of Illinois and Indiana, they had made their domain. In it, they built their Citadel.

The Citadel was a fortress, a city, above all, a base. The Star Lords contemptuously refrained from attacking the dazed Earth peoples who had been thrown back to near-primitive conditions. To the lords of the Citadel, Earth was only the site of an important base. Or so they said.

Was it any wonder, Price thought, that these men of the Missouris would kill anyone, anything, from the Citadel? Just hearing of it all had kindled his own rage. These men's fathers had lived it, and they were still living it.

He looked down at the wooden town, as he and Burr and Twist went down a trail, and he thought,"Careful, though! They still think I _may_ be from the Citadel--Watch every word!"

Two hours later, Price sat in a wooden-walled room in the biggest of the houses, facing the Chief of the Missouris.

His name was Sawyer, and he was old. But he looked formidable as an old panther in his buckskins. His leathery face held deep pride, intelligence, and a brutal ruthlessness. Behind him stood the Chiefs of the Indianas and of the Illinois, those scattered peoples on whose lands the Citadel now stood.

Sawyer listened without a word to Price's story, and all the time Price told it he thought how thin and far-fetched it sounded. But, looking at these faces, he knew he could never convince them of the truth.

"Two days ago," said Sawyer finally, "the Vurna were here. They were almighty hot and bothered. They were looking for a plane. _I_ never saw a plane in my life, and I said so."

He paused, his swarthy, wrinkled face brooding, and no one, least of all Price, dared speak.

He went on. "Since then, the sky's been lousy with their flying-eyes, hunting and hunting. You must have seen them."

Burr took that as an opening. "We did. We kept ducking them, all the way."

Sawyer looked out the doorway at the dusty, sunlit street and then back again to Price and he said with sudden blazing fierceness,"You tell me you heard of us Missouris way out in your mountains, that you wanted to bring your plane to us--why?"

Price floundered. "Why, I wanted to help you--"

"_To help us do what?_" A garnet light was in the old man's eyes now. "What did you hear we were doing 

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