ou over
us, our psibeam was effective and theirs were not. We are sorry about
your ship. Once they realize that you were under our influence, and were
returning rather than taking their precious data to your people, they
zeroed-in with those damnable guided juggernauts--"

"It wasn't you, then. You mean they--"

"There is little that they cannot do. Destruction is their forte. They
could not keep us from preventing your taking their 'gift' to your
people, but they could keep that 'gift' from falling into our hands--and
they did. They do not always win. But they never lose."

"But I--" Johnny's thoughts raced. The ship, gone. And Harrison and
Janes, Lamson, and Fowler. They would be landing in a few days. They--

"Yes," the thoughts of the true Martians before him answered. "And they
will be given a 'gift' for Terra as you were. If your friends return
successfully to your planet with that 'gift'--then--"

The thought was not completed. But it did not have to be.

A beachhead was one thing. These scattered, struggling people who had
once been masters of Mars might one day unseat it, for they were not yet
beaten people, and their will to survive was yet strong. But beyond
that--

Earth taken, the System taken.

There it was.

There was a sudden coldness inside him now that the fact had
crystallized, had become real. Here was no fantasy; no wild surmise.

They left him in silence while he thought, their psibeam turned away,
now.

Harrison and Janes. Lamson, and Fowler. Had to stop them. Stop them, and
then somehow, get home. He ached for home.

He thought about Ferris, who had given his life for this thing.

No, Ferris would not be going home. Ferris was dead.

He signalled for the psibeam to be turned toward him again.

"You'd have to know their positions out there to make contact, wouldn't
you?" They did not answer. He worked to get the words formed, and there
was a fleeting thought of a green, lush planet far away, its wide
streets and rolling fields bathed in warm sunlight. "I can figure 'em,"
he said. "I know blast-off schedules, speeds. I know the works! _Those_
things they had in the books. Then you guys can do the rest with--that
thing. Right?"

They answered him, then.

"Thank you," they said. And that was all.

* * * * *

"Answer me!" the General barked again. "You, Janes! Lamson!
Fowler--Harrison! For the last time, what happened out there?"

The four stood