marks of the jointures, the weldings that he himselfhad made.
The discovery seemed only to emphasize the helplessness of hispredicament. His faithful Venusians, Ran-los, Ta-ira, and the restwere just on the other side of the three-inch plate of toughenedsteel. Three inches--yet it might have been as many hundred miles forall the help they could give him.
The yellow pigmies were circling in a macabre dance, their crimsoneyes turned always toward him, hate glowing from their crawlingdepths. The whistle beyond changed in character. Darl recognized it.It was a Martian space-radio, the code of which Earth scientists hadnever been able to decipher. The Mercurian circle tightened, the fetidsmell of the dwarfs was overpowering. Low at first, then louder andlouder came the rattling cacophony of their chant. It filled theconfined space with an overpowering clamor.
Darl writhed again, rolling over and over till he had reached thebarrier. The pigmies gave way before him; evidently they had beenwarned to keep their claws off. With his insteps Thomas could reachthe helmet of his space suit, where it had been dropped against thewall. He drove it against the metal and the clangor of its strikingreverberated through the chamber. Darl managed to regulate the sound.He was now hammering out double knocks, long and short, spaced in thedots and dashes of the Morse code. "H-E-L-P D-A-R-L H-E-L-P D-A-R-LH-E-L-P...."
It was like some scene out of a madman's dream, this dim-lit cavernwith its circling, dancing pigmies, the human figure lying sidewise onthe ground, the rattling, savage chant and the metallic tattoo ofDarl's hopeless message. A diabolic orgy of weird sound andcrisscrossing shadows.
* * * * *
It seemed hours that he pounded the helmet against the wall, hopingthat the sound of it would be audible above the clamor of the midgets.His knees and hips were aching and numb, his leg ripped, almost to thebone by the sharp edges of the jagged floor. A sudden thought struckhim. The fiber thongs that bound him were also rubbing against therock. His flesh was terribly torn. Perhaps the thongs, too, had beenfrayed, weakened by the long continued friction.
He stopped the pounding signals and began to force his knees apartwith all the power of his burly calves. The cords cut into his bulgingmuscles, cut into and through his skin. The veins stood out on hisforehead, his neck was a corded pillar, his teeth bit through his lipas he stifled a scream of pain. Then, startlingly, the fibers snapped.His legs at least were free! He could fight, die fighting, and takethese others with him into oblivion!
Darl leaped to his feet. Before the astounded natives realized whatwas up he was charging into their circle. A well aimed kick sent onecrashing against the further wall. Another crunched against the rock.Then they were on him, a frothing wave of tiny furies. A score ormore, they swarmed over him as a pack of African wild dogs swarms overa huge water-buffalo marked for the kill. Their claws scratched andtore, their sharp fangs stabbed into his flesh. His arms were stilltightly bound to his sides, and he lashed out with his sandaled feet,swung his shoulders like battering rams, whirled in a dervish dance.Their brittle bones cracked under his hammer blows. They dropped fromhim like squashed flies. But, small as they were, he was terrificallyoutnumbered. By sheer weight of numbers they dragged him down, andpiled on top of him as he lay, quivering and half-conscious, on theblood-soaked floor.
* * * * *
Through the blackness that welled and burst in his brain, one thoughtheld. He had fooled the Martian, for in another instant the enragedsavages, would kill him and the password to Earth's outposts would besafe. Already, he felt their fangs at his throat.
A whirring rattle cut through the turmoil like a whip-lash, and theheap of pigmies swiftly scattered. The man-bird from Mars was in theroom. To Darl he was a blurred blueness from which glittered those twojet beads of eyes. As from a distance he heard a rumble, its meaningbeating dully to him. "Not so easy, Thomas, not so easy. I want thatsignal, and by Tana, I'm going to have it."
The Earthman felt a current of cooler air. Instinctively he drew itinto his lungs. It swept him up from the blackness that was closing inabout him, brought him back to consciousness and despair. Thechattering Mercurians crowded round to commence their interruptedorgy. "For the last time, Earthman, will you talk?"
Darl shook his head weakly and closed his eyes. In a moment--
Suddenly there was a crash of metal on metal. Another! The clangor offalling steel. Now someone was shouting, "Darl, Darl, are you alive?"All about him were shrill twitterings, squeaking calls, squeals andscutterings. Darl's nostrils stung with the odor of burned flesh. Adoor slammed....
He opened his eyes on a confused riot, saw Jim crouched, flashingray-gun in hand. There was a hole in the barrier, and a mob ofgreen-scaled Venusians were crowding through. Jim's ray caught thelast Mercurian and the dwarf vanished in a cloud of acrid, greasysmoke.
"Thank God you've come!" Darl managed to gasp. Then cool blacknessclosed around him.
* * * * *
Darl Thomas lay on a cot in the headquarters tent, swathed from headto foot in an inch-thick wrapping of bandages. Jim's theory was thatif one bandage was good, two were better, and he had cleaned out thepost's slender stock. The red-haired Earthman was seated at the cot'sside, watching the taciturn Scot operating the control board. He wastelling Darl of the stirring message from M-I-T-A, and of theblanketing interference that marred the completion of the message.
"I didn't know what to do first," he continued, "whether to go downbelow and find out what Ran-los was battin' about, or shoot up to youin the connin' tower with the message. Like the thick-head I am, Ipicked the wrong thing. I sure got the gimmicks when I found thelook-out empty, an' a space suit an' ray-gun gone." Jim grinnedmirthlessly. "I was runnin' around in circles. You were outside, Godalone knows how long. Believe me, I had you crossed off the list! Thatleft two of us. With a war on, somebody had to stand guard in thelook-out, the control board here had to be watched, an' somebody elsehad to get below.
"I was just tryin' to figure out a way o' cuttin' myself in half whenI thought o' Ran-los. For a Weenie he's got a heck of a lot of sense.I zoomed down, hauled him out o' his bunk, scooted back up, showed himhow to work the peri-telescope an' the big beam-thrower, an' left himthere on guard."
"Best thing you could have done." Darl's voice was muffled by thebandages in which his head, as well as the rest of his body, wasswathed. "He's got a head on his shoulders, that bird."
"Somethin' told me to take a ray-gun down in the mine with me. I wasjust steppin' out o' the elevator when I caught your last signal; -L-PD-A-R-L was all I got, but it was enough. How you ever got the otherside of the barrier had me wingin', but you were there right enough,and yellin' for help. Ran-los had been doin' some repairs on a headsupport an' his weldin' machine was still there. Takin' an awfulchance on there bein' air on the other side, I butted it up againstthe wall, shot the flame against the steel, and when she was softenough had some of the Weenies smash her in with sledge-hammers. Firstthing I see is you, stretched out in a pool o' blood, with a couple ofthose yellow imps just gettin' to work on you. I clipped themfirst--that gave the Martian a chance to get away. An' then--well, youknow the rest."
* * * * *
"I owe you one for that, Jim. Too bad, though, the big fellow escaped;we'll hear from him again, or I don't know the breed. Wonder how hegot on the planet."
"The sucker must 'a' stowed away on the last recruit ship from Venus,slipped in a case o' tools or somethin'. Mars has labor agents there,too, you know, for their farms on Ganymede."
"Possibly. He knew my name, and that I was chief here. He's rigged upan air-lock out there, though I can't figure out how he gets the air."
"That's easy. While I was repairin' the barrier I found a pipe runnin'through. He's been stealin' ours. Which, by the same token, is why hewas punchin' holes in the Dome rather than down below, where he wouldhave been safer from discovery."
"So that's it. Get anything more
on the space-radio?"
"Nope. Angus has kept the ear-flaps on, but the ether is still jammed.Hey, what're you up to?"
Darl was swinging his bandaged body up from the cot that had been setup in the headquarters tent at his insistence. "Can't lie on my back,"he panted, "with that devil loose on the planet. Lord knows what he'sup to now. We're short-handed enough as it is."
He rose to his feet, staggering with weakness and loss of blood. Buthis indomitable will drove him on. "I'll take over the control board.Send Angus up to relieve Ran-los, and you get below and speed upproduction. Earth will need double quantities of surta
The Great Dome on Mercury Page 4