Then there was a roaring in Alan's ears, the distant, far off pounding of surf on a water world like Venus, not arid Mars. It came closer, it swept down upon Alan in a surging, foaming tide and engulfed him.... * * * * * "Alan! Alan! Dad is here." "Laura." He blinked his eyes. Groggy, he stood up. Laura was on one side of him, General Olmstead on the other, pointing the atomic pistol squarely at Bennett Keifer. "Just how do you expect to get out of here?" Keifer demanded. "That's easy," Alan said. "You are coming with us." "To Earth? You'll never make me." "Get this straight," Alan said. "I could walk clear across Red Sands without anyone trying to stop me. I'm Alan Tremaine, remember? But we're going to do it the hard way because I want to turn you over to the authorities on Earth. Let's go." Outside in the corridor, a few guards were loitering. They came to attention and saluted smartly as Keifer and Alan Tremaine came into view with General Olmstead and his daughter. They never suspected that General Olmstead held a pistol, hidden by the folds of his tunic, at Keifer's back. General Olmstead told Alan as they followed the narrow corridor to a larger one, "My place is with the defenders of Red Sands. I wouldn't feel right going to Earth with you." "We're taking the warp-ship," Alan said. "It's not really built for interplanetary travel, but it will have to do. We could drop you at Syrtis. But sir, I'd rather take Laura with me. Let's get her safely out of this war." "Wait a minute!" Laura cried. "If you think--" "I do," her father said, "and so does Alan. You'll go to Earth with him. He needs someone along to help watch Keifer, anyhow." "But Dad!" "But nothing." "Alan, I want to go with you, but--" "You heard your father. But nothing." Fifteen minutes later, they were putting on insulined surface garments at the quartermaster supply depot near the great stone portal which separated Red Sands from the Martian desert. The clerk said, "Going up to the warp-station?" "No," Bennett Keifer told him. "Yes," Alan said. The clerk scratched his head, but saluted as they marched toward the stone portal. "Open it," Alan told him. The portal slid away. The fierce Martian wind blasted them with swirling, choking sand. The intense cold cleared Alan's head. Five hundred yards across the ochre sand, they could see the black bulk of the warp-ship. The portal groaned and scraped shut behind them. You could see nothing but a bare escarpment of Martian granite. "Haddix is tied up in the ship," Alan shouted over the shrieking wind. "We'll put him outside, then blast off." Now the warp-ship loomed over them, balanced black and ugly on its tail. Alan worked the airlock mechanism with numb fingers. The lock swung in. Haddix was there, all right. Haddix stood in the airlock with another uniformed figure on either side of him. Haddix was pointing an atomic pistol out at them.