We could not tell where he was. Down on the plains, perhaps? Or up here, somewhere in these miles of towering rocks?
I stared through the visors at her white solemn face.
Her hand pressure seemed to me suddenly like a farewell. We were plunging rashly into what was destined to mean our death? Was this a farewell?
An instinct told me not to do this thing. Why, in a few hours I could have Anita back to the comparative safety of the Grantline camp. The exit ports would doubtless be repaired by now. I could get her inside.
She had bounded away from me, leaped down some thirty feet into the broken gully, to cross it and then up on the other side. I stood for an instant watching her fantastic shape, with the great rounded, goggled, trunked helmet and the lump on her shoulders which held the little Erentz motors. Then I hurried after her.
It did not take us long--two or three miles of circling along the giant wall. The ship lay only a few hundred feet above our level.
We stood at last on a buttelike pinnacle. The lights of the ship were close over us. And there were moving lights up there, tiny moving spots on the adjacent rocks. The brigands had come out, prowling about to investigate their location.
No signal yet from Miko. But it might come at any moment.
The brigands had probably not yet seen us. I took the lamp from my helmet. My hand was trembling. Suppose my signal were answered by a shot? A flash from some giant projector mounted on the ship?
Anita crouched behind a rock, as she had promised. I stood with my torch and flung its switch. My puny light beam shot up. I waved it, touched the ship with its faint glowing circle of illumination.
They saw me. There was a sudden movement among the lights up there.
I used open universal code. In Martian first, and then in English.
There was no answer, but no attack. I tried again.
_This is Haljan, one of the_ Planetara. _George Prince's sister is with me. There has been disaster to Miko._
A small light beam came down from the brink of the overhead cliff beside the ship.
I went steadily on: _Disaster--the_ Planetara _is wrecked. All killed but me and Prince's sister. We want to join you._
As though to answer my lie, from down on the Earthlit plains, some ten miles or so from the crater base, a tiny signal light shot up. Anita saw it and gripped me.