Grantline and I, with a mutual thought, ran around the balcony and gazed to where Mars had set. A narrow radiance was streaming up among the stars off there.
Three swinging swords of light in the sky! With the rotation of the planets, they swept the firmament. The mysterious enemy had planted them—but why? What was coming next?
And as though to answer us, from far to the south, over mid-Jersey, came a new manifestation. We saw a speck rising, a distant mounting speck of something dark, with streamers of tiny radiance flowing from it.
"A spaceship, Gregg."
It seemed so. It came slowly from above the maze of distant structures, gathered speed, and in a moment was gone.
But others, better equipped, had observed it. It was a cylindrical projectile, with stream-fluorescence propelling it upward, an unusual form of spaceship. Telescopically it was seen until well after dawn. Speeding out in the direction of the Moon.
Molo and his weird allies had escaped, I thought. With their work done here on Earth, they were off to rejoin the hovering enemy ship 200,000 miles out.
I stood gripping Grantline on that balcony, and gazed with sinking heart. Were Anita and Venza prisoners on that mounting ship? And Snap: I prayed he was there with the girls to lend them the protection I had failed to give.
"Haljan and Grantline wanted below."
The voice of a mechanic on the balcony behind us roused us from our thoughts. We went down through the busy building.