A little further on an up-ended house, still preserving its shape, was floating half submerged. Its porch platform, now detached, floated like a raft beside it with a fallen tree holding them together.

Guy's breath stopped. Death and desolation everywhere.

Things floating, gruesome, that once had been animate humans. Nothing alive now. Except here! Guy's hand clutched for Toh. The Mercurian saw it also, and the girls. The little segment of scene down there swept past; but the girls wavered and turned back to see it again. The platform lurched, swayed, and then was level.

Aina murmured, "Guy, you saw it?" Again it was under them. That floating housethe raft the connecting tree. There were human forms clinging to the steep-sloping rooftop. Humans, alivel A winged girl, with two men beside her. Injured, perhaps; holding with weakening clutches to the thatch of the roof.

And from the water, up the incline of the fallen tree, the hideous, jointed length of a giant insect was crawling! x BATTLE AMID THE TUBMOIL of the fighting in that narrow lower room of the silver ball, Jimmy momentarily found himself free of his antagonists. A dim chaos of horror was around him. The window ovals and the open doorway showed with the daylight behind them. And in the doorway, toppling as though they were about to fall, he saw Tama and Roc. They had flung off a Mercurian, who reeled backward and fell. But another was coming.

Jimmy rushed to help Tama. He had lost his cylinder, but he still clutched a knife. With it he struck at an oncoming Cold Country man, but the fellow ducked and avoided him.

Jimmy reached Roc and Tama; they were confused, panting, and wavering at the threshold. A Mercurian struck them; Jimmy felt all three of them going over the brink.

Roc shouted, "Hold to Tama! Don't fall free-" There was an instant of horror as Jimmy felt them going.

He saw the voida thousand feet down to the shattered bestrewn Water City. The gray man pushed them; and as he fell, with one hand holding to Roc, Jimmy reached up and pulled their antagonist out of the ship. He fell free, hurtling rapidly below them.

A dizzying moment of falling, with the silver ball seeming to leap upward. Jimmy found himself clutching Roc, who was holding to Tama. Her wings were flapping desperately.

She was above the men, their weight pulling her down as she struggled to support it.

Underneath, Jimmy saw a blurred vista of the city, where a patch of water was apparently mounting upward. The body of the Mercurian was whirling end over end. Jimmy thought he heard the crash of splintering wood when it struck.

Tama panted, "Hold tightly! Come higher!" Roc pulled himself up and Jimmy with him. They clung to Tama's waist, long enough to be free of her wings. The three of them falling, but not too fastnot if Tama's strength would hold.

The silver ball had moved on and vanished. They fell through a layer of smoke, almost dissipated, but thick enough to choke Jimmy. He felt his senses whirling. Roc was coughing, choking.

Tama's white face was above them. Her wings beating Then there seemed to be purer air again. Beneath them Jimmy caught a glimpse of dark water, strewn with wreckage. It was rushing upward, close. He saw that they would strike a litter of broken wood. Suddenly he cast Tama off, and gasped, "Rod Let her free!" He seemed to fall more swiftly. There was a flash of uprushing floating logsan impact.

Jimmy did not quite lose consciousness. He had struck a half-submerged log. He thought, a second later, he heard another crash as Tama and Roc came down. He went under water, entangled with vines and thatch, but he came up swimming.

Tama was swimming near him. Jimmy was conscious that one of his legs would not work. A horrible pain stabbed through it. But in this water he found himself buoyant. He saw something looming nearby, and swam for it. As he drew himself up he saw that it was the porch platform of a wrecked house.

Tama gasped, "Youall right, Jimmy?"

"Yes." Tama was holding Roc, who was inert. Jimmy started back into the water. One of his legs dragged limp; the pain of it made his senses reel.

"Wait, Jimmy1 have him I" They were only a few feet away. Jimmy helped Tama draw Roc's body up to the raft. They stretched him out, bent over him. He was unconscious, but there seemed to be no bones broken.

I have had from Jimmy the details of those hours he, Tama and Roc spent in the Water City. Tama was bruised from the fall, but otherwise unhurt. Jimmy's left leg was broken. Roc seemed without broken bonesinternal injuries, perhapsbut he had struck his head in the fall. He lay unconscious for hours, with Tama and Jimmy beside him on the raft.

It was dark there at the water level. Nearer objects only were visible: a dark patch of littered water, a few houses, flattened, half-burned. A murk in the distance, with ghastly naked trees standing in the water like half-burned sticks; a distant burning housea yellow glow in the thick turgid gloom.

There seemed a slight current to the water. Occasional blobbing things floating, drifting past. Charred, blackened bodies. A grotesque detached face under a tree. A human limb, torn and cast aside by a giant insect.

Nothing living remained. The smoke fumes wafted down with occasional winds; then up again. But always thinner, less choking.

"What shall we do, Tama? He may dieprobably will.

You're not hurt. You fly out of this."

"Not yet. I can't leave you now. Your leg is broken. You can't walk." They were unarmed. Tama had flown around in a brief circle near them. She had come back, white-lipped, grim, with a queer look in her eyes which Jimmy could not miss.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing." He lay on his side. The pain in his leg made it difficult for him to think. He demanded again, "What's the matter?" Tama did not answer, but bent' over Roc, who was still unconscious. "If only we could do something for him! Poor Rod And you, Jimmydoesn't it hurt very badly?" It seemed that Tama was very alert, her gaze constantly roving.

"Whats the matter with you?" he demanded again. "Did you see any of the invaders?"

"No."

"The ball-is it still overhead?"

"No." A mist rising from the water had closed around them; through it, the nearer objects standing on the water showed like phantoms. Overhead was a pall of darkness. Jimmy had been afraid at first that some of the enemy would discover them lying there, but now there seemed less danger of that.

Tama on one of her brief, cautious flights had discovered that the invaders were marching off beyond the marshes. The silver ball had descended to join them.

"We'll wait a few hours," said Jimmy. "If they're leaving, they'll be far enough aJvay then. And youll be rested. You can fly back to the Hill City to safety."

"And leave you? And Roc?"

"Well, I guess hell be dead. And meyou can bring help. I'll stay right here, you can be sure of that." Now, after another hour or two, Jimmy reiterated his suggestion. Tama ignored it and then said abruptly, "We are too near the water here. Jimmy, could you crawl? And help me a little, with Roc? Up there" An inclined, fallen tree connected the raft with a half-submerged house close at hand. The house lay in the water tilled at an angle.

"Climb up there," said Tama. "Onto its roof. Then maybe we could get down inside it and hide."

"From what?" She would not answer. They tried to get up the tree incline with Roc. But could not. And then, after another interval, Roc came to consciousness.

An hour later and they had laboriously crawled to the housetop. Tama had been down inside the house and returned with a single knife, as well as scraps of food and a vessel with fresh water.

It revived the men. Roc was weaker than Jimmy, but not in great pain. They lay clinging to the thatch.