And a pile of garmentsthe black insulated suits.

"There is a cloak and hood for Tama," said Roc. "But in flying it cannot protect the wings." The little leading girl, Grazia, was beside Jimmy. The platform was raised, ready for launching.

She leaned toward him. Her face was white and earnest.

There was fear in her eyes, but her jaw was set with determination. All the girls were watching her. She said, in an undertone: "You instruct us where to go, Jimmy."

"Start us off, Grazia. Down to the valleykeep close to the cliff, right along here on this side. Understand me?"

"Yes. I take orders from you or Tama. Not Roc." The platform lifted, swayed over the brink and swooped downward.

XIV NO MAN'S LAND JIMMY HEADED THEM down the valley for a mile. They landed on the dark rocky floor close to the foot of the cliff.

It was far darker than above. There was no wind down here.

But the heavy air was dank and chill. The girls were shivering from cold and from excitement.

Jimmy and Roc had donned the black suits. Jimmy carried a knife, a cylinder and the flashlight. His suit encased him from feet to neck, and to the tips of his gloved fingers. His hood, with flexible-paneled visor, dangled now at his back.

Tama donned her cloak. It covered her wings for walking, but was slitted so that for flying her wings could come through it. The three of them stood whispering.

"Roc, did anyone know we started?" demanded Jimmy.

Roc stood apart, waiting. "No," he answered.

'"Well, we're all right so far. I want the platform to take us as near as we dare go," Jimmy explained to Grazia. "Pick out a gully or something, where you can hide while you wait for me." It seemed that Roc hesitated. Tama turned to him abruptly.

"We will do what he says.'" The platform fluttered cautiously forward, landed in a little pit-like depression. The enemy line was near at hand. The barrage loomed up, a huge, glowing veil. They left the platform hidden. Tama stayed with it.

"We haven't been seen," Jimmy whispered. "You wait here.

We may come back in a rush, Tama." He gripped her slim shoulders. "I hope to God we have Rowena and Jack with IM usi "Come," whispered Roc.

He helped Jimmy for a short distance. The barrage curtain seemed almost overhead. But there was no light from it here on the rocky surface. The loose boulders were often ten or twenty feet high. Jimmy and Roc made their way cautiously forward. They were heading into the dark space between two of the projectors.

Jimmy pulled up his hood. "We'd better get lower. CrawL I can make it." They crept on. Jimmy, without thought of the pain, found he could drag his abnormally light weight swiftly forward.

Roc crept behind him. After a time, Jimmy was winded.

He paused for breath, then went on. The nearest projector was some two hundred feet to the left of him. Occasionally it was hidden by intervening crags. The other, to the right, lay obscured below a little upstanding ridge.

There was no alarm, though every moment Jimmy feared it might come. Every boulder might have a lurking guard in the blackness beside it.

Soon Jimmy figured he was within the enemy line. The barrage curtain closed in a great sweeping arc over his head. The left hand projector was a trifle behind him now; in the dim light from it he could see the dark forms of the attendants.

Ahead, the broken, ridged surface went down a gentle slope. Shapes were down therestraggling tents, the outposts of the camp. He saw a group of moving lights.

Abruptly Jimmy realized that Roc was not with him I He waited, stretched out, panting, gazing back. Roc had been .following, but he was gone now. Afraid I Desertedgone back to the girls A grin was on Jimmy's face. He rested a few moments, then dragged himself on. In Jimmy's mind there had been no thought of how he might get Rowena out of Dorrek's clutches. He told himself now that be would decide that when the time came. The first thing was to get to the Mercurian vehicle and into it.

There was a commotion ahead, men dragging a projector across the camp. Their small hand lights showed. Jimmy rolled into a little crevice between two boulders and rested until they had passed. He was well within the lines now.

Overhead he could see the green-yellow sky, and frequent lightning flares now. He heard a dim, queerly muffled thunderclap. And a wind was surging over the valley. The storm was at hand.

He saw too, that a distant section of the barrage was moving out from the camp, toward the valley wall. Three or four of the projectors were being rolled outward. It was a mile away, but the movement was obvious.

The camp showed distant activity. Dorrek was starting something. Jimmy lay with pounding heart, watching. The barrage was moving toward the cliff, in the direction of the canyon entrance where Grenfell had established his girls, and the Cube.

An enemy rocket mounted from a point on the valley floor less than a mile from Jimmy. The barrage parted to let it pass. It went in an arc upward. Through the brief blank hole in the barrage Jimmy saw it clearly; it fell on the cliff.

Burst with a puff of light, and from it came a turgid ball of smoke. Gas fumesi They clung heavily to the clifftopa little widening cloud. The wind which now was up there caught the fumes, and blew them back over the plateau.

Grenfell's projectors were sweeping the nearby rocks. The Cube fired a shot. It came screaming down, went into the barrage and burst in mid-air.

The battle had begun. A sudden activity everywhere. From the faraway clifftop, girls were rising, dropping bombs to dissipate the approaching gas fumes.

Jimmy came to himself to realize that whatever he could do must be done now. He crept on forward. He had forgotten Dorrek's brues, the gruesome giant insects. With a shudder that turned him cold, he saw one slithering across the camp with a man driving it.

They did not see him. Other men passed; he rolled into a tiny hollow and lay breathless as their feet and legs showed almost overhead. Legs garbed in a woolly brown fur. He waited a moment or two after they were gone, raised himself up on his hands to gaze cautiously out of the hollow.

From the nearby darkness two fur-robed figures were advancing! Jimmy ducked back, fumbling for his knife; he could not risk a ray flash which would give the alarm.

But he was too late! A giant man came with a leap upon bimi Tama crouched in the ravine with the platform and the fourteen other girls. Ten minutes passed. Every instant she feared to hear the sound of alarm within the enemy camp.

It was a mad, desperate attempt. She was sorry she had not tried harder to restrain Jimmy.

A dark form showed at the brink of the ravine. These girls were not armed, except Tama, who carried a knife and a ray cylinder. The little projector was in her hand; but before she could level it, a soft warning voice came from the arriving figure.

"Tamal" It was Roc. He slid down into the ravine, greeting Tama in their native language.

"All is well, Tama." His black hood dangled to his shoulders, exposing his pale face. In his hand he held his cylinder. He fronted Tama and the girls, with his back to the gully side.

"But where is Jimmy Turk?" Tama lowered her weapon.

"What happened, Roc? Why did you return?"

"He goes on in." Roc laughed, harsh as the grind of a file rasping on steel. "I let him go. Why not? They will catch him, of course. Kill him... . Look there!"' His swift gesture made Tama and most of the other girls turn around. There was nothing to see. Tama felt Roc leap upon her. His hands tore away her cylinder, jerked her knife from her belt, and flung her to the platform.

"Quiet, all of youl" His weapon swept the girls, menacing. His voice hissed at them. "If you do not want me to kill your Tama, do as I tell you. Take your places at the handles. We are going up. Lie still, you By the god of light, I'm in no mood to fool with you, Tama." He shoved her to the forward end of the platform. "If you try to fly off, my beam will kill you. I mean it."