The guard pressed a button that opened a gate in the wire barricade. The mounted men pounded through, and over the wide muddy stretch to the concrete wall. Deeply embedded in the ooze, with the rock bed for a foundation, the wall paralleled the outer fence and closed in the entire mining grounds. Its polished outer face was deeply indented, like a sharply curved concave lens. No joints showed in the smooth surface. But Limpy Austin, up in the glass-walled lookout room atop the stilt blockade house, saw them. He opened a tightly fitting door in the concrete rampart. They rode through into the compound, dismounted near the closed-cabin freight tractor that stood beside the smelter. "The 'pedes are coming, aren't they?" asked a slow, heavy voice behind them. Swede Steffansen came around the lizards. He was a big, placid man, but his sky-blue eyes--blue as the heaven of Earth, not this white hell--were troubled now. He said: "I could tell by the way the pack animals are acting. They're touchy." "They caught the scent," Mac answered. "The attack's due in about two hours. Let all the animals out. We don't want them stampeding during the battle." Swede nodded, slogged off toward the corral. "Tell the fishmen we're in for a fight with 'pedes," Mac ordered Birchall. "Weed out the weak sisters. They'd only get in our way, anyhow." Stepping high to avoid splashing, Al bounded off in the direction of the tipple at the mine entry. MacAloon went into the blockade house and climbed to the lookout room. Limpy Austin was standing at the infra-red glass wall. His left arm and leg were shriveled, and one side of his face was twisted up in a sardonic leer. Mercurian Paralysis, that strange disease which immobilizes either half of a person depending on whether it is contracted at the Day or Night Side, had made a hopeless cripple of him. He turned around when Mac came in. "Well?" he asked. "They're coming, all right," Mac grunted. He leaned over the control panel, pushed the button that clanged the cease-work alarm down in the mine. Then he threw the lever that halted the ore cars to bring the men to the surface. "How do things look?" Limpy pursued. Mac shrugged. "We ought to have a better chance than before. There are four of us this time." Limpy shuffled to the radio. With his slender, sensitive right hand, he twisted the dials. "Adonis City," he said harshly into the microphone. "Limpy Austin calling Adonis City...." There was a squeal of static. "Adonis City," replied a harried voice. "Come in, Austin, but make it short!" "What's up?" "'Pede attack on every damned mine. How about you? Aren't they--" "Yeah," Limpy cut in. "That's why I'm calling. Send over a ship. Ours is wrecked." The weary voice cursed. "I can't, Austin. We figured you had a boat, so we shipped them all to the other mines." "Okay," Limpy shrugged. "Then we'll have to do without." "Why don't you guys blow up the place and leave?"