p with spidery-looking trusswork. Somehow they've kept
water and power flowing to wherever they needed it--"

"I don't care about your theories," Dhuva said; "I only want to get
away."

"It's bound to work, Dhuva. I need your help."

"No."

"Then I'll have to try alone." He turned away.

"Wait," Dhuva called. He came up to Brett. "I owe you a life; you saved
mine. I can't let you down now. But if this doesn't work ... or if you
can't find what you want--"

"Then we'll go."

Together they turned down a side street, walking rapidly. At the next
corner Brett pointed.

"There's one!" They crossed to the service station at a run. Brett tried
the door. Locked. He kicked at it, splintered the wood around the lock.
He glanced around inside. "No good," he called. "Try the next building.
I'll check the one behind."

He crossed the wide drive, battered in a door, looked in at a floor
covered with wood shavings. It ended ten feet from the door. Brett went
to the edge, looked down. Diagonally, forty feet away, the underground
fifty-thousand-gallon storage tank which supplied the gasoline pumps of
the station perched, isolated, on a column of striated clay, ribbed
with chitinous Gel buttresses. The truncated feed lines ended six feet
from the tank. From Brett's position, it was impossible to say whether
the ends were plugged.

Across the dark cavern a square of light appeared. Dhuva stood in a
doorway looking toward Brett.

"Over here, Dhuva!" Brett uncoiled his rope, arranged a slip-noose. He
measured the distance with his eye, tossed the loop. It slapped the top
of the tank, caught on a massive fitting. He smashed the glass from a
window, tied the end of the rope to the center post. Dhuva arrived,
watched as Brett went to the edge, hooked his legs over the rope, and
started across to the tank.

It was an easy crossing. Brett's feet clanged against the tank. He
straddled the six-foot cylinder, worked his way to the end, then
clambered down to the two two-inch feed lines. He tested their
resilience, then lay flat, eased out on them. There were plugs of hard
waxy material in the cut ends of the pipes. Brett poked at them with the
pistol. Chunks loosened and fell. He worked for fifteen minutes before
the first trickle came. Two minutes later, two thick streams of gasoline
were pouring down into the darkness.

* * *

Brett and Dhuva piled sticks, scraps of paper, shavings, and lumps of
coal around