s from Grantline! Let them
see us!"

I stood erect. The little flying platform went over us, fifty feet up,
circling, dropping to the dome-top.

I waved my helmet-light. The exit-lock from below--up which we had
come--was near us. The advancing brigands were already in it! I had
forgotten to demolish the manuals. And I saw that the darkness down on
the rocks was almost gone now, dissipating in the airless night. The
brigands down there began firing up at us.

It was a confusion of flashing lights. I clutched at Anita.

"Come this way--run!"

The platform barely missed our heads. It sailed lengthwise of the
dome-top, and crashed silently on the central runway near the
stern-tip. Anita and I ran to it.

The two helmeted figures seized us, shoved us prone on the metal
platform. It was barely four feet wide: a low railing, handles with
which to cling, and a tiny hooded cubby in front, with banks of
controls.

"Gregg!"

"Snap!"

It was Snap and Venza. She seized Anita, held her crouching in place.
Snap flung himself face down at the controls.

The brigands in the lock were out on the dome now. I took a last shot
as we lifted. My bullet punctured one of them; he fell, slid
scrambling off the rounded dome and dropped out of sight.

Light-rays and silent flashes seemed to envelop us. Venra held the
side-shields higher.

We tilted, swayed crazily, and then steadied.

The ship's dome dropped away beneath us. The rocks of the open ledge
were under us. Then the abyss, with the moving climbing specks of
Miko's lights far down.

I saw, over the side-shield, the already distant brigand ship resting
on the ledge with the massive Archimedes' wall behind it. A confusion
back there of futile flashing rays.

It all faded into a remote glow as we sailed smoothly up into the
starlight and away, heading for the Grantline camp.

CHAPTER XXXIII

_Besieged!_

"Wake up, Gregg! They're coming!"

I forced myself to consciousness. "Coming--"

"Yes. Wake up!"

I leaped from my bunk, followed Snap with a rush into the corridor. We
had returned safely to the Grantline Camp. Anita and I found ourselves
exhausted from lack of sleep, our arduous climb of Archimedes and that
tense time on the brigand ship. On the flight back Snap had explained
how the landing of the ship on Archimedes was observed through the
Grantline telescope, using but little of its power for this local
range. They had read with amazement my signals to