g spare belt, flippers, and mask hit the water
and he caught at it. These could provide Ashe's escape from the
fortress.

The lights on the shore made a wide arc of radiance across the sea. As
Ross headed toward the wave-washed coast he began to hear shouting and
other sounds which made him believe that the besiegers were in the midst
of an all-out assault. Yet those distant fires and rocketlike blasts
into the sky had a wavery blur. And Ross, making his way with the
effortless water cleaving of the diver, surfaced now and then to spot
film curling up from the surface of the sea between the two standing
rock pillars which marked the sea gate.

He was startled by a thunderous crack, rending the air above the small
bay. Ross pulled to one of the pillars, steadied himself with one hand
against it. Those twists of film rising from the surging surface were
thickening. More tendrils grew out from parent stems to creep along
above the waves, raising up sprouts and branches in turn. A wall of mist
was building between gate and shore.

Again a thunderclap overhead. Involuntarily the Terran ducked. Then he
turned his face up to the sky, striving to see any evidence of storm.
What hung there sped the growth of the fog on the water. Yet where the
fog was gray-white, it was a darkness spouting from the highest point of
the citadel. Ross could not explain how he was able to see one shade of
darkness against equal dusk, but he did--or did he only sense it? He
shook his head, willing himself to look away from the finger. Only it
was a finger no longer; now it was a fist aimed at the stars it was fast
blotting out. A fist rising to the heavens before it curled back,
descended to press the fortress and its surroundings into rock and
earth.

Fog curled about Ross, spilled outward through the sea gates. He loosed
his grip on the pillar and dived, swimming on through the gap with the
fortress of the Foanna before him.

There was a jetty somewhere ahead; that much he knew from Torgul's
description. Those who served the Foanna sometimes took sea roads and
they had slim, fast cutters for such coastwise travel. Ross surfaced
cautiously, to discover there was no visibility to wave level. Here the
mist was thick, a smothering cover so bewildering he was confused as to
direction. He ducked below again and flippered on.

Was his confusion born of the fog, or was it also in his head? Did he,
after all, have this much reaction to the gate defe