nce.

Even a Prince of the Blood would withdraw into a side corridor with his
escort of a score of men, to let one of these labor "kings" pass, rather
than risk an altercation which might result in trouble for the
government with the Yun-Yun, regardless of the rights and wrongs of the
case, unless a heavy credit transference was made from the balance of
the Prince to that of the worker. For the machinery of the city could
not continue in operation a fortnight, before some accident requiring
delicate repair work would put it partially out of commission. And the
Yun-Yun was quick to resent anything it could construe as a slight on
one of its members.

In the last analysis it was these Yun-Yun men, numerically the smallest
of the classes, who ruled the Han civilization, because for all
practical purposes they controlled the machinery on which that
civilization depended for its existence.

Politically, San-Lan could balance the organizations of the army and the
air fleets against each other, but he could not break the grip of the
repairmen on the machinery of the cities and the power broadcast plants.

CHAPTER XI

The Forest Men Attack

Many times during the months I remained prisoner among the Hans I had
tried to develop a plan of escape, but could conceive of nothing which
seemed to have any reasonable chance of success.

While I was allowed almost complete freedom within the confines of the
city, and sometimes was permitted to visit even the military outposts
and disintegrator ray batteries in the surrounding mountains, I was
never without a guard of at least five men under the command of an
officer. These men were picked soldiers, and they were armed with
powerful though short-range disintegrator-ray pistols, capable of
annihilating anything within a hundred feet. Their vigilance never
relaxed. The officer on duty kept constantly at my side, or a couple of
paces behind me, while certain of the others were under strict orders
never to approach within my reach, nor to get more than forty feet away
from me. The thought occurred to me once to seize the officer at my side
and use him as a shield, until I found that the guard were under orders
to destroy both of us in such a case.

So in this fashion I roamed the city corridors, wherever I wished. I
visited the great factories at the bottom of the shafts that led to the
base of the mountain, where, unattended by any mechanics, great turbines
whirred and moan