There was a groan and a squeak as the crane hook on top of the dome tightened. They were being very careful from the sound of it not to drop the lower platform off.

The annealing skids held. Sir Robert felt them swinging in the air. Then a thump as they hit the top of the flatbed body. They picked it up again to let it drop down more squarely.

The child must still be standing on the platform overhanging. The tiny voice calmly came through. “I can see better from here. It 's not snowing. Way out on the plain over there I see some bodies. Must be the Brigante tribe. And I can see more coffins.” He yelled to someone and must be pointing. “The whole top of the old compound had blown off. It 's wide open to the winds.”

Sir Robert was feeling Jonnie's pulse.

Was it weaker?

"Thor is turning over to someone. He is climbing in your truck now. He says he's a good driver, don't worry. He will go as fast as he can. Excuse me but I am supposed to get in the cab and tie a seat belt.”

The flatbed started up with a roar. It jolted and banged over the uneven terrain. Sir Robert steadied Jonnie's head. Was he still breathing?

They hit the ancient man-highway. The engine revved into a high-pitched scream.

Sir Robert remembered Jonnie had had a watch. He tried to find its illumination button.

The numbers were rolling.

They were driving so fast Sir Robert could hear the wind roaring outside the dome.

Time, time, time! Fifty minutes. Fifty-two minutes. Fifty-nine minutes!

The flatbed abruptly slowed. It jolted down some rough ground. It halted with a surge. It dropped to the earth.

The small piping voice again: “We are at the riverbank. There is plenty of water. They are rigging a mine pipe. I must get away from the dome while it is washed down. I have to get washed down myself and so do the others.

Then they will test with breathe-gas."

Water was suddenly pounding against the dome. It roared and reverberated inside. The sound went all around. And then the water went all over the flatbed, apparently.

There was silence then. Then the piping voice. “Sir Robert? The truck with the small crane has arrived and has been washed down. So have I. Can you find the release lever in there?

The one outside is bent.”

Sir Robert had already located and indeed had been on the verge of pulling it an hour ago. He yanked it open. There was a roar and a clank as a crane was moved closer and connected. The dome lifted!

Murky daylight hit his eyes. Jonnie was lying there. Was he breathing?

The owner of the small voice was standing there, dripping water, visor and air mask off.

He was about thirteen. “My name is Quong. Thank you for being so patient with me, Sir Robert. I was as worried as you.”

Dr. Allen jumped up on the flatbed. He had a syringe in his hand and was grabbing Jonnie's arm. A woman nurse took over. She was holding Jonnie's head.

Sir Robert stood up unsteadily. He was drenched with sweat and the wind was cold.

He looked to the north. The sky was glowing there. “What's that?” he demanded.

Thor was there. Another member of the rescue team. More trucks were arriving further downstream.

Thor said, “That's Denver.”

Sir Robert stared. They had just come from hell.

Part XXV

Chapter 1

For the first time in what had been a dreary, wearisome year, the small gray man was intense and interested. Hope, to which he had become a stranger, struggled to rise in his breast. Faint still, but it was there.

He had no real interest in the overpowering flash they had seen and almost did not bother to watch the roiling, filthy mass of violent cloud which rose above the earth.

It was that momentary trace on his screen. A teleportation firing! A trace he had never hoped to see again.

His immediate reaction was to see whether any of these military minds in the ships around had seen the flickering trace. He listened anxiously to their chatter.

“It was obviously a nuclear explosion,” said the Bolbod. That settled it for him. He thrust his pugnacious face forward from his collar until it was almost visible as though daring somebody to dispute him.

The Tolnep half-captain made an immediate proposal to go down there and “really wipe the place out!”

The Hawvin speculated that the situation might be political and sought to pull the small gray man into it. But the small gray man was noncommittal: he was waiting to see what the others knew.

It was the Hockner super-lieutenant who summed it up. He put his monocle to his eye and sniffed at them. “You fellows are missing the point, rather!” he said. “Earlier intelligence told of a night raiding party vanishing in the area. Quite obviously, what we have just seen is the culmination of a political surface war. And I rather say that the government has now changed hands. As we know, the political scene was unstable: a priesthood earlier took over the planet, those yellow fellows in the robes. But they lost out, perhaps, and were driven back to that temple in their southern hemisphere.

“Some military group,” he continued, “has now obliterated the former capital of the planet with nuclear weapons. With two separate revolts in just the last few months, the political climate is highly unstable and the time is ripe for a concerted attack by us.”

“Yes!” rumbled the Bolbod. “We should go right down and smear them!”

The Jambitchow commander laughed lightly. “I am afraid you will have to count me out, gentle sirs. For the moment at least. Have you looked over there at that shoulder on the mountain peak– the one just to the west of the capital?”

There was silence and then some startled gasps.

Fifteen assorted battle planes and marine attack carriers were just now rising into view.

“It was an ambush!” said the half-captain.

“Bah,” said the Bolbod. “Their firepower does not compare to even one of our major vessels!”

“They could be quite nasty,” said the Jambitchow in his lilting voice.

There was a lull. Abruptly a face filled the viewer of the small gray man. It was Roof Arsebogger of the “Midnight Fang” calling from the Tolnep Terrify-class battle-plane-launching capital ship Capture.

“Your Excellency,” drooled the reporter, “could we take advantage of this lull to get your personal reactions to this general situation?”

The small gray man was always calm, never emotional. All he said, and in a quiet voice, was, “Get out of my viewscreen."

“Oh, yes sir, Your Excellency. Indeed, sir, Your Excellency. At once, sir!” The diseased face vanished.

The small gray man made a grimace of distaste and then went back to considering the rest of them. Sooner or later they would come to some conclusion and take some concerted action. So far none had mentioned the teleportation trace. None of them was coming to any logical conclusion. Was each one privately hungering for prize money and keeping the rest in the dark? He would listen. It was always safe to listen.

The combined force had come alive and was changing position in orbit so as to maintain its location above this area. Flashes of engine exhausts were apparent in the sky around and a mutter of internal ship commands trickled through the channels. They were readying themselves.

It was the Hawvin who finally expressed something that must have been on all their minds– the rewards. “I have just worked out that they might be the one and don't know! There is a report here of a big Psychlo walking around a firing platform down there earlier this day.”

“Well, if it was a Psychlo, don't you think he would have known?” said the Jambitchow commander.