o it!"

Hobart snapped into action. "Kurbi--set down--there!"

His choice of a landing place was the flat top of a near-by building,
one which stood a little apart from its neighbors and, as Raf could
see, was not overlooked except by a ruined tower. He circled the
flitter. The machine had been specially designed to land and take off
in confined spaces, and he knew all there was possible to learn about
its handling on his home world. But he had never tried to bring it
down on a roof, and he was very sure that now he had no margin for
error left him, not with Hobart breathing impatiently beside him, his
hands moving as if, as a pilot of a spacer, he could well take over
the controls here.

Raf circled twice, eyeing the surface of the roof in search of any
break which could mean a crack-up at landing. And then, though he
refused to be hurried by the urgency of the men with him, he came in,
cutting speed, bringing them down with only a slight jar.

Hobart twisted around to face Soriki. "Still getting it?"

The other, cupping his earphones to his head with his hands, nodded.
"Give me a minute or two," he told them, "and I'll have a fix. They're
excited about something--the way this jabber-jabber is coming
through--"

"About us," Raf thought. The ruined tower topped them to the south.
And to the east and west there were buildings as high as the one they
were perched on. But the town he had seen as he maneuvered for a
landing had held no signs of life. Around them were only signs of
decay.

Lablet got out of the flitter and walked to the edge of the roof,
leaning against the parapet to focus his vision glasses on what lay
below. After a moment Raf followed his example.

Silence and desolation, windows like the eye pits in bone-picked
skulls. There were even some small patches of vegetation rooted and
growing in pockets erosion had carved in the walls. To the pilot's
uninformed eyes the city looked wholly dead.

"Got it!" Soriki's exultant cry brought them back to the flitter. As
if his body was the indicator, he had pivoted until his outstretched
hand pointed southwest. "About a quarter of a mile that way."

They shielded their eyes against the westering sun. A block of solid
masonry loomed high in the sky, dwarfing not only the building they
were standing on but all the towers around it. Its imposing lines made
clear its one-time importance.

"Palace," mused Lablet, "or capitol. I'd say it was just about the
h