Down out of the clear sky came the Terran Patrol in battle formation. With the precision that spoke volumes, the space pattern flowed from the closed cylinder to a lenticular disk and the massed ships of the task force sped across the city at fifty thousand feet. "They've come for you!" "No," swore Guy. "They'll not get you!" "We'd best give him," argued the other. "They'll fire!" "They're firing." "No, they're not," said Guy. "That's signaling." "Either signaling or poor marksmanship," said the captor. "Nothing's hit." "Terra doesn't miss," said Guy. From the ringed emplacements, the vortex projectors vomited their toroids. Upward went the pattern of vortexes, and the Patrol broke formation in an effort to elude the whirling toroids. "Did you?" asked Charalas, coming up behind. "Send for them? No." "Your story is true?" "I swear it!" "Then what of them?" The pattern of toroidal vortices went up and up, and caught Terran ships, passed on, and left the Terran ships to fall inert. Pressor beams cradled the falling ships and lowered them to ground. The rest of the Terran Patrol drove inward on a slant, with the turreted AutoMacs blazing purple at the snouts and the invisible beams cutting flaring furrows across the city. Another toroid went up before them, and pilots fought their controls to divert the ships. The slow-moving vortex hovered, and the high-velocity ships arrowed through the vortex in spite of the pilots. More pressor beams caught the inert ships. Torpedoes started to burst in the city, and with each explosion a building leaped skyward in a mass of flame and dropped in ruin. The sky crisscrossed with flaring beams, and the vortex projectors spewed forth again and again, filling the air with death. The Patrol drove high, hovered. They fenced with MacMillans on automatic, and then fled precipitately as a super-sized toroid formed and raced upwards. "Beat 'em off." Guy nodded. Then he turned and slugged his nearest captor. He took the man's MacMillan and faced the rest. "I'm leaving," he snarled. He backed carefully away, keeping his back against the building. A movement caught his eye, and Guy's quick hand dropped an Ertinian from a high window. With the diversion, the other policeman reached for his MacMillan, and Guy blasted the hand as it grabbed, and then drilled the man behind him for trying to reach forward for it. "I'm not fooling," snarled Guy. "And I'll take hostage. Charalas, come along!" "Me?" asked the aged man, stalling for time. "You--and jump!" yelled Guy, sniping a swift shot at his feet. Guy reached the parked police flier, pushed Charalas in, and then took off on a screaming zoom upwards.