He swallowed a lump in his throat. He felt.... Why, damn it, he felt as if he were coming home after a long time.
Home?
He thought suddenly of his extra-human senses. Maybe this was home! Could it be that he was not of Earth at all? Not a mutant of whom his parents had been ashamed and who had deserted him at the Institute, as he had always believed?
Then Ileth was dropping the helicopter safely into a beautiful square ringed with vari-colored translucent buildings.
Nothing moved. Not the faintest echo of a sound reached Saxon's ears. He found himself holding his breath as the 'copter landed with a faint jar.
Saxon's scalp began to prickle warningly, and such a feel of alienism swept over him, exciting his extra-human sixth sense that he felt giddy.
The city wasn't deserted. It was densely populated.
All around him, everywhere, were aliens. He could sense their movements along the streets, inside the buildings. Hundreds of them.
He heard Ileth's strangely chastened voice. "It's so uncannily deserted. No one. Absolutely no one. What do you suppose happened to the—the things who built this city?"
Saxon had to clench his jaw to keep from shouting, "They're here! You fools, let's get away while we've still got a chance! They're all around us!"