ankness of his brain. The dark arch of the entrance-way was somehow
familiar. Still legible under the verdigris of the bronze plate on the
lintel he read, "Transportation Substation--District L2ZX." Now he
understood why he had not seen the black flier till it had leaped in
pursuit: how it was that Naomi's captors had so quickly found another
'copter. A broad well penetrated the center of this building--its
opening must be covered by the luxuriant vines so that he had not
noted it--and dropped down to the midsection that was a hangar for
local and private planes. His own little Zenith had been stored here
on occasion. There must be other helicopters there, and a stock of
fuel. A dim plan began to form at the back of his head.

But first he must find where they were, and what had happened to
Naomi.

Allan removed his sandals, and began the endless climb. He made no
sound on the steps, cushioned as they were with mold, but at each
landing he paused for a moment, listening. The cold fire that burned
within him left no room for fatigue, for pain.

A murmuring, then a laugh, cut through the deathlike stillness. Allan
was nearly to the top. Down the corridor into which he crept,
snakelike on his belly, red light flickered from an open door.

* * * * *

Dane moved soundlessly to that door, and, lying flat, pushed his head
slowly past the sash till he could see within. By the light of a fire
that danced in the center of the unburnable mallite floor, its
illumination half revealing their sodden, brutish faces, he saw an
unspeakably strange group. A scene from out of the dawn of history it
was, the haunch-squatted circle, their yellow skins and black
glistening in the crimson, shifting glow. He recognized the giant
Negro, Ra-Jamba, his head bound with a rag, and Jung Sin. There were
five others clustered about those two, and a third, a skew-eyed
Oriental, intent on some game they were playing with little sticks
that passed from hand to hand.

Before each of the players there was a little pile of fish bones,
black with much handling. The Negro's pile, and that of Jung Sin, were
about equal, but there were only two or three in front of the third
player. And just as Allan caught sight of them, the sticks clicked,
and a shrill objurgation burst from that third as the last of his
markers were raked in by Jung Sin's taloned hand. The circle hunched
closer, there was a ribald, taunting laugh from Ra