building was not as deteriorated as most of the others;
as Mara's flyer dipped low over it Rynason could see its characteristic
lines unbroken and clear.

With a start, he sat up and said hurriedly, "Mara, take another close
pass over that building, the one they're entering."

In a moment she came in again over the smooth stone structure, and
Rynason looked closely at the screen. There was no mistaking it now: the
high steep steps leading up to a colonnade which almost circled the
building, the large carvings over the main entrance.

"You'd better set down away from them!" he said. "That's the Temple of
Kor!" But even as he finished speaking the image on the screen jolted
and rocked, and the flyer dipped even closer toward the jumbled ruins
below.

"They're firing something!"

He saw that she was trying to gain altitude, but something was wrong;
the buildings on the screen dipped and wavered, up and down, spinning.

"Mara! Pull up--get out of there!"

"One of the wings is damaged," she said quickly, and suddenly there was
another jolt on the screen and he heard her gasp. The picture spun and
righted itself, seemed to hang motionless for a moment, and then the
stone wall of one of the buildings was directly ahead and growing
larger.

"Mara!"

The image spun wildly, the building filled the screen, and then it went
black; he heard a crash from the speaker, cut off almost before it had
sounded. The room was silent.

EIGHT

Rynason stared at the dead screen for only a moment; he wheeled and ran
back to the outer room.

"Let's get those flyers up! Mara's found them, but they've brought her
down." He was already going out the door as he spoke.

Manning and the others were right behind him as he dashed out onto the
field. Rynason headed for the nearest flyer, a small runabout which had
been discarded as obsolete on the inner worlds and consigned to use out
here on the Edge, where equipment was scarce. He leaped through the port
and was shutting the door when Manning caught it.

"Where are they? What's happened to the woman?"

"They were shooting something!" Rynason snapped. The knife-scar over his
right eye stood out sharply in his anger. "She crashed--may be badly
hurt. She didn't have too much altitude, though. The hell with where she
is--_follow_ me!"

He slammed the door and squeezed into the flying seat. While he warmed
the engines he saw the others scattering across the field to the other
fl