"_This is Haljan, once of the_ Planetara. _George Prince's sister is with me. There has been disaster to Miko._" A small light-beam came down from the brink of the overhead cliff beside the ship. "_We read you._" I went steadily on: "_Disaster--the_ Planetara _is wrecked. All killed but me and George Prince's sister. We want to join you._" I flashed off my light. The answer came: "_Where is the Grantline camp?_" "_Near here. The Mare Imbrium._" As though to answer my lie, from down on the Earthlit plains, ten miles or so from the crater-base, a tiny signal-light shot up. Anita saw it and gripped me. "There is Miko's light!" It spelled in Martian, "_Come down. Land Mare Imbrium._" Miko had seen the signalling up here and was joining it! He repeated, "_Land Mare Imbrium._" * * * * * I flashed a protest up to the ship: "_Beware! That is Grantline! Trickery!_" From the ship the summons came: "_Come up._" We had won this first encounter! Miko must have realized his disadvantage. His distant light went out. "Come, Anita." There was no retreat now. But again I seemed to feel in the pressure of her hand that vague farewell. Her voice whispered, "We must do our best, act our best to be convincing." In the white glow of a search-beam we climbed the crags, reached the broad upper ledge. Helmeted figures rushed at us, searched us for weapons, seized our helmet lights. The evil face of a giant Martian peered at me through the visors. Two other monstrous, towering figures seized Anita. We were shoved toward the port-locks at the base of the ship's hull. Above the hull bulge I could see the grids of projectors mounted in the dome-side, and the figures of men standing on the deck, peering down at us. We went through the admission locks into a hull corridor, up an incline passage, and reached the lighted deck. Our helmets were taken off. The Martian brigands crowded around us. CHAPTER XXIX _On the Brigand Ship_ Anita's words echoed in my memory: "We must act our best to be convincing." It was not her ability that I doubted as much as my own. She had played the part of George Prince cleverly, unmasked only by an evil chance. I steeled myself to face the searching glances of the brigands as they shoved around us. This was a desperate game into which we had plunged! For all our acting, how easy it would be for some small chance thing abruptly to undo us! I realized it, and now, as I gazed into the peering faces of these men from Mars, I cursed my witless rashness which had brought Anita into this!