His heat ray came up, levelled. Barry shuffled another half-step. Craig Grey laughed harshly, his little black eyes sweeping over them.
"I'm a crack shot, Williams. You can't rush me. But, just to be sure, you'll go first."
The flaming beam of his heat ray cut across the room—and Barry leaped at the same instant. Pain lanced through his left shoulder. But he was not leaping toward Craig Grey—Barry was plunging toward the floor. There was a body there, and he smashed into it—a body with an ancient weapon still clutched in a right, long-dead hand.
Craig Grey backed away a step, the ray beam sweeping a fiery arch toward the other. A sharp report thundered in the room bouncing in a dozen echoes and re-echoes from the metal walls. Smoke curled from the muzzle of the old automatic in Barry's fingers, and bitter acrid smell was in his nostrils. Long years in the dry atmosphere of the Crypt had brought no corrosion, no deterioration to the weapon!
Again Grey backed away, a curse ripping through his thin lips, suddenly clenched with pain. His right arm dangled uselessly, the ray gun dropping from nerveless fingers.
Barry Williams came to his feet, the searing pain in his right shoulder forgotten momentarily in his triumph. "Impervium was made to stop heat rays, Grey. But an old automatic waited here hundreds of years to bring justice to Mars!"
He turned to Deisanocta. Her face was radiant, but the grey depths of her lovely eyes clouded as they fixed on his seared shoulder. "Barry—"
"Never mind me," he ordered brusquely. "Get to that radio we brought. Tell your men to let loose the mist again and attack at once!"
Craig Grey's pain-twisted face went paler. "The mist! You can't—I destroyed—"
"That's what you were supposed to think, Grey," Barry snapped. "But you'll see that silver lining shining through the cloud you brought to Mars. Then we'll put the mist drug and Deisanocta's hypnotism to work on your rotten mind. We'll get enough details on your fraud to convince any government!