Wincing with pain at each movement of his wounded arm, bracing himself with feet on one wall, back against the other, he worked his way slowly up the shaft.
The roller again. Guards below him now.
Craig held his breath.
But they passed on without an upward glance. Painfully, he worked his way still higher, till the emerald wedge widened into a shining vista.
Then—of a sudden, it seemed—he was out on a flat, sagging roof, drinking in air in great, greedy gulps.
In the same instant, a shout hammered at him. He whirled.
A guard was running towards him across one of the nearby roofs. While he watched, another appeared, then another.
Ring-like, they surrounded him, hemming him in with a circle of death.
And him with no weapon but the rooftop rubble.
Savagely, he cursed aloud—Zenaor, and Lysor, and the Federation, and his job, and duty, and the girl called Narla; baron and Baemae, Earth-worlds and aliens.