en rubble had been churned into
desolation. It was still smoking, pink tongues of flame licking over
the ruins. A fragment of wall fell with a rumbling crash.

"It's your building--the Foundation building!" Telt shouted.
"They've been here ahead of us--must have used the radio to call
a raid. They did a job, explosive of some kind."

Hope was dead. Dis was dead. In the ruin ahead, mixed and broken
with other rubble, were the bodies of all the people who had trusted
him. Lea ... beautiful and cruelly dead Lea. Doctor Stine, his
patients, Faussel, all of them. He had kept them on this planet,
and now they were dead. Every one of them. Dead.

Murderer!

XIV

Life was ended. Brion's mind contained nothing but despair and the
pain of irretrievable loss. If his brain had been completely the
master of his body he would have died there, for at that moment
there was no will to live. Unaware of this, his heart continued to
beat and the regular motion of his lungs drew in the dreadful
sweetness of the smoke-tainted air. With automatic directness
his body lived on.

"What you gonna do?" Telt asked, even his natural exuberation
stilled by this. Brion only shook his head as the words penetrated.
What could he do? What could possibly be done?

"Follow me," a voice said in guttural Disan through the opening of
a rear window. The speaker was lost in the crowd before they could
turn. Aware now, Brion saw a native move away from the edge of the
crowd and turn to look in their direction. It was Ulv.

"Turn the car--that way!" He punched Telt's arm and pointed. "Do it
slowly and don't draw any attention to us." For a moment there was
hope, which he kept himself from considering. The building was gone,
and the people in it all dead. That fact had to be faced.

"What's going on?" Telt asked. "Who was that talked in the window?"

"A native--that one up ahead. He saved my life in the desert, and
I think he is on our side. Even though he's a native Disan, he can
understand facts that the magter can't. He knows what will happen
to this planet." Brion was talking to fill his brain with words so
he wouldn't begin to have hope. There was no hope possible.

Ulv moved slowly and naturally through the streets, never looking
back. They followed, as far behind as they dared, yet still keeping
him in sight. Fewer people were about here among the deserted
offworld storehouses. Ulv vanished into one of these; LIGHT METALS
TRUST LTD.,