light. The answer came: "_Where is the Grantline
camp?_"

"_Near here. The Mare Imbrium._"

As though to answer my lie, from down on the Earthlit plains, 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 signalling up here and was joining it! He repeated,
"_Land Mare Imbrium._"

* * * * *

I flashed a protest up to the ship: "_Beware!