Their bodies were enclosed in their gas-tight uniforms whose ugly head-pieces served only to conceal the greater ugliness beneath. They met the ships as they landed with a showering rain of gas that was fired from huge projectors. "Not so good!" Blake was speaking in the safety of his ship. "We have masks, but great heavens, Mac!--there must be a million of those brutes. We can spray them with machine-gun fire, but we haven't ammunition enough to make a dent in them. And we've got to get out and get to our crashed ships." He waited for McGuire's suggestions, but it was Althora who replied. "Wait!" she said imperatively. She seemed to be listening to some distant word. Then: "Djorn is coming," she exclaimed, and her eyes were brilliantly alight. "He says to you"--she pointed to McGuire--"that you were right, that we must fight like hell sometimes to deserve our heaven--oh, I told him what you said--and now he is coming with all his men!" "What the devil?" asked Blake in amazement. "How does she know?" "Telepathy," McGuire explained: "she is talking with her brother, the leader of the real inhabitants of Venus." He told the wondering man briefly of his experience and of the people themselves, the real owners of this world. "But what can they do?" Blake demanded. And McGuire assured him: "Plenty!" * * * * * He turned to Althora to ask, "How are they coming? How will they get here?" "They are marching underground; they have been coming for two days. They knew of our being captured, but the people have been slow in deciding to fight. Djorn dared not tell me of their coming; he feared he might be too late. "They will come out of that building," she said, and indicated the towering structure that had been their prison. "It has the old connection with the underground world." "Well, they'd better be good!" said Blake incredulously. He was still less optimistic when the building before them showed the coming of a file of men. They poured forth, in orderly fashion and ranged themselves in single file along the walls. There must be a thousand, McGuire estimated, and he wondered if the women, too, were fighting for their own. Then, remembering Althora's brave insistence, he knew his surmise was correct. Each one was masked against the gas; their faces were concealed; and each one held before him a tube of shining metal with a larger bulbous end that rested in their hands. "Electronic projectors," the lieutenant whispered. "Keep your eye on the enemy, Blake; you are going to learn something about war." The thin line was advancing now and the gas billowed about them as they came. There were some few who dropped, where masks were defective, but the line came on, and the slim tubes were before them in glittering menace. * * * * *