The woman crawled from beneath, gasping. Holbrook's strength was fled, his lungs one enormous agony. He sank to the floor beside her. "Are you all right?" he forced. "Are you hurt, my dearest?"

"Hold."

They crouched side by side and turned faces which bled from the nose back toward the machine. Ilya Grushenko stood there. A blaster was poised in his hands. "Drop your gun or I shoot," he said. "You and her both."

Holbrook's fingers went slack. He heard the remote clatter of his weapon as it struck stone.

"Thank you, Eben Petrovitch," said Grushenko. "Now they have it proven to them which of our factions is their friend."

"You don't understand!" choked Holbrook. "Listen to me!"

"Be still. Raise your hands. Ah, there—" Grushenko flicked eyes toward a pair of guards trotting into the room. "I have them, comrades!" he whooped.

Their fire converged on him. He ceased to be.

Holbrook had already scooped up his own blaster. He shot down the two black Zolotoyans. He stood up, swaying and still scrabbling after air. Ekaterina huddled at his feet. "You see," he said wearily, "we are in the ultimate collectivist state." She clung to his knees and wept.

He had not fired many bolts into the computer when its siren went quiet. He assumed that the orders it had been giving were thereby canceled. He took the woman and they walked away from the pathetically scurrying greens, out into the hallway, past a few guards who ignored them, and so to a flying platform.

CHAPTER VII

Under the tall fair heaven of Novaya, Holbrook spoke to the chief of the human outpost. "You can call them back from the Rurik," he said. "There is no more danger."

"But what are the Zolotoyans?" asked Ximénez. His eyes went in fear toward the mountains. "If they are not intelligent beings, then who ... what ... created their civilization?"

"Their ancestors," said Holbrook. "A very long time ago. They were great once. But they ended up with a totalitarian government. A place for everyone and everyone in his place. The holy society, whose very stasis was holy. Specialized breeds for the different jobs. Some crude attempts at it have been made on Earth, too. Egypt didn't change for thousands 

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