the first level, he
would have to leave that behind.

In the first few moments they saw no twitch of alarm running along the
rope. After counting fifty slowly, Travis gave it a tentative jerk, to
find it firmly fastened within. So Manulito had tied it there and was
climbing to the control cabin.

They continued to wait with what patience they could muster. Naginlta,
pacing up and down a good distance from the ship, whined at intervals,
the warning echoed each time by his mate upslope.

"I don't like it--" Travis broke off when the helmeted figure appeared
again at the break. Moving slowly in his cumbersome clothing, Manulito
reached the ground, fumbled with the catch of his head covering and then
stood, taking deep, lung-filling gulps of air.

"Well?" Travis demanded.

"I see no ghosts," Manulito said, grinning. "This is ghost-proof!" He
slapped his gloved hand against the covering over his chest. "There is
also this--from what I know of these ships--some of the relays still
work. I think this could be made into a trap. We could entice the Reds
in and then...." His hand moved in a quick upward flip.

"But we don't know anything about the engines," Travis replied.

"No? Listen--you, Fox, are not the only one to remember useful
knowledge." Manulito had lost his cheerful grin. "Do you think we are
just the savages those big brains back at the project wished us to be?
They have played a trick on us with their Redax. So, we can play a few
tricks, too. Me--? I went to M.I.T., or is that one of the things you no
longer remember, Fox?"

Travis swallowed hastily. He really had forgotten that fact until this
very minute. From the beginning, the Apache team had been carefully
selected and screened, not only for survival potential, which was their
basic value to the project, but also for certain individual skills. Just
as Travis' grounding in archaeology had been one advantage, so had
Manulito's technical training made a valuable, though different,
contribution. If at first the Redax, used without warning, had smothered
that training, perhaps the effects were now fading.

"You can do something, then?" he asked eagerly.

"I can try. There is a chance to booby trap the control cabin at least.
And that is where they would poke and pry. Working in this suit will be
tough. How about my trying to smash up the Redax first?"

"Not until after we use it on our captive," Jil-Lee decided. "Then there
would be some time before th