savages, would kill him and the password to Earth's outposts would be
safe. Already, he felt their fangs at his throat.

A whirring rattle cut through the turmoil like a whip-lash, and the
heap of pigmies swiftly scattered. The man-bird from Mars was in the
room. To Darl he was a blurred blueness from which glittered those two
jet beads of eyes. As from a distance he heard a rumble, its meaning
beating dully to him. "Not so easy, Thomas, not so easy. I want that
signal, and by Tana, I'm going to have it."

The Earthman felt a current of cooler air. Instinctively he drew it
into his lungs. It swept him up from the blackness that was closing in
about him, brought him back to consciousness and despair. The
chattering Mercurians crowded round to commence their interrupted
orgy. "For the last time, Earthman, will you talk?"

Darl shook his head weakly and closed his eyes. In a moment--

Suddenly there was a crash of metal on metal. Another! The clangor of
falling steel. Now someone was shouting, "Darl, Darl, are you alive?"
All about him were shrill twitterings, squeaking calls, squeals and
scutterings. Darl's nostrils stung with the odor of burned flesh. A
door slammed....

He opened his eyes on a confused riot, saw Jim crouched, flashing
ray-gun in hand. There was a hole in the barrier, and a mob of
green-scaled Venusians were crowding through. Jim's ray caught the
last Mercurian and the dwarf vanished in a cloud of acrid, greasy
smoke.

"Thank God you've come!" Darl managed to gasp. Then cool blackness
closed around him.

* * * * *

Darl Thomas lay on a cot in the headquarters tent, swathed from head
to foot in an inch-thick wrapping of bandages. Jim's theory was that
if one bandage was good, two were better, and he had cleaned out the
post's slender stock. The red-haired Earthman was seated at the cot's
side, watching the taciturn Scot operating the control board. He was
telling Darl of the stirring message from M-I-T-A, and of the
blanketing interference that marred the completion of the message.

"I didn't know what to do first," he continued, "whether to go down
below and find out what Ran-los was battin' about, or shoot up to you
in the connin' tower with the message. Like the thick-head I am, I
picked the wrong thing. I sure got the gimmicks when I found the
look-out empty, an' a space suit an' ray-gun gone." Jim grinned
mirthlessly. "I was runnin' around in circles. You we