And he shook his head bewilderedly at the heterogeneous architectural display sprawling about them. Khundru was a city of contradictions: the dwelling place of a people who believed themselves capable of attainments greater than they possessed. * * * * * Here both sides of a thoroughfare so exquisitely inlaid and tessellated that it might have graced the entrance to a potentate's _seraglio_, would be lined with dingy, malodorous dwellings earthborn dogs might have scorned to sleep in. Turn a corner and the eyes widened to behold great gilded temples towering skyward in a setback architecture dwarfing the most hopeful achievements of any solar race. The sky above the city was athrong with space and air vessels ... huge, thundering rockets and gossamer-winged glidercraft of scintillant beauty ... but the streets below rumbled with the wooden wheels of such cumbersome vehicles as that which they themselves hauled painfully along. The sights, the smells, the street sounds of the city were comparable to those of an oriental bazaar in, thought Lane, Earth's woefully anachronistic Twentieth Century; that period when only a portion of humanity's masses had known the delights of civilized existence. Even without the benefit of the training to which they had been exposed they could have picked their way almost unerringly to the city's center. Khundru was built like a huge wheel about the central hub which was its Palace Royal. The streets through which they threaded their way was a spoke of this wheel. In the Palace Royal, they knew, could be found not only the governing but also the dwelling chambers of the highly elect _Kraedaru_, the ruling gentry of Magog. There also was to be found the vital control center of this sprawling octopus whose tentacles they must paralyze so the Gogean army could burst into the city. But if they had hoped to attain so far without challenge, they were bitterly disappointed. For they had penetrated scarcely a third of the way when a sudden clamor aroused them from their furtive study of the city. Voices cried out, whether in surprise, alarm or joy was hard to tell, and the milling throng which but a moment ago had rubbed shoulders with them too closely for comfort began to clear from the thoroughfare and huddle fearfully against the walls of the street. Gary glanced at Dr. Kang, his eyebrows asking the question his lips barely muttered. "What now?" Kang answered softly, "I do not know. But there is a saying of your people, 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do.' Quickly, move the cart to the curbing, and let us take our places with the others." But before the awkward tumbrel could be dragged from the right of way, with a flurry of brazen hoofs and a raucous clamor of trumpets there galloped around the corner and squarely down upon them a small troop of mounted lancers. * * * * *