an'
around an'--it wraps its upper end clean around poor Movaine. He never
even screeches.

"Then everything pops at once. The old guy is laughing like crazy, an'
that half-smart Rubero drills him right through the head. I take one
shot at the thing, low so's not to hit Movaine, an' then we're all
running, I'm halfway to the hall when Cooms tears past me like a
rocket. The Duke an' the others are already piling out through the
portal. I get to the hall, and there's this terrific smack of sound in
the room. I look back ... an' ... an'--" Baldy paused and gulped.

"And what?" Quillan asked.

"There, behind the cubicles, I see poor Movaine stickin' halfway out
o' the wall!" Baldy reported in a hushed whisper.

"_Half_way out of the wall?"

"From the waist up he's in it! From the waist down he's dangling into
the room! I tell you, I never seen nothin' like it."

"And this Hlat creature--"

"That's gone. I figure the smack I heard was when it hit the wall
flat, carrying Movaine. It went on into it. Movaine didn't--at least,
the last half of him didn't."

"Well," Quillan said after a pause, "in a way, Movaine got his
demonstration. The Hlats can move through solid matter and carry other
objects along with them, as advertised. If Yaco can work out how it's
done and build a gadget that does the same thing, they're getting the
Hlats cheap. What happened then?"

"I told Marras Cooms about Movaine, and he sent me and a half dozen
other boys back up here with riot guns to see what we could do for
him. Which was nothin', of course." Baldy gulped again. "We finally
cut this end of him off with a beam and took it back down."

"The thing didn't show up while you were here?"

Baldy shuddered and said, "Naw."

"And the technician ... Eltak ... was dead?"

"Sure. Hole in his head you could shove your fist through."

"Somebody," Quillan observed, "ought to drill Rubero for that stupid
trick!"

"The Duke did--first thing after we got back to the fourth level."

"So the Hlat's on the loose, and all we really have at the moment are
the cubicles ... and Rest Warden Kinmarten. Where's he, by the way?"

"He tried to take off when we got down to Level Four, and somebody
cold-cocked him. The doc says he ought to be coming around again
pretty soon."

Quillan grunted, shoved the Miam Devil Special into its holster, said,
"O.K., you stay here where you can watch the room and those passages
and the hall. If you feel the floor s