e occurred
to Snap and me!

I told Grantline now. He stared at me.

"What!"

I told him again. It would be here in eight days. Fully manned and
armed.

"But Haljan, we have almost no weapons! All my _Comet's_ space was
taken with equipment and the mechanisms for my camp. I can't signal
Earth! I was depending on the _Planetara_!"

It surged upon us. The brigand menace past? We were blindly
congratulating ourselves on our safety! But it would be eight days or
more before in distant Ferrok-Shahn the nonarrival of the _Planetara_
would cause any real comment. No one was searching for us--no one was
worried over us.

No wonder the crafty Miko was willing to take his chances out here in
the Lunar wilds! His ship, his reinforcements, his weapons were coming
rapidly!

And we were helpless. Almost unarmed. Marooned here on the Moon!

XXIII

"Try it again," Snap urged. "Good God, Johnny, we've got to raise some
Earth station! Chance it! Use the power--run it up full. Chance it!"

We were gathered in Grantline's instrument room. The duty man, with
blanched grim face, sat at his senders. The Grantline crew shoved
close around us. There were very few observers in the high-powered
Earth stations who knew that an exploring party was on the Moon.
Perhaps none of them. The Government officials who had sanctioned the
expedition and Halsey and his confreres in the Detective Bureau were
not anticipating trouble at this point. The _Planetara_ was supposed
to be well on her course to Ferrok-Shahn. It was when she was due to
return that Halsey would be alert.

Grantline used his power far beyond the limits of safety. He cut down
the lights; the telescope intensifiers and television were completely
disconnected; the ventilators were momentarily stilled, so that the
air here in the little room crowded with men rapidly grew fetid. All,
to save power pressure, that the vital Erentz system might survive.

Even so, it was strained to the danger point. Our heat was radiating
away; the deadly chill of space crept in.

"Again!" ordered Grantline.

The duty man flung on the power in rhythmic pulses. In the silence,
the tubes hissed. The light sprang through the banks of rotating
prisms, intensified up the scale until, with a vague, almost invisible
beam, it left the last swaying mirror and leaped through our overhead
dome and into space.

"Enough," said Grantline. "Switch it off. We'll let it go at that for
now."

It see