Brion went out into the loading bay. There was nothing he could use on the ground floor, so he took the stairs to the floor above. A corridor here passed by a number of rooms. All of the doors were locked, including one with the hopeful sign TOOL ROOM on it. He battered at the metal door with his shoulder without budging it. As he stepped back to look for another way in, he glanced at his watch.

Two o’clock! In ten hours the bombs would fall on Dis.

The need for haste tore at him. Yet there could be no noise—someone in the street might hear it. He quickly stripped off his shirt and wrapped it in a loose roll around the barrel of his gun, extending it in a loose tube in front of the barrel. Holding the rolled cloth in his left hand, he jammed the gun up tight against the door, the muzzle against the lock. The single shot was only a dull thud, inaudible outside of the building. Pieces of broken mechanism jarred and rattled inside the lock and the door swung open.

When he came back Lea was standing by the body. He held the small power saw with a rotary blade. “Will this do?” he asked. “Runs on its own battery; almost fully charged too.”

“Perfect,” she answered. “You’re both going to have to help me.” She switched into the Disan language. “Ulv, would you find some place where you can watch the street without being seen? Signal me when it is empty. I’m afraid this saw is going to make a lot of noise.”

Ulv nodded and went out into the bay, where he climbed a heap of empty crates so he could peer through the small windows set high in the wall. He looked carefully in both directions, then waved to her to go ahead.

“Stand to one side and hold the cadaver’s chin, Brion,” she said. “Hold it firmly so the head doesn’t shake around when I cut. This is going to be a little gruesome. I’m sorry. But it’ll be the fastest way to cut the bone.” The saw bit into the skull.

Once Ulv waved them into silence, and shrank back himself into the shadows next to the window. They waited impatiently until he gave them the sign to continue again. Brion held steady while the saw cut a circle completely around the skull.

“Finished,” Lea said and the saw dropped from her limp fingers to the floor. She massaged life back into her hands before she finished the job. Carefully and delicately she removed the cap of bone from the magter’s head, exposing his brain to the shaft of light from the window.

“You were right all the time, Brion,” she said. “There is your alien.”

XVI

XVI