ve. He seated himself
grimly at the opening to wait for daybreak. He was not easy in his
mind. There had been two Tubes to the Fifth-Dimension world. One had
been made by Jacaro for his gunmen. That was now held by the men of
the Golden City, as was proved by carnivorous lizards and the Death
Mist that had come down it. The other was now blown up or, worse, in
the hands of the Ragged Men. In any case Tommy and Evelyn were
isolated upon a strange planet in a strange universe. To fall into the
hands of the Ragged Men was to die horribly, and the Golden City would
not now welcome inhabitants of the world Jacaro and his men had come
from. To the civilized men of this world, Jacaro's raids would seem
invasion. They would seem acts of war on the part of the people of
Earth. And the people of Earth, all of them, would seem enemies.
Jacaro would never be identified as an unauthorized invader. He would
seem to be a scout, an advance guard, a spy, for hordes of other
invaders yet to come.

As the long night wore away, Tommy's grim hopelessness intensified.
The Ragged Men would hunt them for sport and out of hatred for all
sane human beings. The men of the Golden City would be merciless to
compatriots of Jacaro's gunmen. And Tommy had Evelyn to look out for.

* * * * *

When dawn came, his face was drawn and lined. Evelyn woke with a
little gasp, staring affrightedly about her. Then she tried gamely to
smile.

"Morning, Tommy," she said shakily. She added in a brave attempt at
levity: "Where do we go from here?"

"We look at the Tube," said Tommy heavily. "There's a bare chance...."

He led the way as on the night before, with his gun held ready. They
traveled for half an hour through the awakening jungle. Then for long,
long minutes Tommy searched for a sign of living men before he
ventured forth to look at the wreckage of the Tube. He found no live
men, and only two dead ones. But a glimpse of their bestial,
vice-ridden faces was enough to remove any regret for their deaths.

The Tube was shattered. Its mouth was belled out and broken by the
explosion of the grenades hung within it. A part of the metal was
molten--from the thermit, past question. There was a veritable crater
fifteen feet across where the Tube had come through, and there were only
shattered shreds of metal where the first bend had been. Tommy regarded
the wreckage grimly. A pair of oxidized copper wires, their insulation
bu