ws are our best hope," Murray told Tuman. "But we have to
convince 'em that we're friends first. Otherwise we're liable to be
cold meat, and cold meat can't convince anybody. Keep your head down."

The necessity of lying flat, in order to keep from silhouetting
themselves against the sky, deprived them of the opportunity to see.
Nevertheless, they could tell, by the sound of their voices, when Sime
and Tolto returned. When it seemed that they were directly beneath,
Murray risked a look. There they were.

Murray carefully set the little focalizer wheel for maximum diffusion.
He felt sure that it would not be fatal, considering the distance and
the physical vigor of the men he meant to hold. He pressed the
trigger.

"Get down quick!" he snapped. "I'll let up for a second; you grab
their neuros."

Tuman executed the order with dispatch. Stepping back, he trained the
pistols on their late owners, while Sime and Tolto, a little dazed,
stumbled to their feet. A man may argue, or take chances, when menaced
by a needle-ray, but mere bravery does not count with the neuros. All
men's nervous systems are similar, and when nerves are stricken,
courage is of no avail.

CHAPTER IX

_Plot and Counter-Plot_

As these four men faced one another in the slanting rays of the
setting Sun far out on the desert, the planetary president, Wilcox,
sat in his office in the executive palace in South Tarog, situated, as
were so many of the public buildings, on the banks of the canal.

Wilcox was in his sixties. A gray man, pedantic in his speech, his
features were strong: his nose, short and straight, somehow, expressed
his intense intolerance of opposition. His long, straight lower jaw
protruded slightly, symbolizing his tenacity, his lust for power. His
eyes, large, gray, intolerant, looked before him coldly. Wilcox was
the result of the union of two root-stocks of the human race, of a
terrestrial father, a Martian mother. He had inherited the
intelligence of both--the conscience of neither.

Now he sat in a straight, severe chair, before a severe, heavy table.
Even the room seemed to frown. Wilcox's face was free of wrinkles, yet
it frowned too. He seemed not to see the flaming path the setting Sun
drew across the broad expanse of the canal, for he was thinking of
bigger things. Wilcox was a little mad, but he was a madman of
imagination and resource, and he was not the first one to control the
destinies of a world.

"Waffi