Behind them they saw the force-field capsules of six enemy guards floating above the trees. Strong tracer lights danced over the upper branches, but the foliage was too dense for the light to penetrate to the ground. In their glowing bubbles the enemy police swung back and forth, trying to find a clearing in the brush. Two of them attempted to force their way into the trees but their body capsules were too bulky; the force-field generated by the individual envelopes was not powerful enough to push through the gnarled branches. The three fugitives inched steadily forward. The glow of tracer lights faded behind them. They could hear the wind above the trees and, far away, the sound of surf breaking on the rocks. Juan Pendillo was shivering in the cold. His teeth began to chatter. Hastily his sons pressed his body between theirs, shielding him from the cold and sharing their body energy until his trembling finally stopped. They heard a snapping sound in the brush. An enemy guard appeared suddenly. He had dissolved his force-field and he was walking warily on the wet earth. He held an energy gun cradled in his arms. The enemy walked with cat-like caution--but, in spite of himself, it was the amateur caution of a man who relied on the protective devices of a machine. Slowly Lanny's lips twisted in a sneer. This was the enemy, heavily armed and invulnerable--but helpless without his mechanical gadgets. Lanny's hand moved soundlessly over the ground. He grasped a stone. The enemy was less than twenty feet away; it was a target a child couldn't miss. Lanny swung into a sitting position and simultaneously threw his stone. The guard dropped, a wound torn in his skull. Pendillo and his sons slid forward again. As they passed the dead Almost-man, Lanny worked the energy gun out of of the guard's hands. It took them an hour to reach the cliffs overlooking the sea. They turned north again, seeking shelter among the rocks. And they came abruptly upon a wide, bowl-shaped cavity in the earth. Through the fog they saw the narrow passage between the cavity and the sea. In the center of the sheltered, artificial pool a metal dome rose some fifty feet above the quiet water. The dome, protected by a force-field, was joined to the land by a catwalk. From its waterline a ridged, white tube snaked upward and disappeared among the trees on the north bank of the pool. A repair barge swung at anchor under the catwalk. A towering pylon raised a sound receptor and an automatic energy gun high above the roof of the dome. Pendillo whispered, "This must be one of their automatic mining operations. I've never seen one before." Gill replied, "Lanny and I have come upon lots of them in the hills. The domes run themselves. Sometimes the Almost-men come and check over the machines; that's what the barge is here for, I think."