For this was no half-barbaric Bronze Age chamber. Instead, it shimmered with the cold fire of a blue-white metal the like of which Burke had never seen before. Light pulsed from it--all of it, till he felt as if he were walking in some sort of tremendous lamp. And there ahead, at the far end of the room, was Pasiphae. Again, Burke sprinted. Laughing wildly, the woman stepped into a cubicle. Like magic, she vanished. For an instant Burke hesitated, then entered the box-like area himself. This time, the room through which he'd come vanished. Almost instantly, then, another chamber appeared--one so vast Burke couldn't be sure where it ended. A thing like a flattened cone stood in the chamber's center, looming like a miniature mountain. Or perhaps one not so miniature. It, too, was of the shimmering, blue-white metal. Not a sign of an opening marred its shining surface. And yet, Burke realized numbly, there must be ports of some sort. Because the thing was beyond all doubt a space-ship, a vessel designed for interplanetary--maybe even interstellar--travel. It came to Burke in that moment, with grim humor, that he'd found the answer to his questions; most of them, at any rate. The radiation; Knossos' downfall; the mind-thing that was the Minotaur, or vice versa--all such came clear now. This was an alien colony, set down on Crete. Which meant that anything which might befall the native population would, in the eyes of the invaders, be seen as no great issue. So, this was a good place to be away from; and the quicker, the better. Bleakly, he looked around for Pasiphae. She stood cowering a dozen yards away, eyes fixed blankly on the gigantic alien craft. Slowly, carefully, Burke approached her. The best idea he could think of was to take her hand; he'd read somewhere that leading was the best procedure in dealing with any mental case. Gently, he reached out. But when his fingers touched hers, it was as if an electric shock had leaped between them. Screaming as before, Pasiphae ran from him. From him, and straight towards the space-ship. In frantic haste, Burke started to follow. Only then, all at once, there was a blinding flash that centered on the woman. Tendrils of smoke curled up from a charred, crumbling husk. * * * * * Sick with horror, Burke stared for one brief moment. Then, at the double, he hurried back to the cubicle from which he'd stepped. Now he noted that a duplicate stood beside it. Which, he assumed, meant that this was a two-way transportation system, leading from the ship to Knossos. How far apart the two were, he couldn't even guess at. Miles, probably. The very fact that transportation was called for would indicate that. He stepped into the second cubicle; then, a moment later, out again in the room beneath the palace. It bothered him a little that he still hadn't seen any of the aliens. He liked the idea of knowing what he was fighting.