"Here is someone who wants to speak to you." And I nearly leaped from
the couch with joy when, despite the metallic tone of the instrument, I
recognized the eager, loving voice of my wife, almost hysterical in her
own joy at talking to me again.

CHAPTER XIII

Escape!

We had little time, however, to waste in endearments, and very little to
devote to informing me as to the American plans. The essential thing
was that I report the Han plans and resources to the fullest of my
ability. And for an hour or two I talked steadily, giving an outline of
all I had learned from San-Lan and his Councillors, and particularly of
the arrangements for drawing off the population of the city to new
cities concealed underground, through the system of tunnels radiating
from the base of the mountain. And as a result, the Americans determined
to speed up their attack.

There were, as a matter of fact, only two relatively small commands
facing the city, Wilma told me, but both of them were picked troops of
the new Federal Council. Those to the south were a division of veterans
who a few weeks before had destroyed the Han city of Sa-Lus (St. Louis).
On the east were a number of the Colorado Gangs and an expeditionary
force of our own Wyomings. The attack on Lo-Tan was intended chiefly as
an attack on the morale of the Hans of the other twelve cities. If there
seemed to be a chance of victory, the operations were to be pushed
through. Otherwise the object would be to do as much damage as possible,
and fade away into the forests if the Hans developed any real pressure
with their new infantry and field batteries of rocket guns and
disintegrator-rays.

The "air balls" were simply miniature swoopers of spherical shape,
ultronically controlled by operators at control boards miles away, and
who saw on their viewplates whatever picture the ultronic television
lens in the sphere itself picked up at the predetermined focus. The main
propulsive rocket motor was diametrically opposite the lens, so that the
sphere could be steered simply by keeping the picture of its objective
centered on the crossed hairlines of the viewplates. The outer shell
moved magnetically as desired with respect to the core, which was
gyroscopically stabilized. Auxiliary rocket motors enabled the operator
to make a sphere move sidewise, backward or vertically. Some of these
spheres were equipped with devices which enabled their operators to hear
as well as see throu