than one wild planet! Gaunt-bodied
demi-gods of war, they hurled crackling bolts of destruction from
their perch at the Dome top. By hundreds, by thousands, the Mercurian
pigmies vanished in dark vapor, or plunged, blackened corpses, into
the fog that billowed below.

One by one the tubes were discharged and tossed down at the seething
mob. The heaped weapons dwindled, and still the climbing hordes
renewed themselves, came on in endless mounting streams to sure
destruction. The open tunnel vomited forth a torrent of gibbering
dwarfs. From the uttermost burrows of the planet the pigmies were
flooding in at the call of the Martian who stood scatheless beneath
and lashed them on with the strange dominance he held over them. The
Earthmen fought on, endlessly, till they were sick of killing,
nauseated with slaughter. And still the snouted, red-eyed imps came
on.

* * * * *

Jim snatched up his last two ray-guns. Out of the corner of his eye he
noted that Darl was using but one, the other, his last, was thrust
into the chief's belt. He wondered at this, but a new spurt of yellow
above the oily fog wiped the question from his lips. "Swallow that,
you filthy lice! Hope you like the way it tastes!" His guns spouted
death.

"I'm through!" The call came at last from McDermott. "Me too!" Jim
Holcomb hurled his final, futile tubes down at the blue figure of the
Mars man. A moment's hush held the trio. Then Jim flexed his great
hands. "Well, these'll take care of a couple more o' them before I
check in."

"No you don't," Darl barked, his face a graven image. "Inside with
you. The lock will hold 'em off."

"Yeah? Look."

Thomas swung in the direction Jim was pointing. Rising above the murk,
something glinted in the pale light. On the furthest upright a clumped
group of climbing savages were struggling to drag up one of the
welding machines, a long black hose snaking from its cylindrical bulk.

"They'll cut through the steel in fifteen minutes with that. The
bloody bugger ain't missin' a trick."

"Inside, I tell you." Darl's crisp tone of command brooked no denial.
The three crowded into the cool recesses of the manmade aerie. Angus
slammed the steel door shut. Even if by some miracle the Dome wall
should be pierced and the air in the main vault dissipated into outer
space, this air-tight compartment hung from the hemisphere's roof
would remain, a last refuge, till the atmosphere within had