Part 44 (1/2)
”Go ahead,” I said.
He nodded. We were comrades now. ”Amuse yourself, Haljan. Or come out on deck if you wish. I will tell my men you are one of us.”
”And tell them to keep their hands off Miss Prince.”
He stared at me. ”I had not thought of that: a woman among so many men!”
His own gaze at Anita was as offensive as any of his men could have given. He said, ”Have no fear, little tigress.”
Anita laughed. ”I'm afraid of nothing.”
But when he had lurched from the cabin, she touched me. Smiled with her mannish swagger, for fear we were still observed, and murmured:
”Oh Gregg, I am afraid!”
We stayed in the cubby a few moments, whispering and planning.
”You think the signal room is in the tower, Gregg? This tower outside our window here?”
”Yes, I think so.”
”Shall we go out and see?”
”Yes. Keep near me always.”
”Oh Gregg, I will!”
We deposited our Erentz suits carefully in a corner of the cubby. We might need them so suddenly! Then we swaggered out to join the brigands working on the deck.
x.x.x
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 a.s.sembled. 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 s.h.i.+p 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 gla.s.s 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.