At the glass cage again, it was short work to cut a narrow door at the base of the smooth wall. With an eye on the horizon, Norman quickly covered the cutter with gravel, then motioned Dorothy into the invisible enclosure that had been their prison and so nearly their mausoleum. "We'll play dead," he explained, stretching out on the gravel with the two rifles hidden under him. Dorothy lay down beside him. "When they leave the ship and come over here, I'll jump out. You stay inside in case they get a chance to shoot back." Suddenly the air hummed with the flow of rockets. "Here they are!" But the sound told Norman that his job was doubled in danger. There were two ships now, the other, his own. They'd repaired it. Rockets idling, they hovered over the field and slowly settled. Sade's group was now split in two parties--he couldn't surprise them both.... "Don't move!" Norman whispered, feeling Dorothy's soft hair against his cheek. His fingers tightened on the guns under his body. His pulse was loud in his ears. If they suspected something? But it was too late for worry now. He heard footsteps on the gravel as the sound of the rockets sputtered and died away. * * * * * The next second was a lifetime. Then suddenly he was on his feet. He whirled, ducked out through the hole in the glass. The guns in his hands were spitting their red streams, before his eyes found the men before him, and he played the guns like two garden hoses, spraying death. The two patrolmen fell, charred and black. But the two groups had ruined his ambush. Swart sprang aside, behind the glass wall as the flame streaked past him. Norman saw Sade standing in the door of the ship, staring at the wild scene. The door was slammed shut as Norman's guns splattered the hull with fire. Then the fight was between him and Swart alone. On the opposite sides of the ring of glass, Dorothy standing there horrified between them, it was one of the strangest situations in Norman's experience. The glass was impervious to jet fire. Dorothy was perfectly safe. But as Norman moved around the wall to get a shot at Swart, the dark little man also moved, keeping the arc of glass between them. It couldn't continue. A sudden sheet of flame rushed past one side of the glass, Sade firing from the ship. Swart was not slow to take advantage of the opportunity. Quickly he slid around the wall to corner Norman against Sade's fire. Norman stood waiting, rifles poised to blast Swart's gun barrel as it nosed past the curve of glass. But Swart was no fool. He was playing for time. Norman heard the throbbing as Sade started his rockets. Sade was moving the ship to trap him between their guns.