"Yes." We were poised very nearly motionless. "If you wish an advance,
I can ring it. But we need a surface destination now."
"True, Haljan." He stood thinking. "Would a zed-ray penetrate those
crater cliffs? Tycho, for instance, at this angle?"
"It might," Snap agreed. "You think he may be on the northern inner
Tycho?"
"He may be anywhere," said Miko shortly.
"If you think that," Snap persisted, "suppose we swing the _Planetara_
over the South Pole. Tycho, viewed from there--"
"And take another quarter day of time?" Miko sneered. "Flash on your
zed-ray; help him hook it up, Haljan."
I moved to the lens box of the spectroheliograph. It seemed that Snap
was very strangely reluctant. Was it because he knew that the
Grantline camp lay concealed on the north inner wall of Tycho's giant
ring? I thought so. But Snap flashed a queer look at Anita. She did
not see it, but I did. And I could not understand it.
My accursed, witless incapacity! If only I had taken warning!
"Here," commanded Miko. "A score of 'graphs with the zed-ray. I tell
you I will comb this surface if we have to stay here until our ship
comes from Ferrok-Shahn to join us!"
The Martian brigands were coming. Miko's signals had been answered. In
ten days the other brigand ship, adequately manned and armed, would be
here.
Snap helped me connect the zed-ray. He did not dare even to whisper to
me, with Moa hovering always so close. And for all Miko's sardonic
smiling, we knew that he would tolerate nothing from us now. He was
fully armed and so was Moa.
I recall that several times Snap endeavored to touch me significantly.
Oh, if only I had taken warning!
We finished our connecting. The dull gray point of zed-ray gleamed
through the prisms to mingle with the moonlight entering the main
lens. I stood with the shutter trip.
"The same interval, Snap?"
"Yes."
Beside me, I was aware of a faint reflection of the zed-ray--a gray
cathedral shaft crossing the room and falling upon the opposite wall.
An unreality there, as the zed-ray faintly strove to penetrate the
metal room side.