As they fled down the corridor, the view-screens along the way were blaring the usual message of the glory of The Leader. Abruptly the voice died away, the whine faded to a diminishing hum, and there was an increasing stillness. The whine stopped and the corridors were silent. The women, terror stricken by the stillness, screamed and fell writhing on the floor. Shouts filled the corridors as panicked throngs left without the symbols of The Leader ran from their cubicles in terror. "What is it?" Karl shouted above the din, shaking his head to clear it. "The whining noise. It stopped." Sten gasped. "Franz! It's Franz! He must have gotten in and wrecked the dynamos." He pulled Kathryn to her feet and shook her to stop her sobbing. Then, as suddenly as it had stopped, the whine began again, slowly gaining momentum until it reached its former pitch. With this, the sobs of the women subsided and calmness slowly crept back through the corridors. "It's started again," Karl began running toward the tunnel. "They must have spare dynamos. Poor Franz, all for nothing." Again the view-speakers were blaring, this time warning the people that a saboteur had made an attempt to destroy The Leader. The women were gasping for breath when they reached the door to the tunnel. Sten plunged through the door, hurrying the others in after him, and then threw his weight against the wall. With three men pushing against it, the wall gave way and they entered the tunnel. It was night outside. They walked slowly, consoling the women, who were sobbing again at the loss of the shrill god they had known for so long. The heat that radiated from the sand was suffocating. "We have to hurry on," Sten told the women. "We can't be caught in this sand tomorrow. There are foothills ahead where we can rest." It was morning when the men, carrying the women, entered a rocky canyon and wearily slumped down in the shade of a cliff. The women barely moved, sleeping the sleep of the exhausted. "Lord, I'm tired," Karl groaned. Sten laughed. "At least we accomplished our mission. Except ... for Franz." The men sat silent. "Maybe Franz fulfilled his purpose, too," Karl said. "That dynamo was the woman he had waiting for him. He probably got a lot of satisfaction out of knowing that for one minute, at least, Panamia was without The Leader." The other men didn't answer. They were asleep. They woke as the sun was going down. Sten climbed the cliffs to look out over the desert in search of the other party. He returned dejected. "They're half a day overdue now," he said. "Our food's low so we'll have to go on and hope they catch up later. Bradley has another map." He noticed the women sitting against the base of the cliff, terrified. "What's wrong?" Kathryn looked around them at the barren ground and at the clear sky stretching away to the horizon. "What's wrong? Look at this. I feel like I'm floating in air. There's nothing over us!" The men laughed.