"The radio does not tell you that," scoffed the guard. "We have sunk every American boat. There are no more American airplanes in the Pacific. Soon we will all move to America and have the white barbarians to wait upon us."
"Was that a Japanese bomber yesterday?" The man's rifle thunked lightly against wood. "There were circles on its wings."
"There may be a few left," was the excuse of the other guard. "Now we must cease talking and walk our posts."
Now Thig could make out the shapes of the guards as they went their way. One of them, the short, thick yellow man was coming slowly toward the tree that sheltered Thig. Perhaps he was dreaming of the fertile valleys of America, where the white-skinned men and women would be his servants, as he walked along.
Abruptly great fingers clamped around his throat, and he felt the sting of something that slammed against his chest. His feet scuffed at the soil, and then a great roaring filled his ears.
Thig eased the limp body to the earth. The other slim guard had halted, his nervously acute ears picking up some vague sound.
"What—what was that?" he called to his comrade.
Thig eased his blaster from its holster. In a moment the guard would arouse the other members of the garrison. The distance was too great for the knife—the man would be able to fire his rifle before he reached him.
The weapon's invisible rays slammed the Jap's body backward. Even as he fell the flesh was falling, rotted by the blaster's swift decomposing action, from the man's bones. A moment later only the crumbling bones of a skeleton remained of what had been a soldier.
He loaded the little ship to its capacity with explosives from the stores on the island, and before he left he touched a match to the buildings. Then he blasted off, with the water clearing explosively from his spacer's overloaded jets to arouse the sleeping warriors of the Mikado.