cold and sharing their body energy until his trembling finally stopped.

They heard a snapping sound in the brush. An enemy guard appeared suddenly. He had dissolved his force-field and he was walking warily on the wet earth. He held an energy gun cradled in his arms. The enemy walked with cat-like caution—but, in spite of himself, it was the amateur caution of a man who relied on the protective devices of a machine.

Slowly Lanny's lips twisted in a sneer. This was the enemy, heavily armed and invulnerable—but helpless without his mechanical gadgets. Lanny's hand moved soundlessly over the ground. He grasped a stone. The enemy was less than twenty feet away; it was a target a child couldn't miss.

Lanny swung into a sitting position and simultaneously threw his stone. The guard dropped, a wound torn in his skull. Pendillo and his sons slid forward again. As they passed the dead Almost-man, Lanny worked the energy gun out of of the guard's hands.

It took them an hour to reach the cliffs overlooking the sea. They turned north again, seeking shelter among the rocks. And they came abruptly upon a wide, bowl-shaped cavity in the earth. Through the fog they saw the narrow passage between the cavity and the sea. In the center of the sheltered, artificial pool a metal dome rose some fifty feet above the quiet water. The dome, protected by a force-field, was joined to the land by a catwalk. From its waterline a ridged, white tube snaked upward and disappeared among the trees on the north bank of the pool. A repair barge swung at anchor under the catwalk. A towering pylon raised a sound receptor and an automatic energy gun high above the roof of the dome.

Pendillo whispered, "This must be one of their automatic mining operations. I've never seen one before."

Gill replied, "Lanny and I have come upon lots of them in the hills. The domes run themselves. Sometimes the Almost-men come and check over the machines; that's what the barge is here for, I think."

"The domes dig out minerals or pump oil," Lanny added, "and send it to the skyports through the white pipes. But you can never get close to them. The whole operation is protected by the energy guns."

"They have us pinned down here," Gill said, "unless we can use that barge."

Lanny fingered the energy gun he had taken from the dead guard. "All we have to do is knock out the pylon." He raised 

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