ly like the--"
Murray Hughes began, then stopped short. Immediately, he began
talking about the rifle that was to be used as a surveying
transit, comparing it with the ones in the big first-floor room
at the Aitch-Cue House.

Locating the point where the shadow of the old Cathedral of
Learning had fallen proved easier than either Altamont or Loudons
had expected. The towering building was now a tumbled mass of
slagged rubble, but it was quite possible to determine its
original center, and with the old data from the excellent
reference library at Fort Ridgeway, its height above sea level
was known. After a little jockeying, the helicopter came to a
hovering stop, and the slanting barrel of the rifle in the vise
pointed downward along the line of the shadow that had been cast
on that afternoon in June, 1993.

The cross-hairs of the scope sight centered almost exactly on the
spot Altamont had estimated on the map.

Guiding himself by peering through the rifle-sight, Loudons
brought the helicopter slanting down to land on the sheet of
fused glass that had once been a grassy campus.

"Well, this is probably it," Altamont said. "We didn't have to
bother fussing around with that flag after all. That hump over
there looks as though it had been a small building, and there's
nothing corresponding to it on the city map. That may be the
bunker over the stair-head to the crypt."

They began unloading equipment--a small, portable
nuclear-electric conversion unit, a powerful solenoid-hammer,
crowbars and intrenching tools, tins of blasting plastic. They
took out the two hunting rifles and the auto-carbines, and
Altamont showed the young men of Murray Hughes' detail how to use
them.

"If you will pardon me, sir," the Tenant said to Altamont, "I
think it would be a good idea if your companion went up in the
flying machine and circled over us, to keep watch for the
Scowrers. There are quite a few of them, particularly farther up
the rivers, to the east, where the damage was not so great and
they can find cellars and shelters and buildings to live in."

"Good idea. That way, we won't have to put out guards," Altamont
said. "From the looks of this, we'll need every body to help dig
into that thing. Hand out one of the portable radios, Jim and go
up to about a thousand feet. If you see anything suspicious, give
us a yell, then spray it with bullets, and find out what it is
afterward."

They waited until the helicopter had clim