"We sent a message, Jonesy, but I don't think it got through. I've just been looking at my portable. It seems to be busted. Happened when they first attacked us, I guess. I tripped and fell on it." Isobar's last hope flickered out. "Then I--I guess it won't be long now," he mourned. "If we could have only got a message through, they would have sent out an armored car to pick us up. But as it is--" Brown's shrug displayed a bravado he did not feel. "Well, that's the way it goes. We knew what we were risking when we volunteered to come Outside. This damn moon! It'll never be worth a plugged credit until men find some way to fight those murderous stones-on-legs!" Roberts said, "That's right. But what are _you_ doing out here, Isobar? And why, for Pete's sake, the bagpipes?" "Oh--the pipes?" Isobar flushed painfully. He had almost forgotten his original reason for adventuring Outside, had quite forgotten his instrument, and was now rather amazed to discover that somehow throughout all the excitement he had held onto it. "Why, I just happened to--Oh! _the pipes!_" "Hold on!" roared Roberts. His warning came just in time. Once more, the three tree-sitters shook like dried peas in a pod as their leafy refuge trembled before the locomotive onslaught of the lunar beasts. This time the already-exposed roots strained and lifted, several snapped; when the Grannies again withdrew, complacently unaware that the "lethal ray" of Brown's Haemholtz was wasting itself upon their adamant hides in futile fury, the tree was bent at a precarious angle. Brown sobbed, not with fear but with impotent anger, and in a gesture of enraged desperation, hurled his now-empty weapon at the retreating Grannies. "No good! Not a damn bit of good! Oh, if there was only some way of fighting those filthy things--" But Isobar Jones had a one-track mind. "The pipes!" he cried again, excitedly. "That's the answer!" And he drew the instrument into playing position, bag cuddled beneath one arm-pit, drones stiffly erect over his shoulder, blow-pipe at his lips. His cheeks puffed, his breath expelled. The giant lung swelled, the chaunter emitted its distinctive, fearsome, "_Kaa-aa-o-o-o-oro-oong!_" Roberts moaned. "Oh, Lord! A guy can't even die in peace!" And Brown stared at him hopelessly. "It's no use, Isobar. You trying to scare them off? They have no sense of hearing. That's been proven--" Isobar took his lips from the reed to explain. "It's not that. I'm trying to rouse the boys in the Dome. We're right opposite the atmosphere-conditioning-unit. See that grilled duct over there? That's an inhalation-vent. The portable transmitter's out of order, and our voices ain't strong enough to carry into the Dome--but the sound of these pipes is! And Commander Eagan told me just a short while ago that the sound of the pipes carries all over the building!