id, "Yeah? Well, we done what they wanted us to do. We did the
fighting for them. So we come back home to Newyork and they lock us up
in the Armory. Won't pay us. Won't let us go nowhere. They had cops
guarding us. City cops." Lane sneered. "I busted out. I wanna see the
Mayor and find out why we can't have time off. I don't play games,
Gerri. I go right to the top."

Lane broke off. There was a hum outside the window. He whirled and
stared out. The rounded black hulls of the two police paragrav-boats
were nosing toward the force-screen. Lane could read the white numbers
painted on their bows.

A loudspeaker shouted into the room: "Come out of there, Lane, or we'll
blast you out."

"You can't," Lane called. "This girl from Mars is here."

"I repeat, Lane--come out or we'll blast you out."

Lane turned to the girl. "I thought you were important."

* * * * *

She stood there with her hands together, calmly looking at him. "I am.
But you are too, to them. Mars is millions of miles away, and you're
right across the Square from the Mayor's suite."

"Yeah, but--" Lane shook his head and turned back to the window. "All
right, look! Move them boats away and I'll let this girl out!"

"No deal, Lane. We're coming in." The police boats backed away slowly,
then shot straight up, out of the line of vision.

Lane looked down at the Square. Far below, the long, gleaming barrel of
a blaster cannon caught the dim light filtering down through Newyork's
Shell. The cannon trundled into the Square on its olive-drab, box-shaped
caterpillar mounting and took up a position equidistant from the bases
of the three towers.

Now a rumble of many voices rose from below. Lane stared down to see a
large crowd gathering in Tammany Square. Sound trucks were rolling to a
stop around the edges of the crowd. The people were all looking up.

Lane looked across the Square. The windows of the tower opposite, the
ones he could see clearly, were crowded with faces. There were white dot
faces on the balcony that Gerri Kin had pointed out as the Mayor's
suite.

The voice of a 3V newscaster rolled up from the Square, reechoing
against the tower walls.

"Lane is holding the Martian Ambassador, Gerri Kin, hostage. You can see
the Martian tricolor behind his force-globe. Police are bringing up
blaster cannon. Lane's defense is a globe of energy similar to the one
which protects Newyork from aerial attack."

Lane grin