y poison. A tiny, tufted dart of wood stuck in the
brown flesh on the side of his neck.

XV

Brion hurled himself backward and sprawled flat in the dust and
filth of the road. No poison dart sought him out; the empty silence
still reigned. Telt's murderers had come and gone. Moving quickly,
using the bulk of the car as a shield, he opened the door and
slipped inside.

They had done a thorough job of destruction. All of the controls had
been battered into uselessness, the floor was a junk heap of crushed
equipment, intertwined with loops of recording tape bulging like
mechanical intestines. A gutted machine, destroyed like its driver.

It was easy enough to reconstruct what had happened. The car had
been seen when they entered the city--probably by some of the magter
who had destroyed the Foundation building. They had not seen where
it had gone, or Brion would surely be dead by now. But they must
have spotted it when Telt tried to leave the city--and stopped it in
the most effective way possible, a dart through the open window into
the unsuspecting driver's neck.

Telt dead! The brutal impact of the man's death had driven all
thought of its consequences from Brion's mind. Now he began to
realize. Telt had never sent word of his discovery of the
radioactive trace to the Nyjord army. He had been afraid to use
the radio, and had wanted to tell Hys in person, and to show him
the tape. Only now the tape was torn and mixed with all the others,
the brain that could have analyzed it dead.

Brion looked at the dangling entrails of the radio and spun for the
door. Running swiftly and erratically, he fled from the sand car.
His own survival and the possible survival of Dis depended on his
not being seen near it. He must contact Hys and pass on the
information. Until he did that, he was the only offworlder on Dis
who knew which magter tower might contain the world-destroying
bombs.

Once out of sight of the sand car he went more slowly, wiping the
sweat from his streaming face. He hadn't been seen leaving the car,
and he wasn't being followed. The streets here weren't familiar, but
he checked his direction by the sun and walked at a steady fast pace
towards the destroyed building. More of the native Disans were in
the streets now. They all noticed him, some even stopped and scowled
fiercely at him. With his emphatic awareness he felt their anger and
hatred. A knot of men radiated death, and he put his hand on his g