CHAPTER VIII
The Vitomaton
"I love Paula!" cried the Prince. "It happened all at once—when you said she was gone. Like a burst of light. Yet it must have been growing for weeks. It was getting so I couldn't work in the lab, unless she was there. God! It must have been hard for her. I was fighting it; I tried to hide what I was beginning to feel, tried to treat her as if she were a man. Now—she's gone!"
Bill looked back to the Red Rover, half a mile behind them. She lay still, burnished silver cylinder on the red sand. He could see Trainor beside her, still working over the curious little device on the tripod. All the others had gone aboard. And a score of blue globe-ships, like little sapphire moons, were circling a few thousand feet above, drifting around and around, with a slow gliding motion, like buzzards circling over their carrion-prey.
The Prince had buried his face in his hands, standing in an attitude of utter dejection.
Bill turned, looked over the red flat sand of the Martian desert. Far below, leading toward the near horizon, he saw a winding line of foot-prints, half obliterated by the recent dust-storm. Far away they vanished below the blue-black sky.
"Her tracks," he said, pointing.
"Tracks!" the Prince looked up, eager, hopeful determination flashing in his dark eyes. "Then we can follow! It may not be too late!"
He ran toward the edge of the cliff.