the jagged opening, and leaping
upward while the remains of my ship shot away below me.

On approaching the ground I opened my chute-cape, to further check my
fall, and landed lightly, with no further mishap. Whereupon I promptly
threw myself down and slept, so exhausted was I with my experience.

It was not until the next morning that I awoke and gazed about me. I had
come down in mountainous country. My intention was to get my bearing by
tuning in headquarters with my ultrophone. But to my dismay I found the
little battery disks had been torn from the earflaps of my helmet,
though my chest-disk transmitter was still in place, and so far as I
could see, in working order. I could report my experience, but could
receive no reply.

I spent a half hour repeating my story and explanation on the
headquarters channel, then once more surveyed my surroundings, trying to
determine in which direction I had better leap. Then there came a stab
of pain on the top of my head, and I dropped unconscious.

I regained consciousness to find myself, much to my surprise, a prisoner
in the hands of a foot detachment of some thirty Hans. My surprise was a
double one; first that they had not killed me instantly; second, that a
detachment of them should be roaming this wild country afoot, obviously
far from any of their cities, and with no ship hanging in the sky above
them.

* * * * *

As I sat up, their officer grunted with satisfaction and growled a
guttural command. I was seized and pulled roughly to my feet by four
soldiers, and hustled along with the party into a wooded ravine, through
which we climbed sharply upward. I surmised, correctly as it turned out,
that some projectile had grazed my head, and I was in such shape that if
it had not been for the fact that my inertron belt bore most of my
weight, they would have had to carry me. But as it was I made out well,
and at the end of an hour's climb was beginning to feel like myself
again, though the Han soldiers around me were puffing and drooping as
men will, no matter how healthy, when they are totally unaccustomed to
physical effort.

At length the party halted for a rest. I observed them curiously. Except
for a few brief exciting moments at the time of our air raid on the
intelligence office in Nu-Yok, I had seen no living specimens of this
yellow race at close quarters.

They looked little like the Mongolians of the Twentieth Century, except
f