win."

Rumor would travel fast enough, he hoped. And it should give him a few
extra seconds before his forces cracked.

He lifted the switch in his hands and stared at it. It wasn't necessary
now. All he had to do was to reach the battery and drop any metal across
the two terminals there--if they could get back before Trench--and
Sheila--could remove the battery.

It was a period of complete fog to him, but it wasn't until his motley
army reached the dome, straggling up in trucks and on foot, that he
snapped into focus again. There was no sign of Sheila this time, and he
didn't look for her. His whole mind was concentrated down to a single
point: Get the dome!

This time, there was no scattering of Municipals and Legals. The
Municipal forces were rushing up toward the dome, and surprised Legals
were frantically arriving in trucks. There was the beginning of a
pitched battle right at the spot where Gordon needed his own cover.

It made no sense to him, and he didn't care. He marched his men up, with
the thin wailing of a banshee in his ears.

"Dome warning!" Izzy shouted in his ear. "Hear that siren, gov'nor?
Means they're scared we may do it. Give me that damned switch!"

He grabbed for it, but Gordon held firmly to the copper strap. And now
the men inside caught sight of the approaching force. For a second,
consternation seemed to reign.

Then a huge truck with a speaker on top drove into the struggling group,
and the thin whisper of unintelligible words reached Gordon. The whole
development made no more sense than any part of it to him, but he saw
the Municipals and Legals suddenly begin to turn as a single man to face
the outside menace that had crept up on them while they were boiling
into a fight.

And suddenly the Marspeaker over the entrance blasted into life. "Get
back! The dome is mined! Any man comes near it, it'll blow! Get back!
The dome is mined!"

By Gordon's side, a sudden gargling sound came from the Kid. His hand
snaked out, caught the strap from Gordon's hand, and jerked it free.
Then he was running frantically forward.

Rifles lifted inside, and shots rang out, clipping bullets through the
dome. In one place it began to tear, and there was a sudden savage roar
from the men around Gordon. He had started forward after the Kid, but
Izzy was in front of him, holding him back.

The Kid stumbled and slid across the ground, while blood spurted out
from a gash across his head, and the helmet fe