Stan sat down in a leather upholstered chair and threw a leg over the arm. "Nothing. Not until November 4th, that is. At twelve noon, London time, half the cities of this world will be blown off the globe."

Tanner looked puzzled. "So? The air forces the fleets, and the armies will still be intact."

"They'll be much too busy to fight us," Stan said smoothly. "You see, Tanner, they'll be fighting each other."

Which actually was very clever, Stan thought slowly. The divide and conquer theory. Each of the packages contained a Thuscan fusion weapon. Once they were set off, each country would think that another had sprung a sneak attack.

November 4th, Tanner and he would strike. November 5th, the world would be in chaos.

November 6th, the Thuscan fleet would land.

Tanner walked to the middle of the room and stood over the body of Piazza. "What are you going to do with our friend?"

"Send him away—I think to Africa." Stan picked the body up and lugged it into what had once been the bedroom. Now it was a room jammed with transmitting equipment and, against the far wall, a single hoop of shining metal standing upright on a black marble base. The hoop was large, over six feet in diameter, with a thin, metal filament winding around it.

He turned a dial set in the base. The filament glowed red and then a brilliant white. The hoop itself shimmered and faded, while at the same time a whirling circle of brilliant black built up where it had been. He tensed his muscles and heaved and Piazza's body hit the circle and disappeared, like a man plunging into quicksand.

"Where will he land?"

"In a doorway on the Street of Lepers in Casablanca." Stan turned the dial again and the whirling circle slowed and became translucent and then faded out altogether as the hoop sprang back into view.

Tanner gestured to the other equipment. "What's all this for?"

"Transmitting equipment to set off the fusion packages." Stan pointed to two box-like structures against the far wall. One held a bank of fifty small, white lights. The other, a bank of fifty red. "The white lights are the operators themselves—I can tell immediately if anything happens to them. The others represent the fusion packages. If one of them goes, I 

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