whizzing after us, making an obvious effort to overtake us. The
chauffeur cursed and fired his auxiliary jets, then his rocket-booster.

Immediately, black rocket-fuel puffs shot away from the pursuing
aircars.

Hoddy turned in his seat, cranked open a porthole-slit in the window,
and poked one of his eleven-mm's out, letting the whole clip go.
Thrombley and Gomez slid down onto the floor, and both began trying to
drag me down with them, imploring me not to expose myself.

As far as I could see, there was nothing to expose myself to. The other
cars kept coming, but neither of them were firing at us. There was also
no indication that Hoddy's salvo had had any effect on them. Our
chauffeur went into a perfect frenzy of twisting and dodging, at the
same time using his radiophone to tell somebody to get the goddamn
gate open in a hurry. I saw the blue skies and green plains of New
Texas replacing one another above, under, in front of and behind us.
Then the car set down on a broad stretch of concrete, the wings were
retracted, and we went whizzing down a city street.

We whizzed down a number of streets. We cut corners on two wheels, and
on one wheel, and, I was prepared to swear, on no wheels. A couple of
times, with the wings retracted, we actually jetted into the air and
jumped over vehicles in front of us, landing again with bone-shaking
jolts. Then we made an abrupt turn and shot in under a concrete arch,
and a big door banged shut behind us, and we stopped, in the middle of a
wide patio, the front of the car a few inches short of a fountain. Four
or five people, in diplomatic striped trousers, local dress and the
uniform of the Space Marines, came running over.

Thrombley pulled himself erect and half-climbed, half-fell, out of the
car. Gomez got out on the other side with Hoddy; I climbed out after
Thrombley.

A tall, sandy-haired man in the uniform of the Space Navy came over.

"What the devil's the matter, Thrombley?" he demanded. Then, seeing me,
he gave me as much of a salute as a naval officer will ever bestow on
anybody in civilian clothes.

"Mr. Silk?" He looked at my costume and the pistols on my belt in
well-bred concealment of surprise. "I'm your military attache,
Stonehenge; Space-Commander, Space Navy."

I noticed that Hoddy's ears had pricked up, but he wasn't making any
effort to attract Stonehenge's attention. I shook hands with him,
introduced Hoddy, and offered my cigarette case around.