* * * * *

This time, however, it did not thicken into blackness. It became
luminous, brightening to a dazzle and dimming again to a colored mist,
and then it cleared, while Benson stood at raise pistol, as though on a
target range. He was facing a big desk at twenty feet, across a
thick-piled blue rug. There was a man seated at the desk, a white-haired
man with a mustache and a small beard, who wore a loose coat of some
glossy plum-brown fabric, and a vividly blue neck-scarf.

The pistol centered on the v-shaped blue under his chin. Deliberately,
Benson squeezed, recovered from the recoil, aimed, fired, recovered,
aimed, fired. Five seconds gone. The old man slumped across the desk,
his arms extended. Better make a good job of it, six, seven, eight
seconds; he stepped forward to the edge of the desk, call that fifteen
seconds, and put the muzzle to the top of the man's head, firing again
and snapping on the safety. There had been something familiar about The
Guide's face, but it was too late to check on that, now. There wasn't
any face left; not even much head.

A box, on the desk, caught Benson's eye, a cardboard box with an
envelope, stamped _Top Secret! For the Guide Only!_ taped to it. He
holstered his pistol and caught that up, stuffing it into his pocket, in
obedience to an instinct to grab anything that looked like intelligence
matter while in the enemy's country. Then he stepped back to the spot
where the field had deposited him. He had ten seconds to spare; somebody
was banging on a door when the blue mist began to gather around him.

* * * * *