this fleeting vision on his own consciousness, Shearing's mind
slammed shut with exactly the same violent effect as a door slammed in
his face. He reeled back, throwing up his arms in a futile but
instinctive gesture, and Shearing said angrily,

"You're getting too good. I'll give you a social hint--it's customary to
knock before you enter."

Hyrst said, still holding the pieces of his head together, "All
right--sorry. So who is she?"

"She's one of us. She wants what we want."

"I want only to find out who murdered MacDonald!"

"You want more than that, Hyrst, though you don't know it yet. But
MacDonald's murderer is part of what we're after."

He took Hyrst's arm. "We don't have long. Thanks to my guidance, you
slipped them all except this one. But they'll be hounding after our
trail very quickly."

They went on along the shadowed street. The glare of the lights died
back behind them, and they moved in darkness with only the keen stars to
watch them, and the cold, gritty wind blowing in from the barrens, and
the dark door-ways of the mastaba-like monolithic houses of the
humanoids staring at them like sightless eyes. Hyrst looked up at the
bright, tiny moon that crept amid the stars, and a deep shaking took him
as he thought of men lying up there in the deathly sleep, of himself
lying there year after year....

"In here," said Shearing. It was one of the frigid, musty tombs that the
humanoids called home. It was dark and there was nothing in it at all.
"We can't risk a light. We don't need it, anyway."

They sat down. Hyrst said desperately, "Listen, I want to know some
things. Exactly what are we doing here?"

Shearing answered deliberately, "We are hiding from those who want you,
and we are waiting for a chance to go to our friends."

"Our friends? Your friends, maybe. That woman--I don't know her, and--"

"Now _you_ listen, Hyrst. I'll tell you this much about us now. We're
Lazarites, like you, with the same powers as you. But all Lazarites are
not on _our_ side."

Hyrst thought about that. "Then those others who are hunting us--"

"There are Lazarites among them, too. Not many, but a few. You don't
know us, you don't know them. Do you want to leave me and go back out
and let them have you?"

Hyrst remembered the adder-like face of the young man who had come after
him through the shadows. After a long moment he said, "Well. But what
are _you_ after?"

"The thing that MacDonald was killed for, f