crater-base, Miko's lights had not
vanished! I had missed! An error in the range? Abruptly I knew it was
not that. Miko's lights were still there. His signals still coming.
And I remarked now a faint distortion about them, the glow of his
little group of hand-lights faintly distorted and vaguely shot with a
greenish cast. Benson curve-lights! I realized it.

My thoughts whirled in the few seconds while I stood there at the
tower window. Miko had feared he might summarily be fired upon. He had
gone back to his camp, equipped all his lights with the Benson curve.
He was somewhere at the crater-base now. But not where I thought I saw
him! The Benson curve-light changed the path of the light-rays
traveling from him to me--I could not even approximate his true
position!

Anita was plucking at me. "Gregg, come."

"I can't hit him!" I gasped.

Should I try the flash-signal to Earth? Did we dare linger here? I
stood another few seconds fascinated at the window. I saw Potan down
in the confusion of the deck, training a telescope. He had shouted up
violently at his duty-man here not to fire again.

And now he suddenly let out a roar. "I can see them! It's Miko! By the
Almighty--his giant stature--Brotow, look! That's not an Earthman!"

He flung aside his little telescope finder. "Disconnect that
projector! It's Miko down there! This Haljan is a trickster! Where is
he? Braile--Braile, you accursed fool! Are Haljan and the girl up
there with you?"

But the duty-man lay weltering in his blood at our feet.

I had dropped back from the window. Anita and I crouched for an
instant in confusion, fumbling with our helmets.

The ship rang with the alarm. And amid the turmoil we could hear the
shouts of the infuriated brigands swarming up the tower ladder after
us!

CHAPTER XXXII

_A Speck Amid the Stars_

I was only inactive a moment. I had thought Anita would have on her
helmet. But she was reluctant, or confused.

"Gregg."

"We've got to get out of here! Up through the overhead locks to the
dome."

"Yes--" She fumbled with the helmet. Under the floor-grid the climbing
men on the ladder were audible. They were already nearing the top. The
trap door was closed: Anita and I were crouching on it. There was a
thick metal bar set in a depressed groove of the grid. I slid it in
place--it would seal the trap for a time, at any rate.

A degree of confidence came to me. We had a few moments before there
could be any hand-