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Jettero Heller eased the tug through the "back door" of Palace City. Only a Voltarian engineer would know the "softness" of the warped space close beside the mountain that dominated Palace City, The place was considered completely impregnable, and so it was. For 125,000 years it had dutifully protected the crowned heads of the Confederacy. It was a symbol, an ultimate in authority: four hundred billion people on 110 planets regarded it, as much as the Emperor himself, the LAW of the land. So long as Palace City held, it would be obeyed. Heller was about to show that it was vulnerable, if he could. The risks were fantastic, the odds going for success were minuscule. But that was a way of life for Jettero Heller, combat engineer. A small black hole from outer space was embedded in the mountain at the north end of Palace City. Planted there by the earliest Voltar engineers, shortly after their arrival from a distant galaxy and their conquest of this planet, it had been providing power and defense for all that time. The black hole warped the space and altered the time of the area. Satisfied that his wind devil diversion was keeping the perimeter defenders under cover for the moment, he slipped the tug through. There was an instant of nausea as time factors altered. One was immediately in the dimness of artificial light. He looked up at the looming mountain. It was impressively big. Beyond it would lie the golden, circular palaces, in all their artificially lit parks and splendors. All that was hidden from him as yet. Over on the other side he knew there would be forests of ma
BLAM!
A shell slammed into the mountain. They had spotted him!
BLAM! BLAM!
The attractor-target, thank Heavens, was pulling the ca
HIS WINDSCREEN SHATTERED!
The tug's automatic warning went on, "Sir, my starboard Will-be Was converter drum is overheating. Please ease off." Heller took another lunge against the tow. An explosion sounded above him. A blastrifle must have hit one of the tube casings on top of the craft. This was getting too rough a situation. Suddenly he dropped the tow that refused to tow. He spun around to his right. He ducked behind the mountain out of the sight of the infantry. This was the time for the diversion. He took the remote out of his pocket, took the safety off and pressed it. It should begin to fire the pellets he had dropped into the city. They should begin to go off at intervals. That should make things interesting for them down there. And maybe he could complete his job. The trouble was, the mountaintop was not thoroughly cut through. In the tube underneath the belly, thinking this might happen, he had placed a hundred down-blast shatter mines. It meant he would have to make a circle around the mountain. He hoped his diversion had worked. He began to move clockwise around the peak. Every hundred yards, at approximately the place he had made the cut, he dropped a shatter mine. His explosions began to go off with a crump as each one hit. He stuck the tug's nose around the mountain shoulder, visible again from Palace City.