"We don't need that, whatever it is!" He rubbed his knuckles where the violet waves had tinged them, and turned grimly back to Snap.
"Where are your ray mirrors? If the treasure lies exposed--"
This Martian's knowledge was far greater than we believed. He grinned sardonically at Anita. "If our treasure is here on this hemisphere, Prince, we should pick up its rays. Don't you think so? Or is Grantline too cautious to leave it exposed?"
Anita spoke in a careful, throaty drawl. "The rays came through enough when we passed here on the way out."
"You should know," grinned Miko. "An expert eavesdropper, Prince, I will say that for you.... Come, Dean, try something else. By God, if Grantline does not signal us, I will be likely to blame you--my patience is shortening. Shall we go closer, Haljan?"
He nodded. "Perhaps not. Are we checked?"
"Yes." We were poised very nearly motionless. "If you wish an advance, I can ring it. But we need a surface destination now."
"True, Haljan." He stood thinking. "Would a zed-ray penetrate those crater cliffs? Tycho, for instance, at this angle?"
"It might," Snap agreed. "You think he may be on the northern inner Tycho?"
"If you think that," Snap persisted, "suppose we swing the _Planetara_ over the South Pole. Tycho, viewed from there--"
"And take another quarter day of time?" Miko sneered. "Flash on your zed-ray; help him hook it up, Haljan."
I moved to the lens box of the spectroheliograph. It seemed that Snap was very strangely reluctant. Was it because he knew that the Grantline camp lay concealed on the north inner wall of Tycho's giant ring? I thought so. But Snap flashed a queer look at Anita. She did not see it, but I did. And I could not understand it.
My accursed, witless incapacity! If only I had taken warning!
"Here," commanded Miko. "A score of 'graphs with the zed-ray. I tell you I will comb this surface if we have to stay here until our ship comes from Ferrok-Shahn to join us!"
The Martian brigands were coming. Miko's signals had been answered. In ten days the other brigand ship, adequately manned and armed, would be here.
Snap helped me connect the zed-ray. He did not dare even to whisper to me, with Moa hovering always so close. And for all Miko's sardonic smiling, we knew that he would tolerate nothing from us now. He was fully armed and so was Moa.