incredible confusion. Guns firing, flames,
men and women running on all sides. The napalm drums were unloaded
without his help and the truck vanished for more. Jason leaned against a
wall of a half-destroyed building and tried to get his bearings. It was
impossible. There seemed to be a great number of small animals: he
killed two that attacked him. Other than that he couldn't determine the
nature of the battle.

A Pyrran, tan face white with pain and exertion, stumbled up. His right
arm, wet with raw flesh and dripping blood, hung limply at his side. It
was covered with freshly applied surgical foam. He held his gun in his
left hand, a stump of control cable dangling from it. Jason thought the
man was looking for medical aid. He couldn't have been more wrong.

Clenching the gun in his teeth, the Pyrran clutched a barrel of napalm
with his good hand and hurled it over on its side. Then, with the gun
once more in his hand, he began to roll the drum along the ground with
his feet. It was slow, cumbersome work, but he was still in the fight.

Jason pushed through the hurrying crowd and bent over the drum. "Let me
do it," he said. "You can cover us both with your gun."

The man wiped the sweat from his eyes with the back of his arm and
blinked at Jason. He seemed to recognize him. When he smiled it was a
grimace of pain, empty of humor. "Do that. I can still shoot. Two half
men--maybe we equal one whole." Jason was laboring too hard to even
notice the insult.

* * * * *

An explosion had blasted a raw pit in the street ahead. Two people were
at the bottom, digging it even deeper with shovels. The whole thing
seemed meaningless. Just as Jason and the wounded man rolled up the drum
the diggers leaped out of the excavation and began shooting down into
its depths. One of them turned, a young girl, barely in her teens.

"Praise Perimeter!" she breathed. "They found the napalm. One of the new
horrors is breaking through towards Thirteen, we just found it." Even as
she talked she swiveled the drum around, kicked the easy-off plug, and
began dumping the gelid contents into the hole. When half of it had
gurgled down, she kicked the drum itself in. Her companion pulled a
flare from his belt, lit it, and threw it after the drum.

[Illustration]

"Back quick. They don't like heat," he said.

This was putting it very mildly. The napalm caught, tongues of flame and
roiling, greasy smoke climbed u