"No.... Take those shields," he added to one of the men.
"Take them where?"
"To Grantline. He'll tell you where to put them."
The shields were wheeled away on a little cart. I followed it.
Grantline sent it to the back exit.
"No other move from them yet, Johnny?"
"No. All quiet."
"Snap's almost finished."
The brigands presently made another play. A giant heat-ray beam came
across the valley. It clung to our front wall for nearly a minute.
Grantline got the report from the instrument room. He laughed.
"That helped rather than hurt us. Heated the outer wall. Franck took
advantage of it and eased up the motors."
We wondered if Miko knew that. Doubtless he did, for the heat-ray was
not used again.
Then came a zed-ray. I stood at the window, watching it, faint sheen
of beam in the dimness; it crept with sinister deliberation along our
front wall, clung momentarily to our shielded windows, and pried with
its revealing glow into Snap's workshop.
"Looking us over," Grantline commented. "I hope they like what they
see."
I knew that he did not feel the bravado that was in his tone. We had
nothing but small hand weapons: heat-rays, electronic projectors, and
bullet projectors. All for very short range fighting. If Miko had not
known that before, he could at least make a good guess at it after the
careful zed-ray inspection. With his ship down there two miles away,
we were powerless to reach him. It seemed that Miko was now testing
all his mechanisms. A light flare went up from the dome peak of the
ship. It rose in a slow arc over the valley, and burst. For a few
seconds the two mile circle of crags was brilliantly illumined. I
stared, but I had to shield my eyes against the dazzling actinic
glare, and I could see nothing. Was Miko making a zed-ray photograph
of our interiors? We had no way of knowing.
He was testing his short range projectors now. With my eyes again
accustomed to the normal Earthlight in the valley, I could see the
stabs of electronic beams, the Martian paralyzing rays and heat beams.
They darted out like flashing swords from the rocks near the ship.
Then the whole ship and the crater wall behind it seemed to shift
sidewise as a Benson curve light spread its glow about the ship, with
a projector curve beam coming up and touching the window through which
I was peering.
"Haljan, come look at these damn girls! Commander--shall I stop them?
They'll kill themselves, or kill us--or smash something!"
We followed the man into the building's broad central corridor. Anita
and Venza were riding a midget platform! Anita, in her boyish black
garb; Venza, with a flowing white Venus-robe. They lay on the tiny six
foot long oblong of metal, one manipulating its side shields, the
other at the controls. As we arrived, the platform came sliding down
the narrow confines of the corridor, lurching, barely missing a door
projection. Up to the low vaulted ceiling, then down to the floor.
It sailed over our heads, rising over us as we ducked. Anita waved her
hand.