As he thought, he rode, and as he rode a wide path opened before him. Others turned their mounts to follow, and the corridors of the domed city rang with the hoofbeats of a host salvation-bent. There was but one chance--to reach the turret and destroy Harg before he could pull that lever. Larry was aware that behind him, beside him now, was Sandra. Her thoughts, incoherent, pleading, woman-like, reached him. "No, Larry! Don't try to storm the turret. We'll take our chances with the Time machine. Try to go back to our own time through _it_--" "And leave a dead world behind us?" That was his answer. It was enough. Harg's vainglorious farewell broadcast still went on. "--Such a little time to live! Breathe deeply of the air, O invaders from another time. Taste its sweetness with longing, for all too soon the Dome will fall, letting in the blasting radiation of the dying universe. Then you, too, with it, will perish--" Then suddenly his voice altered subtlely. "But what is this? You approach? You would storm the turret, save your petty skins?" For already the first of the attacking party was drawing into the final corridor, preparing to break into the great room that housed the control turret. "_Stop!_" The command came, clear and incisive. Larry knew it was too late to win now. Harg knew of their coming; a touch of his hand would destroy them all. He raised his arm, halted the pell-mell advance of his diverse army with a gesture. "Let us hear what he has to say!" he ordered. Harg's bargain reached him clearly. From where he sat, on the very lip of the tunnel that disgorged into the turret room, Larry could see the control chamber, could even glimpse the figure of the tiny scientist standing with one hand poised on a small red lever. "Larry Wilson, warrior from a savage age, I speak to you, for it is you who led this revolt against my world. I offer you peace or death. It is yours to decide." Larry's lips were white lines, grim and tight. "Speak on!" "First, I demand that the warriors you brought out of the past be returned to their own times." "Go on!" "Next, I demand that the Underlings lay down their arms and once more acknowledge fealty to the Masters." Here a roar of rumbling dissent rose from the ranks of those Underlings who had joined the rescue party. Larry silenced them. "Anything else?" "And finally," Harg's command bore a snarling vindictiveness, "I require that the woman, Sandra Day, step forward to this turret as hostage until all these other things be accomplished!" Sandra whisked the thought-revealing _menaudo_ from her head, whispered pleadingly, "Yes, Larry! Say yes! It is the only way to save us all. We'll find another time--" Larry trembled in an agony of indecision. There was truth in Sandra's words. Harg held them all at the edge of a sword now. Later, perhaps--But could he trust the little man's bargain? Might it not be another falsehood? * * * * *