When he first saw the town it looked like only another group of dunes until he saw some of the silhouettes had angular corners. Too angular. Some of the walls he could see sloped crazily. As they came near to the town it appeared more evident that it was merely abandoned wreckage. There were no lights at all to betray signs of occupation. Slowly, Firebird brought the sled up to the edge of the group of buildings. The floor of the town, which had been laid over the sands to prevent the buildings from being buried or undermined by the winds was itself covered now with shifting sands and the walls of some of the structures leaned drunkenly under the heavy burden piled against them. Instead of driving into the town, Firebird turned her lights onto the sand directly in front of the sled and began circling the ruin. "Where are you going?" Nathan asked. "I want to see if there are sled tracks leading into the ruins. Unless they've been waiting for a couple of days we should be able to forestall any ambush here." They peered ahead as the spot of light moved slowly over the sand. But nowhere did they see the twin ruts marking the path of a sand sled. Suddenly Firebird stopped. "No one would bring a sled up into the town if they wanted to ambush us. They'd know we would look for tracks. They would leave the sled at a distance and come in on sand shoes." "And it's almost impossible to track those." "It can be done," Firebird said slowly. "But I don't think we'll have to do it." "Why not?" She placed his hand against the Jewel pouch. It was warm with warning heat. "Whoever is here has one of the Jewels, and he's not more than two hundred feet away," said Firebird. VIII As she spoke, a burst of flame spatted sand in front of their sled. The shower of exploding particles blasted against the cowling. Firebird turned off the light and spun the sled in towards the buildings. She sped into the shadows along what had once been the short main street of Pheme. Then they darted into a shadow between two buildings. "There may be more than one of them," said Nathan. The girl shook her head. "Searchers for the Seven Jewels do not work in pairs. Not for long, anyway. One of them soon kills the other when they do," she added enigmatically. Nathan glanced at her sharply, wondering if she were reminding him of their own precarious agreement--or accusing Tabor. They emerged cautiously from the sled, each gripping one of their flame rifles in addition to the smaller lances. "That shot came from the flat-roofed building at the end of the street," said Nathan. "We'll get on the roof of this one," said Firebird. "It's a hotel. It's the highest in town. We can fire the other building and get anyone trying to escape." No other shots came their way. Nathan feared their assailant was leaving the building on the corner and trailing them up the street.