On the second day of their journeying they found a second fort. This also was a structure across the highway, defended from attack in the direction for which they were headed. It had been more carefully built than the other one. This had been more constructed of squared stones, lifted into position by construction engines whose sand-eroded carcasses were still in place.

There also were larger instruments of warfare here, worn away by centuries of exposure to blowing sand. The fort itself had many times been filled with sand and emptied again by the wind. Only under archways were there any signs of soot, as if flames had burned terribly here. Some land cruisers such as the one in which they rode had been destroyed like the one they had seen at the first fort—pulled apart.

Like the other fort this one had not been demolished after its capture. Not even the cranes and weapons had been seized. But the defenders had been completely dismembered. No two bones were ever attached to each other. Rarely had one been broken. None had been gnawed. Some were sand-worn, but each was complete and entirely separate.

And tens of thousands—not merely thousands—had died here. Their bones proved it.

Ellen watched Borden's face as they drove through this fortress.

"Do you know what happened, Dee?" she asked.

"I think so," he said coldly.

"The white spot? It looks as if they had been fighting something that came from there."

"They were," said Borden. "And I don't want Sattell to encounter the thing they were fighting. He knows too much."

She studied his expression. She knew that they were making the top possible speed toward that same white spot from which a heat-ray had been thrown at them. He hadn't explained. Jerry was too diffident to ask. Ellen was not, but something occurred to her suddenly.

"You said, the 'thing'!" she said, startled. "Not creatures or people or anything like that! You said the thing!"

He grimaced, but did not answer her. Instead, he said. "I'll take the tiller, Jerry. We've still got the talkie that Sattell sabotaged, haven't we?"

Jerry nodded and shifted the 

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