ach the place men
call 'The Square of the Dragon.' Say that Sarnak sent you. Hurry!"

Even though he was carrying Closana in his arms, Gerry's Earthly muscles
allowed him to run in mighty six-foot bounds. Angus went leaping along
before him. So great was the confusion that they were half way across
the plain to the city before anyone noticed them at all. Then a shouting
officer of the Scaly Ones threw himself in front of them with his drawn
sword in his hand.

The big engineer roared like an angry bull, and leaped clean over the
man. Before the scaly warrior could turn the Scot had him from behind.
An instant later Angus had the sword and was racing ahead, while the
Venusian lay sprawled in the mud with his neck broken and his long head
twisted grotesquely awry.

The half dozen guards posted in the arch of the gate stared indecisively
at the white skinned trio racing toward them. Angus had a sword in each
hand by this time, and he leaped at the guards with a shout. The
fugitive broke through the line of swordsmen by sheer momentum and
dashed into the city. There was no pursuit. The first of the panic
stricken throng rushing back for the shelter of the city reached the
gate a moment later, and the guards were swamped by a jostling mob of
mingled Scaly Ones and Green Men.

Gerry and his two companions darted into the nearest of the many narrow
alleys that twisted about this part of the city. They dodged from one
dingy thoroughfare to the next. When they met a woman of the Green
People, Gerry unceremoniously tore off her robe and shielding veil and
flung them to Closana to hide her own tawny skin and golden hair. Later,
when he and Angus had also disguised themselves in the rough garments
worn by the poorer folk of this city of Vaaka-hausen, they were able to
walk quietly down the streets without fear of detection unless they met
a patrol at close range.

At last they came to a dingy plaza that was surrounded by ramshackle
buildings of great age. It had probably once been a prosperous and
fashionable part of the city, centuries ago, before the Scaly Ones
overran the land of Giri. Now grass grew up between the paving stones,
and the roofs of the dingy buildings sagged close to the breaking point,
and piles of festering rubbish lay along the gutters. The place was a
slum of the sort that had not existed on the more enlightened planets of
Earth and Mars for many generations. A canal flowed along one side of
the square,