was just reaching the top of the hill near Sixty-fourth when a gray
sedan sped along, heading downtown. There were running boards on it,
and behind the wheel sat the slim young man who'd given chase to
Hawkes before.

Hawkes tried to duck, but the sedan was already braking and swinging
back. It was beside him before he could realize more than the old
clamor of his brain, telling him to run, that he couldn't escape.

The car matched his speed, and the driver leaned far to the right.
"Will Hawkes," the young man called. "How about a lift?"

The smile was pleasant, and the voice was casual, as if they were old
friends. There was no gun in the man's hands. It might have been any
honest offer of a ride.

Hawkes braced himself, just as a patrol car turned onto the Avenue
ahead. He opened his mouth to scream, but his vocal cords were frozen.
The young man followed his eyes to the patrol car, and frowned.

Then the gray sedan lifted smoothly upwards to a height of twenty
feet, turned sharply in mid-air, lifted again, and seemed to make a
smooth landing on top of a huge garage building!

There had been no roar of jets and no evidence of any means of
propulsion.

* * * * *

The patrol car went on down the Avenue, heading for the diner. The
officers inside apparently had missed the whole affair.

Hawkes' cowardly legs suddenly came unfrozen. He was conscious of them
churning madly. With an effort, he got partial control of himself,
managing to focus on the house numbers.

There were no watchers outside the number he wanted, though they could
have been in rooms across the street. He had no choice, now. He leaped
up the steps and into the hallway. His eyes darted around, spotting a
door that led out to the side, probably into an alley. He drew himself
together, hiding behind the stairs.

But there was no further pursuit for the moment. The fear that seemed
to come before each attack was missing. Maybe it meant he was safe for
the moment--though it hadn't warned him of the car the young man was
driving.

Heat rays! Levitation! Hawkes dropped to his knees as fatigue and
reaction caught up with him again, but his mind churned over the new
evidence. As a mathematician, he was sure such things could not exist.
If they did, there would have been extension of math well in advance
of the perfection of the machines, and he'd have known of it as
speculative theory, at least. Yet, without such evi