He drew the atomic knife from its holster beneath his burnoose, pressed the stud. A long blade of coruscating atomic energy shot from the handle.
The blade went into the wall as if the tough plastic had been butter. With infinite caution, Vickers cut a four foot window into the next building, lifted out the block.
"Don't fumble your part," he said over his shoulder. "We may be in a hurry when we come back this way."
Without waiting for a reply, he stepped through, fitted the block back into place.
His last glimpse of Tani revealed her crouched in the transparent plastic air taxi, her eyes round and frightened as two new moons.
Vickers didn't hurry. Hope for success lay in two factors: audacity and his peculiar vision which allowed him to see what his opponents were doing and so keep a number of jumps ahead.
The Arabs were a mixture of the old and the new. Scientifically, they were on a par with any of the seven great nations, but they clung with superstitious fanaticism to the old customs, the old way of life.
The harem was still inviolate, and Vickers knew there would be a guard outside its door.