Though they were looking at one of their own kind, it must have taken then a moment to realize that the naked body, clad only in a golden loin cloth, and the hands that held one of the fearful, green-flamed weapons, were those of a human. Then one of them broke from the others, sprang heedlessly across the still-glowing plate, and threw his arms about the barbaric figure.
"Dean!" he choked. "Dean, it's really you! You're alive!"
And Rawson's voice, too, was husky as he said: "Smithy, I thought you were gone. The radio said they had got you, old man."
Then other khaki-clad bodies, a dozen of them, were crowding through the hot portal, and Rawson came suddenly to himself.
"Quick!" he shouted. "They'll be after us in a second. Follow me."
Loah was waiting. Her own flame-thrower spat a little jet of green; it was the only light. Rawson saw here she had gathered up the other weapons and had turned them off so that even their little light would not blind her as she kept watch down the dark passage.
"Do we want them?" Dean shouted to the others. And Smithy echoed the question:
"Do we want them, Colonel?"
Colonel Culver, his face almost unrecognizable under its smears of powder stains and blood, snapped a quick answer: "No. We outrange them with our rifles. They're only flame-throwers, not ray projectors. Beat it! Run like the devil!"
Rawson snatched Loah's weapon and threw it with the others. It would be hard going, ahead—she must not be uselessly burdened. But he kept his own. Then with his one free hand he swept her up till she was racing beside him as they led the way.