It had not occurred to him that the arms of Amborg and his men would not be, like their own, lashed securely. Thus it came as a heart-stopping shock to hear Amborg's cry ring in their ears, a sharp cry of command—then suddenly there flamed from the sidearms of the other captive group the withering blasts of heat-guns!
III
Chip Warren had bitterly resented the close guard with which the Titanians had surrounded him and his comrades; he had reason, now, to be grateful for that very protection. Otherwise his dreams of space adventure would have ended suddenly and terribly in that moment.
As it was, the foremost wall of Titanians took the brunt of Amborg's vicious attack. They screamed as pencils of crimson scorched the life from their unprotected bodies, screamed and died horribly, falling in blackened piles that whimpered futilely for an instant and were still.
Chip had never known a moment of such dreadful impotence as this. Arms lashed to his sides, his own weapon as securely removed from his grasp as if it no longer existed, there was nothing he could do but attempt to evade the flame of the lethal guns.
With a choking cry to his mates, he threw himself forward; his knees struck rocky ground, grit slashed his unprotected headpane as he fell, and for an instant he feared the impact might shatter the quartzite, exposing him to the deadly, ammoniac atmosphere of Uranus' second moon.
Then he was entrenched behind the still-smouldering bodies of the slain Titanians, watching the speed of their fellows' reprisal.
And it was speedy. Salvation had spoke truly when he said these creatures were savage and untamed as beasts. Reckless of their own lives, green-casted features snarling, they swooped down on the treacherous quartet. In the split of a second they had seized them, bound them, removed their weapons.
But Chip and his companions suffered the same fate as their adversaries. The Titanians stripped them of their sidearms, as they had taken those of Amborg's men. Ungentle hands herded them into one of the nearby hovels, and there, as two guards held the single doorway, they were deserted.