2 - Blades of Mars by Edward P. Bradbury

in fact, that the knowledge of
portable lasers had belonged to the older race, I
should have been prepared for something like this.
                   In their insensate rage these descendants of
the Yaksha had perhaps dredged up some race memory, found the projector and
brought it back to deal out death to the interlopers.
                   Whatever the cause, we should all be dead soon
unless I was swift. I sliced the mooring ropes.
                   Hool Haji yelled at me from the cabin as he
saw what I was doing.
                   The balloon began to rise, gently bumping the
roof. Shortly the gas would take them to safety as it sought the air beyond the
roof. The aperture created by breaking the dome was just wide enough to take
it.
                   Now the ghouls levelled the laser at me again.
I was bound to be killed by it. The ray was sweeping tie room, melting or
slicing apart everything it touched.
                   And then the idea came!
                  

CHAPTER SEVEN
    City of the Spider
     
                   As THE beam came closer and closer, weaving
somewhat at random in the hand of the moronic ghouls, I suddenly saw the great
reflector which I had been using as a having mirror.
                   It was a powerful reflector. It might work.
                   Quickly I rushed towards it and got behind it.
                   The laser beam sliced away part of the
fountain which fell with a splash into the water. The fountain spurted
sporadically now.
                   The beam came closer and melted a whole
section of the wall, revealing the next chamber beyond. The white things
shuffled closer, their soft, near-boneless arms cradling the powerful
projector.
                   Then the beam struck the reflector.
                   Laser-rays are concentrated light. A mirror
reflects light
                   This one did.
                   The mirror bent the ray and spread it for a
few moments. Then for a few seconds it turned the whole ray back on those who
were directing it.
                   Most of the white ghouls were shrivelled in a
second. The rest yelled in terror, retreated a short way and then came at me
yelling!
                   I dashed for one of the dangling mooring lines
just as the balloon began to ascend through the aperture.
                   I grabbed the last few feet of the line.
                   As claws scraped at me I began to haul myself
up towards the cabin.
                   Then the balloon was shooting into the air
and, in that moment of escaping the danger of the white creatures and finding
myself in a new danger, I realised that we had forgotten one vital thing m our
haste to escape.
                   We had forgotten to load our ballast - the
balloon was rising too rapidly!
                   Twice I was nearly shaken from my hand-hold as
I clung desperately to the rope, trying to pull myself towards the cabin.
                   Then I saw Hool Haji open the hatch of the
cabin and, balancing with only a toe-hold on the outside of the cabin, he
stretched out and grabbed the rope from which I was suspended.
                   The ground was far below, the black, shining
desert spinning beneath me.
                   Hool Haji managed to drag himself back into
the cabin, still clutching the rope. Then he and the other two began to haul me
in.
                   My hands were aching and torn by the friction.
I was almost ready to let go.
                   Just as I felt I could hang on no longer I
felt their great hands seize me and drag me in to the cabin. They closed the
hatch.
                   Panting with exhaustion and relief, I lay on
the floor of the cabin until 1 had recovered my breath. We were