"These invaders, Murgatroyd," he observed, "must be in a bad way. A newly-built city which was never occupied will be like an empty house. There's no amusement or loot to be found in prowling it. They were sent to take over the planet, and they've done it. But they've nothing to do now, except hunt refugees--until their colonists arrive. I suspect they're bored. We'll try to fix that!" He set the ground-car in motion. Toward the city. It was a full twenty miles, but he did not encounter a single other vehicle. Presently the city lay spread out before him. He stopped and surveyed the vast pile. It was a very beautiful city. Fifty generations of architects on many worlds had played with stone and steel, groping for the perfect combination of materials with design. This city was a product of their tradition. There were towers which glittered whitely, and low buildings which seemed to nestle on the vegetation-covered ground. There were soaring bridges, and gracefully curving highways, and park areas laid out and ready. There was no monotony anywhere. The only exception to gracefulness was the sturdy landing grid itself, half a mile high and a mile across, which was a lace-work of massive steel girders with spider-thin lines of copper woven about in the complex curves the creation of its force-field required. Inside it, Calhoun could see the ship of the invaders. It had been brought down inside the circular structure and was dwarfed by it. It gleamed there. "And we," said Calhoun, "are going to look for a prosaic, probably messy laboratory which people who make a sport of hunting fellow-humans won't find amusing. Characters like these, Murgatroyd, aren't interested in medical science. They consider themselves conquerors. People have strange ideas!" "_Chee!_" said Murgatroyd. Calhoun spread out his photographs. Kim Walpole had marked where he should go and a route to it. Having been in the city while it was building, he knew even the service-lanes which, being sunken, were not a part of the city's good looks. "But our enemies," explained Calhoun, "will not deign to use such grubby routes. They consider themselves aristocrats because they were sent as conquerors, whose job it was to clean up the dead bodies of their victims. I wonder what kind of swine are in power in the planetary government which sent them?" * * * * * He put away the photos and headed for the city again. He branched off from the rural highway where a turn-off descended into a cut. This low-level road was intended for loads of agricultural produce entering the city. It was strictly utilitarian. It ran below the surface of the park areas and entered the city without pride. It wound between rows of service-gates, behind which waste matter was some day to be assembled to be carted away for fertilizer on the fields. The city was very well designed.