"Broken! Dead!"
"What!"
"Smashed from outside," gasped the duty man. "Look there--my tubes--"
The control tubes of the ports had flashed into a short circuit and
burned out. The admission ports would not open!
"And the pressure controls smashed! Broken from outside!"
There was no way now of getting through the pressure locks. The doors,
the entire pressure lock system, was dead. Had it been tampered with
from outside?
As if to answer Grantline's question there came a chorus of shouts
from the men at the corridor windows.
"Commander! By God--look!"
A figure was outside, close to the building! Clothed in suit and
helmet, it stood, bloated and gigantic. It had evidently been lurking
at the port entrance, had ripped out the wires there.
It moved past the windows, saw the staring faces of the men, and made
off with giant bounds. Grantline reached the window in time to see it
vanish around the building corner.
It was a giant figure, larger than an Earth man. A Martian?
* * * * *
Up on the summit of the crater the two small figures were still
fighting. All this turmoil had taken no more than a minute or two.
A lurking Martian outside? The brigand, Miko? More than ever,
Grantline was determined to get out. He shouted to his men to don some
of the other suits, and called for some of the hand projectors.
But he could not get out through these main admission ports. He could
have forced the panels open perhaps; but with the pressure changing
mechanism broken, it would merely let the air out of the corridor. A
rush of air, probably uncontrollable. How serious the damage was, no
one could tell as yet. It would perhaps take hours to repair it.
Grantline was shouting, "Get those weapons! That's a Martian outside!
The brigand leader, probably! Get into your suits, anyone who wants to
go with me! We'll go by the manual emergency exit."
But the prowling Martian had found it! Within a minute Grantline was
there. It was a smaller two-lock gateway of manual control, so that
the person going out could operate it himself. It was in a corridor at
the other end of the main building. But Grantline was too late! The
lever would not open the panels!
Had someone gone out this way and broken the mechanisms after him? A
traitor in the camp? Or had someone come in from outside? Or had the
skulking Martian outside broken this lock as he had broken the other?
The questions surged on Grantline. His men crowded around him. The
news spread. The camp was a prison! No one could get out!
And outside, the skulking Martian had disappeared. But Wilks and
Haljan were still fighting. Grantline could see the two figures up on
the observatory platform. They bounded apart, then together again.
Crazily swaying, bouncing, striking the rail.
They went together in a great leap off the platform onto the rocks,
and rolled in a bright patch of Earthlight. First one on top, then the
other.
They rolled unheeding to the brink. Here, beyond the midway ledge
which held the camp, it was a sheer drop of a thousand feet, on down
to the crater floor.
The figures were rolling; then one shook himself loose; rose up,
seized the other and, with desperate strength, shoved him--
The victorious figure drew back to safety. The other fell, hurtling
down into the shadows past the camp level--down out of sight in the
darkness of the crater floor.
Snap, who was in the group near Grantline at the window gasped, "God!
Was that Gregg who fell?"
No one could say. No one answered. Outside, on the camp ledge, another
helmeted figure now became visible. It was not far from the main
building when Grantline first noticed it. It was running fast,
bounding toward the spider staircase. It began mounting.
And now still another figure became visible--the giant Martian again.
He appeared from around the corner of the main Grantline building. He
evidently saw the winner of the combat on the cliff, who now was
standing in the Earthlight, gazing down. And he saw too, no doubt, the
second figure mounting the stairs. He stood quite near the window
through which Grantline and his men were gazing, with his back to the
building, looking up to the summit. Then he ran with tremendous leaps
toward the ascending staircase.
Was it Haljan standing up there on the summit? Who was it climbing the
stairs? And was the third figure Miko?
Grantline's mind framed the questions. But his attention was torn from
them, and torn even from the swift silent drama outside. The corridor
was ringing with shouts.
"We're imprisoned! Can't get out! Was Haljan killed? The brigands are
outside!"
And then an interior audiphone blared a calling for Grantline. Someone
in the instrument room of the adjoining building was talking.
"Commander, I tried the telescope to see who got killed--"
But he did not say who got killed, for he had greater news.
"Commander! The brigand ship!"
Miko's reinforcements had come.