t us with a distinct glow. It was no place to remain. We moved back
along the parallel street, and I had an idea. Whatever was I carrying
all this weight of heavy game rifle and knapsack of cartridges, and not
even getting in position for a shot? I gestured to Holaf and tapped the
rifle, pointing up.

He got the idea, led me to a dark doorway and we entered the building,
made our way to the roof. Lying prone along the parapet of the roof, I
adjusted the sights for two hundred yards, and swung the rifle sight
slowly across the flat roof of the palace. The reflections of the big
searchlights made the surface quite bright, and about each light was a
group of the tall white-robed Jivros. They made perfect targets!

I began to fire, taking my time, centering each figure exactly. At each
shot, one Jivro fell. I had fired but a score of times, and the
white-robed creatures began to leave the lights, to cluster about the
archway over the roof stair.

Grouped as they now were, I did not need to aim. I fired four more clips
as rapidly as I could load them. Then the remaining Jivros began to
swing the great beams in a frantic search for the deadly fire. As the
beam swung toward us, Holaf seized my head, pushed it beneath the
parapet. The beam swept on without pausing. I raised my head and kept on
firing.

All of the beams but two were now stationary and unattended. I could not
reach these, the angle of fire was wrong; but I could see the base of
the lights, and as they swung again toward me, I fired into the center
of the beam. It blinked out. Holaf clapped me on the shoulder.

"Get the rest of the lights, man, never mind the damned insects! The
Croen will take care of them soon enough."

One by one I put out the search beams, the sky overhead grew dark again.

"These are the creatures who expect to conquer the earth!" I cried out
scornfully to Holaf. "They could be bested by a bunch of boy scouts with
twenty-twos!"

"They have never fought! They are only priests, not warriors. They are
not thinking of conquering anything now, without their willing servants.
They are fighting only for life!"

Overhead still wheeled the circle of guarding disks, manned, I knew, by
the inexperienced priest-like insect men. I took a careful aim at the
glowing transparent bulge in the center of the nearest, hoping the alien
plastic was as soft as the earth plastics. But there was no way to tell
if it had pierced the shell of plastic, or if