"It is indeed a grievous thing," said Toomar sorrowfully. "Come into the lower chambers and we will see all those who were present that day." Shorty hesitated. "Aren't these--?" Roal shrugged. He had spent his career in a job where identification of individuals was a critical factor, but he still could not tell if those Martians now sitting about the room were or were not among the group that had been there on his first visit. Toomar turned back into the passage from which he had come. Roal and Shorty followed closely. The passage wound with interminable crooks and turns until their sense of direction was hopelessly lost, and still they kept going down. Roal believed they must have gone down five or six hundred feet at least when Toomar finally halted before a closed door. "In here," he directed. Roal hesitated, then stepped in as Toomar flung the door open. In the moment that it took for the scene within the room to crystallize on the retinas of the two Earthmen, Toomar slammed the door and bolted it. And his dry, cracked voice announced, "The Earthmen have come, Master." Roal and Shorty needed no other invitation to go for their flame lances. Even as their arms whipped up the dry limbs of the Martian's arms pinned Roal's hands. Shorty's lance swung from his hip in a single motion and burned a hole through Toomar's face as Roal hurled the Martian over his shoulder into the faces of the Martians in the room. His gun up then, Roal still hesitated in the shock of recognition as the man across the room turned from a table to face him. It was the giant Sebours, father of Mariana--Alayna. A vicious Martian word snarled from his lips as he leaped behind protecting shelves, drawing a gun. Then from doorways on either side, a stream of Martians flowed into the room like a pile of dry sticks on the breast of a wave. But they were like no Martians Roal had ever seen before. There were guns in their hands, spurting lines of flames toward the Earthmen. "In here!" Roal shouted to Shorty. He leaped through an open door beside him into a sort of storeroom lined with shelves of chemicals and electrical equipment. They were out of sight of the enemy for an instant and had time to catch a breath and a glimpse of their surroundings. The place looked like some biological or chemical laboratory. Sebours was dressed in a sterile garb as if about to perform some dissection or operation, they had noted. And he seemed to be in complete charge, for the Martians called him master, and hastened to obey him. Roal and Shorty stationed themselves on each side of the doorway. As the Martians made futile attempts to burn them down the Earthmen slew them as they appeared in the line of sight. They were safe enough for the moment, but they didn't have time or ammunition enough to kill all the Martians that could attack. It was only a temporary stalemate.