d ripped out the wiring in handfuls. The
generator came loose and he dragged it away from the wall. The screen
was off, thank God. He managed to carry the generator into a side
corridor.

Crouched in a heap, Cole bent over the generator, deft fingers flying.
He pulled the wiring to him and laid it out on the floor, tracing the
circuits with feverish haste.

The adaptation was easier than he had expected. The screen flowed at
right angles to the wiring, for a distance of six feet. Each lead was
shielded on one side; the field radiated outward, leaving a hollow
cone in the center. He ran the wiring through his belt, down his
trouser legs, under his shirt, all the way to his wrists and ankles.

He was just snatching up the heavy generator when two Security police
appeared. They raised their blasters and fired point-blank.

Cole clicked on the screen. A vibration leaped through him that
snapped his jaw and danced up his body. He staggered away,
half-stupefied by the surging force that radiated out from him. The
violet rays struck the field and deflected harmlessly.

He was safe.

He hurried on down the corridor, past a ruined gun and sprawled bodies
still clutching blasters. Great drifting clouds of radioactive
particles billowed around him. He edged by one cloud nervously. Guards
lay everywhere, dying and dead, partly destroyed, eaten and corroded
by the hot metallic salts in the air. He had to get out--and fast.

At the end of the corridor a whole section of the fortress was in
ruins. Towering flames leaped on all sides. One of the missiles had
penetrated below ground level.

Cole found a lift that still functioned. A load of wounded guards was
being raised to the surface. None of them paid any attention to him.
Flames surged around the lift, licking at the wounded. Workmen were
desperately trying to get the lift into action. Cole leaped onto the
lift. A moment later it began to rise, leaving the shouts and the
flames behind.

The lift emerged on the surface and Cole jumped off. A guard spotted
him and gave chase. Crouching, Cole dodged into a tangled mass of
twisted metal, still white-hot and smoking. He ran for a distance,
leaping from the side of a ruined defense-screen tower, onto the fused
ground and down the side of a hill. The ground was hot underfoot. He
hurried as fast as he could, gasping for breath. He came to a long
slope and scrambled up the side.

The guard who had followed was gone, lost behind