She sighed. "Satisfactorily, considering our shortage of men and the size of the Argzoon horde. Those Argzoon, they are fighting well and cunningly—with more cunning than I had suspected they possessed. They must have a clever leader."

"I did not think cleverness was an Argzoon quality," I said, "from what I have experienced myself."

"Neither did I. If only we could reach their leader—to destroy him would probably defeat the entire plan of attack and the Argzoon, leaderless, might disperse."

"You think so?" I said.

"I think it likely. The Argzoon can rarely be persuaded to fight with overall strategy of the sort they are applying now. They pride themselves on their individuality—refuse to fight as an army or under any commander. They enjoy fighting, but not the discipline demanded for ambitious fighting involving armies and planned strategy. They must have a superior kind of leader if he has persuaded them to fight as they are doing now."

"How could we reach the leader?" I enquired. "We cannot disguise ourselves as Argzoon—we could dye ourselves blue but could not add eight or ten kilodas to our height"—a kiloda is about a third of a foot—"so an attempt to reach his tent would be impossible." "Yes." She spoke tiredly.

"Unless"—a thought had suddenly struck me— "unless we could attack him from the air!"

"The air—yes . . ." Her eyes gleamed. "But even then we do not know who their leader is. They seem to be one great tide of warriors—I saw no obvious commanders. Did you?"

I shook my head. "And yet he must be out there somewhere. It was too confused today. Let us wait until dawn, when we will be able to see their camp before they resume the attack."

"Very well. You had better go to your room and sleep now—you have exhausted yourself and will need all your strength for tomorrow. I will have a guard wake you just before dawn."

I got up, bowed and left her. I went up to my room and stood for a moment at the window. The sweet smell of the Martian night—cool, somehow nostalgic—was tinged now by the stink of war.

How I hated those Blue Giants!

Someone had left some meat and fruit on the table next to my bed. I did not feel hungry but common sense told me to eat. I did. I washed the dried blood, dirt, and sweat of the day's warfare from me, climbed beneath that heavy fur and was asleep immediately I lay down.