It was a sentence never finished. Suddenly, out of a gap in the roof of a ruined building below them, a blurred bulky mass vomited towards them. Spreading as it hurtled upward, it stretched into loose-patterned cordage.
Bukal went rigid. "A net-gun—!" He sideslipped the disc. It careened low over the hovels.
But green flame speared up in their path—a great, roaring gout of it, ten times the size of the blast that might come from any hand weapon.
Bukal jerked back. The disc spun crazily.
Then they were falling, men and disc alike, clinging precariously. Barely in time, the craft leveled off a fraction, then tilted once more to spill both Craig and Bukal to the ground, a jarring, ten-foot fall.
Guardsmen lunged up from cover, converging upon them.
Craig lurched to his feet, trying to shake the haze from his eyes.
But Bukal was ahead of him—shoving him bodily back into an alley. "Run for it, you fool! I'll hold them—"
Staggering, half-falling, Craig fled into the shadows.
The starship. That was the answer. If he could only reach the starship! This thing was beyond any one man's handling....