"I won't try to deceive you for one instant that our battle is going to be easy," he told them sternly. "It isn't. The odds are a hundred to one against us. But I will tell you this: The game is worth it! If we win Areeba, all Venus is ours. With improved weapons, the Martians' own, we'll be able to descend on the smaller settlements and conquer them before they know what has happened here. Then there will be the task of building up a space fleet. We can do it. If Mars sends a new army out to re-capture us, they'll find us ready, trained in their own modes of warfare and as brutal as they themselves. I have a theory that once we have won our independence, progress on Venus will be different. My experience has proved that all the Venusian lacks for a complete, balanced fighting personality is an abundance of ultraviolet light. We can provide that artificially, in street-lights, in the nursery, everywhere. It will be the beginning of the greater Venus. Yes, the game is worth the risk. We have all to win ... nothing to lose!" Vesh-Tu, a squat, hairy little man, leaned forward. "But how are we to do it, Prince? The _radite_ is guarded, is it not?" "I have a plan--" Lolan murmured thoughtfully. "We can enter, I believe, by the sewers, following the river upstream to the holes and climbing them by their ladders. They will probably know immediately what we are doing, when their machines and guns begin to lose power. But by that time I hope to have the army mostly concentrated on the south side." "How?" Irak demanded flatly. "By starting fires, riots, dynamiting buildings--everything we can think of. Then, when the soldiers have been decoyed into the midst of our people, we will have destroyed the last of the _radite_ and the revolution will begin in earnest!" Atarkus rubbed his hands. "Suppose we set a zero hour--say twelve o'clock, for the time for fighting to begin. It would make for a concerted, simultaneous outbreak all over the city." Lolan nodded grimly. "Twelve o'clock. I will need three men to help me. Irak, Vesh-Tu, and you, Atarkus. The rest of you had better go back, now, to pass the word. We strike at high noon--and we strike hard!" * * * * * Dawn came, but only by their watches did those four who fought their way up the treacherous, slippery banks of the subterranean river realize it. They stumbled along in darkness complete except for the feeble glow of hand torches. At ten o'clock they reached a spot where refuse of all kinds had collected on the bank. They sent light spraying the roof of the cavern. A honeycomb of holes broke its rough expanse.