Sawyer swept a lean arm out in a commanding gesture. "Take cover!"

They dodged into the crevices of an unidentifiable mass half grown with creepers and rank grass. The old bricks tottered and threatened to fall as they pressed past them. They lay panting and listened to the Vurna fliers go over.

"They've broken formation," Price said. He had listened to hostile craft before. "Spread out. They'll sweep back and forth--"

A section of wall collapsed, close by them, with a rumble and a great puff of white dust. They leaped back, and Sawyer said, "That makes a beacon for them. Well, come on."

They ran out, crouching low, scurrying along the ravaged streets where their grandfathers had walked in peace. Price could see the green woods in the distance, but the air was full of the power-scream of the searching aerodynes, and he did not think that they would make it. He was right.

One of the ships shot down to hover three feet off the ground ahead of them, and another dropped behind. Sawyer turned to the right. A third ship came down. He turned to the left. A fourth one blocked him. He stopped where he was, too proud to look farther for escape where he knew there was none. Burr and Twist stood with him. All three lifted their rifles and prepared to die.

Price had nothing in his hands. The bright hovering ships mocked him, their noise deafened him, the wind of their air-blasts tore at him with vicious force. He hated them. He had never hated anything so much in his life, not even the enemy he had fought in Korea. He groped among the rubbish around his feet, half-blinded by dust and a red haze that was of his own making.

A very loud metallic voice spoke to them from one of the ships. "Put down your weapons and stand together with your hands high. You will not be harmed." Sawyer laughed. He hunched the rifle to his shoulder and fired. The slug went _splat!_ on the skin of the aerodyne and dropped.

"Put down your weapons and stand together. We will count six. At that time we will fire. Six. Five. Four."

Sawyer laid his rifle into the dust at his feet and straightened, folding his arms. Twist and Burr did the same. Tears stood in Burr's eyes, tears of outraged anger. 

And this was their city, Price thought. My city. Ours.

Men began now to jump 

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