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Tex stirred uneasily where he lay on the parapet, staring into theheavy, Jupiterian fog. The greasy moisture ran down the fort wall,lay rank on his lips. With a sigh for the hot, dry air of Texas, anda curse for the adventure-thirst that made him leave it, he shiftedhis short, steel-hard body and wrinkled his sandy-red brows in thenever-ending effort to see.

A stifled cough turned his head. He whispered. "Hi, Breska."

The Martian grinned and lay down beside him. His skin was wind-burnedlike Tex's, his black eyes nested in wrinkles caused by squintingagainst sun and blowing dust.

For a second they were silent, feeling the desert like a bond betweenthem. Then Breska, mastering his cough, grunted:

"They're an hour late now. What's the matter with 'em?"

Tex was worried, too. The regular dawn attack of the swamp-dwellers waslong overdue.

"Reckon they're thinking up some new tricks," he said. "I sure wish ourrelief would get here. I could use a vacation."

Breska's teeth showed a cynical flash of white.

"If they don't come soon, it won't matter. At that, starving ispleasanter than beetle-bombs, or green snakes. Hey, Tex. Here comes theSkipper."

Captain John Smith—Smith was a common name in the VolunteerLegion—crawled along the catwalk. There were new lines of strain onthe officer's gaunt face, and Tex's uneasiness grew.

He knew that supplies were running low. Repairs were urgently needed.Wasn't the relief goin' to come at all?

But Captain Smith's pleasant English voice was as calm as though hewere discussing cricket-scores in a comfortable London club.

"Any sign of the beggars, Tex?"

"No, sir. But I got a feeling...."

"H'm. Yes. We all have. Well, keep a sharp...."

A scream cut him short. It came from below in the square compound. Texshivered, craning down through the rusty netting covering the well.

He'd heard screams like that before.

A man ran across the greasy stones, tearing at something on his wrist.Other men ran to help him, the ragged remnant of the force that hadmarched into new Fort Washington three months before, the firstgarrison.

The tiny green snake on the man's wrist grew incredibly. By the timethe first men reached it, it had whipped a coil around its victim'sneck. Faster than the eye could follow, it shifted its fangs fromwrist to throat.

The man seemed suddenly to go mad. He drew his knife and slashed at hiscomrades, screaming, keeping them at bay.

Then, abruptly, he collapsed. The green snake, now nearly ten feetlong, whipped free and darted toward a drainage tunnel. Shouting mensurrounded it, drawing rapid-fire pistols, but Captain Smith called out:

"Don't waste your ammunition, men!"

Startled faces looked up. And in that second of respite, the snakecoiled and butted its flat-nosed head against the grating.

In a shower of rust-flakes it fell outward, and the snake was gone likea streak of green fire.

Tex heard Breska cursing in a low undertone. A sudden silence hadfallen on the compound. Men fingered the broken grating, white-faced asthey realized what it meant. There would be no metal for repairs untilthe relief column came.

It was hard enough to bring bare necessities over the wild terrain. Andair travel was impracticable due to the miles-thick clouds and magneticvagaries. There would be no metal, no ammunition.

Tex swore. "Reckon I'll never get used to those varmints, Captain. Therattlers back home was just kid's toys."

"Simple enough, really." Captain Smith spoke absently, his gray eyesfollowing the sag of the rusty netting below.

"The green snakes, like the planarians, decrease evenly in size withstarvation. They also have a vastly accelerated metabolism. When theyget food, which happens to be blood, they simply shoot out to theirnormal size. An injected venom causes their victims to fight off helpuntil the snake has fed."

Breska snarled. "Cute trick the swamp men thought up, starving thosethings and then slipping them in on us through the drain pipes. They'reso tiny you miss one, every once in a while."

"And then you get that." Tex nodded toward the corpse. "I wonder whothe war-chief is. I'd sure like to get a look at him."

"Yes," said Captain Smith. "So would I."

He turned to go, crawling below the parapet. You never knew whatmight come out of the fog at you, if you showed a target. The body wascarried out to the incinerator as there was no ceremony about burialsin this heat. A blob of white caught Tex's eye as a face strainedupward, watching the officer through the rusty netting.

Tex grunted. "There's your countryman, Breska. I'd say he isn't so soldon the idea of making Venus safe for colonists."

"Oh, lay off him, Tex." Breska was strangled briefly by a fit ofcoughing. "He's just a kid, he's homesick, and he's got the wheezes,like me. This lowland air isn't good for us. But just wait till weknock sense into these white devils and settle the high plateaus."

If he finished, Tex didn't hear him. The red-haired Westerner wasstaring stiffly upward, clawing for his gun.

He hadn't heard or seen a thing. And now the fog was full of thunderingwings and shrill screams of triumph. Below the walls, where theground-mist hung in stagnant whorls, a host of half-seen bodies crowdedout of the wilderness into which no civilized man had ever gone.

The rapid-fire pistol bucked and snarled in Tex's hand. Captain Smith,lying on his belly, called orders in his crisp, unhurried voice. CBattery on the northeast corner cut in with a chattering roar, sprayingexplosive bullets upward, followed by the other three whose duty it wasto keep the air clear.

Tex's heart thumped. Powder-smoke bit his nostrils. Breska began towhistle through his teeth, a song that Tex had taught him, called, "TheLone Prairee."

The ground-strafing crews got their guns unlimbered, and mud began tosplash up from below. But it wasn't enough. The gun emplacements wereonly half manned, the remainder of the depopulated garrison having beenoff-duty down in the compound.

The Jupiterians were swarming up the incline on which the fort stood,attacking from the front and fanning out along the sides when theyreached firm ground. The morasses to the east and west were absolutelyimpassable even to the swamp-men, which was what made Fort Washingtona strategic and envied stronghold.

Tex watched the attackers with mingled admiration and hatred. They hadguts; the kind the Red Indians must have had, back in the old days inAmerica. They had cruelty, too, and a fiendish genius for thinking uptricks.

If the relief column didn't come soon, there might be one trick toomany, and the way would be left open for a breakthrough. The thin,hard-held line of frontier posts could be flanked, cut off, andannihilated.

Tex shuddered to think what that would mean for the colonists, alreadycoming hopefully into the fertile plateaus.

A sluggish breeze rolled the mist south into the swamps, and Tex gothis first clear look at the enemy. His heart jolted sharply.

This was no mere raid. This was an attack.

Hordes of tall warriors swarmed toward the walls, pale skinned giantsfrom the Sunless Land with snow-white hair coiled in warclubs at thebase of the skull. They wore girdles of reptile skin, and carried bagsslung over their brawny shoulders. In their hands they carried clubsand crude bows.

Beside them, roaring and hissing, came their war-dogs; semi-erectreptiles with prehensile paws, their powerful tails armed withartificial spikes of bone.

Scaling ladders banged against the walls. Men and beasts began toclimb, covered by companions on the ground who hurled grenades of bakedmud from their bags.

"Beetle-bombs!" yelled Tex. "Watch yourselves!"

He thrust one ladder outward, and fired point-blank into a dead-whiteface. A flying clay ball burst beside the man who fired the nearestground gun, and in a split second every inch of bare flesh was coveredby a sheath of huge scarlet beetles.

Tex's freckled face hardened. The man's screams knifed upward throughthe thunder of wings. Tex put a bullet carefully through his head andtumbled the body over the parapet. Some of the beetles were shaken off,and he glimpsed bone, already bare and gleaming.

Missiles rained down from above; beetle-bombs, green snakes madeworm-size by starvation. The men were swarming up from the compoundnow, but the few seconds of delay almost proved fatal.

The aerial attackers were plain in the thinning mist—lightly-built menmounted on huge things that were half bird, half lizard.

The rusty netting jerked, catching the heavy bodies of man and lizardshot down by the guns. Tex held his breath. That net was all thatprotected them from a concerted dive attack that would give the nativesa foot-hold inside the walls.

A gun in A Battery choked into silence. Rust, somewhere in themechanism. No amount of grease could keep it out.

Breska swore sulphurously and stamped a small green thing flat. Redbeetles crawled along the stones—thank God the things didn't fly. Menfought and died with the snakes. Another gun suddenly cut out.

Tex fired steadily at fierce white heads thrust above the parapet. Theman next to him stumbled against the infested stones. The voraciousscarlet flood surged over him, and in forty seconds his uniform saggedon naked bones.

Breska's shout warned Tex aside as a lizard fell on the catwalk. Itsrider pitched into the stream of beetles and began to die. Wings beatclose overhead, and Tex crouched, aiming upward.

His freckled face relaxed in a stare of utter unbelief.

She was beautiful. Pearl-white thighs circling the gray-green barrelof her mount, silver hair streaming from under a snake-skin diademset with the horns of a swamp-rhino, a slim body clad in girdle andbreast-plates of irridescent scales.

Her face was beautiful, too, like a mask cut from pearl. But her eyeswere like pale-green flames, and the silver brows above them were drawninto a straight bar of anger.

Tex had never seen such cold, fierce hate in any living creature, evena rattler coiled to strike.

His gun was aimed, yet somehow he couldn't pull the trigger. When hehad collected his wits, she was gone, swooping like a stunting flyerthrough the fire of the guns. She bore no weapons, only what lookedlike an ancient hunting-horn.

Tex swore, very softly. He knew what that horned diadem meant.

This was the war chief!

The men had reached the parapet just in time. Tex blasted the head froma miniature Tyrannosaurus, dodged the backlash of the spiked tail, andthrew down another ladder. Guns snarled steadily, and corpses werepiling up at the foot of the wall.

Tex saw the woman urge her flying mount over the pit of the compound,saw her searching out the plan of the place—the living quarters, thewater tanks, the kitchen, the radio room.

Impelled by some inner warning that made him forget all reluctance towar against a woman, Tex fired.

The bullet clipped a tress of her silver hair. Eyes like pale greenflames burned into his for a split second, and her lips drew back fromreptilian teeth, white, small, and pointed.

Then she whipped her mount into a swift spiral climb and was gone,flashing through streamers of mist and powder-smoke.

A second later Tex heard the mellow notes of her horn, and theattackers turned and vanished into the swamp.

As quickly as that, it was over. Yet Tex, panting and wiping the stickysweat from his forehead, wasn't happy.

He wished she hadn't smiled.

Men with blow-torches scoured the fort clean of beetles and greensnakes. One party sprayed oil on the heaps of bodies below and firedthem. The netting was cleared, their own dead burned.

Tex, who was a corporal, got his men together, and his heart sank as hecounted them. Thirty-two left to guard a fort that should be garrisonedby seventy.

Another attack like that, and there might be none. Yet Tex had anuneasy feeling that the attack had more behind it than the mere attemptto carry the fort by storm. He thought of the woman whose brain hadevolved all these hideous schemes—the beetle-bombs, the green snakes.She hadn't risked her neck for nothing, flying in the teeth of fourbatteries.

He had salvaged the lock of silver hair his bullet had clipped. Now itseemed almost to stir with malign life in his pocket.

Captain John Smith came out of the radio room. The officer's gauntface was oddly still, his gray eyes like chips of stone.

"At ease," he said. His pleasant English voice had that same quality ofdead stillness.

"Word has just come from Regional Headquarters. The swamp men haveattacked in force east of us, and have heavily beseiged Fort Nelson.Our relief column had been sent to relieve them.

"More men are being readied, but it will take at least two weeks forany help to reach us."

Tex heard the hard-caught breaths as the news took the men like a joltin the belly. And he saw eyes sliding furtively aside to the denseblack smoke pouring up from the incinerator, to the water tanks, and tothe broken grating.

Somebody whimpered. Tex heard Breska snarl, "Shut up!" The whimpererwas Kuna, the young Martian who had stared white-faced at the captain ashort while before.

Captain Smith went on.

"Our situation is serious. However, we can hold out another fortnight.Supplies will have to be rationed still further, and we must conserveammunition and man-power as much as possible. But we must all rememberthis.

"Help is coming. Headquarters are doing all they can."

"With the money they have," said Breska sourly, in Tex's ear. "Damn thetaxpayers!"

"... and we've only to hold out a few days longer. After all, wevolunteered for this job. Jupiter is a virgin planet. It's savage,uncivilized, knowing no law but brute force. But it can be built into agreat new world.

"If we do our jobs well, some day these swamps will be drained, thejungles cleared, the natives civilized. The people of Earth and Marswill find new hope and freedom here. It's up to us."

The captain's grim, gaunt face relaxed, and his eyes twinkled.

"Pity we're none of us using our right names," he said. "Because Ithink we're going to get them in the history books!"

The men laughed. The tension was broken. "Dismissed," said CaptainSmith, and strolled off to his quarters. Tex turned to Breska.

The Martian, his leathery dark face set, was gripping the arms of hisyoung countryman, the only other Martian in the fort.

"Listen," hissed Breska, his teeth showing white like a dog's fangs."Get hold of yourself! If you don't, you'll get into trouble."

Kuna trembled, his wide black eyes watching the smoke from the bodiesroll up into the fog. His skin lacked the leathery burn of Breska's.Tex guessed that he came from one of the Canal cities, where thingswere softer.

"I don't want to die," said Kuna softly. "I don't want to die in thisrotten fog."

"Take it easy, kid." Tex rubbed the sandy-red stubble on his chin andgrinned. "The Skipper'll get us through okay. He's aces."

"Maybe." Kuna's eyes wandered round to Tex. "But why should I take thechance?"

He was shaken suddenly by a fit of coughing. When he spoke again, hisvoice had risen and grown tight as a violin string.

"Why should I stay here and cough my guts out for something that willnever be anyway?"

"Because," said Breska grimly, "on Mars there are men and womenbreaking their backs and their hearts, to get enough bread out of thedeserts. You're a city man, Kuna. Have you ever seen the famines thatsweep the drylands? Have you ever seen men with their ribs cuttingthrough the skin? Women and children with faces like skulls?

"That's why I'm here, coughing my guts out in this stinking fog.Because people need land to grow food on, and water to grow it with."

Kuna's dark eyes rolled, and Tex frowned. He'd seen that same starrylook in the eyes of cattle on the verge of a stampede.

"What's the bellyache?" he said sharply. "You volunteered, didn't you?"

"I didn't know what it meant," Kuna whispered, and coughed. "I'll dieif I stay here. I don't want to die!"

"What," Breska said gently, "are you going to do about it?"

Kuna smiled. "She was beautiful, wasn't she, Tex?"

The Texan started. "I reckon she was, kid. What of it?"

"You have a lock of her hair. I saw you pick it from the net. Thenet'll go out soon, like the grating did. Then there won't be anythingto keep the snakes and beetles off of us. She'll sit up there and watchus die, and laugh.

"But I won't die, I tell you! I won't!"

He shuddered in Breska's hands, and began to laugh. The laugh roseto a thin, high scream like the wailing of a panther. Breska hit himaccurately on the point of the jaw.

"Cafard," he grunted, as some of the men came running. "He'll comeround all right."

He dragged Kuna to the dormitory, and came back doubled up withcoughing from the exertion. Tex saw the pain in his dark face.

"Say," he murmured, "you'd better ask for leave when the relief getshere."

"If it gets here," gasped the Martian. "That attack at Fort Nelsonwas just a feint to draw off our reinforcements."

Tex nodded. "Even if the varmints broke through there, they'd bestopped by French River and the broken hills beyond it."

A map of Fort Washington's position formed itself in his mind; thestone blockhouse commanding a narrow tongue of land between strips ofimpassable swamp, barring the way into the valley. The valley led backinto the uplands, splitting so that one arm ran parallel to the swampsfor many miles.

To fierce and active men like the swamp-dwellers, it would be no trickto swarm down that valley, take Fort Albert and Fort George by surprisein a rear attack, and leave a gap in the frontier defenses that couldnever be closed in time.

And then hordes of white-haired warriors would swarm out, led by thatbeautiful fury on the winged lizard, rouse the more lethargic pastoraltribes against the colonists, and sweep outland Peoples from the faceof Venus.

"They could do it, too," Tex muttered. "They outnumber us a thousand toone."

"And," added Breska viciously, "the lousy taxpayers won't even give usdecent equipment to fight with."

Tex grinned. "Armies are always step-children. I guess the sheep justnever did like the goats, anyhow." He shrugged. "Better keep an eye onKuna. He might try something."

"What could he do? If he deserts, they'll catch him trying to skip out,if the savages don't get him first. He won't try it."

But in the morning Kuna was gone, and the lock of silver hair in Tex'spocket was gone with him.

Five hot, steaming days dragged by. The water sank lower and lowerin the tank. Flakes of rust dropped from every metal surface at theslightest touch.

Tex squatted on a slimy block of stone in the compound, trying toforget hunger and thirst in the task of sewing a patch on his pants.Fog gathered in droplets on the reddish hairs of his naked legs,covered his face with a greasy patina.

Breska crouched beside him, coughing in deep, slow spasms. Out underthe sagging net, men were listlessly washing underwear in a tub ofboiled swamp water. The stuff held some chemical that caused a stubbornsickness no matter what you did to it.

Tex looked at it thirstily. "Boy!" he muttered. "What I wouldn't givefor just one glass of ice water!"

"Shut up," growled Breska. "At least, I've quit being hungry."

He coughed, his dark face twisted in pain. Tex sighed, trying to ignorethe hunger that chewed his own belly like a prisoned wolf.

Nine more days to go. Food and water cut to the barest minimum. Gunparts rusting through all the grease they could put on. The strands ofthe net were perilously thin. Even the needle in his hand was rusted sothat it tore the cloth.

Of the thirty-one men left after Kuna deserted, they had lost seven;four by green snakes slipped in through broken drain gratings, threeby beetle-bombs tossed over the parapet. There had been no furtherattacks. In the dark, fog-wrapped nights, swamp men smeared with blackmud crept silently under the walls, delivered their messages of death,and vanished.

In spite of the heat, Tex shivered. How much longer would this silentwar go on? The swamp-men had to clear the fort before the relief columncame. Where was Kuna, and why had he stolen that lock of hair? And whatscheme was the savage beauty who led these devils hatching out?

Water slopped in the tub. Somebody cursed because the underwear neverdried in this lousy climate. The heat of the hidden sun seeped down instifling waves.

And suddenly a guard on the parapet yelled.

"Something coming out of the swamp! Man the guns!"

Tex hauled his pants on and ran with the others. Coming up beside thelookout, he drew his pistol and waited.

Something was crawling up the tongue of dry land toward the fort. Atfirst he thought it was one of the scaly war-dogs. Then he caught agleam of scarlet collar-facings, and shouted.

"Hold your fire, men! It's Kuna!"

The grey, stooped thing came closer, going on hands and knees, its darkhead hanging. Tex heard Breska's harsh breathing beside him. Abruptlythe Martian turned and ran down the steps.

"Don't go out there, Breska!" Tex yelled. "It may be a trap." But theMartian went on, tugging at the rusty lugs that held the postern gate.It came open, and he went out.

Tex sent men down to guard it, fully expecting white figures to burstfrom the fog and attempt to force the gate.

Breska reached the crawling figure, hauled it erect and over oneshoulder, and started back at a stumbling run. Still there was noattack. Tex frowned, assailed by some deep unease. If Kuna had goneinto the swamps, he should never have returned alive. There was a traphere somewhere, a concealed but deadly trick.

Silence. The rank mist lay in lazy coils. Not a leaf rustled in theswamp edges.

Tex swore and ran down the steps. Breska fell through the gate andsagged down, coughing blood, and it was Tex who caught Kuna.

The boy lay like a grey skeleton in his arms, the bones of his facealmost cutting the skin. His mouth was open. His tongue was black andswollen, like that of a man dying of thirst.

Kuna's sunken, fever-yellowed eyes opened. They found the tub, in whichsoiled clothing still floated.

With a surge of strength that took Tex completely by surprise, the boybroke from him and ran to the water, plunging his face in and gulpinglike an animal.

Tex pulled him away. Kuna sagged down, sobbing. There was somethingwrong about his face, but Tex couldn't think what.

"Won't let me drink," he whispered. "Still won't let me drink. Got tohave water." He clawed at Tex. "Water!"

Tex sent someone after it, trying to think what was strange about Kuna,scowling. There were springs of sweet water in the swamps, and even thenatives couldn't drink the other. Was it simply the desire to torturethat had made them deny the deserter water?

Tex caught the boy's collar. "How did you get away?"

But Kuna struggled to his knees. "Breska," he gasped. "Breska!"

The older man looked at him, wiping blood from his lips. Kuna saidsomething in Martian, retched, choked on his own blood, and fell over.Tex knew he was dead.

"What did he say, Breska?"

The Martian's teeth showed briefly white.

"He said he wished he'd had my guts." His expression changed abruptly.He caught Tex's shoulder.

"Look, Tex! Look at the water!"

Where there had been nearly a full tub, there was now only a littlemoisture left in the bottom. While Tex watched, that too disappeared,leaving the wood dry.

Tex picked up an undershirt. It was as dry as any he'd ever hung inthe prairie air, back in Texas. He touched his face. The skin was likesun-cured leather. His hair had not a drop of fog on it.

Yet the mist hung as heavy as ever.

Captain Smith came out of the radio room, looking up at the net and theguns. Tex heard him mutter, quite unconsciously.

"It's the rust that'll beat us. It's the rust that'll lose us Jupiterin the end."

Tex said, "Captain...."

Smith looked at him, startled. But he never had time to ask what thematter was. The lookout yelled. Wings rushed overhead. Guns chatteredfrom the parapet. The attack was on.

Tex ran automatically for the catwalk. Passing Kuna's crumpled body, herealized something he should have seen at first.

"Kuna's body was dry when he came into the fort. All dry, even hisclothes." And then, "Why did the swamp-men wait until he was safelyinside and the door closed to attack?"

With a quarter of their guns disabled and two-thirds of their garrisongone, they still held superiority due to their position and powerfulweapons.

There was no concerted attempt to force the walls. Groups ofwhite-haired warriors made sallies, hurled beetle-bombs and weighedbags of green snakes, and retired into the mist. They lost men, but notmany.

In the air, it was different. The weird, half-feathered mounts wheeledand swooped, literally diving into the gunbursts, the riders hurlingmissiles with deadly accuracy. And they were dying, men and lizards, bythe dozen.

Tex, feeling curiously dazed, fired automatically. Bodies thrashed intothe net. Rust flakes showered like rain. Looking at the thin strands,Tex wondered how long it would hold.

Abruptly he caught sight of what, subconsciously, he'd been lookingfor. She was there, darting high over the melee, her silver hairflying, her body an iridescent pearl in the mist.

Captain Smith spoke softly.

"You see what she's up to, Tex? Those flyers are volunteers. Theirorders are to kill as many of our men as possible before they diethemselves, but they must fall inside the walls! On the net, Tex. Toweaken, break it, if possible."

Tex nodded. "And when it goes...."

"We go. We haven't enough men to beat them if they should get insidethe walls."

Smith brushed his small military mustache, his only sign ofnervousness. Tex saw him start, saw him touch the bristles wonderingly,then finger his skin, his tunic, his hair.

"Dry," he said, and looked at the fog. "My Lord, dry!"

"Yes," returned Tex grimly. "Kuna brought it back. He couldn't get weteven when he tried to drink. Something that eats water. Even if the netholds, we'll die of thirst before we're relieved."

He turned in sudden fury on the distant figure of the woman and emptiedhis gun futilely at her swift-moving body.

"Save your ammunition," cautioned Smith, and cried out, sharply.

Tex saw it, the tiny green thing that had fastened on his wrist. Hepulled his knife and lunged forward, but already the snake had grownincredibly. Smith tore at it vainly.

Tex got in one slash, felt his knife slip futilely on rubbery flesh ofenormous contractile power. Then the venom began to work. A mad looktwisted the officer's face. His gun rose and began to spit bullets.

Grimly, Tex shot the gun out of Smith's hand, and struck down with thegun-barrel. Smith fell. But already the snake had thrown a coil roundhis neck and shifted its grip to the jugular.

Tex sawed at the rubbery flesh. Beaten as though with a heavy whip, hestood at last with the body still writhing in his hand.

Captain Smith was dead, with the snake's jaws buried in his throat.

Dimly Tex heard the mellow notes of the war-chief's horn. The skycleared of the remnants of the suicide squad. The ground attackersvanished into the swamps. And then the woman whirled her mount sharplyand sped straight for the fort.

Puffs of smoke burst around her but she was not hit. Low over theparapet she came, so that Tex saw the pupils of her pale-green eyes,the vital flow of muscles beneath pearly skin.

He fired, but his gun was empty.

She flung one hand high in derisive salute, and was gone. And Breskaspoke softly behind Tex.

"You're in command now. And there are just the fourteen of us left."

Tex stood staring down at the dead and dying caught in the rusty net.He felt suddenly tired; so tired that just standing and looking seemedtoo much drain on his wasted strength.

He didn't want to fight any more. He wanted to drink, to sleep, andforget.

There was only one possible end. His mouth and throat were dry withthis strange new dryness, his thirst intensified a hundredfold. Theswamp men had only to wait. In another week they could take the fortwithout losing a man.

Even with the reduced numbers of the defenders, this fiendish thingwould make their remaining water supply inadequate. And then anotherthought struck him.

Suppose it stayed there, so that even if by some miracle the garrisonheld out, it made holding the fort impossible no matter how many men,or how much water there was.

The men were looking at him. Tex let the dead snake drop to the catwalkand vanish under a pall of scarlet beetles.

"Clean up this mess," said Tex automatically. Breska's black eyes werebrilliant and very hard. Why didn't the men move?

"Go on," Tex snapped. "I'm ranking officer here now."

The men turned to their task with a queer reluctance. One of them, abig scar-faced hulk with a mop of hair far redder far than Tex's, stoodlong after the others had gone, watching him out of narrowed green eyes.

Tex went slowly down into the compound. There were no breaks in thenet, but another few days of rust would finish them.

What was the use of fighting on? If they left now, they might get outalive. Headquarters could send more men, retake Fort Washington.

But Headquarters didn't have many men. And the woman with the eyes likepale-green flames wouldn't waste any time.

Some falling body had crushed a beetle-bomb caught in the net. Thescarlet things were falling like drops of blood on Kuna's body. Texsmiled crookedly. In a few seconds there'd be nothing left of theflesh Kuna had cherished so dearly.

And then Tex rubbed freckled hands over his tired blue eyes, wonderingif he were at last delirious.

The beetles weren't eating Kuna.

They swirled around him restlessly, scenting meat, but they didn'ttouch him. His face showed parchment dry under the whorls of fog. Andsuddenly Tex understood.

"It's because he's dry. They won't touch anything dry."

Recklessly, he put his own hand down in the scarlet stream. It dividedand flowed around it, disdaining the parched flesh.

Tex laughed, a brassy laugh with an edge of hysteria in it. Nowthat they were going to die anyway, they didn't have to worry aboutbeetle-bombs.

Feet, a lot of them, clumped up to where he knelt. The red-haired giantwith the green eyes stood over him, the men in a sullen, hard-facedknot behind him.

The red-haired man, whose name was Bull, had a gun in his hand. He saidgruffly,

"We're leavin', Tex."

Tex got up. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. We figure it's no use stayin'. Comin' with us?"

Why not? It was his only chance for life. He had no stake in thecolonies. He'd joined the Legion for adventure.

Then he looked at Kuna, and at Breska, thinking of all the people oftwo worlds who needed ground to grow food on, and water to grow itwith. Something, perhaps the ancestor who had died in the Alamo, madehim shake his sandy head.

"I reckon not," he said. "And I reckon you ain't, either."

He was quick on the draw, but Bull had his gun already out. The bulletthundered against Tex's skull. The world exploded into fiery darkness,through which he heard Breska say,

"Sure, Bull. Why should I stay here to die for nothing?"

Tex tried to cry out, but the blackness drowned him.

He came to lying on the catwalk. His head was bandaged. Frowning, heopened his eyes, blinking against the pain.

Breska hunched over the nearest gun, whistling softly through histeeth. "The Lone Prairee." Tex stared incredulously.

"I—I thought you'd gone with the others."

Breska grinned. "I just wasn't as dumb as you. I hung behind till theywere all outside, and then I barred the door. I'd seen you weren'tdead, and—well, this cough's got me anyway, and I hate forced marches.They give me blisters."

They grinned at each other. Tex said,

"We're a couple of damn fools, but I reckon we're stuck with it. Okay.Let's see how long we can fool 'em." He got up, gingerly. "The Skipperhad some books in his quarters. Maybe one of 'em would tell what thisdry stuff is."

Breska coughed and nodded. "I'll keep watch."

Tex's throat burned, but he was afraid to drink. If the waterevaporated in his mouth as it had in Kuna's....

He had to try. Not knowing was worse than knowing. A second later hestood with an empty cup in his hand, fighting down panic.

Half the water had vanished before he got the cup to his mouth. Therest never touched his tongue. Yet there was nothing to see, nothing tofeel. Nothing but dryness.

He turned and ran for Captain Smith's quarters.

Hertford'sJungles of Jupiter, the most comprehensive work on asubject still almost unknown, lay between Kelland'sField TacticsandAlice in Wonderland. Tex took it down, leafing through it as heclimbed to the parapet.

"Here it is," he said suddenly. "'Dry Spots. These are fairly commonphenomena in certain parts of the swamplands. Seemingly Nature's methodfor preserving the free oxygen balance in the atmosphere, colonies ofultra-microscopic animalcules spring up, spreading apparently fromspores carried by animals which blunder into the dry areas.

"'These animalcules attach themselves to hosts, inanimate or otherwise,and absorb all water vapor or still water nearby, utilizing thehydrogen in some way not yet determined, and liberating free oxygen.They become dormant during the rainy season, apparently unable to copewith running water. They expand only within definite limits, and thelife of each colony runs about three weeks, after which it vanishes.'"

"The rains start in about a week," said Breska. "Our relief can'tget here under nine days. They can pick us off with snakes andbeetle-bombs, or let us go crazy with thirst, let the first showerclear out the ani—the whatyoucallits, and move in. Then they canslaughter our boys when they come up, and have the whole of Jupiterclear."

Tex told him about Kuna and the beetles. "The snakes probably won'ttouch us, either." He pounded a freckled fist on the stones. "If wecould find some way to drink, and if the guns and the net didn't rust,we might hold them off long enough."

"'If'," grunted Breska. "If we were in heaven, we wouldn't have toworry."

The days that followed blurred into a daze of thirst and ceaselesswatching. For easier defence, there was only one way down from theparapet through the net. They took the least rusted of the guns andfilled the small gap. They could hold out there until they collapsed,or the net gave.

They wasted several quarts of water in vain attempts to drink. Thenthey gave it up. The final irony of it made Tex laugh.

"Here we are, being noble till it hurts, and it won't matter a damn.The Skipper was right. It's the rust that'll lose us Venus in theend—that, and these Dry Spots."

Food made thirst greater. They stopped eating. They became mereskeletons, moving feebly in sweat-box heat. Breska stopped coughing.

"It's breathing dry air," he said, in a croaking whisper. "It's sofunny I could laugh."

A scarlet beetle crawled over Tex's face where he lay beside theMartian on the catwalk. He brushed it off, dragging weak fingers acrosshis forehead. His skin was dry, but not as dry as he remembered itafter windy days on the prairie.

"Funny it hasn't taken more oil out of my skin." He struggled suddenlyto a sitting position. "Oil! It might work. Oh, God, let it work! Itmust!"

Breska stared at him out of sunken eyes as he half fell down the steps.Then a sound overhead brought the Martian's gaze upward.

"A scout, Tex! They'll attack!"

Tex didn't hear him. His whole being was centered on one thing—thething that would mean the difference between life and death.

Dimly, as he staggered into the room where the oil was kept, Tex hearda growing thunder of wings. He groaned. If Breska could only hold outfor a moment.

It took all his strength to turn the spigot of the oil drum. It wasempty. All the stuff had been used to burn bodies. Almost crying, Texcrawled to the next one, and the next. It was the fourth drum thatyielded black, viscous fluid.

Forcing stiff lips apart, Tex drank.

If there'd been anything in him, he'd have vomited. The vile stuffcoated lips, tongue, throat. Outside, Breska's gun cut in sharply. Texdragged himself to the water tank.

"Running water," he thought. Tilting his head up under the spigot,he turned the tap. Water splashed out. Some of it hit his skin andvanished. But the rest ran down his oil-filmed throat. He felt it, warmand brackish and wonderful, in his stomach.

He laughed, and let go a cracked rebel yell. Then he turned and lurchedback outside, toward the steps.

The net sagged to the weight of white-haired warriors and roaringlizards. Breska's gun choked and stammered into silence. Tex groaned inutter agony.

It was too late. The rust had beaten them.

His freckled, oil-smeared face tightened grimly. Drawing his gun, hecharged the steps.

"Where the hell did you go?" snarled Breska. "The ammo belt jammed." Hegrabbed for the other gun set in the narrow gap.

Then it wasn't rust! And Tex realized something else. There were norust flakes falling from the net.

Something had stopped the rusting. Before, his physical anguish hadbeen too great for him to see that the net strands grew no thinner,the gun-barrels no rustier.

Scraps of the explanation shot through Tex's mind. Breska's coughstopping because the air was dried before it reached his lungs. Drystone. Dry clothing.

Dry metal! The water-eating organisms kept the surface dry. There couldbe no rust.

"We've licked 'em, Breska! By God, we've licked 'em!" He shouldered theMartian out of the way, gripped the triggers of the gun. Shouting overthe din, he told Breska how to drink, sent him lurching down the steps.He could hold the gap alone for a few minutes.

Looking up, Tex found her, swooping low over the fight, her silver hairflying in the wind. Tex shouted at her.

"You did it! You outsmarted yourself, lady. You showed us the way!"

Scientists could find out how to harness the Dry Spots to keep off therust, and still let the soldiers drink.

And some day the swamps would be drained, and men and women would findnew wealth, new life, new horizons here on Jupiter.

Breska came back, grinning, and fought the jam out of the gun. Whitebodies began to pile up, mixed with the saurian carcasses of theirwar-dogs. And presently the notes of the war-chief's horn drifted down,and the attackers faded back into the swamps.

And suddenly, wheeling her mount away from the others, the warriorwoman swooped low over the parapet. Tex held his fire. For a moment hethought she was going to dash her lizard into them. Then, at the lastsecond, she pulled him up in a thundering climb.

Her face was a cut-pearl mask of fury, but her pale-green eyes helddoubt, the beginning of an awed fear. Then she was gone, bent low overher mount, her silver hair hiding her face.

Breska watched her go. "For Mars," he said softly. Then, pounding Texon the chest until he winced.

Two voices, cracked, harsh, and unmusical, drifted after the retreatingform of the white-haired war-chief.

"Oh, bury us not on the lone praire-e-e...."