for food, nowthat there's a war on."
* * * * *
Jim turned to convey the order to the Scot, but he whirled to thetent-flap instead as a riot of sound exploded outside. He tore asidethe canvas, and now there was a burst of shrill, frightened Venusiancries, and a deeper, rattling chorus. Out on the Dome floor, pouringfrom the shaft-head in a panic torrent, came the Venusians. And amongthem, leaping, slashing, dragging them down, were countless littleyellow men, their fangs and tusks and curving claws crimson with theblood of their victims.
"Darl, Mac, they've broken through! The Mercs have broken through!"The brown plain was a blood-spattered battlefield. Here and therelittle groups of the green men, braver than the rest, fought withspanner and hammer and whatever improvised weapon they may have found."Come on, give 'em hell!" The three Earthmen dashed out, weapons inhand. But friend and foe were so intermingled that they could not usethe devastating ray of their hand-guns. The fighting Venusians werevanishing under a tossing sea of yellow imps. And still the dwarfspoured forth from the mine entrance.
A blue form towered, far back, where all green had vanished, and onlyMercurians were left. The Martian's beak opened in a rattling call. Agroup of hundreds of pigmies suddenly left the main fight, and cameforward with short, swift steps. They dashed straight for the Earthtrio and cut them off from the Venusians they were running to aid.
* * * * *
Side by side the three fought. Their weapons grew hot in their handsas the beams cut great swaths in the seething ranks. The attackershalted, gave back, then surged forward again as the roar of theiralien commander lashed them on.
The Earthmen faced the frenzied throng. A cleared circle was stillaround them. Beyond, the Venusians were all down. The Mercurian mobwas closing in, the Terrestrians' rays had lost half their range. Inmoments now the ray-guns would be exhausted.
"The plane!" Darl shouted. "Back to the plane, it's our only chance."
The gyrocopter that could carry them aloft, out of the rout, was fiftyfeet away. They fought through to it and reached it just as the lastfaint charge flashed from Mac's tube. Jim was at the controls, Darlsmashed his useless projector into the chattering face of a dwarf thathad leaped on the Scot's shoulders and dragged Angus into the cockpit.
The overloaded flier zoomed to the landing at the lofty air-lock'smanhole and hovered as Darl and Angus slipped home the hooks that heldit to the platform. "The spy has the Dome," Jim grunted, "but by God,he hasn't got us. We'll be safe in the lock up here, till help comes.And then--"
"Safe is it?" Angus broke in. "Mon, luik ye what those bairns fra hellare up to the noo."
A yellow tide was rising about the base of each of the latticed steelarches that vaulted to the Earthmen's refuge. On every side the dwarfswere climbing, were swarming up the walls in numbers so great thatthey concealed the metal beneath. Up, up they came, slowly but surely.And right in the center of the plain, ankle-deep in the torn fragmentsof the murdered Venusians, was the Martian, directing the attack.
* * * * *
Jim groaned. "I might've known he'd never let us get away. It's slowbells for us, I guess. Hey, where's Darl?"
"Gone weethin. No, guid losh, he's here!"
Darl appeared, his features pale and drawn, carrying an armful ofray-guns. "Grab these," he snapped. "We're not licked yet."
"Licked, hell!" Jim's roar reverberated. "We've just begun to fight!"The Scot was silent, but the battle light shone in his eyes. Inanother moment the Terrestrians were kneeling, were raking the roofgirders as the mounting Mercurians came within range. Each had tworay-guns in his hands, and a little pile of extra tubes beside him.They fought silently, wasting not a single blast.
Six white rays flamed through the misty, humid air, and striking theteeming girders, swept them clean. A greasy, horrible smoke cloudgathered along the shell and drifted slowly down, till the concreteblocks from which the steel framework sprang were hidden in a blackpall. Fighters, these three, true ITA men who had left memories oftheir battle-prowess on more than one wild planet! Gaunt-bodieddemi-gods of war, they hurled crackling bolts of destruction fromtheir perch at the Dome top. By hundreds, by thousands, the Mercurianpigmies vanished in dark vapor, or plunged, blackened corpses, intothe fog that billowed below.
One by one the tubes were discharged and tossed down at the seethingmob. The heaped weapons dwindled, and still the climbing hordesrenewed themselves, came on in endless mounting streams to suredestruction. The open tunnel vomited forth a torrent of gibberingdwarfs. From the uttermost burrows of the planet the pigmies wereflooding in at the call of the Martian who stood scatheless beneathand lashed them on with the strange dominance he held over them. TheEarthmen fought on, endlessly, till they were sick of killing,nauseated with slaughter. And still the snouted, red-eyed imps cameon.
* * * * *
Jim snatched up his last two ray-guns. Out of the corner of his eye henoted that Darl was using but one, the other, his last, was thrustinto the chief's belt. He wondered at this, but a new spurt of yellowabove the oily fog wiped the question from his lips. "Swallow that,you filthy lice! Hope you like the way it tastes!" His guns spouteddeath.
"I'm through!" The call came at last from McDermott. "Me too!" JimHolcomb hurled his final, futile tubes down at the blue figure of theMars man. A moment's hush held the trio. Then Jim flexed his greathands. "Well, these'll take care of a couple more o' them before Icheck in."
"No you don't," Darl barked, his face a graven image. "Inside withyou. The lock will hold 'em off."
"Yeah? Look."
Thomas swung in the direction Jim was pointing. Rising above the murk,something glinted in the pale light. On the furthest upright a clumpedgroup of climbing savages were struggling to drag up one of thewelding machines, a long black hose snaking from its cylindrical bulk.
"They'll cut through the steel in fifteen minutes with that. Thebloody bugger ain't missin' a trick."
"Inside, I tell you." Darl's crisp tone of command brooked no denial.The three crowded into the cool recesses of the manmade aerie. Angusslammed the steel door shut. Even if by some miracle the Dome wallshould be pierced and the air in the main vault dissipated into outerspace, this air-tight compartment hung from the hemisphere's roofwould remain, a last refuge, till the atmosphere within had becomepoisonous through the Earthmen's slow breathing. But the Martian hadanticipated Darl's final move. The oxy-hydrogen jet of the weldingmachine the dwarfs were hoisting would make short work of their finaldefense.
* * * * *
From the conning-tower above Ran-los called excitedly. Through all thelong battle the Venusian had remained steadfast at the peri-telescope,scanning the vacant terrain outside, and the heavens. As Darl and Jimdashed for the stairs Mac ran after them, crying out, "What did he say,mon?"
"Space ship in sight," Darl flung over his shoulder as he reached theupper landing.
"Praise be! Noo the haythan weel get his desairts!"
"Yeah, maybe--if it's an Earth ship. But we won't be here to see it."
Jim's red head was bending over the peri-telescope view-screen. "She'sstill thirty thousand miles away. Give her a speed of fifteen persecond--she'll have to slow up to land, can't make it under forty-fiveminutes. By then we'll be in little pieces. It took me ten minutes toburn through the barrier when I rescued Darl, and it won't take theMercs any longer to get at us."
Darl was very sober as he looked on with narrowed eyes. Against abackground of velvet black, gold spangled, the slim space-travelershowed. The sun's rays caught her, and she was a tiny silver fish inthe boundless void.
"Luik ye, mon, luik ye!" Angus, fairly dancing with excitement,elbowed Darl aside. "She's from Airth, richt enow!" At the nose of theoncoming flier a rapid succession of colored lights had flashed, therecognition signal that should give her safe access to the Dome. Againthere was a coruscation of coded flashes. "
She's a battle cruiser,what's mair!" the Scot exclaimed.
* * * * *
Darl sprang to the keyboard that manipulated the signal lights fromthe Dome's roof. "No use," he said, after a short while. "The Martianhas cut off the current from the dynamos. I can't warn the ship." Hemade a hopeless gesture.
Jim looked at him wonderingly. "Warn 'em? What for? Even if we are alldead when she reaches here, at least she'll clean up the Mercs, andretake the Dome for Earth."
"Don't you see it? When the Mars man has once blasted his way