regg."

The others were rising. We lifted, moved slowly out and away from the
protective shadows of the building.

XXXVI

Grantline led us. We held about level. Five hundred feet beneath us
the brigand ship lay, cradled on the rocks. When it was still a mile
away from us I could see all its outline fairly clearly in the
dimness. Its tiny hull windows were dark; but the blurred shape of the
hull was visible, and above it the rounded cap of dome, with a dim
radiance beneath it.

We followed Grantline's platform. It was rising, drawing the others
after it like a tail. I touched Anita where she lay beside me with her
head half in the small hooded control bank.

"Going too high."

She nodded, but followed the line nevertheless. It was Grantline's
command.

I lay crouched, holding the inner tips of the flexible side shields.
The bottom of the platform was covered with the insulated fabric.
There were two side shields. They extended upward some two feet,
flexible so that I could hold them out to see over them, or draw them
up and in to cover us.

They afforded a measure of protection against the hostile rays, though
just how much we were not sure. With the platform level, a bolt from
beneath could not harm us unless it continued for a considerable time.
But the platform, except upon direct flight, was seldom level, for it
was a frail, unstable little vehicle! To handle it was more than a
question of the controls. We balanced, and helped to guide it with the
movement of our bodies--shifting our weight sidewise, or back, or
forward to make it dip as the controls altered the gravity pull in its
tiny plate sections.

Like a bird, wheeling, soaring, swooping. To me, it was a precarious
business.

But now we were in straight flight diagonally upward. The outline of
the brigand ship came directly under us. I crouched tense, breathless;
every moment it seemed that the brigands must discover us and loose
their bolts.

They may have seen us for some moments before they fired. I peered
over the side shield down at our mark, then up ahead to get
Grantline's firing signal. It seemed long delayed. An added glow down
there must have warned Grantline that a shot was coming from there.
The tiny red light flared bright on his platform.

I turned on our Benson curve light radiance. We had been dark, but a
soft glow now enveloped us. Its sheen went down to the ship to reveal
us. But its curving path showed us falsely pla