"It's what you Terrestrials call poetic justice," smiled Yaxa. "You captured me--now I have captured you." "Neil, you traitor!" fumed Bull Mike. "I wouldn't call names if I were in your shoes," rejoined Neil, crossing to the panel which led into the storeroom, and opening it. "Yaxa, this ship is well supplied with everything we need on the voyage. Shall we leave?" "Yes, of course. What shall we do with these friends of yours?" "Don't call me a friend of his," growled Bull Mike. "We'll take them along," replied Neil, taking no notice of his former chum's remark. "If we let them go now they'll rouse the whole planet on us. As it is, the force that is tackling your asteroid doesn't leave for two days yet. That ought to be head start enough for us." It seemed that nobody at the rocketport noticed the departure of the Martian ship. If notice was taken, perhaps it was reflected that there were Terrestrial guards on board and that all must be well. Unhindered, the craft went up and out, cleared the atmospheric envelope and headed for the bright speck in the sky that marked the sham world which was its goal. * * * * * For a few hours there was silence aboard between the captives and the captors, but at length Sukune spoke up with a smile. "Why be unreasonable about this thing?" he said. "If we're to be together for two months or so in space, we might as well be pleasant about it. I, for one, will accept defeat gracefully if you'll let me." "Gladly," said Yaxa. "Me, too," said Bull Mike. "That settles it," said Yaxa. "We'll get along together, I'm sure." "Senator W. L. Marcy of our United States once said, 'To the victors belong the spoils,'" continued Sukune. "We'll admit for the time being that you are victors and we're the spoils. Until the situation reverses itself we'll be model prisoners." They gathered in friendly fashion around the television screen and dialed in the image of the asteroid. It appeared half light, half dark, like a moon at the half. They could pick out the roughnesses of mountains, ravines and plains, all made in miniature by clever Martian artisans. They discussed what they saw like real comrades, all enmity apparently forgotten. When two days had passed they watched the diminishing Earth by television and, sure enough, sighted great clouds of shining specks--the hundreds of flights of space-ships that were taking the ether. They saw how some flew slowly, others swiftly, so that in a short time they had formed into the conventional "curtain front"--an open order formation of three dimensions, roughly disk-like in shape and perpendicular to the line of advance. It was about a thousand miles in diameter and about as thick through as the distance in which three or four ships could fly in single column. Against the black sky it looked like a moving galaxy of runaway stars.