thing about
getting the life-detector units over there. Quillan went left down the
first intersecting corridor, right again on the following one, keeping
the gun slightly raised before him. Around the next corner, he saw the
man on guard over the portal connecting the building levels facing
him, gun pointed.

"What happened?" the guard asked shakily.

Quillan shook his head, coming up. "That thing got another one!"

The guard breathed, "By God!" and lowered his gun a little. Quillan
raised his a little, the Miam Devil grunted, and the guard sighed and
went down. Quillan went past him along the hall, stopped two doors
beyond the portal and rapped on the locked door.

"Quillan here! Open up!"

The door opened a crack, and one of Kinmarten's guards looked out
questioningly. Quillan shot him through the head, slammed on into the
room across the collapsing body, saw the second guard wheeling toward
him, shot again, and slid the gun back into the holster. Kinmarten,
standing beside a table six feet away, right hand gripping a heavy
marble ashtray, was staring at him in white-faced shock.

"Take it easy, chum!" Quillan said, turning toward him. "I--"

He ducked hurriedly as the ashtray came whirling through the air
toward his head. An instant later, a large fist smacked the side of
Kinmarten's jaw. The rest warden settled limply to the floor.

"Sorry to do that, pal," Quillan muttered, stooping over him. "Things
are rough all over right now." He hauled Kinmarten upright, bent, and
had the unconscious young man across his shoulder. The hall was still
empty except for the body of the portal guard. Quillan laid Kinmarten
on the carpet before the portal, hauled the guard off into the room,
and pulled the door to the room shut behind him as he came out.
Picking up Kinmarten, he stepped into the portal with him and jabbed
the fifth level button. A moment later, he moved out into the small
dim entry hall on the fifth level, the gun in his right hand again.

He stood there silently for some seconds, looking about him listening.
The baited cubicle yawned widely at him from the center of the big
room. Nothing seemed to be stirring. Kinmarten went back to the floor.
Quillan moved over to the panel which concealed the other portal's
mechanisms.

He had the outportal unsealed in considerably less than a minute this
time, and slapped the panel gently back in place. He turned back to
Kinmarten and started to bend down for him, th