Burke cursed beneath his breath. He still couldn't, wouldn't, believe it. It left too many loopholes. After all, what about the business of the radiation traces he'd detected; the blighted circle that showed on the scanner screen? Why, for so many hundred years, had Cretans shunned the site of their ancient glory? Then, too there were his own personal experiences of the past few hours to think of. Pasiphae's monstrous imbecile son; the octopodal alien telepath--what roles did they play? Not to mention the great, shimmering, blue-white ship hidden deep within the earth. Certainly Pendlebury's theory offered little save the detail of the fire to commend it. The invasion part, the idea that outsiders had swept down on the palace with torch and sword--that simply wasn't true. Not unless he, Dion Burke, might be said to constitute a whole task force in himself, just because by accident he'd set the Labyrinth ablaze. As for his hopes, his dreams, the way he felt towards Ariadne-- A wave of sheer frustration came with the thought. Savagely, Burke hammered the dirt with a clenched fist. Then, breathing hard, he scrambled to his feet. Only in that same moment, a sound pulsed in upon him ... a high, thin, wailing sound that rose in sudden sharp crescendo. Burke spun round. But before he could even place the noise, the earth beneath his feet began to shake. A roar, louder and deeper than the bellow of a thousand angry bulls, thundered up to counterpoint the wail. Simultaneously, light flared, so blinding bright Burke had to throw up his arms to shield his eyes. The glare seemed to come from the southeast, off in the direction where Mount Lasithi's rocky pinnacles rose. Mount Lasithi, whose towering, cliff-girt bastions shielded the sacred Cave of Zeus.... While Burke cringed, the radiance seemed to fade a little. The earth-shaking roar diminished also. The shrill wail struck a slightly less ear-piercing note. Another moment, and Burke dared to squint skyward once more. What he saw made the hair stand up along the back of his neck. For off there, to the southeast, a great spray of light radiated out from Mount Lasithi. Before his very eyes, the whole crest seemed to split asunder. Rocky buttresses crumbled. Great crags and ledges split away. Up from among them rose a huge, flattened, metallic cone--the blue-white ship at which Burke had stared in awe brief hours before. * * * * * Light pulsed from it now, as if it were a miniature sun. Rock fell away from the craft in avalanches as it broke free of the mountain. Now the light drew into a single, broad, fan-shaped shaft that thrust down from the ship's base to the rugged terrain of the shattered mountain below. The thing began to climb, faster and faster. Then, as it gained altitude, it swung round in a tremendous, wheeling circle ... swung round, and then straightened, and lanced earthward once more, straight for the flaming tumult that was Knossos.