"You mustn't be found out! You're our only hope, Anita! I'll hide, fix the cloak, or get back to my cubby. We'll try it again." It decided her. She scurried down the corridor. I whirled the other way. The steward's shout might not have been heard. Then realization flashed to me. That steward would be revived. He was one of Miko's men: for two voyages he had been a spy upon the _Planetara_. He would be revived and tell what he had seen and heard. Anita's disguise would be revealed. A cold-blooded killing I do protest went against me. But it was necessary. I flung myself upon him. I beat his skull with the metal of my cylinder. I stood up. My hood had fallen back from my head. I wiped my bloody hands on my useless cloak. I had smashed the cylinder. "Haljan!" * * * * * Anita's voice! A sharp note of horror and warning. I became aware that in the corridor, forty feet down its dim length, Miko had appeared, with Anita behind him. His rifle-bullet-projector was leveled. It spat at me. But Anita had pulled at his arm. The explosive report was sharply deafening in the confined space of the corridor. With a spurt of flame the leaden pellet struck over my head against the vaulted ceiling. Miko was struggling with Anita. "Prince, you idiot!" "Miko, don't! It's Haljan! Don't kill him--" The turmoil brought members of the crew. From the shadowed oval near me they came running. I flung the useless cylinder at them. But I was trapped in the narrow passage. I might have fought my way out. Or Miko might have shot me. But there was the danger that, in her horror, Anita would betray herself. I backed against the wall. "Don't kill me! See, I will not fight!" I flung up my arms. And the crew, emboldened, and courageous under Miko's gaze, leaped on me and bore me down. The futile plans of humans! Anita and I had planned so carefully, and in a few brief minutes of action it had come only to this! CHAPTER XVII _A Woman of Mars_ "So, Gregg Haljan, you are not as loyal as you pretend!" Miko was livid with suppressed anger. They had stripped the cloak from me, and flung me back in my cubby. Miko was now confronting me; at the door Moa stood watching. And Anita was behind her. I sat outwardly defiant and sullen on my bunk. But I was alert and tense, fearful still of what Anita's emotion might betray her into doing. "Not so loyal," Miko repeated. "And a fool! Do you think I am such a child you can escape me!" He swung around. "How did he get out of here? Prince, you came in here!" My heart was wildly thumping. But Anita retorted with a touch of spirit: "I came to tell him what you commanded. To check Hahn's latest figures--and to be ready to take the controls when we go into the asteroid's atmosphere." "Well, how did he get out?"