rift. If all the
accounts of that dark dictatorship were true, they would have vanished
from Terra, and not in their ships either. What if something like Pax
ruled here? They had no way of knowing for sure.

Raf's eyes met Soriki's, and the com-tech's hand dropped to hook
fingers in his belt within touching distance of his side arm. The
flitter pilot nodded.

"Kurbi!" Hobart's impatient call sent him on his way. But there was
some measure of relief in knowing that Soriki was left behind and that
they had this slender link with escape.

He had tramped the streets of that other alien city. There there had
been some semblance of habitation; here was abandonment. Earth drifted
in dunes to half block the lanes, and here and there climbing vines
had broken down masonry and had dislodged blocks of the paved sideways
and courtyards.

The party threaded their way from one narrow lane to another, seeming
to avoid the wider open stretches of the principal thoroughfares, Raf
became aware of an unpleasant odor in the air which he vaguely
associated with water, and a few minutes afterward he caught glimpses
of the river between the buildings which fronted on it. Here the party
turned abruptly at a right angle, heading westward once more, passing
vast, blank-walled structures which might have been warehouses.

One of the aliens just ahead of Raf in the line of march suddenly
swung around, his weapon pointing up, and from its nose shot a beam of
red-yellow light which brought an answering shrill scream as a large,
winged creature came fluttering down. The killer kicked at the
crumpled thing as he passed. As far as Raf could see there had been no
reason for that wanton slaying.

The head of the party had reached a doorway, sealed shut by what
looked like a solid slab of material. He placed both palms flat down
on its surface at shoulder height and leaned forward against it,
almost as if he were whispering some secret formula. Raf watched the
muscles stand up on his slender arms as he exerted strength. And then
the door split in two, and his fellows helped him push the separate
halves back into the wall.

Lablet, Hobart, and Raf were among the last to enter. It was as if
their companions had now forgotten them, for the aliens were pushing
on at a pace which took them down an empty corridor at a quickening
trot.

The corridor ended in a ramp which did not slope in one straight reach
but curled around itself, so that in some pla