But the Martians had immunized him! Barry shrugged. Perhaps he'd convinced them he was a friend, and they'd stamped him with this immunity that all their fellows might know him from the other Earthmen who were enemies—
The thought brought a sudden chill to Barry Williams' spine! He'd been walking, first slowly, then, as his legs lost their stiffness, more and more rapidly. Yet, still the mist was all about him. Never in its ghostlike appearances before had the mist covered more than a small patch of the desert!
These thoughts began to add together in his mind. Immunizing him—a fiend, putting him to sleep so that he would be unable to argue or resist until he could be safely disposed of, the extent of the mist. All this could mean—
"This is it," Barry groaned aloud. "This is the revolt!
"The first appearances of the mist were to terrorize, and to test! This is the real thing; the mist over the whole surface of Mars, organized Martians striking under its cover!"
His words came back to him from the hateful white blanket, muffled and run together into unintelligible echoes.
"You failed—failed!" the echoes seemed to mutter. "Earthmen will die—Earth troops will come against the 'savages.' No justice for Mars!"
Barry shook his head angrily against his imaginings. Suddenly, he stumbled and pitched forward over something at his feet.
His heart sank at sight of the gruesome thing in the sand. A dead Earthman—but not unmarked as had been the earlier victims of the white mist. This man had been killed by violence, killed as he lay unconscious, overcome by the mist drug!
"This is it," Barry groaned again. Another form of death was striking under the silver blanket. This man had been a murderer and exploiter, but to Earth Government he was a citizen killed by savages!