A second later they were standing on the high ledge among the deserted couches. Below them, the city, seen here from its highest tower, was presenting a heart stopping new facet of its beauty. Every one of the crystalline shafts were gleaming with blue-white flame along its entire length; though no single one was too bright to be looked at directly, their total effect was of a sea of light almost as brilliant as high noon. Tiny motes drifted back and forth across the pillars of radiance: Varans in flight, evidently going to their posts in answer to the alarm. * * * * * But when Andreson looked up to see what had happened to the sun, what he saw wiped the miracle of the city from his mind. The sky had turned to rock. The whole metropolis was trapped in a tremendous hemisphere of some strange substance, a stony bowl, smooth and polished, and veined with dark red lines like bad marble. Here and there the glow of the city struck sullen fire against the lava-like surface. When Atel finally spoke, his voice had none of its previous arrogance. "They have us now," he husked. "Our sky is granite to them--and they've destroyed cubic miles of it, instantaneously! Our power, our air ... cut off!" "They've worked a miracle," the girl said with unwilling respect. "The beasts are scientists--we knew that in the beginning. Don't you see, Atel? They'll use that dome to get above the city! And their borers, too--" Indecisively Atel spread his wings half-way. "We can't carry this Earthman about the city now," he said. "Jina, go to your post. I'll take him back to my rooms." "But--" Andreson and the girl protested simultaneously. "Need I remind you that I command this sector during emergencies, by Council order?" the Varan snapped. "He'll be no safer with us than alone in the apartments. Take him down again." Mutely Jina took the human's arm, and the two picked him up again--he was becoming a little tired of being catapulted through the air once every hour--and plunged back to the catwalk door. "All right," the Varan told the girl, his voice edged with impatience. "You're needed elsewhere, Jina." She disappeared silently into the cavern of Starstone Chamber. Atel slid the door back and cocked his head, a grotesque silhouette against the faintly hazed oval opening. After a moment, Andreson heard the sound too: a weird, intermittent buzzing noise. It set his teeth on edge, and sent little waves of sheer hatred coursing through his body. The stocky Varan drew him out onto the platform and pointed upward. "Borers," he grunted. "You can see one from here."