re outside, God
alone knows how long. Believe me, I had you crossed off the list! That
left two of us. With a war on, somebody had to stand guard in the
look-out, the control board here had to be watched, an' somebody else
had to get below.

"I was just tryin' to figure out a way o' cuttin' myself in half when
I thought o' Ran-los. For a Weenie he's got a heck of a lot of sense.
I zoomed down, hauled him out o' his bunk, scooted back up, showed him
how to work the peri-telescope an' the big beam-thrower, an' left him
there on guard."

"Best thing you could have done." Darl's voice was muffled by the
bandages in which his head, as well as the rest of his body, was
swathed. "He's got a head on his shoulders, that bird."

"Somethin' told me to take a ray-gun down in the mine with me. I was
just steppin' out o' the elevator when I caught your last signal; -L-P
D-A-R-L was all I got, but it was enough. How you ever got the other
side of the barrier had me wingin', but you were there right enough,
and yellin' for help. Ran-los had been doin' some repairs on a head
support an' his weldin' machine was still there. Takin' an awful
chance on there bein' air on the other side, I butted it up against
the wall, shot the flame against the steel, and when she was soft
enough had some of the Weenies smash her in with sledge-hammers. First
thing I see is you, stretched out in a pool o' blood, with a couple of
those yellow imps just gettin' to work on you. I clipped them
first--that gave the Martian a chance to get away. An' then--well, you
know the rest."

* * * * *

"I owe you one for that, Jim. Too bad, though, the big fellow escaped;
we'll hear from him again, or I don't know the breed. Wonder how he
got on the planet."

"The sucker must 'a' stowed away on the last recruit ship from Venus,
slipped in a case o' tools or somethin'. Mars has labor agents there,
too, you know, for their farms on Ganymede."

"Possibly. He knew my name, and that I was chief here. He's rigged up
an air-lock out there, though I can't figure out how he gets the air."

"That's easy. While I was repairin' the barrier I found a pipe runnin'
through. He's been stealin' ours. Which, by the same token, is why he
was punchin' holes in the Dome rather than down below, where he would
have been safer from discovery."

"So that's it. Get anything more on the space-radio?"

"Nope. Angus has kept the ear-flaps on, but the ether