The two riders approached the mine enclosure which struggled into visibility through the smothering haze. The fishman, fleeter than the lumbering saddle-lizards, had already reached the high wire fence. He gestured wildly at the guard nearest him, an alert armed Venusian who stood on a stilt-platform that overlooked the fence to the mud flats beyond.
The guard pressed a button that opened a gate in the wire barricade. The mounted men pounded through, and over the wide muddy stretch to the concrete wall.
Deeply embedded in the ooze, with the rock bed for a foundation, the wall paralleled the outer fence and closed in the entire mining grounds. Its polished outer face was deeply indented, like a sharply curved concave lens. No joints showed in the smooth surface.
But Limpy Austin, up in the glass-walled lookout room atop the stilt blockade house, saw them. He opened a tightly fitting door in the concrete rampart. They rode through into the compound, dismounted near the closed-cabin freight tractor that stood beside the smelter.
"The 'pedes are coming, aren't they?" asked a slow, heavy voice behind them. Swede Steffansen came around the lizards. He was a big, placid man, but his sky-blue eyes—blue as the heaven of Earth, not this white hell—were troubled now. He said: "I could tell by the way the pack animals are acting. They're touchy."
"They caught the scent," Mac answered. "The attack's due in about two hours. Let all the animals out. We don't want them stampeding during the battle."
Swede nodded, slogged off toward the corral.
"Tell the fishmen we're in for a fight with 'pedes," Mac ordered Birchall. "Weed out the weak sisters. They'd only get in our way, anyhow."
Stepping high to avoid splashing, Al bounded off in the direction of the tipple at the mine entry. MacAloon went into the blockade house and climbed to the lookout room.