Barry had no chance to turn and make the prolonged ray contact it would have taken to damage the big, heavily-armored ship. His control board indicators flashed a bitter message in his eyes--his ship was lost! In the visa-plate before him; was Grey's exulting face, the long cigarette holder clamped between the thin, smiling lips. Above, like good dogs closing for the kill, the ships were following Barry down behind the pack-leading cruiser. III Williams got his wrecked craft on an even keel somehow, and spun her with his side jets to keep her even. His trip down was an incredibly swift repetition of these movements, designed to land the ship on the red sands with a cushioning belly-smack. They were following him down to make sure he did not escape the crash alive--to ray the smashed ship into an incandescent heap of metal! At the last moment, Barry stretched out a leg, and kicked hard at the emergency door-lock lever release. Whipped open by the air-wash, the door was waiting as he leaped from the seat. With a last look at the viewscreen--showing the red terrain flashing into his face--he spun out into the air a second before the crash. Darkness swept over him as he landed! It was not the darkness of unconsciousness. He'd landed on his back, pulled by steel muscles into an arc that rocked the impact from his hurtling body. But, somehow, a covering was over his eyes, and two men lay beside him, one on either side. They spoke softly to each other over his head in a language Barry recognized but could not understand; Martian! He'd found the Martians all right, the hard way! But Grey and his men would ray them all out of existence in a matter of seconds. Overhead the rockets of the ore-king's ships thundered closer. They'd seen his body hurtle from the wreck, and were searching! He wished the Martians hadn't blindfolded him. An intolerable glare from many ray beams beat through the covering over his eyes. This was it! The heat of those beams brought sweat through every pore of his body, but that was all. The drumming of rocket jets receded. They were leaving! Why hadn't they seen him? They'd rayed his ship into a heap of molten metal that warmed him where he lay, yards away. But he and his captors were unhurt. Apparently, Grey and his men had decided they'd been wrong about seeing the investigator jump. They'd decided he was still in the wreckage. But why hadn't they seen Grey and the Martians? The question was quickly answered. As the thrumming of rockets died in the distance, the two Martians pulled Barry to his feet. He blinked as sunlight struck his eyes, and looked about. The three of them were standing in the open, but a large square of rough cloth at their feet explained why the ships above hadn't spotted them. It was colored to blend into the red sand so perfectly it was almost invisible to Barry.