Martians
in Greater New York." She checked herself abruptly. Was she sorry she
had said that? It seemed so.

Miko was coming back. He stopped this time. "Your brother would see
you, Anita. He sent me to bring you to his room."

The glance he shot me had a touch of insolence. I stood up and he
towered a head over me.

Anita said, "Oh yes. I'll come."

I bowed. "I will see you again, Miss Prince. I thank you for a
pleasant half-hour."

The Martian led her away. Her little figure was like a child with a
giant. It seemed, as they passed the length of the deck, with me
staring after them, that he took her arm roughly. And that she shrank
from him in fear.

And they did not go inside. As though to show me that he had merely
taken her from me, he stopped at a distant deck window and stood
talking to her. Once he picked her up as one would pick up a child to
show it some distant object through the window.

Was Anita afraid of this Martian's wooing? Yet was held to him by some
power he might have over her brother? The vagrant thought struck me.

VIII

The rest of that afternoon and evening were a blank confusion to me.
Anita's words, the touch of my hand on her arm, that vast realm of
what might be for us, like the glimpse of a magic land of happiness
which I had seen in her eyes, and perhaps she had seen in mine--all
this surged within me.

After wandering about the ship, I had a brief consultation with
Captain Carter. He was genuinely apprehensive now. The _Planetara_
carried only a half-dozen of the heat-ray projectors, no long range
weapons, a few side arms, and some old-fashioned, practically
antiquated weapons of explosives, plus hand projectors with the new
Benson curve light.

The weapons were all in Carter's chart room, save the few we officers
always carried. Carter was afraid, but of what, he was not sure. He
had not thought that our plan to stop at the Moon could affect this
outward voyage. He had thought that any danger would occur on the way
back, and then the _Planetara_ would have been adequately guarded and
manned with police-soldiers.

But now we were practically defenseless. I had a moment with Venza,
but she had nothing new to communicate. And for half an hour I chatted
with George Prince. He seemed a gay, pleasant young man. I could
almost have fancied I liked him. Or was it because he was Anita's
brother? He told me how he looked forward to traveling with her on
Mars. No, he had n