Number One had not been in his headquarters, of course, when that thousand-pound bomb let go. He thought himself safe—but he wasn’t. Nadine the telepath knew exactly where he was and exactly what he was doing. Vesta the linguist poured the information along, via the flitter’s broadcaster, to the receivers of hundreds of ground-cars and copters far below. Thlaskin the Master Pilot kept the flitter close enough to the fleeing Number One so that Nadine could read him—fully, she thought—but far enough away to avoid detection. Thus, wherever he went, Number One was pursued relentlessly, and his merciless pursuers closed in faster and faster. Number One’s flight, however, was not aimless. He knew that a snooper was on him, and had enough power of mind to shield a few highly important thoughts. He wasn’t really THE Big Shot. He had called Yellow Castle, though, and they had told him that he could come in in one hour—the army would be ready. But did he have an hour, or not? He did; just barely. The saps were snapping at his heels when he switched to a jet job and took off in a screaming straight line for the Castle. Vesta wanted to ram him to drop a lifeboat on him, to wreck him in any way possible; but Thlaskin refused. Captain Cloud would be mad enough at what they’d done already—any such rough stuff as _that_ would be altogether too damn much! And, since the rebels’ jets were still on the ground, Number One had reached sanctuary unharmed. Yellow Castle, however, was not as impregnable as the gangsters had supposed. They had armor, true, but it was not at all like Cloud’s. They had weapons, true, but nothing even faintly resembling the frightful semi-portable projectors of the Galactic Patrol—nothing even remotely approaching the Patrol’s beam-fed needle beams. Thus the Tomingans, Tommie and Jim, stood in armor of proof scarcely an arm’s length from Yellow Castle’s heavy steel door and burned it down into a brooklet of molten metal. Then on in; blasting down everything that resisted and, finally, everything that moved. Nor did any gangster escape. Those who managed to avoid the armored pair were blasted by one of the other semis or speared by one of the needles. Yellow Castle, already furiously ablaze, was left to burn. Jim, after giving instructions as to how his lieutenants were to dispose of such small fry as might be left alive in the city proper, helped his sister load the Blaster’s weapons and armor into a ground-car. They drove out into the middle of a great open field. The flitter landed; Cloud’s borrowed equipment was hauled aboard. Tommie and Jim followed it. “If you were really smart, I think you’d flit right now,” Vesta said to Tommie. “Captain Cloud isn’t going to like this a little bit.” “I know it. I’m not smart. This was worth anything he cares to do about it. Besides, I want to thank him myself and tell him good-bye in person.”