twice people in the mob saw him, in the shuddering light reflected by the energy guns, and recognized him as a man—a half-naked, black-bearded savage. They screamed in terror.

This was the hour of man's revenge, yet Lanny felt an inexpressible shame and sadness. Was this the way man's cities had died a generation ago, in a discord of mechanical sound, without courage and without dignity?

At last he found the incline to the lower level. It was jammed with a mass of Almost-men, fighting and clawing their way down so they might flee into the hunting preserve beyond the city. The tide swept Lanny with it. At the foot of the incline he circled the arsenal to join the men, still confined in the trading square.

Gill was directing the fire of his men as they inched forward. He clapped Lanny on the back, grinning broadly.

"I knew you'd get out, Lan. Is Juan all right?"

"He's dead, Gill. He was wounded and he didn't know how to heal himself."

"He had to know, Lanny; he taught us."

"They all taught us. They made us—" Lanny's voice choked a little as he used his father's familiar phrase. "—a new breed. Gill, we're acting like fools; we're fighting for something we don't want or need."

"We have to have weapons, Lan."

"We need nothing but what we've been taught. The mind interprets and commands the chaos of the universe. Matter and energy are identical."

Lanny turned and walked, erect and unafraid, toward the arsenal. The energy fire from the guards' guns struck him and exploded. He reorganized the pattern into harmless components and stood waiting for the charge to die away.

In a moment Gill was beside him, beaming with understanding as he met and transformed a second blast from the guns. "Of course matter and energy are the same!" he cried. "It should have been obvious to us. We have been prisoners twenty years for nothing."

"We needed those twenty years to discover our new world. We have only finished our education tonight."

As a third blast of energy came from the arsenal, other men slid out of the darkness and faced the guns. Lanny and Gill walked away, ignoring the 

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