inside. It glided silently shut and left no joint or seam to show where there had been an opening.

"Out," said Naomi.

As they left the car, a flexible metal arm snaked from one of the smooth walls, attached itself to the front bumper of the vehicle, and whisked it into a cubicle which opened to receive it and closed behind it.

A power-driven wheelchair sped up to them. Sitting in it was a fat man of middle age, with pendulous jowls and a totally bald head. His expression was a sardonic scowl.

"You have the plans?" he asked the girl.

"Sweetheart here has them."

"I don't know what you're talking about," the young man said.

"He knows, all right," the girl said. "He pretends to be innocent, but that is merely his training. He has them under a sticking plaster on the small of his back."

"Remove your coat and shirt," commanded the man in the wheelchair.

At that moment the floor shuddered under their feet, a gong began to clang insistently, and the giant machinery, which had been silent, throbbed into life.

The man in the wheelchair whirled and was off, shouting commands to men who materialized high on the walls in cylindrical turrets which the visitor could only think of as battle stations.

"What is this place?" he asked.

He got no answer. Instead the girl grabbed his arm and pulled him off to the edge of the gigantic metal room. An opening appeared in the wall and she pushed him through it into a room beyond. The entranceway snapped shut behind them and when he looked he could see no door. The room also was windowless.

Naomi went to a metal table and as she looked down into its surface it became a screen. Mirrored in it was the mountainous countryside they had driven through to get to the barn—or what had seemed to be a barn from the outside. He looked over her shoulder.

They saw as from a height. There was the light car that had chased them from the frontier. Standing near it was a man in an officer's uniform and another in civilian clothes. They were talking and gesturing. Beside the car was a tank. As they watched, its gun fired and the structure they were in shuddered, but they heard no sound.

Lumbering up the mountain road were more tanks and a self-propelled gun. One of the tanks became enveloped in smoke and flames as they watched. After a moment the smoke cleared. The tank was gone; where it had been there was a deep crater.

Gradually, the figures in the drama below grew smaller. At the same time the vista widened, so that they saw more and more countryside. It twisted beneath them and the horizon came giddily into view. A few moments later the curvature of the earth could be plainly seen.

Everything fitted together at once. Some of the things, anyway.

"We're in a ship," he said. "Some kind of rocket-ship."

"It's a planet plane," the girl said. "We're safe now."

"Safe from what?" he asked. "What's this all about?"

She smiled enigmatically. "Hafitz could tell you, if he chose. He's the boss."

"The man in the wheelchair?"

She nodded and took out a compact. As she added lipstick to her mouth, she looked him over, between glances in her mirror.

"You don't look like the spy type. If there is a type."

"I'm not a spy. I don't know what you're talking about."

"The innocent! Go on, take off your coat and shirt. We'll save Hafitz some time."

"I'll be glad to, just to prove this is all ridiculous. A case of mistaken identity. You've made a mistake, that's what you've done."

He stood there, hesitating.

The girl gave a burst of laughter. Then she said: "All right, Sweetheart. I'll turn my back."

She did, and he pulled his shirt out of his trousers. Then he froze. Taped to the skin of his back was a flat package.

Paul Asher made the decision. He bent forward, feeling perspiration in the palms of his hands. There was a faint click.

Quickly he ripped