He paused for a moment, catching his breath, trying to think. And then suddenly there was the sound of running feet and a guard commander's voice booming in a resounding echo down the smooth corridor sides. "Man the control boards. Let 'em out!" Doors slid open at every side of him; some were already buckled and opened only partially, but the men inside got out, and within seconds the corridor was full of running, howling humanity from every colony in the system. Jon almost bowled a guard off his feet. He grabbed the man at the shoulder, thumbs digging in at the painful points. "Talk! What the seven hells is going on?" "Run, you fool! Let go! The Rings are coming in on us! The whole damn planetoid is starting to break up! Ow--damn you! It's the Geejay. Earth's been going to hell for over an hour now!" "And they let it hit here without warning? ANSWER ME!" "You crazy? Warp beams are only for the ITA. Old fashioned radio's all we've got, and it takes eighty minutes--" "Thanks!" Jon released the desperate man and thrust him aside, fought his way back into the crowded corridor. He had to get out of the building but he was trapped in this crazy mob. Another tremor, this one worse than any of the rest, sent the choked corridor into a maelstrom of kicking, clawing confusion. And Jon was the first to see the small panel now blinking EMERGENCY EXIT, sliding slowly, grudgingly back against a bent frame. He was through it first. He broke into an open prison yard where the squat, streamlined form of a jetgiro was parked. Crazy thing, jetgiro sitting that way in a prison yard, as though it were just waiting for somebody who'd be coming out the emergency exit. He bolted for it. Had to hurry--the others weren't far behind, and if they caught up he'd never get the thing into the air. They'd claw him down. He took a quick look upward at the sky, and it seemed to be on fire. Even in the brightness of Titan's artificial daylight the hurtling particles from the disturbed rings flamed blindingly. Saturn itself filled half the sky, and even to the naked eye the great rings were flaring dangerously at the edges. He got behind the controls of the giro just as the mob broke through the exit. He prayed that the engines weren't too cold, and even as the durastone floor of the yard split jarringly beneath him and swallowed a dozen men, he punched the Lift stud and the small vehicle rose heavily into the air. Cold, of course. No ... engine-heat almost normal. Then-- "Sorry, Master Kane." And that was all he heard. There was an awful, sudden pain in his head and then he felt nothing else. VI Deanne saw the panel blinking EMERGENCY EXIT too late, and her momentary hesitation at the cross corridor spelled an abrupt finis to her desperate attempt. The lone guard who otherwise would never have seen her brought his springbow up with a look of dazed astonishment on his bearded features, and she froze. "Don't--please!"