e rocks.

The brigands now began laying the rails from the ship toward the base
of our cliff. The chute would bring the ore down from the ledge, and
the carts would take it to the ship. The laying of the rails was done
under cover of occasional stabs from the electronic projector.

And then we discovered that Miko had made still another move. The
brigand rays, fired from the depth of the valley, could strike our
front building, but could not reach all our ledge. And from the ship's
newer and nearer position this disadvantage to us was intensified.
Then abruptly we realized that under cover of darkness bombs, an
electronic projector and searchray had been carried to the top of the
crater rim, diagonally across and only half a mile from us. Their
beams shot down, raking all our vicinity from this new angle.

I was on the little flying platform which sallied out as a test to
attack these isolated projectors. Snap and I, and one other volunteer,
went. He and I held the shield; Snap handled the controls.

Our exit port was on the lee side of the building from the hostile
searchbeam. We got out unobserved and sailed upward; but soon a light
from the ship caught us. And the projector bolts came up....

Our sortie only lasted a few minutes. To me, it was a confusion of
crossing beams, with the stars overhead, the swaying little platform
under me, and the shield tingling in my hands when the blasts struck
us. Moments of blurred terror....

The voice of the man beside me sounded in my ears: "Now, Haljan, give
them one!"

We were up over the peak of the rim with the hostile projectors under
us. I gauged our movement, and dropped an explosive powder bomb.

It missed. It flared with a puff on the rocks, twenty feet from where
the two projectors were mounted. I saw that two helmeted figures were
down there. They tried to swing their grids upward, but could not get
them vertical to reach us. The ship was firing at us, but it was far
away. And Grantline's searchbeam was going full power, clinging to the
ship to dazzle them.

Snap circled them. As we came back I dropped another bomb. Its silent
puff seemed littered with flying fragments of the two projectors and
the bodies of the men.

We swiftly flew back to our base.

It decided Grantline. For an hour past Snap and I had been urging our
plan to use the gravity platforms. To remain inactive was sure defeat
now. Even if our buildings did not explode--if we thought to huddle