Venza put in, "If Snap and I hadn't come for you, you wouldn't be here, Gregg Haljan. I didn't notice you were so horrified to see me holding that shield up over you!"
It silenced me.
She added, "Commander, let us alone. We won't smash anything."
Grantline laughed. "I hope you won't!"
A warning call took us back to the front window. The brigands' searchlight was again being used. It swept slowly along the length of the cliff. Its circle went down the cliff steps to the valley floor, and came sweeping up again. Then it went up to the observatory platform at the summit above us, then over to the ore sheds.
We had no men outside, if that was what the brigands wanted to determine. The searchbeam presently vanished. It was replaced immediately by a zed-ray, which darted at once to our treasure sheds and clung.
That stung Grantline into his first action. We flung our own zed-ray down across the valley. It reached the brigand ship and the blurred interior of the cabins.
"Try the searchbeam, Franck."
The zed-ray went off. We gazed down our searchlight which clung to the dome of the distant enemy vessel. We could see movement there.
"The telescope," Grantline ordered.