A World is Born | Page 9

behind the protecting door.
Raking the tumbled blond hair out of his eyes, Gray got up.
Jill was still sitting, her black curls bowed between her hands. There
wasn't much time, but Gray yielded to impulse. Pulling her head back
by the silken hair, he kissed her.
"If you ever get tired of virtue, sweetheart, look me up." But somehow
he wasn't grinning, and he ran down the slope.
He was almost to the open lock of the ship when things began to

happen. Dio staggered out of the wind-tunnel and sagged down beside
Jill. Then, abruptly, the big door opened.
Five men came out--one in pilot's costume, two in nondescript apparel,
one in expensive business clothes, and the fifth in dark prison garb.
Gray recognized the last two. Caron of Mars and the errant Ward.
They were evidently on the verge of leaving. But they looked cheerful.
Caron's sickly-sweet face all but oozed honey, and Ward was grinning
his rat's grin.
Thunder banged and rolled among the rocks. Lightning flared in the
cloudy murk. Gray saw the hull of a second ship beyond the door. Then
the newcomers had seen him, and the two on the slope.
Guns ripped out of holsters. Gray's heart began to pound slowly. He,
and Jill and Dio, were caught on that naked slope, with the flood of
electric death at their backs.
His Indianesque face hardened. Bullets whined round him as he turned
back up the slope, but he ran doubled over, putting all his hope in the
tricky, uncertain light.
Jill and the Martian crouched stiffly, not knowing where to turn. A flare
of lightning showed Gray the first of the firethings, flowing out onto
the ledge, hidden from the men below.
"Back into the cave!" he yelled. His urgent hand fairly lifted Dio. The
Martian glared at him, then obeyed. Bullets snarled against the rock.
The light was too bad for accurate shooting, but luck couldn't stay with
them forever.
Gray glanced over his shoulder as they scrambled up on the ledge.
Caron waited by his ship. Ward and the others were charging the slope.
Gray's teeth gleamed in a cruel grin.
Sweeping Jill into his arms, he stepped into the lapping flow of fire.

Dio swore viciously, but he followed. They started toward the cave
mouth, staggering in the rush of the wind.
"For God's sake, don't fall," snapped Gray. "Here they come!"
The pilot and one of the nondescript men were the first over. They were
into the river of fire before they knew, it, and then it was too late. One
collapsed and was buried. The pilot fell backward, and then other man
died under his body, of a broken neck.
Ward stopped. Gray could see his face, dark and hard and calculating.
He studied Gray and Dio, and the dead men. He turned and looked back
at Caron. Then, deliberately, he stripped off his gun belt, threw down
his gun, and waded into the river.
Gray remembered, then, that Ward too wore rubber boots, and had no
metal on him.
* * * * *
Ward came on, the glowing ropes sliding surf-like around his boots.
Very carefully. Gray handed Jill to Dio.
"If I die too," he said, "there's only Caron down there. He's too fat to
stop you."
Jill spoke, but he turned his back. He was suddenly confused, and it
was almost pleasant to be able to lose his confusion in fighting. Ward
had stopped some five feet away. Now he untied the length of tough
cord that served him for a belt.
Gray nodded. Ward would try to throw a twist around his ankle and trip
him. Once his body touched those swarming creatures....
He tensed, watchfully. The rat's grin was set on Ward's dark face. The
cord licked out.
But it caught Gray's throat instead of his ankle!

Ward laughed and braced himself. Cursing, Gray caught at the rope.
But friction held it, and Ward pulled, hard. His face purpling, Gray
could still commend Ward's strategy. In taking Gray off guard, he'd
more than made up what he lost in point of leverage.
Letting his body go with the pull, Gray flung himself at Ward. Blood
blinded him, his heart was pounding, but he thought he foresaw Ward's
next move. He let himself be pulled almost within striking distance.
Then, as Ward stepped, aside, jerking the rope and thrusting out a
tripping foot, Gray made a catlike shift of balance and bent over.
His hands almost touched that weird, flowing surf as they clasped
Ward's boot. Throwing all his strength into the lift, he hurled Ward
backward.
Ward screamed once and disappeared under the blue fire. Gray clawed
the rope from his neck. And then, suddenly, the world began to sway
under him. He knew