Part 21 (1/2)

Hilary started violently. ”Did you see that?”

”See what?” Grim was drunk for lack of sleep.

Hilary was on his feet, peering upward. ”I thought I saw--there, there it is again.”

The other two were on their feet also, weariness forgotten, heads thrown back.

High overhead, in the overturned cup of the sky, an irregular pink wisp formed before their wondering eyes, and vanished again. But more slowly, than the first time.

”Well?” asked Wat, puzzled.

”A cloud.” Hilary's voice was a prayer.

”h.e.l.l,” said Wat disgustedly. ”If that's a cloud I'm a Mercutian.

There wouldn't be enough water there to moisten a canary seed.”

”And even if there were it wouldn't matter now,” said Grim calmly.

”We're discovered.”

A long slim flier shot athwart the brightening sky, paused suddenly in flight as though jerked by an invisible string. The next instant the valley was illumined by a transparent glow. It enveloped the Earthmen, made crystal figurines of the most solid among them. They seemed like wraiths through which, as in a gla.s.s, more could be seen beyond. The solid ground, the rocks, were transparencies floating in an ocean of airy nothingness. A search beam!

The flier hung steady, high overhead, holding them in the dissolving area of his beam. Too high to ray them but also too high for their futile bullets. The Mercutians no longer underrated the fighting abilities of their erstwhile slaves.

”He's sending out messages for help,” observed Hilary.

”Let's take it on the run,” Wat suggested.

”No good. Where could we run to that his beam couldn't follow?”

”Well, we can only die once,” Wat observed cheerfully.

”And take as many Mercutians with us as we can,” Grim amended. ”That's one lucky thing. Their rays have no greater range than our bullets.”

”Except the diskoids,” said Hilary. ”Here's your chance, Wat, to play with your rattle.”

The red head, who had lugged the heavy machine gun all the way with him, patted its snout affectionately. ”It plays the devil's tattoo,”

he said.

More fliers materialized in the by now brighter blue of early morning.

The sun was just peeping over the serrated tops of the mountains. But still they did not attack.

”Afraid of us,” Wat chuckled. ”Bet they'll send to Mercury for the whole d.a.m.n army before they come for us.”

The first shock was over. With the inevitable staring them in the face, the men had achieved something of a gay recklessness. Hilary found some natural recessions under overhanging ma.s.ses of rocks that would afford protection from the searing power of the rays. To be effective, the fliers would have to land in the valley or fly low, thus exposing themselves to the raking fire of the Earthmen's weapons.