And then he was gone and Stan knew that the man he was holding was nothing more than dead clay. He crouched there, his face wet, and the bits and tiny pieces of personality that had once been Stanley Martin coalesced and recombined into the individual they had been eight years before. He stood up, the tears streaming down his face, and looked down at his brother Larry. A flood of memories were surging back. The games they had played, the arguments they had had, the way they had stuck up for each other.... And he could remember that morning when he had been slugged and the Thuscans had picked him up. Mr. Malcolm and Mr. Ainsworth and Tanner and the knives and the machines that had broken his spirit. Somebody tapped him on the shoulder. A policeman had his notebook out and was looking at him curiously. "You knew this man?" "Once," Stan said slowly. "A long, long time ago." He turned and walked up the street. "Hey, you can't go! We need your help for questioning!" He had more important business, Stan thought. With Mr. Ainsworth and Mr. Malcolm. And his fellow renegade, Tanner. * * * * * Avis was waiting for him in the alley, standing in the shadows by the circle of whirling black. Her face wasn't the collection of hard planes and angles it usually was and he realized dimly there was a beauty about her he had never appreciated before. A beauty and a certain sympathy.... He stood helplessly and looked at her. There was nothing he could say. There was nothing _to_ say. He had betrayed his world and she knew it. "It's not too late," she said quietly. He shook his head. "It's all over but the gloating." He felt himself start to shake. "_My God, I've condemned a world to death!_" "You can stop it." "There's no time!" "There's four days." Four days, he thought wildly. Four days in which to recover fifty fusion packages hidden in cities that circled the globe. Four days in which he had to baffle his own agents ... and Tanner. "I'm only one man, Avis. I could try--but I wouldn't make it!" "If you want help," she said, "all you have to do is ask." She still had her own organization, Stan thought. It wasn't as large as his own but its members were willing to die for a cause and they were brave and courageous. They didn't have the advantage of the transport-hoops, but then they were already spread out around the globe. It would be easy for Avis to communicate with them. All he had to do was to give her the locations. And then, between himself and her agents.... It might be possible at that. "All right," he said grimly. "Let's try it." He checked his heat gun and the two of them stepped through the shimmering haze....