Dunneldeen was a very happy man. The Cornwall compound of the British Isles was dead ahead, lit up like the one-time cities must have been.

They had drawn straws for Cornwall. This was the minesite that sent out hunting parties and made it death for Scots to go south. The Psychlos at this place, over the centuries, had gunned down people beyond count just for sport on their days off. There was even a tale of a raiding party captured and tied to trees and shot tiny bit by tiny bit and man by man for eighteen agonizing days. And many tales like it.

He and his copilot Dwight had drawn the long straw to the envy of their fellow pilots. They had drilled the navigation. No Scot had ever gotten within a hundred miles of this minesite in over a thousand years and little was actually known of it, but they had absorbed what there was.

They had lain all night, quite relaxed, warmly dressed for stratosphere flying. They had heard the warning horns go for the final firing of the semiannual. They had piled into their seats, hands waiting at the consoles.

Wide-eyed and thrilled, they had watched Jonnie's incredible sprint. Something had gone wrong as he reached the cage and that part wasn't so good. No rescue. But Jonnie had piled down under the edge of the bluff, safe as a wee bairn in his truckle bed before the blast rifles went.

The recoil had been a bit disconcerting for it had slewed the plane out of position with concussion. But all was well. They had vaulted their plane into the sky on schedule. They had seen the planetwide radio towers collapse in a tangle of cables behind them, hit by both the concussion of recoil and bazooka fire. A twelve-hour radio silence had begun successfully. Ample time for the farthest minesite to be reached without any warning.

At two thousand miles an hour, one hundred thousand feet up, they had shifted the clock and come down to normal Psychlo approach levels to a nighttime minesite. There it was!

Scanners and viewscreens a light, they found no sign of hostile action, no guard planes in the air.

Lighted steam was coming out of some shafts in the hills that must be five miles deep. Smelter chimneys belched curling, green smoke. Warehouses stood in bold outline. And there were the glowing domes of the compound! Target one.

But Dunneldeen, being Dunneldeen, was quick to take advantage of sudden opportunities even when they were not quite specified in planning.

The silly apes down there lit up the whole landing area for him! It gleamed like a bloody stage. They thought he was simply some nonscheduled Psychlo flight. Bless radio silence.

And Dunneldeen saw something else. Strung on massive power poles, coming down from the north, was their power supply. And right there, in the full glare of the landing area, was the obvious master pole. The freaks cared nothing about an aerial navigation menace. It was the master pole. The lines from the north came down into it. The local light cables all routed out from it to the buildings and compound. There was a big open space for landing and take-off in the middle of this spider's web.

Right at the side of the landing stage was a huge wheel. Dunneldeen recognized it. The master wheel that, when spun, withdrew the master bus bar from the circuit.

By Dunneldeen's opportunist mentality, it was simply too good to miss. Why let them have lots of light while they rushed about manning their defense weapons and trying to get out to their planes? Why not simply throw the whole thing into total chaos? And then go up and, with infrared screens, shoot the place to bits. Their own plane had a wave neutralizer, copied from one stolen from a ground car, and they could turn it on and those apes wouldn't know what to shoot at. Further, if this battle plane took off it would seem like it was a defense plane.

Dunneldeen spoke rapidly to a startled but agreeable Dwight. Just as casually as though they were a visiting plane, they landed right beside the big wheel. Dunneldeen hitched the assault rifle strap over his shoulder, opened the door of the plane, stepped down, walked over to the bus bar wheel, and gave it its first spin.

It all went okay just up to that point. But now a Psychlo in a little guardhouse they had not spotted, only ten feet from that bus bar, stepped out and stared at Dunneldeen.

“The Tolneps!" screamed the guard.

Before Dunneldeen could get the assault rifle into position the guard had closed the door and hit a siren. A bullhorn opened up enough to blast one's eardrums in. "Tolnep attack! All posts! Tolneps! Gun positions!”

Regardless of what Tolneps might be, Dunneldeen spun the bus bar wheel so fast it screamed. He realized then why it was so close to the landing stage. They darkened the place for attack precautions. And had a guardhouse right handy to do it.

Dunneldeen raced back to the plane. He dove in. Dwight's assault rifle opened up as guards boiled out of a stairwell. They dissolved into luminous green flashes.

The battle plane soared. Dunneldeen threw on the wave neutralizer and infrared screens.

They reverted to plan.

With guns set to “No Flame, Maximum Concussion” they roared across the compound.

The domes squashed like punctured balloons.

They raced across the lines of warehouses and knocked their roofs flat.

For good measure they made another pass, this time dropping nonradiation,

antipersonnel bombs.

One gun opened up at them and the plane took a jolt. They flashed down and squashed the gun with a single blast.

And that was the end of the base. The Psychlo Intergalactic Mining Company did not believe in lavishing money on safety equipment in any department, apparently. And hadn't Jonnie said something about Terl calling in all the armaments from these bases?

From what they could gather, standing by way up in the air, the creatures in the compound had been unable to get the masks on before the domes were smashed, for there certainly wasn't any mob coming out.

They hung around for a while, occasionally knocking out an isolated vehicle and a stray guard.

It really was quiet down there after that.

Then they saw something on their radar screen. It was an incoming transport. Abruptly they recalled transport plane engines leaving after the incoming firing. This thing had been slow-poking its way home and they had passed it. Good!

Dunneldeen, much to Dwight's dismay, landed beside the bus bar and turned it on.

They just sat there. The landing lights were now on. Any Psychlo employee left alive was not concentrating on coming out.

The transport plane landed. The Psychlos got out, fooled around with baggage. Then the pilot got out. The Psychlos walked in a mob toward the compound. Then they began to feel something was wrong and stopped.

The Psychlo pilot reached for his belt gun.

Dunneldeen and Dwight cut them down with assault rifles.

Dunneldeen flew Dwight over to the fuel dump. They knew what fuel cartridge the transport took, for it was a duplicate of the plane that had brought Jonnie to Scotland. Dwight got the fuel cartridges. Dunneldeen brought him back to the transport plane. Dwight took the old cartridges out and put new ones in. Dunneldeen shot a guard car that had survived and came racing toward them. It blew up.

Dunneldeen got into the air. Dwight flew the transport up. Dunneldeen shot the master power pole to bits in a fanfare of sparks and flashes.

Seeing that Dwight was well clear, Dunneldeen flew to a point about ten feet above the breathe-gas dump. He dropped a low-yield, lead-shielded, time-fused radioactive mine on it.

He soared up and the dump roared in a lovely green-blue flash.

He again checked to see where Dwight had gotten to, saw he was safe. Dunneldeen soared to ten thousand feet, nosed the plane over, sighted, and fired at the explosives dump. It went up like a miniature volcano.