he duty-man at the exit locks of the main building stood at his window and watched me curiously. He saw me go up the spider-stairs. He could see the figure he thought was Wilks, standing at the top. He saw me join Wilks, saw us locked together in combat.
For an instant the duty-man stood amazed. There were two fantastic, misshapen figures swaying in the Earthlight five hundred feet above the camp, fighting desperately at the very brink. They were small, dwarfed by distance, alternately dim and bright as they swayed in and out of the shadows. Soon the duty-man could not tell one from the other. Haljan and Wilks—fighting to the death!
The duty-man recovered himself and sprang into action. An interior siren-call was on the instrument panel near him. He rang it, alarming the camp.
The men came rushing to him, Grantline among them.
"What's this? Good God, Franck!"
They saw the silent, deadly combat up there on the cliff. The two figures had fallen together from the observatory platform, dropped twenty feet to a lower landing on the stairs. They lay as though stunned for a moment, then fought on.
Grantline stood stricken with amazement. "That's Wilks!"
"And Haljan," the duty-man gasped. "Went out—something wrong with Wilks—acting strangely—"
The interior of the camp was in a turmoil. The men awakened from sleep, ran out into the corridors, shouted questions.
"An attack?"