"Grey, you can't get away with this," gritted Barry. He took another step--not toward Grey, but in the direction of Deisanocta. "Stand still!" snapped the ore-king. The weapon in his hand was very steady. "I want to look around." * * * * * His glittering eyes roamed about the control room. "So this is the secret weapon of the Crypt! I knew it'd be something my boys would be better off not seeing--no chance of a leak this way." "Earth troops will find it," Barry threatened. "An atomic bomb will take care of that," the ore-king countered smoothly. "You won't be around to tell them about it, and neither will the girl. I'll keep the secret myself." Keeping his weapon trained on the two, Grey prowled about the room. "Here's the ship's log," he thumbed through rapidly, not relaxing his vigilance for an instant. "Hmm. Left Earth in 2085--during the last Continental War. Two scientists, a rich backer--" His hand swept to the body in the chair. "That would be him--rich backers are often seeking power. "Ship-full of refugees from all lands--average people. Going to establish a Utopian world on Mars." He snapped the book shut. "Ancestors of your savages, Grey," said Barry quietly. "Yes," replied the ore-king. "Brains killed each other off in a locked control room--probably the keys to the ship's stores are locked in here with them. That left the others on their own--no sciences, no arts! They just farmed. "What a clincher you almost had, Williams!" His heat ray came up, levelled. Barry shuffled another half-step. Craig Grey laughed harshly, his little black eyes sweeping over them. "I'm a crack shot, Williams. You can't rush me. But, just to be sure, you'll go first." The flaming beam of his heat ray cut across the room--and Barry leaped at the same instant. Pain lanced through his left shoulder. But he was not leaping toward Craig Grey--Barry was plunging toward the floor. There was a body there, and he smashed into it--a body with an ancient weapon still clutched in a right, long-dead hand. Craig Grey backed away a step, the ray beam sweeping a fiery arch toward the other. A sharp report thundered in the room bouncing in a dozen echoes and re-echoes from the metal walls. Smoke curled from the muzzle of the old automatic in Barry's fingers, and bitter acrid smell was in his nostrils. Long years in the dry atmosphere of the Crypt had brought no corrosion, no deterioration to the weapon! Again Grey backed away, a curse ripping through his thin lips, suddenly clenched with pain. His right arm dangled uselessly, the ray gun dropping from nerveless fingers. Barry Williams came to his feet, the searing pain in his right shoulder forgotten momentarily in his triumph. "Impervium was made to stop heat rays, Grey. But an old automatic waited here hundreds of years to bring justice to Mars!"