Hammond kept his silence. But the need for haste now, dogged them as they followed ramp after ramp down into the ship.
"Hurry!" Gena said again and again.
Some of the route was familiar to Hammond, who remembered being led along it on his way to Gena's navigation room. He was sure of it when they stepped into the huge garage where row upon row of war tanks stood dark and unmoving along the walls.
There was no guard about. Across the room a tank was just rumbling in, its eight legs clanking metallically. Evidently it was one of the Sediphron scouts that had been combing the boat for any of Gena's tanks that might have escaped the surprise attack.
Gena led the way swiftly. They clambered into one of the squat parked vehicles. A moment later it clanked out, passing the larger one that was sidling into parking position nearer the door.
They weren't stopped. A moment later they were climbing down the side of the "big one" to the boat seat, and scurrying across the ridges and gullies that were strewn with the wrecks of Sediphron and Metiphron war vehicles.
Through the observation prow Hammond could see the vague maroon cliff that was the near boat side. For a moment longing assailed him—longing to be in his own world again, to be out of this fantastic world of ultra-smallness. His thoughts turned to the ray guns Ardiné carried, then he dismissed the thought that came to him.
He owed Gena and Ardiné his life; and for what it would be worth he was with them in this suicidal attempt to wrest from Zuggoth and his crustacean horde the huge battle craft that had followed the Vandar III across space.
Zuggoth's ship finally loomed up, like a colossus over the small tank. Unhesitatingly Gena sent the ambulatory vehicle up the spiny side. The Sediphron craft was an exact copy of Gena's ship, and the girl-commander guided the small tank unerringly to one of the dilating doors that opened to a telepathic command.
The huge room they entered was an exact duplicate of that which they had left in the Vandar III. A Sediphron guard watched them slide the small tank into parking space. Then his telepathic order crackled into their thoughts.