ends and you have no way to stop it. I just might have an idea that
could work, and you can't afford to take any chances--not if you are
really sincere. Either you are a murderer, killing Disans for
pleasure, or you honestly want to stop the war. Which is it?"

"You'll have your body all right," Hys grated, hurling the car
viciously around a spire of rock. "Not that it will accomplish
anything--but I can find no fault with killing another magter. We
can fit your operation into our plans without any trouble. This is
the last night and I have sent every one of my teams out on raids.
We're breaking into as many magter towers as possible before dawn.
There is a slim chance that we might uncover something. It's really
just shooting in the dark, but it's all we can do now. My own team
is waiting and you can ride along with us. The others left earlier.
We're going to hit a small tower on this side of the city. We raided
it once before and captured a lot of small arms they had stored
there. There is a good chance that they may have been stupid enough
to store something there again. Sometimes the magter seem to suffer
from a complete lack of imagination."

"You have no idea just how right you are," Brion told him.

The sand car slowed down now, as they approached a slab-sided mesa
that rose vertically from the desert. They crunched across broken
rocks, leaving no tracks. A light blinked on the dashboard, and Hys
stopped instantly and killed the engine. They climbed out,
stretching and shivering in the cold desert night.

It was dark walking in the shadow of the cliff and they had to feel
their way along a path through the tumbled boulders. A sudden blaze
of light made Brion wince and shield his eyes. Near him, on the
ground, was the humming shape of a cancellation projector, sending
out a fan-shaped curtain of vibration that absorbed all the light
rays falling upon it. This incredible blackness made a lightproof
wall for the recessed hollow at the foot of the cliff. In this
shelter, under the overhang of rock, were three open sand cars. They
were large and armor-plated, warlike in their scarred grey paint.
Men sprawled, talked, and polished their weapons. Everything stopped
when Hys and Brion appeared.

"Load up," Hys called out. "We're going to attack now, same plan I
outlined earlier. Get Telt over here." In talking to his own men
some of the harshness was gone from his voice. The tall soldiers of
Nyjord moved in ready