He wheeled and brought up the electric torch as simultaneously a hand grasped his.
"Not here, Jimmy. No light, please. Come, there's not a moment to lose."
A slender figure was partly visible in the gloom. A faint scent of Martian trofero touched his nostrils.
Before he could protest further he found himself guided out of the Way Station and out into the sand. Presently a small two-seater tracto-car rose up before them. There was no sign of Garth or the two I.P. men. The girl leaped in, touched a stud, and the car trembled with life. Two seconds later they were boring into the darkness.
"Can I look now?" Jimmy demanded.
She laughed. "If you like."
He switched on the torch. A young dark-haired girl with clear brown eyes and lovely features smiled back at him. She was beautiful.
He settled deeper in the seat. "Garth and the two I.P. men. Why didn't they come back?"
She didn't reply to that. Savagely with a sudden frantic twist of the wheel she maneuvered the tracto-car on a tangent toward the east bank of the canal. Even as she did, a man-high ribbon of white irridescence shot toward them. It was a spear-headed ellipse of blinding light with a whipping comet-like tail.
"Refraction-protract," she cried. Under her skillful guidance the car turned left, then right, to miss the oncoming beam by inches. The girl uttered a sigh of relief. "That was too close for comfort," she said. "Those refraction-protracts are disintegrating light rays stored up by the Red Desert sands and released by sudden changes in temperature. We'll have to watch ourselves."