woman, from light-years away. She clawed after his weapon. He swayed in black mists, batted her away with his own strengthless hands.

"I haven't time now," he whispered. "I love you. Will you come with me?"

He turned and staggered through the door, past the scuttering red servitor, over the corpses and into the hall. The siren squealed before him, around him, through him. His feet were leaden clogs; Christ, what had become of the low gravity—help me, help me.

Hands caught his arm. "Lean on me, Eben Petrovitch," she said.

They went down a vaulted corridor full of howling. His temples beat, as if his brain were trying to escape the skull, but vision cleared a little. He saw the wall at the end. He stopped by the control stud.

"Let me go through first," he said in his burning throat. "If the guards get me, remember the computer must be destroyed. We're safe if it can be destroyed. Wait, now."

The wall gaped for him. He stepped through. The green technicians moved serenely under the huge machine, servicing it as if he did not exist. In a way, he thought, I don't. He sped across the floor. His boots resounded hollowly on the stone. He came up to the machine and opened fire.

Thunder roared in the chamber. The technicians twittered and ran around him. One of them posted himself at a board whose pattern of signaling lights was too intricate for men to grasp, and called out orders. The others began to fetch replacement parts. And the siren yammered. It was like no alarm on Earth; its voice seemed almost alive.

Four guards burst in from the outer hall. Holbrook sprang behind a technician, who kept stolidly by his rank of levers. The guards halted, stared around, and began to cast about like sniffing dogs. Holbrook shot past the green Zolotoyan, dropped one, dropped two. A human would have sacrificed the enemy's living shield to get at the enemy; but no black had ever fired on a green. Another guard approached and was killed. But where had the fourth gotten to?

Holbrook heard the noise and whirled about. The gaunt shape had been almost upon him, from the rear. Ekaterina had attacked. They rolled about the floor, she snarling, he with a remote god-like calm even as he wrestled. He got her by the throat. Holbrook ran up behind and clubbed his blaster. After more blows than a man could have survived, the guard slumped.

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