e corpses lay grotesquely strewn about, and not one had escaped.

It returned to me for all the world like an old-fashioned ghost, the
blanket still draped over it (and not interfering with its ultronic
vision in the least) and "stood" before me.

"The yellow devils were going to kill you, Tony," I heard Wilma's voice
saying. "You've got to get out of there, Tony, before you are killed.
Besides, we need you at the control boards, where you can make real use
of your knowledge of the city. Have you your jumping belt, ultrophone
and rocket gun?"

"No," I replied, "they are all gone."

"It would be no good for you to try to make your way to one of the
breaches in the wall, nor to the roof," she mused.

"No, they are too well guarded," I replied, "and even if you made a new
one at a predetermined spot I'm afraid the repair men and the patrol
would go to it ahead of me."

"Yes, and they would beam you before you could climb inside of a
swooper," she added.

"I'll tell you what I can do, Wilma," I suggested. "I know my way about
the city pretty well. Suppose I go down one of the shafts to the base of
the mountain. I think I can get out. It is dark in the valley, so the
Hans cannot see me, and I will stand out in the open, where your
ultroscopes can pick me up. Then a swooper can drop quickly down and get
me."

"Good!" Wilma said. "But take that Han's disintegrator pistol with you.
And go right away, Tony. But wrap this ball in something and carry it
with you. Just toss it from you if you are attacked. I'll stay at the
control board and operate it in case of emergency."

* * * * *

So I picked up ball and pistol, and thrust the hand in which I held it
into the loose Han blouse I wore, wrapped the ball in a piece of
sheeting, and stepped out in the corridor, hurrying toward the nearest
magnetic car station, a couple of hundred feet down the corridor, for I
had to cross nearly the entire width of the city to reach the shaft that
went to the base of the mountain.

I thanked Providence for the perfection of the Han mechanical devices
when I reached the station. The automatic checking system of these cars
made station attendants unnecessary. I had only to slip the key I had
taken from the dead Han officer into the account-charting machine at the
station to release a car.

Pressing the proper combinations of main and branch line buttons, I
seated myself, holding the pistol ready but conce