truck them. I knew what had happened,
and got out of the house just before the machines arrived. They
wrecked the place with their green flashes.

"And for the last three weeks I've been hiding in the jungle, or
watching for ships. Three times I've raided the ruins of the house for
something to eat: fortunately it didn't burn, like your ship. And
that's all, I suppose--except I'm awfully glad that you got ashore."

"Thanks," Dan said, earnestly. "And what are we going to do now?"

* * * * *

"I don't know," Helen answered in a troubled tone. "I'm afraid. Afraid
for all humanity. On the television, I've seen enough of Mars to be
sure that it is a world of machines, controlled by one Master
Intelligence. And even that may be a machine. We make machines that
compute the tides and carry out other computations that are almost
beyond the power of the human mind: why couldn't a machine think?

"The Master Intelligence of Mars plans to add the Earth to his domain.
Unless we can do something to stop it, in a few years the world will
be overrun with gigantic robot-machines, controlled by force from
across the gulf of space. Humanity cannot resist them. Imagine a
battleship pitted against that green annihilating ray, and all the
other science of an elder planet!

"Life is to be blotted out! The Master Intelligence of Mars will rule
two worlds of mechanical monsters!"

Dan sat in a dazed vision of horror to come, until Helen straightened
up as if shaking off a mantle of fear, and smiled heroically, if a bit
wanly.

"Now you must eat your bread and sardines, to give you strength to
fight for humanity!" she cried, with a laugh that she strived, not too
successfully, to make cheerful and gay.

Obediently, he began to eat, finding an excellent appetite....

It was several minutes later that he fancied he heard a whirring and
crackling in the brush behind them. He sprang to his feet in alarm.

"It can't be far back to where I left the machine," he cried. "Do you
suppose there's danger that--"

The mechanical ears of the metal things may have picked up the sound
of his voice: but in any event, green flame flashed about them on the
instant. Feeling a sudden protective impulse, Dan started toward
Helen. That was his last recollection, before what seemed a terrific
concussion swept him into the abyss of unconsciousness....

* * * * *

His first thought, when he a