down, and the fourth fell under the shock beam.

"Shut the door," said Price, and one of the hunters shut it.

Price knocked out the other three with the shocker, and the hunters bound them. There was a rack of side-arms in one wall, with several shockers in it. Price handed them out and then turned his attention to the batteries of firing studs. The hunters stood staring at the moving pictures of the stormy Belt reflected in the scanner screens, until Sweetbriar sent them to guard the door.

There were service-hatches below the waist-high control panels. Price got one open and studied the wiring, panting more with excitement than exertion. It was only a few minutes until the pre-arranged time of attack. But he must not trip the firing relays accidentally in trying to de-activate them. He was afraid to start pulling wires indiscriminately.

But where the individual leads ran back to join the primary cable they passed through a series of switches. It seemed logical to Price that these were safety cut-offs to be used during maintenance, and that they would cut off the nameless destructive engines on the roof.

He had nothing better to go on, and time had almost run out. He opened one of the switches, and glanced swiftly at the screens. Nothing happened. He flipped open the others fast, and ripped the wires loose from the board. Then with a metal chair, he smashed the studs.

As he finished, Sweetbriar shouted suddenly. "There they come--and right on time!"

Price, sweating, looked up. Sweetbriar and the hunters were eagerly gazing at the screens.

They showed the storm-swept Belt and they showed small dark figures in it--hundreds of them--thousands--tribesmen running toward the Citadel.

An alarm bell rang somewhere in the Citadel. Instantly other bells echoed it, a distant confusion of alarms.

"Out of here fast," Price cried. "This is the first place the Vurna will be coming. If we can get down through, we can help the others."

They ran back out of the room, back down the corridor past the unconscious man who still lay on the floor. Whatever happened now, the tribesmen pouring across the Belt were safe from the weapons on the roof.

Without warning, the lift door opened right in front of them, and five green-clad Vurna came spilling 

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