"What's going on here?" a rough voice said. It was the man in the ragged coat. Nedra and the man who had thrown the rope had disappeared. There was no indication where they had gone. This man's beard was thin and ragged. He had teeth like the fangs of a wolf but the lights in his eyes did not shift. Instead, they remained fixed in constant hostility and suspicion. He had a sub-machine gun in his hands. The muzzle covered Zen. "Oh, hello, Cal. I--" Jake became confused. "This is an old buddy of mine. I knew him down below ... I knew him when.... He's all right." Cal's eyes said he did not believe a word he had heard. He looked Zen up and down. The muzzle of the gun did not waver from the intelligence agent's stomach. "What are you doing up here?" "Maybe I got tired of the way things are down there," Zen answered. He was not lying. He _was_ tired of the way things were going. So were uncounted millions of others. Cal's eyes indicated he did not believe this. Zen could see him turning over different possibilities in his mind. He was inclined to use the gun. Dumping another body down the gorge would be an easy solution to the problem of an intruder. "How are things going down there?" he asked. "Tough," Zen said, with conviction in his voice. "What was the big boom over that way this morning?" "Cuso letting go with a blooper." Interest kindled in Cal's eyes. "What was over there that was worth the cost of a blooper?" "A column of troops heading for Cuso's lair," Zen answered. "He didn't like it." "I guess he wouldn't," Cal said. "You with 'em?" "I was." "Which way are they going now?" "Back down hill to die," Zen answered. "Why didn't you go with 'em?" "I got tired," Zen said. He waved his hands in a gesture which was intended to explain how a man sometimes got tired and went off to rest for a while. Cal grunted. This he understood. "Are you hot?" he asked. "Nope. The medics checked me just before I took off." "And are there others down there who feel like heading for the hills?" "Most of them are too damned near dead to make the effort. Why desert when you've had it?" "The blooper got a lot of 'em, eh?" "What the blast didn't get, the radioactivity did." "Is the pass too hot for more troops to go through it?" "My guess is that way." "Your guess? Don't you know?" "I didn't go up to see. I'm not that soft in the head." "I see your point. Well, things must be really rough if colonels are deserting. This is interesting." Cal fingered the gun but the muzzle no longer pointed at Zen's stomach. "What are you looking for up here?" "A place to hide out." "For how long?" "Hell, how long can this go on?" Zen answered. "Even when it's over, I don't want to go back down there and walk on skulls." "Walk on skulls?" "That's all that will be left." "You think the Asians are gonna win, then?"