Sawyer was in the middle of the room, talking to the of the Indianas and the Illinois. The Indiana was old and and lazy, but the Chief of the Illinois was young, heavy-jowled and hard-eyed, the type that is and over it.
Sawyer to look at Price. He was and wire-drawn, a man on the of great happenings, at that point from which he may still choose to or retreat. Price his steadily, and it was not easy to do, the of this old man to be him.
"But you can't take him there," said the Illinois Chief violently, looking also at Price. "The biggest on Earth, and if he's a spy—"
"If he's a spy," Sawyer harshly, "he'll live to tell what he sees there."
He spoke to Price. "We're going on a journey. You're going too. And you two—" to Burr and Twist "—will him."
Burr and Twist silently, and got their guns. The and had been over to Sawyer for safe hiding, and these were the clumsy, short-range bolt-action of their own handcrafting.
Price said, "This is a of a way to a man who comes to you as a friend. I the Vurna as much as you do, for what they've done to Earth, and—"
Sawyer stopped him, saying ominously, "Save your words, you'll need them later. We've got a hard morning. Let's go."
They all out through a door, the old of the Indianas who was not going. In the outside, there were ready.
Sawyer and Oakes of the Illinois off, and Price with Burr ahead of him and Twist him. One man ahead of the whole party with a to but not up. The flying-eyes of night, too.
The six all night at a pace, single file along a narrow that and through the forest. Price sure, from what he had overheard, that they were toward some great council. He that his would be there, and the of the of too.
There was nothing he do about it till he got there. Meanwhile he about a long-thighed girl in crimson, with her on her as she walked. He he have had a closer look at her face. It had beautiful, a clear and a chin, but it was the that told you what a person was, and he had not been able to study them. Could she be as as all the Vurna were to be?
He she must be. His of the Star Lords was growing. Before they had come, this dark, wild he was through had been rich and towns. And when they had all that, and the Citadel to the Earth, they had to make men by telling them that of the Ei. It was the old Big Lie technique, but this had been too big for anyone to believe.
The woman might not be cruel. Arrin might be only a officer in a hard position. But all the same, they were aliens, of Earth, and he was an Earthman. These were his people—Sawyer, Burr, Twist, the and Oakes. These were the ones he would for, and with.
If they let him.
But they had to let him. He was the man with the plane. And as he through the dark, he he the to use.
Just dawn, when the world was at its and most silent, there was a challenge in the ahead, and the man with the answered. Here and there among the trees other flickered, scattered, and the were full of sounds, the of leather and of bridle-chains, the soft of hoofs, the of horses. What men there were spoke in low voices.
Price's party and walked among the lines. In a minutes they the of the woods. The man with the gave a low whistle, and another man out of the blank dark ahead.
"This way," he said. "And watch your foot."
Now the man with the him, the others after in Indian file. And Price to see that the was not as blank as he had thought. There were that the to themselves on flat, surfaces. He presently that these were walls, or had been once, and that he was walking on the of a city street. The of was unmistakable.
They for a long way, on some path through the city, and the sky to they their destination. Price now make out the of building-fronts on sides, high with nothing them, so that the window-holes looked like a of pierced-work. It was still, so still that their own and the of their from the stone.
Their stopped a small black no different from all the other small black that under and girders. "Down there," he said, and left them.
They a wide stairway, and twisted, but mostly intact. A great of from close-packed and rolled up the to meet them, with the of candle-grease, smoke, leather, and the of horse.
Beyond the of the there was a of light. Price they were in the of what had been a public or store, a space by a of and where part of it had in. It was with men, and their voices in that low space like the of a great animal too long caged.
There was a small group of men apart, and Sawyer joined them, with Oakes. Chiefs, Price, and that this was a very big indeed, and planned for long ahead. Burr and Twist close on either of him, but he them for the moment, looking around in at these his countrymen.
Forest-runners and hunters, like Burr and Twist, in buckskins. Men from the river, from the and country, soft-spoken, hard-handed, in in Indian colors, yellow and red and green. Gaunt hill-farmers in homespun, with their their hands. Boatmen from the northern lakes, with a of fish about them, and long up from the southwest, leather-skinned and as rattlesnakes. Men from the black of Iowa, their to talk of war. America, Price thought, unchanged, recognizable, but with all the off it and all the away, to the and of an day, when men like this a nation out of a wilderness.
He had a they do it again, in of the power of the Star Lords. And if they couldn't, they would go like to the last.
The Chiefs were talking among themselves. Twist some of them, of the Iowas, the Michigans, the Arkansas, the Mississippis. Others they at, Nebraska, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana. The two Missouri were as as a hunt. Twist said there had been a this big in his memory. It would go on until the issue was decided, the men under in the ruins, the in the woods.
Price that the assembled were all looking at him with an and interest. Sawyer's news to have them badly. The Chief of the Michigans, a black-bearded man with an voice, for silence. In the place was quiet, for the of men in to see and a little better.
"Sawyer of the Missouris has something to tell you," Michigan. "You hard. Because what he's got to say will make the we or our peace."
An and angry out. Michigan jumped up on a and them till they quiet.
"Do your afterward," he said. "This isn't just a on Sawyer's part. Something's happened. Shut up and listen."
Now they were and uneasy. They Sawyer climb the stand, their dark-bronze in the light, their glistening.
Sawyer said, "Twist—come up here."
Twist pushed his way to the and got on it. Burr moved closer to Price, his hand around the of the knife in his belt.
Sawyer said, "Tell them."
Perfectly at ease, aware of his but not by it, Twist told the of the landing of Price's plane in the Forbidden Belt, and what had been done with of them afterward. He told only the facts, any attempt to his for or against Price.
The were enough. They them, the men of the Great Lakes and the southern bayous, the and the and and farmers, and their were and after the of amazement. Twist had to stop to let the die down, and when he make himself again he said,
"Yes, it was just what I said, a plane, and I in it. Not one of those fliers, but a plane—so." He a with his hands and a sound. "Now I that's all," he said, and back.
Sawyer said, his to the man, "The Vurna have our lands to the plane. They haven't it. Last night Arrin—" A that name, so it was well known, "—Arrin gave me three days to the plane and the man who it. I've him here, instead."
He up his hands, to the voices. "Listen! I'm not yet. Arrin had some other to say. He said, if you are an attack on the Citadel, it. He said, We will you without mercy."
"Now," said Sawyer, "here is what we have to decide. Two things. Is this man Price a friend us a weapon, or a of the Vurna us death? And shall we fight, or let it go until another year? They're big questions, the biggest you'll have to answer in your lives. Don't come at them like boys, all and no sense. Come at them man-like, slow and careful."
Michigan rumbled, "Those are good words. Heed them. And now let's have the man up here."
Burr gave Price a shove. "That's you."
Price through the pack and the stand. As he did so Twist in his ear, "You'd make this good, boy. You won't another chance."
His voice friendly. Price was of it.
He on the and the and the of the people.
Michigan said, "You tell your of it. And speak up so can hear."
Price spoke up, loud. But he said, "What's the good of that? I've told my of it a dozen times already, and nobody me." He around the close-packed circle of men. "If I'd you'd me like this, I'd have the plane and left it for the coyotes."
"Just the same," said Michigan, "tell it again."
Price told it. "I didn't know you were up to anything in particular: it just that a plane might be useful to you sometime, now or later, and it wasn't doing any good where it was." He had himself so in the that it was to like truth to him, little and embroideries. "I guns, too, than anything you have. And say, Thank you? The they do. They me of being a for the Vurna."
A low animal from the listeners. Their were as hard as flint.
Price shouted, "Would the Vurna be so to me if they'd just sent me out as a spy? You Sawyer."
The Chief of the Louisianas said, "It would be a very for them to say so, for just that reason."
"And how is it," the Chief of the Arkansas, "that right away the minute you turn up, Arrin says that about the Citadel? Doesn't that they know something, and want to know more?"
"I should think that was obvious," said Price. "There hasn't been a plane in the air for two generations. All of a there is one. Wouldn't the Vurna want to know where you got it, and you're more like it? And do you they'd that with a like that you wouldn't be an attack of some on them?"
That was good sense, and they it over, among themselves. Price to he was somewhere, and his for the final argument. Then the Chief of the Oklahomas spoke up and said,
"My word would be to kill this man and hand his body, and the plane, to Arrin. That way we comply, but not to his advantage. Arrin no more than when he started, but we look innocent. We look as though we have no use for a plane. And when their are turned, we go ahead as we planned all along."
And that yet, to Price. Especially since he than any of them the relative usefulness of one Beechcraft as a against the of the Star Lords had.
But he if they to think of that he was finished. So he said, "Listen, you need that plane. It can reconnoiter, it can bombs—"
"Shut up," said someone fiercely. "Shut up, all of you. I something."
They quieted, and listened. Price not anything but the of the men. Then on the of the room one man and then to like dogs after a into the heaped-up rubble.
"Here it is! Here it is—look!"
"What is it? Let's see."
"Ain't nothing but a little box—"
"No! It's one of their contraptions! Let me through!"
A man in a shirt of green and yellow came through the crowd, something high over his in one hand. He put it on the stand, where it gently.
"Is that Vurna, or ain't it?"
Everyone and away from it, as though it might explode. It was a little metal box no than a cigarette case, but Price what it was. He and it underfoot.
"You'd clear out of here," he said. "Fast. That was a radio transmitter, a to the Vurna right here."
There was one moment of silence, and then the place into and movement. In the of it, in the of it, the Chief of the Michigans and the man in the shirt were of the same idea. Crying "Spy!", they themselves at Price with their drawn.
Remembering a or two the Army had him, Price the chief's rush, his wrist, and him into the other, who had been by the of onto the stand. And Price at them furiously,
"Are you crazy? I wasn't near that of the room. I didn't it and plant it here."
Twist him and the two men, his own knife. "He wasn't, and that's a fact. Besides—"
"Get out of my way!" Michigan.
Unexpectedly, Burr up and him back. "I was close to him as his own skin, every minute," he said. "He didn't move, and he didn't have that thing on him to if he'd wanted to."
"We him," said Twist, "days ago. Personal."
"Then you're too," said Michigan, to his single idea. He started to again, and now there were others up onto the after him, for Price's blood.
Sawyer moved like a big cat. Michigan stopped in mid-stride, with the point of Sawyer's knife his heart-ribs.
"These are my men," said Sawyer mildly. "I don't like having their called in question any more than they do."
Price over and a out of somebody's hands. He it and to swing, men like ten-pins off the of the stand.
"Get out of here, you fools!" he at them. "Can't you it through your thick skulls? The Vurna are coming. Get out!"
Numbers of them were already up the stairs. Now more and more took up the cry, to that someone's had this place a trap. Sawyer said to the Chief of the Michigans,
"Go on, take that to the and it. Hurry up, they you."
Michigan like an angry bull, but he and jumped into the crowd. The man with the shirt was gone. Price was about to when he saw the of a rifle, upflung, in the lamplight. He to Burr and Twist to look out, and then himself upon Sawyer. The was in that closed space. He the go overhead and then from the low roof. Someone on the of the room out in and pain. "I thank you," said Sawyer, "and now let's off this target."
They got off, the four of them close together. Price did not see Oakes, the man who had their lantern. Most of the lights were going out, over and trampled. The dark of men them to the and up and out into full, day.
Somebody pointed to the sky and yelled, "There they come—the Vurna!"
