Then she whipped her mount into a swift spiral climb and was gone, flashing through streamers of mist and powder-smoke. A second later Tex heard the mellow notes of her horn, and the attackers turned and vanished into the swamp. As quickly as that, it was over. Yet Tex, panting and wiping the sticky sweat from his forehead, wasn't happy. He wished she hadn't smiled. Men with blow-torches scoured the fort clean of beetles and green snakes. One party sprayed oil on the heaps of bodies below and fired them. The netting was cleared, their own dead burned. Tex, who was a corporal, got his men together, and his heart sank as he counted them. Thirty-two left to guard a fort that should be garrisoned by seventy. Another attack like that, and there might be none. Yet Tex had an uneasy feeling that the attack had more behind it than the mere attempt to carry the fort by storm. He thought of the woman whose brain had evolved all these hideous schemes--the beetle-bombs, the green snakes. She hadn't risked her neck for nothing, flying in the teeth of four batteries. He had salvaged the lock of silver hair his bullet had clipped. Now it seemed almost to stir with malign life in his pocket. Captain John Smith came out of the radio room. The officer's gaunt face was oddly still, his gray eyes like chips of stone. "At ease," he said. His pleasant English voice had that same quality of dead stillness. "Word has just come from Regional Headquarters. The swamp men have attacked in force east of us, and have heavily beseiged Fort Nelson. Our relief column had been sent to relieve them. "More men are being readied, but it will take at least two weeks for any help to reach us." * * * * * Tex heard the hard-caught breaths as the news took the men like a jolt in the belly. And he saw eyes sliding furtively aside to the dense black smoke pouring up from the incinerator, to the water tanks, and to the broken grating. Somebody whimpered. Tex heard Breska snarl, "Shut up!" The whimperer was Kuna, the young Martian who had stared white-faced at the captain a short while before. Captain Smith went on. "Our situation is serious. However, we can hold out another fortnight. Supplies will have to be rationed still further, and we must conserve ammunition and man-power as much as possible. But we must all remember this. "Help is coming. Headquarters are doing all they can." "With the money they have," said Breska sourly, in Tex's ear. "Damn the taxpayers!" "... and we've only to hold out a few days longer. After all, we volunteered for this job. Jupiter is a virgin planet. It's savage, uncivilized, knowing no law but brute force. But it can be built into a great new world. "If we do our jobs well, some day these swamps will be drained, the jungles cleared, the natives civilized. The people of Earth and Mars will find new hope and freedom here. It's up to us." The captain's grim, gaunt face relaxed, and his eyes twinkled.