He remembered the gun in his hand and swung it up.
"Let your weapon drop," Havlik said. "You set the autopilot at my direction. This is our evacuation point."
The gun slid from Manson's fingers. He tried to retrieve it from the floor and cried out, startled, when his body refused to obey.
The alien removed his manacles. "You will be free again as soon as we lift."
"Lies," Manson grated. He fought to break the stasis that held him, veins knotting in his forehead with the effort. "I might have known!"
The gyro landed gently, a hundred yards from the cylinder.
Figures swarmed about the great ship, pouring up a wide ramp in orderly embarkation. The girl Manson had seen at the villa came running toward the gyro, copper hair blowing in the night-wind.
"You were almost late," she called to Havlik. "We're ready to—" She caught sight of the Earthman and broke off.
In the dark depth of her eyes Manson saw understanding and a great pity, and for the first time it came to him that Havlik had not lied. Aliens they might be, but not destroyers—in this girl burned the same ideals, the same transcendent zeal that drove him. She was as human, basically, as he.