ht
has touched him."

With my helmet on I went through the locks. Once outside, with the
outer panel closed behind me, I dropped the weights from my belt and
shoes and extinguished my helmet-light.

Wilks was still up there. Apparently he had not moved. I bounded off
across the ledge to the foot of the ascending stairs. Did Wilks see me
coming? I could not tell. As I approached the stairs the platform was
cut off from my line of vision.

I mounted with bounding leaps. In my flexible gloved hand I carried my
only weapon, a small bullet projector with oxygen firing caps for use
in this outside near-vacuum. The leaden bullet with its slight mass
would nevertheless pierce a man at the distance of twenty feet.

I held the weapon behind me. I would talk to Wilks first.

I went slowly up the last hundred feet. Was Wilks still up there? The
summit was bathed in Earthlight. The little metal observatory platform
came into view above my head.

Wilks was not there. Then I saw him standing on the rocks nearby,
motionless. But in a moment he saw me coming.

I waved my left arm with a gesture of greeting. It seemed to me that
he started, made as though to leap away, then changed his mind and
waited for me.

I sailed from the head of the staircase with a twenty-foot leap and
landed lightly beside him. I gripped his arm for audiphone contact.

"Wilks!"

Through the visors his face was visible. I saw him, and he saw me. And
I heard his voice.

"You, Haljan! How nice!"

It was not Wilks, but the brigand Coniston!

CHAPTER XXIV

_Imprisoned!_

The duty-man at the exit locks of the main building stood at his
window and watched me curiously. He saw me go up the spider-stairs. He
could see the figure he thought was Wilks, standing at the top. He saw
me join Wilks, saw us locked together in combat.

For an instant the duty-man stood amazed. There were two fantastic,
misshapen figures swaying in the Earthlight five hundred feet above
the camp, fighting desperately at the very brink. They were small,
dwarfed by distance, alternately dim and bright as they swayed in and
out of the shadows. Soon the duty-man could not tell one from the
other. Haljan and Wilks--fighting to the death!

The duty-man recovered himself and sprang into action. An interior
siren-call was on the instrument panel near him. He rang it, alarming
the camp.

The men came rushing to him, Grantline among them.

"What's this? Good God, Franck!"

The