Cables, stretched from trees outside the circle of weeds, supported a weathered tarp which drooped over the Bolo. The wreckage of a helicopter lay like a crumpled dragonfly at the far side of the ring. Nearer, fragments of a heavy car chassis lay scattered. The old man hovered at my shoulder. "It looks as though the gate is off limits," I hissed. "Let's try farther along." He nodded. "No one passes here. There is a second gate, there." He pointed. "But there are guards." "Let's climb the wall between gates." "There are sharp spikes on top the wall. But I know a place, farther on, where the spikes have been blunted." "Lead on, Pop." Half an hour of creeping through wet brush brought us to the spot we were looking for. It looked to me like any other stretch of eight-foot masonry wall overhung with wet poplar trees. "I'll go first," the old man said, "to draw the attention of the guard." "Then who's going to boost me up? I'll go first." He nodded, cupped his hands and lifted me as easily as a sailor lifting a beer glass. Pop was old--but he was nobody's softie. I looked around, then crawled up, worked my way over the corroded spikes, dropped down on the lawn. Immediately I heard a crackle of brush. A man stood up not ten feet away. I lay flat in the dark trying to look like something that had been there a long time.... I heard another sound, a thump and a crashing of brush. The man before me turned, disappeared in the darkness. I heard him beating his way through shrubbery; then he called out, got an answering shout from the distance. I didn't loiter. I got to my feet and made a sprint for the cover of the trees along the drive. IV Flat on the wet ground, under the wind-whipped branches of an ornamental cedar, I blinked the fine misty rain from my eyes, waiting for the half-hearted alarm behind me to die down. There were a few shouts, some sounds of searching among the shrubbery. It was a bad night to be chasing imaginary intruders in the Baronial grounds. In five minutes, all was quiet again. I studied the view before me. The tree under which I lay was one of a row lining a drive. It swung in a graceful curve, across a smooth half-mile of dark lawn, to the tower of light that was the Palace of the Baron of Filly. The silhouetted figures of guards and late-arriving guests moved against the gleam from the collonaded entrance. On a terrace high above, dancers twirled under colored lights. The faint glow of the repellor field kept the cold rain at a distance. In a lull in the wind, I heard music, faintly. The Baron's weekly Grand Ball was in full swing. I saw shadows move across the wet gravel before me, then heard the purr of an engine. I hugged the ground and watched a long svelte Mercedes--about a '68 model, I estimated--barrel past. The mob in the city ran in packs like dogs, but the Baron's friends did a little better for themselves.