over his head; the Reds were doing what the Apaches had known they
would--calling in the controlled Mongols to fight. The attack on the
ship must be stepped up, or the Amerindians would be forced to retreat.

Already a new lacing of holes appeared under their concentrated efforts.
With the gun held tight to his middle, Travis found his feet, zigzagged
across the bare ground for the nearest of those openings. Another arrow
clanged harmlessly against the fabric of the ship a foot from his goal.

He made it in, over jagged metal shards which glowed faintly and reeked
of ozone. The weapons' beams had penetrated well past both the outer
shell and the wall of insulation webbing. He climbed a second and
smaller break into a corridor enough like those of the western ship to
be familiar. The Red spacer, based on the general plan of the alien
derelict ship as his own had been, could not be very different.

Travis tried to subdue his heavy breathing and listen. He heard a
confused shouting and the burr of what might be an alarm system. The
ship's brain was the control cabin. Even if the Reds dared not try to
lift now, that was the core of their communication lines. He started
along the corridor, trying to figure out its orientation in relation to
that all-important nerve center.

The Apache shoved open each door he passed with one shoulder, and twice
he played a light beam on installations within cabins. He had no idea of
their use, but the wholesale destruction of each and every machine was
what good sense and logic dictated.

There was a sound behind. Travis whirled, saw Jil-Lee and beyond him
Buck.

"Up?" Jil-Lee asked.

"And down," Buck added. "The Tatars say they have hollowed a bunker
beneath."

"Separate and do as much damage as you can," Travis suggested.

"Agreed!"

Travis sped on. He passed another door and then backtracked hurriedly as
he realized it had given on to an engine room. With the gun he blasted
two long lines cutting the fittings into ragged lumps. Abruptly the
lights went out; the burr of the alarms was silenced. Part of the ship,
if not all, was dead. And now it might come to hunter and hunted in the
dark. But that was an advantage as far as the Apaches were concerned.

Back in the corridor again, Travis crept through a curiously lifeless
atmosphere. The shouting was stilled as if the sudden failure of the
machines had stunned the Reds.

A tiny sound--perhaps the scrape of a boot on a ladder.