Occasionally he glanced at Janice working beside him. Her face, visible through the glazed front of her helmet, was white and set—almost hard. And there was boundless determination in the firm curve of her little rounded chin. He liked her attitude, but it was better to take it easy until the real fighting began.
"Slow up a bit, soldier," he remarked into his transmitter. "Powder your nose!"
Her face brightened as she turned toward him. "I wish I could powder my nose," she said, pouting. "Only I can't reach it!"
"Too bad. These space suits rob a girl of so many of her exquisite little tricks."
"Well," she put in, "I can still cover up my yawns with my hand if I find this pastime too much of a bore." They both chuckled at this little joke.
Janice took the last missile from the case she had been emptying and rammed it home. She jerked the lanyard, and with a thudding jolt the torpedo was on its way. Then she paused to scan the horde of Alkebar through an observation port. "Hurrah," she cried, "we're scoring!"
Without discontinuing his hurried feeding of his smoldering piece, Shelby looked up. The cloud had grown considerably in the few moments of action. It had cleared the asteroid now, and the other nebulous spot that marked the position of the Black Emperor's second army, was coming up to merge with it. In the midst of the first cloud, hundreds of minute specks of light were flashing—the atomic torpedoes were exploding. The sight reminded Shelby of what he had so often seen through the lens of a spintharoscope.
Alkebar's army continued to increase rapidly in apparent size. It looked like a monster amœba. But now the amœba was beginning to writhe, to swell up and grow dimmer. It shot out long sinuous pseudopods that seemed to grope angrily. Both Earthians sensed that the fight was about to begin in earnest.
With renewed vigor they fell to the task of loading and discharging the catapults; and close beside them the two Space Men who acted as gunners, labored coolly and methodically over their weapons, but with even greater efficiency, for their training had been long and thorough.