, and take off like Phobos rising."

"You're going out the other emergency exit?"

"That's none of your business. But, as a matter of fact, no. If you want
to see something that will throw consternation into this Marscorp
outfit, watch the roof of this building. Now, get moving, Kensington,
and good luck. Fancher and I will be leaving as soon as he gets all the
records packed."

The Chief held out his tiny hand, and Dark shook hands with him. Then
Dark left, went down into the basement and entered an underground door
in its eastern wall. He had to crawl through the tunnel driven through
the sand under the street.

He emerged in the basement of a house across the street, which
ostensibly was owned by Manfall Kingron, a retired space engineer. He
went upstairs.

About half the personnel of the barber college who had not been caught
by the alarm were roaming the rooms of the small house, drifting singly
out the back door at ten-minute intervals.

Dark went to the front window and looked across the street at the barber
college.

The street was full of men carrying heat pistols, moving restlessly,
facing the barber college. Some of them were in police uniform. Squads
of them moved about on the college grounds, and a few were in the yards
of houses on this side of the street.

Dark watched the roof.

As he did so, from its center a helicopter rose into the air, hovering
over the building, moving upward slowly.

So that was the Chief's escape method. He had smuggled a helicopter into
the domed city itself! But how was he to get out of the city in it?

The appearance of the copter threw the men outside into confused
excitement. They ran about, aiming their short-range heat beams futilely
up at the rising copter.

A military tank, undoubtedly the one the Chief had been told about, spun
around the corner. It stopped, and its guns swung upward toward the
copter. But they remained silent. Heavy heat beams or artillery could
puncture the city's protecting dome.

The copter went straight up, gathering speed. Up, and up, and it did not
stop!

It hit the plastic dome near its zenith. It tilted and staggered. It
ripped through the dome and vanished.

Immediately, sirens began to wail throughout the city. Doors clanged
shut automatically everywhere. Lights and warning signs flashed at every
street corner, advising citizens to run for the nearest airtight
shelter.

The dome was punctured!

Emergency crews would be