and tossed, throwing him against his seat-belt until his ribs cracked and his flesh felt as though it was cut through. The tribesmen were now frankly and vocally terrified.

Then the built-in stabilizers and Price's own flier's brain took hold again, and the whirling-leaf motion steadied to a rough and racking but controlled descent.

He could not see anything now but the solid blackness of the storm-clouds, until the lightning flared and lit the rain-swept barren below with a vivid light, brief but enough to guide him. He had judged carefully, and he let the main wind-drift carry him until the wall of the Citadel showed up huge and startling in the glare of a striking bolt. He hung rocking over the roof until another one showed him the painted circle of the lift. Then he set the aerodyne down hard right beside it.

There was no need for any talking. The instructions had all been thoroughly discussed before. Price and the seven tribesmen were out and across the intervening few feet of the roof and onto the lift and going down before the next flare of lightning broke.

The men breathed heavily, their throwing ropes in one hand, their knives in the other. Sweetbriar glanced at the shocker. Then he gave it to Price and unhooked the weighted bolo from his own belt, swinging it gently.

There had been no alarm.

Price watched the symbols gliding past on the guide-strip. When the right one showed he pushed the proper stud and waited. The lift stopped. The automatic door slid back. They moved fast, out into the corridor.

Only one man was in sight, going somewhere with a sheaf of papers in his hand. He stopped, and his eyes widened, and his mouth opened. Price fired the shocker. The man fell down and the papers scattered all over the floor. Price began to run. His own shoes made a quick sharp patting on the plastic surface. The moccasins of the hunters made no sound at all. He counted the doors, and then turned for a last glance at Sweetbriar and the men. Their eyes were very bright and the edges of their teeth showed. Sweetbriar nodded.

Price flung open the door.

And it was easy, easier than he had dreamed. The four technicians in their uniforms of dull gold turned and stood startled and staring for as long as a man might catch his breath, and that was time enough. Bolos wrapped around three of them like flying snakes and brought them 

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