The only sound in the passage was that of West breathing heavily, like a man who had run a marathon and had lost. No, there were two men! Additional shock came up in Kurt Zen when he realized he was the second man. He seized the craggy man by the shoulder. "West! They can't have that super radar. If we lose that, we have lost the war." The craggy man did not move. Anguish grew in Zen's voice. "If we lose this one, it will be the first war we have ever lost. And the last one. Nothing will remain to come after us except death and desolation." "I know," West said. "The race soul will have to start over, in the swamps and on the mud flats, trying to rebuild the race with tools long since worn out and out of place in time." Again the tones of a bell were in his voice. But now the bell was tolling the death of a people, wailing that the glory that once had been was truly gone, wailing that the brave world that some men had tried to build was going into ashes and into doom. "Do you believe in the race soul too?" West gasped. "_Belief_ is too weak a word. I _know_ it exists." Nedra sighed in West's arms and opened her eyes. Seeing who was holding her, she lay back in the arms of the craggy man, more than ever like a tired child. "What was it?" she whispered. "What's wrong? I--I took a little nap." West set her on her feet and pointed at the opening. She clutched at the stone wall as she saw what was happening inside. Running, the bronze girl who had danced to the slow music the night before, came fleeing from a room. One of Cuso's soldiers was pursuing her. She fled like a deer before some great hound that was interested in pulling her down but she did not flee fast enough. The soldier caught her and dragged her back into a room. "West, how many of these kids did you have here?" Zen asked. "About fifty," the craggy man answered. "I don't know how many are left nor can I guess how many will choose to stay alive if they are conquered before their training is completed." "And no weapons?" "None." "What about my gun that was taken from me while I slept?" "What good would one gun do now?" "None, I guess," Zen said, helplessly. "But as they try to run me down, I'd like to have it in my hands. I'd at least take a few of them with me before they got me." "We will survive," West said, his voice a mumble. Zen pointed through the opening to the bodies lying on the floor below them. "They didn't," he said. The craggy man groaned. "If I had time I would try to explain to you that survival does not lie in the body and can never be achieved there."