d fell sheer. Below there was a
confused murmur, the sound of movement.

A voice came floating up to them, sharp, commanding.

"Stop where you are, you two. You're covered."

"It's Morgan," Grim bellowed, not pausing an instant in his descent.

The next instant he dropped lightly to the floor of the gorge. A
moment later Hilary stepped beside him.

Men were crowding about Grim, clean-cut, determined-looking Earthmen.
Nothing like the men he had encountered on his first trip on the
express conveyor. The bottom of the gorge had all the appearance of a
wartime camp.

There were at least a hundred men encamped in the narrow cleft,
crowded and crowding. A tall man thrust himself forward, spare,
angular.

* * * * *

"Welcome, Captain Morgan," he cried. "We had given up all hopes of
seeing you again."

"Hello, Waters," said Grim. "Where's Lieutenant Pemberton?"

The other looked shamefaced.

"He's, gone," he muttered. "Took two hundred men with him."

Morgan's face was awful. "Disobeyed orders, did he? Where did he go?"

"To join in the attack on Great New York. Reports came in that the
countryside was up in arms, moving to attack the Mercutians. I
couldn't hold him. Said you were crazy, never coming back. He went,
and two hundred of the boys went with him."

Grim said: "Know what happened?"

Waters shook his head. "Our radio communication went dead yesterday
afternoon."

"He's dead," said Grim softly. "The others too."

A groan went up as he described swiftly the holocaust of the day
before. "That was why I warned you all to wait. We can't fight them
yet. But I'm forgetting...." He turned to Hilary, who had remained
quietly aside. "This is Hilary Grendon, your Chief. He's the man who
is responsible for the revolt. I told you about him. We all take
orders from him hereafter. If anyone can beat the Mercutians, here's
your man."

A babel of sound burst about him like a bomb. Men patted him on the
back, shook his hand, crowded him until he was almost smothered. It
was a rousing reception. The kind Hilary had dreamed of on his return
from his tremendous flight through space--and had not received.

For his act of revolt, unwitting as it was, had fired the imaginations
of the Earth people, who in their degradation and despair had come to
believe the Mercutian overlords invulnerable. It had been the little
spark that touched off a far-reaching train of events. In the few days
t