The gun flew out and down into the mist. Sade hit the floor rolling and struggled to his feet as Norman was on him like a hurricane. He crossed jabs into his face with both fists then stepped back and swung a long arc that crushed the big man's nose. Sade stumbled backward, screamed, arms flailing the air wildly, and fell backward off the edge of the floor. Norman stepped over and looked down. Deep in the eery rainbow mist that swirled around him, Sade scrambled to his feet and looked around frantically, confused with the colors. His hair turned snow white, his round cheeks tightened across the bones of his face and his big belly vanished in his baggy clothes. He held his hands up before his face and forgot Norman to stare at his skeleton-like fingers. Then, his hands still raised before his eyes, he sank to the ground as his legs collapsed. The shoes fell off his bony feet as he lay there writhing. Norman shook his head, rubbed his eyes. Sade wasn't writhing. It was the wind rustling his clothes. Norman found Dorothy's sunlit head pressed against his shoulder as she cried like a baby. He touched her hair gently, then turned to the wreckage of the tower. A moment's search in the debris disclosed Keren's broken form. He lifted her dead weight in his arms and with Dorothy behind him went quickly down the stairs. In the front room, he laid Keren on the sofa and, risking one moment more, jerked a tapestry from the wall and gently covered her body. Then they ran out of the house and across the field to the cruiser. As he helped Dorothy through the port he heard a cyclone roar from the house. He shoved Dorothy in, jumped in after her and slammed the door. Through the glass, they watched the house fly to pieces like a bursting bomb as a giant flower of red spouted high over the field. Then, where the house had been, stood a wavering red column, feet thick, towering above the green jungle. It sprayed down upon the cruiser like a scarlet rain. They stared at the vivid scene until the red film covered the cabin windows. Then Norman thumped the tank around the cabin wall, heard its dull fullness, and walked into the pilot room and sat down at the controls. "There's plenty in the tank for Johnny," he said, "and there's plenty on Vulcan for the Universe." "What shall we name it?" Dorothy said. As they soared away from the planet and their increasing speed washed the red film from the glass. Norman looked at the dwindling green globe that was Vulcan and lived again, swiftly, all that had happened there. And strangely, now that it was over, one phrase whispered in his mind. _I'll owe you a thousand kisses_.... "Let's name it 'Kerine,'" he said. "We owe her more than we can ever repay." * * * * *