It was easy to see that this was Miguel's abode. The walls of the city bristled with dark-skinned riflemen in blue shorts and gold brocade, zealously guarding their Immortal's city against armed attack. Standing outside the city walls, Kesley could see, looming above the blocks of low, grubby buildings, the arching sweep of Don Miguel's palace. A gleaming spire almost a hundred feet high topped the vaulted building, which looked down upon the nest of small houses clustered around it as a giant would upon worms.

There seemed to be a jam-up at the gates. Traffic was heavy at a Ducal capital. All around him, swarthy men on burros or horses or stubby piebald mutant beasts waited patiently to be admitted. Most of them were clad in broad-brimmed sombreros and colorful serapes; Kesley grinned wryly at that. South America was an unchanging microcosm. Beneath the friendly sky, life, frozen always in a stasis of todays, moved on slowly, with manana never quite arriving.

Kesley wondered about van Alen. The Antarctican had run away, and presumably had been shot by a bandit. Was he dead, his corpse lying rotting on the plain? It didn't matter, now. Kesley was in the hands of Duke Miguel. His destiny was no longer bound to that of Dryle van Alen.

"Get along, now," a voice drawled. The line moved up. Slowly, the long queue was passing through the great double doors and into the city. Kesley's six captors surrounded him, three before and three aft. Their conversation during the long trip north to the capital had been limited to occasional rapid-fire bursts of incomprehensible Spanish, and Kesley still had no idea of the fate that awaited him.

"We go to the Duke," the taciturn bandit leader said as they reached the gatekeeper. He gestured at Kesley. "We bring him a prize."

"Norteamericano?"

"Sí."

The gatekeeper flicked a thumb over his shoulder. "Go in."

Kesley's horse moved forward, and they entered the Ducal capital of Buenos Aires.

Cities look pretty much alike, Kesley thought, as they entered. His short acquaintance with van Alen had made him more observant, more analytical. And, looking around, he framed the generalization. He might just as well have been in Galveston, or St. Louis.

There were differences, of course, but they were not fundamental ones. The dirt was a constant, the litter 

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