sharply, or you will crash. That lever--there, under your left hand--ease it back."

Price eased it. He settled down to a rough and ragged landing, just about where the Vurna craft had settled before, when he had been Sawyer's prisoner. Men came out of the houses and along the streets, to stand as they had stood then, to greet their hated over-lords with silence and contempt.

Price jumped out of the craft and approached the fires.

There was a startled cry, and then his name echoed back and forth, and the men closed around him. They were inclined to be hostile, demanding to know where Sawyer was, and what had happened, and how he came to be piloting a Vurna flier. Price shouted for quiet."Sawyer's alive. He's a prisoner in the Citadel. So are Burr and Twist. You want to rescue them?"

That startled them. "Listen," Price started, and then he saw Oakes pushing toward him with a small determined-looking group of men. "Stand back," Oakes demanded. "Stand back, there. This man is a traitor. He betrayed the council, he betrayed Sawyer. If you listen to him, he'll betray you." He turned to Price. "You get back to your Vurna masters. Tell them we're not going to--"

"Oh, shut up," said Price impatiently. "You're not chief here, and you never will be, no matter if you do leave Sawyer to rot in the Citadel." He took the shocker from his belt where he had thrust it. "I stole that flier from the Vurna, and I stole this, too. I'll use it on you if I have to."

Oakes looked ugly, but he hesitated, and Price said, "Some of you, if you want proof of what I say, go look in the flier. Go on."

Several men detached themselves from the crowd and went off at a trot toward the flier. Presently they began to whoop and halloo. They came back carrying the pilot and Linna, who looked at Price with the utmost hatred.

"It looks like a trick to me," said Oakes. "They could have been bound on purpose."

Price said, "Does it look like a trick that every starship of the Citadel fleet took off last night? You must have heard or seen them, even at this distance."

"Yes," said a lean farmer, "streaks of fire in the sky before dawn. I was milking."

Others had seen them, too. And now a note of excitement crept into their voices.

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