Behind the locked door of the conference room, one of the Masters passed out heatguns to Nuwell, Placer and the other four.
"If we use these on them at half intensity, I think we can calm them down without killing any of them," said Placer. "We'll probably have more trouble beating down the Toughs and keeping them from killing all the Jellies than we will subduing the Jellies in the first place."
"I hope we warned the three at the other end of the hall in time," said one of the others. "There hasn't been any word from them."
Placer flicked a switch on the intercom system.
"Touchstone, are you men safe?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," replied a voice on the other end. "We locked ourselves in, because there aren't any heatguns we can get to from here. The Jellies haven't gotten this far down yet. They seem to be cowed by the Toughs at the door to Miss Cara Nome's room, and the Toughs are strutting around gettingthemselves in the mood for an attack. We've been watching them through the window."
"Good," said Placer. "Between the Toughs at that end and our heatguns at this end, we ought to be able to force them back below without much trouble. Are we ready to move out?"
A different voice came in over the intercom, the voice of the tenth Master, who was on duty in the farm's control room.
"Placer, the screens show three groundcars moving up from the south," he said. "I've tried to contact them by radio, but they don't answer."
"We haven't been notified to expect any government visitors," said Placer. "It may be a convoy of travelers off-course in the desert, or it could be a wandering party of escaped rebels. Warn them away."
"Yes, sir."
Touchstone's voice came in from the other end of the hall.
"The Toughs are attacking, Placer. Space, it's awful! Those poor Jellies can't stand up to the Toughs."
Suddenly his voice changed, and became shrill with excitement.
"Placer! One of those Jellies has a heatgun! Two of the Toughs were just burned down, and the others are falling back down the hall. The Jellies are coming on, and I can see the gun in the hand of one of them."
"Great space!" muttered Placer. "All right, Touchstone. Hold tight and keep that door locked. We'll get to you."
He turned to the others.
"We've got to move out now," he said. "Use full intensity and shoot to kill. We'll have to burn our way through those Jellies and get to the other end of the hall."
Leaving one of the Masters at the intercom in the control room, the other six went out into the corridor, heatguns ready. The foremost Jellies had advanced almost to the door, and now that they had spread out along the corridor, they were not packed so closely together.
The six men advanced steadily, leveling their guns. They fired, intense, almost invisible beams stabbing into the group of Jellies.
Jellies shrieked in pain, several of them collapsing to the floor with smoking flesh. The others turned in panic and began to crowd back down the corridor, the beams stabbing at them and picking them off one by one.
Then, from amid the Jellies, a beam struck forth, and one of the Masters went down, his face burned away. Placer burned down the Jelly holding the heatgun, and the five survivors moved grimly on.
On the ramp ahead, Dark and Old Beard approached the open gate to the corridor, Happy and Shadow following them.
"I wish I had been able to find more heatguns at Ultra Vires," said Dark to Old Beard. "Only three, besides our four, are spreading them out pretty thin."
"At least the Jellies made the break into the corridor, and we've managed to discourage the Toughs below from following them up for a while," said Old Beard. The bodies of a dozen Toughs at the foot of the ramp behind them attested to the rear guard battle they had fought. That was what had held them up so long. "If we can hold the corridor and keep the Masters bottled up, your friends outside should be able to turn the tide."
"It will take them a while to break in," said Dark. "But I've already contacted Cheng telepathically and told him to move in."
They emerged into the corridor, into a scene of tremendous confusion. All they could see in both directions were Jellies, milling about and chattering. The mass seemed to be drifting gradually toward the left, while from the right came shrieks of agony.
"This way," said Dark, turning to the left. "We have to get Maya out of here before we can do anything else."
Forcing their way through the Jellies, they came to a door. Dark tried it. It was locked. He burned the lock off and pushed it open.
Maya was standing back against the wall on the other side of the room, alarmed at the noise in the corridor, frightened at the opening of the door. As Dark and Old Beard came in,and she recognized Dark, she ran across the room to meet them, joy transforming her face.
She threw herself into Dark's arms.
"Oh, Dark!" she cried. "I knew you'd come!"
He enfolded her in his arms and kissed her. Then he turned back to Old Beard, his arm around Maya's shoulders.
"Old Beard, this is Maya Cara Nome," said Dark. "Maya, this is my father, the real Dark Kensington."
"The older Dark Kensington," corrected Old Beard. "I am very happy to meet you, Maya. My son, you have chosen a beautiful woman."
Happy and Shadow had followed the other two into the room and were standing against the door, holding it closed.
"Maya, we're going to have to try to hold the corridor until the Phoenix gets here," said Dark. "I want you to go with Shadow and Happy down to the vats. You get into a marsuit, and they'll take you to one of the entrance buildings. I'll tell Cheng to pick you up in one of the groundcars, and then Happy and Shadow can come back here to help us."
"I'll do nothing of the sort," said Maya flatly. "You need them up here now, and I won't leave you. I'm going to stay here and help you. After all, I can handle a heatgun better than any of these Jellies."
"But, Maya, I want to know that you're safe."
"I don't want to be safe until you are. Please let me stay, Dark."
"All right," Dark surrendered. "Shadow, give her your heatgun."
The five of them left the room together.
They emerged into a scene of incredible carnage. The Jellies, with only three heatguns which they were inept at using, had been no match for the Masters. Almost all of the Jellies were lying dead on the floor of the corridor, and the remaining few were backed up at the end of the hall to their right.
Three of the men were advancing toward these last Jellies. The other two, returning to the conference room, already had passed Maya's door and were picking their way back amongthe scorched, twitching bodies of the Jellies. Dark and the others were between these two retreating forces of Masters.
"We'll have to try to save those Jellies," decided Dark at once. "Happy, you and Shadow move back up the corridor and hold the line in case those other two turn back to attack our rear. The rest of us will tackle the three to the right."
They split up and moved off. But they were too late. Dark, Maya and Old Beard had advanced hastily no more than ten feet when the last of the Jellies at the end of the corridor collapsed under the combined beams of three heatguns. Immediately, the door beyond the dead Jellies opened and three more Masters emerged. They joined the first three, and were given the heatguns taken from the vanquished Jellies.
Dark stopped and held up his hand, halting the advance of his little group.
"We're too badly outnumbered now," he said. "Let's collect Happy and Shadow and get back down to the vats, where we can hide until the Phoenix break in."
The Masters had seen them now, and started to move up the corridor toward them in a group, but were still ten or fifteen feet out of heatgun range. Dark was not surprised to see that one of the group was Nuwell.
Dark and Maya turned back toward the entrance toward the underground vats, but stopped as Old Beard emitted a growl of recognition.
One of the three men who had emerged from the room was skinny, goateed Goat Hennessey, and he was coming forward now in the forefront of the group, a heatgun in his hand.
"Dark, you and Maya go on without me," said Old Beard very quietly. "I have a score to settle."
Dark turned back, his mouth open to protest, but Old Beard had already started swiftly down the corridor toward the oncoming group.
"Wait!" cried Dark, and started to run after him. But, in his haste, Dark tripped over the corpse of a Jelly and fell sprawling. In the moments it took Dark to scramble to his feet and recover his dropped heatgun from the floor, the drama ahead of him flashed like lightning to its conclusion.
Old Beard ran down the corridor toward the group of Masters, leaping lightly over the bodies of Jellies in his path, his gray hair streaming out behind him.
"Goat Hennessey!" he thundered, his voice reverberating from the walls of the corridor. "You betrayed me and killed my wife! Now the time has come for you to pay for your crimes!"
The Masters stopped in their tracks, frozen at the sight of this figure of retribution charging down on them. In their forefront, Goat stood staring, open-mouthed, not comprehending until the full impact of Old Beard's words broke upon him. Then, recognition dawning, he squawled in amazement and fear:
"Dark Kensington!"
With that cry, Goat turned in terror to escape. But Dark was now within range, and the intense beam of his downward-chopping heatgun caught Goat at the base of the skull and swept all the way down his back. Goat Hennessey plunged forward to the floor, dead, his spine burned away.
Even as Goat fell, his companions emerged from their paralysis. The beams of five heatguns focussed on Old Beard, and he died in a burst of flame that flared from wall to wall of the narrow corridor.
Appalled at his father's sudden death, Dark almost leaped after him, to attack the five survivors single-handed. But Maya grasped his arm.
"No, Dark!" she urged. "Please don't!"
Realizing on the instant that to die now would only leave Maya at the mercy of the Masters and Nuwell, Dark turned back. He and Maya ran for the door to the ramp leading underground, Dark calling to Happy and Shadow to join them.
But Happy, and presumably the invisible Shadow, were well up the corridor and they, too, were under attack now. The two Masters who had been heading for the conference room had turned back and were now in range of Happy, their heatguns blasting.
Happy had remained true to Dark's charge to hold the line against any attack from the rear. Frightened but staunch, hewas standing his ground, waving his own heat beam at the approaching pair of Masters.
But Happy was too unfamiliar with the weapon and too nervous to hit either of his targets. The beams of both Masters found him at the same time, and, with a woeful shriek that was cut off in a choking gurgle, the unfortunate Jelly collapsed to a smoking heap on the floor, quivered once and lay still.
Apparently from out of nowhere, the unarmed Shadow descended like a thunderbolt on one of Happy's killers. The surprised Master went sprawling, his heatgun flying from his hand.
Shadow might have vanquished the other, too, except that this startled individual, waving his heat beam wildly in an attempt to catch the elusive, vanishing and reappearing figure, scored a lucky hit. There was a tremendous flare of flame, and the extraordinary form of Shadow appeared for the last time, a charred, flat body lying on the floor of the corridor like the shadow for which he had been named.
The whole tragedy ran its course in less than a minute. In that time, Dark and Maya reached the entrance to the ramp, ducked into it and ran down the incline to the sheltering dimness of the labyrinthine vats.
Moments later, the two groups of Masters converged at the gate, two from one direction and five from the other.
"After them!" commanded Placer. "But stay together. We'll have to try to hunt them down in the vats, and maybe the Toughs can help us, but we don't want to get separated so they can pick us off one by one."
"Wait, Placer, there's something you ought to know," said one of the two Masters who had come from the direction of the conference room. "Greyde called out a few minutes ago to tell us he had word from Vidonati in the control room.Those groundcars that were hanging around had attacked one of the entrance buildings."
"Space!" growled Placer. "There must be a conspiracy involved here somewhere. We'd better stay up here, then."
He pulled the lever beside the gate to the ramp, and it rumbled down and crashed into place.
"At least, those two are trapped below," he said with satisfaction. "We can hunt them down at our leisure when we've repelled this attack from outside. If we can take them alive, I'm of a mind to make them pay well for their responsibility in our losing all our experimental Jellies."
The seven of them went on to the conference room, picking their way among the bodies of the Jellies. Placer took over the intercom from Greyde.
"Vidonati, this is Placer," he said. "What's the situation?"
"The groundcars attacked the south building," replied Vidonati. "They moved in and concentrated all three car beams on the airlock and burned it through. I counted nine men in marsuits who left the groundcars and went into the building. Of course, as soon as they started blasting the airlocks, I closed the emergency barrier to block off the downward ramp."
"Obviously, since we still have air in the place," commented Placer dryly. "You'd better call Mars City and get them to send help."
"I've already done that," said Vidonati. "A jet squadron's on its way."
"Good," said Placer. "They can be here in about five hours, and it will take those rebels, or whoever they are, two or three times that long to burn through one of the emergency barriers, even if they blast an opening and bring their groundcars into the building to bring the groundcars' big guns on it."
"Should I stick it out here, or seal all the barriers and come below?" asked Vidonati. The control room was in the north building.
"Stay up there so you can report on what they're doing, unless they start to move toward that building," instructedPlacer. "If they do, seal the other emergency barriers at once and come below. We can switch to the emergency radio down here to keep in touch with the task force from Mars City, and just wait it out underground until they clean up these rebels."
"Good enough," agreed Vidonati. "I won't take any chances."
In the vats below, Dark and Maya made their way to Old Beard's hideout, their heatguns ready, keeping a sharp lookout for Toughs. They reached it without incident.
Dark looked sadly around the little recess beneath the tangled vegetation, where Old Beard had concealed himself successfully so long from both Toughs and Masters. He had hoped that this reunion with his father would mean many years of companionship between them, once they were free of the Canfell Hydroponic Farm and had found a haven in the Icaria Desert.
But he knew that Old Beard had died in an act that had great meaning to him, a savage revenge that had wiped out the bitter memory of the loss of his wife and had repaid him for twenty-five long years of exile. Old Beard had died nobly.
Dark picked up one of the smaller marsuits.
"We don't know what's going to happen above, and we can't help much by staying inside, now that we can't hold that corridor and bottle them up in a room until Cheng and the Phoenix break in," said Dark. "We'd best get up to one of the exit buildings, get out through the airlock and get picked up by one of the groundcars. I don't need a marsuit, but you can put that on as soon as we get above in the building."
"Have you been in telepathic touch with Cheng?" asked Maya.
"Yes. They've already broken into the south building. That's the one I came through when I left for Ultra Vires and when I came back. But the Masters let down a heavy emergency barrier on the ramp when they attacked the airlock, and we wouldn't be able to get through that. There's a ramp near here that Old Beard told me opens onto the north building.We'll go there, and I'll send a call to Cheng to move over and meet us there."
Dark sent out a call to Cheng and received an acknowledgement. He and Maya started for the ramp, unaware that the building which was their goal housed the farm's control room, and the watching Vidonati.
Above, a few moments later, Vidonati called Placer on the intercom.
"Placer, they've come back to the groundcars and turned them in this direction," said Vidonati. "I'm going to let down the barriers on the ramps from the east and west buildings, sabotage the controls so they can't raise them again, and come on down. I'll lower the barrier to this building from inside, as soon as I get past it on the ramp."
"All right," said Placer. "We'll start getting the emergency radio in operation down here. Do a good job, but do it fast, and don't get caught up there by the rebels blasting the airlock."
"I won't," promised Vidonati. "It'll only take me a few minutes, and I can be down the ramp before they can focus their beams on the airlock."
In the lead groundcar, as the three of them wheeled around and headed slowly for the north building, Cheng turned to one of his companions with a frown.
"I've been trying to get through telepathically to Dark, but I can't reach him," said Cheng. "He didn't give any instructions for getting into the building, but they seem to have locked these airlocks by remote control so they can't be operated. We'll have to blast this one as we did the other one, because I don't imagine Dark will be able to open it from inside. He seemed in rather a hurry to be picked up."
Dark and Maya hurried up the ramp toward the north building. Dark had been concentrating too heavily on finding his way through the vats to receive Cheng's telepathic call.
They passed the barred gate that opened into the corridors of the upper level, and a few moments later reached the top of the ramp and the gate to the north building. Dark hadbeen prepared to open this by telekinesis but, to his surprise, it was already open.
They passed through it and emerged into the north building.
Dark had never seen one of the ground-level buildings in daylight, as both times he had passed through the south building it had been night. He looked around the place curiously as they entered.
It was about fifty feet square, bare except for the low, hard bunks on which the Toughs slept at night. On three sides of it were windows, now closed with heavy steel shutters. The airlock was across the room, opposite the ramp entrance. The fourth wall was blank, and apparently shut off a room at the end, because there was a closed door in the center of it.
They moved out into the room, and Dark said:
"Slip into your marsuit, and we'll go out the airlock. I told Cheng to bring the groundcars over this way, and they ought to be ready to pick us up by the time we get out."
"I don't see why we didn't stay down in the vats until the Phoenix break in," said Maya. "We were well hidden down there, and there might have been some way we could have helped the Phoenix from inside."
"Primarily because I'm not sure now that the Phoenix can break in," answered Dark. "I didn't know about that heavy emergency barrier the Masters let down on the south ramp, and I was surprised and relieved to find they hadn't dropped one on this ramp, too. If they had, we'd have been trapped below. If they have those barriers on all four ramps, the Phoenix can't stay around long enough to burn through them, because the Masters have probably already called for help from Mars City."
Maya had laid her marshelmet down on one of the bunks, and was pulling the marsuit on over her tunic and trousers.
The door at the other end of the room opened, and a man emerged, a heatgun in his hand.
Vidonati stopped in his tracks, startled, at the sight of Dark and Maya. Dark grunted in surprise, and reached for his heatgun.
Even as Dark freed his weapon, Vidonati fired. The beam missed them, melting away the top of Maya's marshelmet and setting the bunk aflame. Then, as the beam of Dark's gun swung toward him, Vidonati ducked precipitately back into the control room.
"He got your marshelmet!" exclaimed Dark. "We're going to have to go in and flush him out of there, and just hope there's another marsuit in there, before we can open the airlock."
Heatgun in hand, Dark started for the door of the control room, Maya at his heels.
It was then that the Phoenix, the three groundcars drawn up with their heavy guns focused, blasted the airlock of the north building. In seconds, the airlock was burned through.
There was no emergency barrier down on this ramp. The heavy, Earth-pressured air of the north building whistled out into the desert. As from a punctured balloon, the pressured atmosphere of the entire Canfell Hydroponic Farm rushed after it, roaring up the ramp, in a moment stripping the vats, the upper level and the north building.
Caught in the tornadic blast, Dark could only cling to a bolted-down cot with one hand, and hold onto Maya around the waist with the other. As the pressure dropped precipitately and oxygen no longer touched his lungs, he could actually feel his alternate metabolism shifting into gear, he could feel his breathing stop and the glow of solar energy begin to spread through his body.
As the wind faded and died, Dark released Maya and rose exultantly to his feet. Down below, he knew, Nuwell and the Masters were gasping out their lives in the thin air, like beached fish. Their recent attacker, Vidonati, lay half out of the door of the control room, his hands clutching convulsively at the floor.
"That's not the way I'd planned it, but it's just as good!" Dark exclaimed. "We've taken the farm!"
Then he remembered. Maya had no marshelmet!
Appalled, struck to the heart, he turned in his tracks.
Maya was standing behind him, calmly trying to rearrange her raven hair, tangled by the raging rush of wind.
"What's the matter?" she asked quietly, becoming aware of Dark's intent gaze.
"Maya! You don't have a helmet on! Are you breathing?"
She was silent for a moment, apparently examining herself.
"Why, no, I don't believe I am," she replied, just as calmly.
"How can you ...? Wait a minute!"
Dark sent his mind into the invisible. His probing thoughts fled over desert and lowland, seeking. They found the Martian, Qril, and he recognized that Qril responded immediately.
Qril, how is it that Maya is able to live in the Martian atmosphere without breathing?asked Dark telepathically.
She is as you, replied Qril.When she was a child, living among the Martians, we altered her physiological and genetic structure so that she, also, is able to utilize solar energy and exist without oxygen.
Why didn't you tell me this before, at Ultra Vires?demanded Dark.
You did not ask, replied Qril, and the mental contact faded out.
Dark turned to Maya, his face alight.
"Darling," he said, "our children will need no embryonic alterations. They will be born as we are, able to live under Martian conditions. And never again will either of us ever have to wear a marsuit!"
He felt the questing touch of Cheng's mind.
Cheng:Are you there, Dark?
Dark:Here.
Cheng:Are you all right?
Dark:We're both fine! We're coming out. Then we'll take off at once for the Icaria Desert, before the Mars City task force gets here.
He and Maya walked hand in hand through the blasted airlock. The three groundcars were there, waiting.
The two of them stood for a moment, before getting aboardthe groundcars, and looked out together across the red desert toward the sinking sun.
Death? Desolation? No, not for them. This was life, and free, bleak beauty, for them and for their children.
The future of Mars was theirs.