enough! But I need a few hours for my
assembling."

"He will not dare advance," I said. "For one thing, he can't leave the
treasure."

"He knows we have unmasked his lure," Anita put in smilingly. "Haljan
and I joining you--that silenced him. His light went out very
promptly, didn't it?"

She flashed me a side-gaze. Were we acting convincingly? But if Miko
started up his signals again, they might so quickly betray us! Anita's
thoughts were upon that, for she added:

"Grantline will not dare show his light! If he does, Set Potan, we can
blast him with a ray from here! Can't we?"

"Yes," Potan agreed. "If he comes within ten miles, I have one
powerful enough. We are assembling it now."

"And we have thirty men?" Anita persisted. "When we sail down to
attack him it should not be very difficult to kill all the Grantline
party. Thirty of us--that's enough to share in this treasure. I'm glad
Miko is dead."

"By Heaven, Haljan, this girl of yours is small, but very
blood-thirsty!"

"That accursed Miko murdered her brother," I explained.

* * * * *

Acting! And never once did we dare relax! If only Miko's signals would
hold off and give us time!

We may have talked for half an hour. We were in a small, steel-lined
cubby, located in the forward deck-space of the ship. The dome was
over it. I could see from where I sat at the table that there was a
forward observatory tower under the dome quite near here. The ship was
laid out in rather similar fashion to the _Planetara_, though
considerably smaller.

Potan had dismissed his men from his cubby so as to be alone with us.
Out on the deck I could see them dragging apparatus about--bringing
the mechanisms of giant projectors up from below, beginning to
assemble them. Occasionally some of the men would come to our cubby
windows to peer in at us curiously.

My mind was roaming as I talked. For all my manner of casualness, I
knew that haste was necessary. Whatever Anita and I were to do must be
quickly done. But to win this fellow's utter confidence first was
necessary, so that we might have the freedom of the ship, might move
about unnoticed, unwatched.

I was horribly tense inside. Through the dome windows across the deck
from the cubby the rocks of the Lunar landscape were visible. I could
see the brink of this ledge upon which the ship lay, the descending
crags down the precipitous wall of Archimedes to the Earthlit plains
far belo