Then, before the cab began to move he saw her. Two blocks away. Coming toward him. Her face was impassive, but even at a distance, the eyes ... or was it his imagination? The focus gun ... in his pocket.... The cab drew away. He leaned out the window, twisting back, tried to aim at her. The shot, silent and lethal, sped away. The distance was too great. Then a new assault, but it was too late. He held it until the cab outdistanced it. She renewed the pressure and he could think again. And he knew, in the back of his mind, that soon now they would meet. And he shuddered, wondering of the outcome. * * * * * He was sick. Unbelievably, she had outguessed him. She had guessed he would flee away from the obvious to the other extreme. His breathing was hoarse and painful, and he thought comfortingly of his home planet; a small planet with a low sky; incredibly blue, a trading station far removed from Earth, satisfyingly deep in the Empire. As a boy he had often gone to the space port to watch the ships. He remembered how he had stood watching their silvery beauty and their naked violence. He had always been very excited by them. Always. And they were a symbol of Empire. After the cab driver had spoken to him several times he roused himself to say, "A hotel, any hotel." It was luck he knew, that he had been beyond effective range. She might have guessed the correct slum hotel and stood below his window. His mind was foggy and befuddled. And he had been hurt. Much more than mentally hurt. More than physically hurt. He wanted to hurt something in return. Only now he was too tired. He relaxed in the seat, listened to the hiss of tires. He would be able to sleep tonight. She could not figure out his next move, predicted on random selection. In his new hotel room he found that his body stung and itched. And she began to search for him. He had to fight her for more than an hour, and after that he slept, subconsciously keeping his shield on a delicate balance. CHAPTER VI The next day Parr went first to the post office and from there immediately to the warehouse. He brought with him three manila envelopes containing three city directories, the first responses to his requests. He took them to the roof, checked the three cities off his list, placed the directories at the base of the chute. Later the helicopter would come swishing down from the night sky, collect them, and return tomorrow evening with the compressed and labeled parcels, one to a family, stamped with the requisite postage. The parcels, spilling out of the compressor, would expand to a huge jumbled heap for the natives to handle. And Parr knew he was only one of many advancemen. The cargos would nightly spew to all points of the Earth from the Advanceship slowly circling the globe behind the sun.