The dread Callistan ships were coming over again, death spewing from their silver bellies.
"Our people are still battling!" Anna said happily. "For weeks, with all radio-communication blocked off by the Callistan static-barrage, we didn't even know that, for sure! But it's a good sign!"
"Maybe," Ron commented with a shrug. "Anyhow we're here high up in the atmosphere. Arne Reynaud said 'Scatter the cargo.' That should be easy to do from this position. So, here's how!"
He pulled a lever which had been an enigma to Anna and to himself through all their return voyage from Mars. It was the lever which opened the discharge-vent of the Barbarian's hold.
Peering wonderingly from the side-ports of the control-room, the man and the girl saw what was coming out of that discharge-vent, and settling gradually toward Leiccsenland, and the surrounding hills, far beneath.
A brownish cloud—like chaff—that was all. It swirled astern like a streamer, in that high, frigid altitude. It scattered, so that it dissolved from view. Spreading, sinking downward.
"Not very impressive, is it?" Anna asked anxiously. It was plain that she was doubting Arne Reynaud's mysterious weapon more and more. Just chaff. What could it ever do against the Acharians, armed to the teeth, hardy, and prepared for all violence?
"Not very impressive," Ron agreed with a cynical shrug.
But he kept guiding the freighter around and around at that vast altitude until the discharge-spout had ceased to trail brown, chaffy dust. The hold was empty. The job, at least, was accomplished, now, according to exact specifications.