were a part of me, like my hand. And then the machinery began to move, because—because I wanted it to. Maybe there was some fuel left, father, and maybe—"

"Why are you afraid of the truth, Gill?"

"People don't run machines by wanting them to go!"

"The thinking mind, my son, is capable of—" Pendillo's voice trailed off, for they all heard the sound outside—the high whine made by the force-field of an enemy sphere.

Lanny darted to the showroom window. At the end of the street an opalescent sphere was riding in the fog, three feet above the ground. Enemy police guards in protective capsules spilled through the open port, carrying energy guns slung over their shoulders.

"The Almost-men picked up the sound of the motor," Pendillo gasped.

Then he saw the woman in the white uniform of the Triangle. She stood at the port, spotlighted by the glow of blue light that came from within the ship.

It was the missionary, Tak Laleen.

In the street the tracer light began to dart back and forth over the empty buildings, responding to the commands of the sound receptors. Lanny and Gill seized their father and plunged into the choking darkness of the forest. Dead brush snapped. The tracer light swung toward the trees, concentrating with smug, mechanical self-assurance upon the place where the three men had been. Lying flat against the cold earth, they wormed their way foot by foot toward the coast.

Behind them they saw the force-field capsules of six enemy guards floating above the trees. Strong tracer lights danced over the upper branches, but the foliage was too dense for the light to penetrate to the ground. In their glowing bubbles the enemy police swung back and forth, trying to find a clearing in the brush. Two of them attempted to force their way into the trees but their body capsules were too bulky; the force-field generated by the individual envelopes was not powerful enough to push through the gnarled branches.

The three fugitives inched steadily forward. The glow of tracer lights faded behind them. They could hear the wind above the trees and, far away, the sound of surf breaking on the rocks.

Juan Pendillo was shivering in the cold. His teeth began to chatter. Hastily his sons pressed his body between theirs, shielding him from the 

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