blows of his terrifying
hands. Thereafter he was undisputedly in the lead; the others content
to follow in his rear, although many were armed, and the giant was
not.

* * * * *

This was an advantage to Sira. The whole mob was slowed by the
lumbering pace of the ape-man, and she was able to keep in the lead
without difficulty. Several times some of her pursuers ran ahead by
other routes, intent on snatching her into some doorway. But each time
she slashed at them with her sword, springing past.

She had not run very far when her fear of another danger was realized.
There was a high, keen whistle overhead, and a scouting police car
flashed near. Under the neuro-pistols both hounds and hare would be
paralyzed, and she would be easily taken. Sira longed for one of these
handy weapons herself, but they were too expensive: she had been
unable to secure one.

Now the police car was coming back. The sliding forward door was
drawn back, and a man was leaning out, neuro alert. Judging the
distance expertly, he pulled the trigger, and a hundred men fell
unconscious.

"Got 'em!" he snapped over his shoulder. "The princess as well. Down
quick!"

Sira, spared because of the officer's unwillingness to take a chance
on injuring her, leaped through a gap in a wall and sprinted through a
garden smothered with thick, leathery-leaved weeds, some of them
higher than her head. She almost laughed with relief, but as she
flitted around the corner of a house toward the street she saw the
gorilla faced giant again in pursuit, and beyond the garden wall the
police ship was just settling to the ground.

It just seemed to be raining giants that day. Sira ran out of a narrow
gate at the front of the house into the street, to be stopped by a
tremendous human framework as solid and unyielding as a mountain. She
stepped back, drew her sword--

"Softly! Softly!" a rumbling bass implored. "Doesn't the Princess Sira
recognize her servant, Tolto?"

"Tolto!" All at once the tautness went out of her, and Sira leaned
against the wall, divided between laughing and crying.

"Tolto and his good friends were looking for you," the big man rumbled
anxiously. "The teletabloids said there was a riot coming--"

* * * * *

He got no further. The gorilla-faced pursuer catapulted himself
sideways through the portal, being too wide to go through in the
regular way. He emitted a raucous shout