No signal yet from Miko. But it might come at any moment. "I'll flash now," I whispered. "Yes." The brigands had probably not yet seen us. I took the lamp from my helmet. My hand was trembling. Suppose my signal were answered by a shot? A flash from some giant projector mounted on the ship? Anita crouched behind a rock, as she had promised. I stood with my torch and flung its switch. My puny light beam shot up. I waved it, touched the ship with its faint glowing circle of illumination. They saw me. There was a sudden movement among the lights up there. I semaphored: _I am from Miko. Do not fire._ I used open universal code. In Martian first, and then in English. There was no answer, but no attack. I tried again. _This is Haljan, one 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. _Continue._ I went steadily on: _Disaster--the_ Planetara _is wrecked. All killed but me and 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, some 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 signaling up here and had joined 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 searchbeam 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 on 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. The Martian brigands crowded around us. XXIX Anita's words echoed in my memory: "We must do 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.