on the sixtieth floor
gleamed in the night.

The air was growing cooler, and the beginnings of a mist were forming.
Houston hoped it wouldn't start to rain before he got inside.

* * * * *

The forty-sixth floor of the Lasser Building had no windows on this
side, but there were plenty on the forty-seventh.

Leading up to them was an inviting looking fire escape, but Houston knew
he didn't dare take that. By law, every fire escape was rigged with a
fire alarm, in addition to the regular burglar alarm. He'd have to use
another way.

The Lasser Building was a steel structure, shelled over with a bright
blue anodized aluminum sheath. Only the day before, Houston, wearing the
gray coverall of a power-line workman, had checked the wall to find the
big steel beams beneath the aluminum. He had also installed certain
other equipment; now he was going to make use of it.

Concealed in the louvres of the air-conditioner intake of the lower
building was a specially constructed suit and several hundred feet of
power line which was connected to the main line of the building.

In the darkness, Houston slipped on the suit. It was constructed
somewhat like a light diving suit or a spacesuit, but without the
helmet. In the toes, knees, and hands, were powerful electromagnets
controlled by switches in the fingers of the gloves and powered by the
current in the long line.

Houston stepped over to the blue aluminum wall, reached out a hand, and
lowered one finger. Instantly, the powerful magnet anchored his hand to
the wall, held by the dense magnetic field to the steel beam beneath the
aluminum sheath. That one magnet alone could support his full body
weight, and he had six magnets to work with.

Slowly, carefully, David Houston began to crawl up the wall.

Turn on a magnet in the right hand; lift up the left hand and anchor it
higher; turn on the right hand and lift it even with the left, then
anchor it again; do the same with both legs; then begin the process all
over again, turning the magnets off and on in rotation.

Up and up he went. Past the forty-sixth floor, past the forty-seventh,
the forty-eighth, and the forty-ninth. Not until he reached the fiftieth
floor did he attempt to open one of the windows.

There was a magnetic lock inside the window, but Houston had taken that,
too, into account. The powerful magnet in his right glove slid it aside
easily. Houston lifted the window and step