hugging them. 

"We did it! We got 'em!" they cried. "We took the Citadel!" "Is it all over?" asked Price incredulously. "So soon?" 

"That mighty caterwauling did it," said a red-bearded man. "All of a sudden they quit fighting and began to run, like it was a signal, but they couldn't get away from us. I heard they got old Arrin hisself down there, in a big room, cussing and crying fit to bust." "Where's Sawyer?" somebody shouted, and Sweetbriar took up the cry. Price said, "Somewhere on this level, I think. Get a Vurna that speaks English and make him show you. It'll save time." He pushed on through them to the stairs, and fought his way down. He wanted to see Arrin. He wanted to see the pride of the Citadel humbled, broken. 

Tribesmen rioted through the corridors, smashing things like happy children. They directed him to a vast sunken room that Price knew must be the very heart and soul of the Citadel, its reason for being. It was an overpowering place of screens and towering panels and complex equipment. But these screens looked far beyond Earth, showing starry spaces, burning suns and unimaginable dark abysses. From here, the Vurna had watched the whole sector of outer space, and these complex controls must be the triggers of the mighty missile-batteries outside the Citadel, the weapons that could strike fast and far into the void. Here there was a guard to keep out the roisterers. The soberer of the tribesmen had a sensible concern for the possible results of tampering with these incomprehensible but obviously mighty powers. They were afraid the whole Citadel might blow up with them in it. A few technicians were still being hustled out as Price entered. A number of the chiefs were in here, and Arrin was with them, but he was neither cursing nor crying. He was standing between two muscular tribesmen, facing the chiefs, and his face held such an agony of despair and terror that Price was shaken by it. "_What must I do_," he was saying, "_to make you understand?_ That warning came from our fleet. The Ei have evaded it in the Centaurus Gulf, and are sweeping in toward Earth. If we don't defend the Citadel--" He broke off as he saw Price come up. Then he said bitterly, "I congratulate you. Few men can say that practically single-handed they destroyed a world." 

One of the chiefs asked Price, "Is Sawyer with you?" Price shook his head. "They've gone to free him now. He'll be here in a few minutes." "Oh my God," said Arrin softly. "Don't let them free the Ei. Even two of them at large here--we'd have no hope at all, with their fleet coming." He looked at Price 

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