The deck glowed lurid in the queer blue-greenish glare of Martian
electro-fuse lights. It was in a bustle of ordered activity. Some
twenty of the crew were scattered about, working in little groups.
Apparatus was being brought up from below to be assembled. There was a
pile of Erentz suits and helmets, of Martian pattern, but still very
similar to those with which Grantline's expedition was equipped. There
were giant projectors of several kinds, some familiar to me, others of
a fashion I had never seen before. It seemed there were six or eight
of them, still dismantled, with a litter of their attendant batteries
and coils and tube amplifiers.
They were to be mounted here on the deck, I surmised; I saw in the
dome side one or two of them already rolled into position.
Anita and I stood outside Potan's cubby, gazing around us curiously.
The men looked at us but none of them spoke.
"Let's watch from here a moment," I whispered. She nodded, standing
with her hand on my arm. I felt that we were very small, here in the
midst of these seven foot Martian men. I was all in white, the costume
used in the warm interior of Grantline's camp. Bareheaded, white silk
_Planetara_ uniform jacket, broad belt and tight-laced trousers. Anita
was a slim black figure beside me, somber as Hamlet, with her pale
boyish face and wavy black hair.
The gravity being maintained here on the ship we had found to be
stronger than that of the Moon and rather more like Mars.
"There are the heat rays, Gregg."
A pile of them was visible down the deck length. And I saw caskets of
fragile glass globes, bombs of different styles, hand projectors of
the paralyzing ray; search beams of several varieties; the Benson
curve light, and a few side arms of ancient Earth design--swords and
dirks, and small bullet projectors.
There seemed to be some mining equipment also. Far along the deck,
beyond the central cabin in the open space of the stern, steel rails
were stacked; half a dozen tiny-wheeled ore carts; a tiny motor engine
for hauling them and what looked as though it might be the dismembered
sections of an ore chute.
The whole deck was presently strewn with this mass of equipment.
Potan moved about, directing the different groups of workers. The news
had spread that we knew the location of the treasure. The brigands
were jubilant. In a few hours the ship's armament would be ready, and
it would advance.
I saw many glances cast out the dome side windows toward the distant
plains of the Mare Imbrium. The brigands believed that the Grantline
camp lay in that direction.