He called, "Nona! Nona!"

The voice of the giant. It rumbled with a roar, mingling with the roar of the storm. Through the swirling murk, with the haven of the purple-glowing pyramid blurred in the distance, Nixon could see that the slope was dotted by fallen figures. Some of them lay with the cascading rivulets of water tumbling over them; others were being washed away down the slope. Half of the Orite crowd perhaps had reached the city. The others were caught out here, surging back in a panic toward the giant, momentarily more in terror of the storm than of him. And Nixon knew now what he could do to give them at least partial shelter.

"Nona!" he called. "Come over here by me! Tell them—all of them come here!"

Then they were coming, and Nixon lay on his side, with his back to the wind and rain. For them there was shelter, here against the giant figure so that in a moment a hundred or more of them were huddling here. He lay tensed, motionless. Down his length he could dimly see the mass of tiny figures crouched in the lee of his body, with the choking mists and the rain whirling high above them. Presently he could feel the rivulets of water backing up against him, as though he were a monstrous dam stretched here. He realized that his body was blocking the water, keeping it from surging like a flood upon the Orites he was sheltering.

He said, "You're all right now, Nona? Better now?"

She was crouching against his chest. He heard her answering call. "Yes. Oh yes, giant."

He lay through an interval. And now through the storm came a burst of lightning—a crackling burst with a roar like thunder. But it was very different lightning from anything Nixon had ever seen! It seemed to strike one of the distant cliffs. There was a sustained crackling for a second or two, then an orange-green burst of light. It was like a bomb striking the cliff-face, with masses of rock hurled into the blur of the air. A chunk, perhaps as big as Nixon's forearm, fell clattering across the slope. Now he saw the meaning of the purple light-fire like a barrage around and above the pyramid-city. It was a barrage of some strange electronic nature, to act like a lightning rod. Presently a crackling bolt hit it—a great burst, a blob of pyrotechnics in the air above the city roof. It crackled for a second and then harmlessly was swept away, dissipating into the murk.

An hour passed, with the storm raging while Nixon lay taut with the crowd of Orites huddled against him. Then it seemed that 

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