n another incident shocked me.
The two other passengers at our table came in and took their seats. A
Martian girl and man. The girl had the seat at my left, with the man
beside her. All Martians are tall. The girl was about my own height.
That is, six feet, two inches. The man was seven feet or more. Both
wore the Martian outer robe. The girl flung hers back. Her limbs were
encased in pseudomail. She looked, as all Martians like to look, a
very warlike Amazon. But she was a pretty girl. She smiled at me with
a keen-eyed, direct gaze.

"Mr. Dean said at breakfast that you were big and handsome. You are."

They were brother and sister, these Martians. Snap introduced them as
_Set_ Miko and _Setta_ Moa--the Martian equivalent of Mr. and Miss.

This Miko was, from our Earth standards, a tremendous, brawny giant.
Not spindly, like most Martians, this fellow, for all his seven feet
in height was almost heavy set. He wore a plaited leather jerkin
beneath his robe and knee pants of leather out of which his lower legs
showed as gray, hairy pillars of strength. He had come into the salon
with a swagger, his sword ornament clanking.

"A pleasant voyage so far," he said to me as he started his meal. His
voice had the heavy, throaty rasp characteristic of the Martian. He
spoke perfect English--both Martians and Venus people are by heritage
extraordinary linguists. Miko and his sister Moa, had a touch of
Martian accent, worn almost away by living for some years in Greater
New York.

The shock to me came within a few minutes. Miko, absorbed in attacking
his meal, inadvertently pushed back his robe to bare his forearm. An
instant only, then it dropped to his wrist. But in that instant I had
seen, upon the gray flesh, a thin sear turned red. A very recent
burn--as though a pencil ray of heat had caught his arm.

My mind flung back. Only last night in the city corridor, Snap and I
had been followed by a Martian. I had shot at him with a heat ray: I
thought I had hit him on the arm. Was this the mysterious Martian who
had followed us from Halsey's office?

V

Shortly after that midday meal I encountered Venza sitting on the
starlit deck. I had been in the bow observatory; taken my routine
castings of our position and worked them out. I was, I think, of the
_Planetara's_ officers the most expert handler of the mathematical
calculators. The locating of our position and charting the trajectory
of our course was, under ordin