n to
the plains.

* * * * *

I saw the lights of Miko's band down there. He had stopped signaling.
His little lights were spread out, bobbing as he and his men advanced
up the crater's foothills, coming to join their ship.

I had an instant's glimpse. Anita and I could not stay here. The
brigands would follow us up in a moment. I saw no exterior ladder. We
would have to take our chances and jump.

There were brigands down there on the rocks. I saw three or four
skulking helmeted figures, and they saw us! A bullet whizzed by us,
and then came the flash of a hand-ray.

I touched Anita. "Can you make the leap? Anita, dear...."

Again it seemed that this must be farewell.

"Gregg, dear one--oh, we've got to do it!"

Those waiting figures would pounce on us.

"Anita, lie here a moment."

I jumped up and ran twenty feet toward the bow; then back, toward the
stern, flinging down the last of my bombs. The darkness was like a
cloud down there, enveloping the outer brigands. But up here we were
above it, etched by the starlight and Earthglow.

I came back to Anita.

"We'll have to chance it now."

"Gregg...."

"Good-by, dear. I'll jump first, down this side--you follow."

To leap into that black patch, with the rocks under it....

"Gregg--"

She was trying to tell me to look overhead. She gestured. "Gregg,
see!"

I saw it out over the plains--a little speck amid the stars. A moving
speck, coming toward us!

"Gregg, what is it?"

* * * * *

I gazed, held my breath. A moving speck out there. A blob now.

And then I realized that it was not a large object, far away, but
small, and already very close--only a few hundred feet off, dropping
toward the top of our dome. A narrow, flat, ten-foot object, like a
wingless volplane. There were no lights on it, but in the Earthlight I
could see two crouching, helmeted figures riding it.

"Anita! Don't you remember!"

I was swept with dawning comprehension. Back in the Grantline camp
Snap and I had discussed how to use the _Planetara's_ gravity plates.
We had gone to the wreck and secured them, had rigged this little
volplane flyer....

The brigands on the rocks saw it now. A flash went up at it. One of
the figures crouching on it opened a flexible fabric like a wing over
its side. I saw another flash from below, harmlessly striking the
insulated shield.

I gasped to Anita, "Light your helmet! It'