"All right," he said in a strained voice. "Let's make the most of the time we've got."

The three of them broke for the mouth of the tunnel. Their heels clacked loudly. Still the entire THRUSH estate was shrouded in a weird stillness. Solo emerged onto the loading dock. He cut to the left. Illya and Helene crowded up behind. Ahead, the green grass of the parade ground moved gently under a night breeze.

The tall floodlight stanchions shed a sharp radiance onto the empty expanse of turf. Solo dropped to the asphalt below the dock, helped Helene down.

Illya's eyes flicked from left to right and back again, hunting for signs of the trap which surely existed.

Solo edged his way around a parked lorry. He wished that he had a pistol, any kind of weapon.

The parade ground was wide, green, empty. And it looked like a journey of a thousand miles to that small booth which Illya pointed out on the far wall.

"Ready?" Solo asked.

Illya nodded, wiped a trickle of sweat from his chin.

Solo half-turned. "Helene?"

"I can make it."

With a quick bob of his head, Solo started running. The other two came right behind.

Their feet thudded softly on the turf as they charged toward the far wall. At any moment Solo expected to hear the stutter of machineguns from the high cornices of the great house. The wind keened eerily in his ears as he ran. Breath pumped in and out of his lungs.

He flashed a look back over his shoulder. Lights blazed in the curtained windows of the upper floors of the great house, but nowhere was there another human being moving.

They had safely crossed about a quarter of the distance to the booth in the wall.

Abruptly the trap sprang open behind them—literally out of the ground.

Whole sections of the parade ground flipped upward. The turf was imitation, laid down atop hinged steel plates like square manhole covers. The night was suddenly filled with an incredible wordless shrieking as up from the underground warrens surged the black-uniformed THRUSH girls, tall, hate-faced, their hair streaming.

Their voices were raised in that chilling unison shriek of hate. Gun barrels winked. Boots shone. A dozen of them had come up through the sprung-back ports in the grass now.

Two dozen.

Three.

They fanned out and formed a long line, a human chain of women. From the parapets of the baronial hall, searchlights blinked on. Solo and his friends, running wildly, were pinned inside great white circles of brilliant light.

An automatic pistol stuttered. Illya gave a sharp cry and went down, blood blackening the left leg of his trousers.

Helene doubled back to help him. Solo had the feeling he'd take a bullet any second too. Through the stillness the unison chant of hate was dying out. The echo of the pistol burst was spun away on the breeze.

Like a sharp knife slicing through cheese, Vanessa Robin boomed over a bullhorn:

"No firing! No firing! Hold your fire until further signals are given!"

Solo twisted around, bent to pull Illya to his feet. Illya had gone pale. His eyes were glazing. Vanessa Robin, bullhorn in her left hand and a long-snouted pistol in her right, had emerged from the sprung-back trapdoor which was furthest on Solo's left. Climbing up the ladder after her came Felix Klaanger.

Klaanger's eyes glared like brown lanterns. His bulbous, lemon-shaped head waggled with delight.

"It will do you no good to run, Solo," Vanessa boomed over the horn.

"They've caught us," Helene sobbed. "I knew they would." She was on the edge of hysteria. Her whole body trembled as she tried to help Solo support Illya. "I—I have never seen these hellish traps before—"

Solo whispered, "THRUSH, doesn't tell all, eh? Doesn't matter. Keep moving. Back toward the wall."

"Stand where you are, Solo!"

"Come on, Illya, we can make it," Solo breathed, ignoring Vanessa's orders. "The closer we are to that wall, the better chance we have."

It was false encouragement; Solo knew they had no chance at all. But he would not stand and surrender.

Illya's wounded leg left a smear of bright blood on the grass as Solo dragged him along. They must have made a sorry sight, Solo thought, the three of them huddling and limping backwards, confronted by three dozen armed amazons with pistols and rifles.

The THRUSH women seemed to strain forward, eager for blood. Vanessa Robin knocked the bullhorn against her leg in a gesture of anger.

"Very well, Solo," she thundered, horn at her lips again. "Since you wish to continue the charade, we'll finish you in style. My girls are eager to get at the three of you. But you have no weapons. And you are burdened by poor Mr. Kuryakin hanging in your arms like a potato sack. So perhaps we should let you feel the real strength of THRUSH before you die."

Vanessa Robin turned and executed a kind of mocking little bow of invitation to Klaanger standing beside her.

The misshapen hulk straightened up. A slack grin of delight crawled across his liverish lips. His huge hands twitched at the ends of his incredibly long arms.

"General Klaanger and I will do the honors, Solo." Vanessa waved her left hand at him, the fingers fluttering in a dainty, lady-like way that was somehow horrible. "With our hands."

Flinging aside the horn for the last time, she began to walk forward. She unfastened a golden clip which held her hair in place. She shook her head. Her hair fell loose, trailing blonde and glittering to her waist.

As she walked she smoothed her tunic. Klaanger shambled forward beside her, cracking his knuckles.

Solo and Helene, meantime, had continued to back up steadily. Helene whispered, "The wall—"

Simultaneously, Solo's shoes caught in something which nearly caused him to stumble. He glanced down.

They had reached the patch of stones just under the wall and to one side of the booth which sheltered a door that led through the wall. Solo gauged the distances.

No go.

Vanessa and Klaanger were running now, running with their faces full of malicious triumph, two immensely tall, immensely powerful creatures. If Solo tried to get Illya through the gate, Vanessa and Klaanger would be on them first.

Solo suddenly felt small, weak, powerless to cope with the two monster-people charging toward him. They would finish him no matter how hard he fought.

"Helene!" he whispered. "Drag Illya into the booth. I'll hold them back."

"But you cannot stand against them!"

"Do as I tell you!"

Thud-thud-thud-thud. In the silence of the windy parade ground, the boot-soles of Vanessa Robin and Felix Klaanger thudded on the turf. Another five or ten seconds and they would be on top of him.

Klaanger's fingers flexed as he ran; flexed in anticipation of getting hold of Solo's arms and legs and ripping them out of their sockets; flexed in anticipation of tearing his body apart like a hunk of meat from the butcher's counter.

Alone, weaponless, cold in his belly and slightly dizzy, Solo stood his ground. He'd stand them off as long as he could.

Helene had responded to his order. She was dragging Illya's unconscious form toward the booth.

Thud-thud-thud-thud.

Vanessa's hair streamed out behind. Her slanting green eyes were infinitely cruel. Klaanger laughed from deep in his gigantic chest, the laugh of a beast. Far back at the edge of the sky, Solo though he heard a thin, whistling whine. It was probably only his imagination.

His eyes were blurred. The monstrously tall, monstrously strong pair came charging steadily on while he braced himself there on the patch of stones, hoping to fight as long as possible with his bare hands before they tore him apart—