It was reckless, but recklessness was necessary in the sort of thing Calhoun had started. He and Murgatroyd ventured out into the streets. The emptiness of the city was appalling. If it had been dilapidated, if it had been partly ruined--the emptiness might have seemed somehow romantic. But every building was perfect. Each was complete but desolately unused. Calhoun spotted a ground-car at a distance, stopped before a long, low, ground-hugging structure near the landing grid. It was perfectly suited to be the headquarters of the strangers in the city. Calhoun considered it for a long time, peering at it from a doorway. "We shouldn't try it," he said at last. "But we probably will. If we can make these characters so panic-stricken that they run out of the city like the earlier refugees--it would be a highly favorable happening. They might do it if their bosses were knocked out by what they thought was the plague. And besides, we should get a meal out of it. There'll be food in there." He backtracked a long way. He darted across a road with Murgatroyd scampering beside him. He stalked the building, approaching it behind bushes, carrying the paint gun. He reached its wall. He began to crawl around the outside to reach the doorway. He heard voices as he passed the first windows. "_But I tell you we're immune!_" cried a voice furiously. "_It can't be the same thing those Dettrans died from! It can't! And there was that man who ran from the ship last night--_" Calhoun crawled on. Murgatroyd skipped. Calhoun heard an exclamation behind him. He turned his head, and Murgatroyd was fifteen feet away from the building-wall, and plainly visible to those inside. And he'd been seen fleeing with Calhoun from the ship. Calhoun swore softly. He ran. He reached the door before which a ground-car stood. He wrenched it open and set the paint gun at work firing a steady stream of vortex rings into the interior. He drew his blaster and faced the outside world. There was a crashing of glass. Somebody had plunged out a window. There were rushing feet inside. They'd be racing toward this doorway from within. But the hallway--anteroom--foyer--whatever was immediately inside the door would be filled with dextrethyl vapor. Men would gasp and fall. A man did fall. Calhoun heard the crash of his body to the floor. But also a man came plunging around the building's corner, blaster out, searching for Calhoun. But he had to sight his target and then aim for it. Calhoun had only to pull trigger. He did. Shoutings inside the building. More rushing feet. More falls. Then there was the beginning of the rasping snarl of a blaster, and then a cushioned, booming, roaring detonation which was the explosive dextrethyl vapor, ignited by it. The blast lifted the building's roof. It shattered partitions. It blew every window out.