Seaward nodded. "Quite so. Red is a color that acts to irritate those who look at it overlong. I wouldn't advise staying on this world for more than a few minutes. We could easily go mad were we forced to remain here so much as a day."
"We'll land, anyway, and look around. If—" Broster was cut off abruptly as the shrill scream of the alarm pierced his line of thought. "What the devil is that?"
The sound of running feet from the far back of the ship came to their ears, then the fourth member of the crew streaked into the control room. "Space-ships approaching us!" Arundell shouted. "Didn't you spot them?"
Broster wheeled around to the chart. Nothing indicated; according to it, there was no planet ahead of them, no space-ships behind them. He muttered something then hurried across to the side ports, swung out the periscopic plates, stared anxiously to their rear.
There were at least a dozen of the red bodies moving along in their wake. Large, all of them, and near. Ships almost as great as the Astralite, ships that looked dangerous.
"They're close," he grated, "too damn close. I don't like it."
"Neither did I. I was wondering why you didn't do something when I saw them in the port," Arundell exclaimed.
Broster jumped to the controls, pulled the lever that should shunt the ship to one side. But as the nose turned away, and the great mass of her began slowly to describe a long arc in relation to her former course, another exclamation came from Kendall: "They're spreading out to stop us!"
Broster cursed, reset the course. The planet was dead ahead now.
"Trapped!" he fumed. "The red planet ahead of us, and those ships behind us. What do they want?"