as well be coming from Mars."

"I don't understand where the voices come from," Dhuva said. "But all
the places they name are strange to me ... except the Twin Spires."

"I've heard of Kansas City," Brett said, "but none of the other ones."

The ground trembled. A low rumble rolled. "Another one," Brett said. He
switched off the radio, tried the starter. It groaned, turned over. The
engine caught, sputtered, then ran smoothly.

"Get in, Dhuva. We might as well ride. Which way do we go to get out of
this place?"

"The wall lies in that direction," said Dhuva. "But I don't know about a
gate."

"We'll worry about that when we get to it," said Brett. "This whole
place is going to collapse before long. We really started something. I
suppose other underground storage tanks caught--and gas lines, too."

A building ahead cracked, fell in a heap of pulverized plaster. The car
bucked as a blast sent a ripple down the street. A manhole cover popped
up, clattered a few feet, dropped from sight. Brett swerved, gunned the
car. It leaped over rubble, roared along the littered pavement. Brett
looked in the rear-view mirror. A block behind them the street ended.
Smoke and dust rose from the immense pit.

"We just missed it that time!" he called. "How far to the wall?"

"Not far! Turn here ..."

Brett rounded the corner with a shrieking of tires. Ahead the grey wall
rose up, blank, featureless.

"This is a dead end!" Brett shouted.

"We'd better get out and run for it--"

"No time! I'm going to ram the wall! Maybe I can knock a hole in it."

* * *

Dhuva crouched; teeth gritted, Brett held the accelerator to the floor,
roared straight toward the wall. The heavy car shot across the last few
yards, struck--

And burst through a curtain of canvas into a field of dry stalks.

Brett steered the car in a wide curve to halt and look back. A blackened
panama hat floated down, settled among the stalks. Smoke poured up in a
dense cloud from behind the canvas wall. A fetid stench pervaded the
air.

"That finishes that, I guess," Brett said.

"I don't know. Look there."

Brett turned. Far across the dry field columns of smoke rose from the
ground.

"The whole thing's undermined," Brett said. "How far does it go?"

"No telling. But we'd better be off. Perhaps we can get beyond the edge
of it. Not that it matters. We're all that's left ..."

"You sound like the fat man," Brett said. "But why should we b