Tommy Evans" mighty ship was at the far end of the field, a gleaming thing of silver, with the tubes a dull red, preheated to stand the sudden flare of rocket blasts in the deadly cold of Pluto's surface.

Yes, thought Gary, another crusade. But a crusade without weapons. Without even knowing who the enemy might be. Without a definite plan of campaign. With no campaign at all. With just an ideal and the sound of bugles out in space. But that was all man had needed ever. Just an ideal and the blaring of bugles.

Caroline cried out in wonder, almost in fear, and Gary glanced toward the center of the field.

The machine was gone! Where it had stood there was nothing, no faintest hint it had ever stood there. Just empty field and nothing else.

"Jensen turned on the power!" Kingsley shouted. "The machine is warped into another dimension. The road is open to the Engineers."

Gary pointed out into space. "Look," he yelled.

A faint, shimmering circle of light lay far out into the black depths. A slow wheel of misty white. A nebulous thing that hadn't been there before.

"That's where we go," said Kingsley, and Gary heard the man's breath whistling through his teeth. "That's where we go to reach the Engineers."

CHAPTER Seven

Tommy's nimble fingers flew over the rocket bank, set up a take-off pattern. His thumb tripped the firing lever and the ship surged up from the field with the thunder of the rocket blasts shuddering through its frame-work.

"Hit dead center," warned Kingsley and Tommy nodded.

"Don't you worry," he snorted. "I will hit it."

"I'd like to see the look on the face of them dumb cops when they reach Pluto and find us gone," said Herb.

"Thought they were putting over a fast one on us."

"It'll be all right if they don't set down right into that machine down there," Gary declared. "If they did that something would happen to them… and happen awful fast."

"I told Ted to warn them away from it," Kingsley said. "I don't think they'd hurt the machine, but they would sure get messed up themselves. They may try to destroy it, and if they do, they're in for a real surprise. Nothing could do that." He chuckled. "Stilled atomic-whirl and rigid space-curvature," he said. "There's material for you!"

The ship lanced swiftly through space, heading for that wheeling circle of misty light.

"How far away would it be?" Gary asked and Kingsley shook his head.

"Not too far," he said. "No reason for it being too far away."

They watched it through the vision plate, saw the wheel of light expand, become a great spinning, frosty rim that filled the plate and in its center a black hole like a hub.

Tommy set up a corrective pattern and tripped the firing lever. The cross-hairs on the destination panel bore dead center on the night-black hub.

The wheel of light flared out, the hub became bigger and blacker, a hole in space… as if one were looking through it into space, but into a space where there were no stars.

The light disappeared. Just the black hub remained, filling the vision plate with inky blackness. Then the ship was flooded with that same blackness, a cloying, heavy blackness that seemed pressing in upon them.

Caroline cried out softly and then choked back the cry, for the blackness was followed almost instantly by a flood of light.

The ship was diving down toward a city, a monstrous city that jerked Gary's breath away. A city that piled height on height, like gigantic steps, with soaring towers that pointed at them like Titan fingers. A solid, massive city of gleaming white stone and square, utilitarian lines, a city that covered mile on mile of land, so that one could see no part of the planet that bore it, the city stretching from horizon to horizon.

Three suns blazed in the sky; one white, two a misty blue, all three pouring out a flood of light and energy that, Gary realized, would have made Sol seem like a tiny candle.

Tommy's fingers flew over the rocket banks, setting up a braking pattern. But even as he did, the speed of the ship seemed to slow, as if they were driving into a soft, but resistant cushion.

And in their brains rang a voice of command, a voice telling them to do nothing, that they and their ship would be brought down to the city in safety. Not so much like words as if each one of them had thought the very thought, as if each one of them knew exactly what to do.

Gary glanced at Caroline and saw her lips shape a single word. "Engineers."

So it hadn't been a nightmare after all. There really were a people who called themselves the Cosmic Engineers. There really was a city.

The ship still plunged downward, but its speed was slowing and now Gary realized that when first they had seen this pile of stone beneath them they had been many miles away. In comparison to the city, they and their ship were tiny things… little things, like ants crawling in the shadow of a mountain.

Then they were within the city, or at least its upper portion. The ship flashed past a mighty spire of stone and swung into its shadow. Below them they saw new details of the city, winding streets and broad parkways and boulevards, like tiny ribbons fluttering in the distance. A city that could thrill one with its mere bigness. A city which would have put a thousand New Yorks to shame. A city that dwarfed even the most ambitious dreams of mankind.

A million of Man's puny cities piled into one. Gary tried to imagine how big the planet must be to bear such a city, but there was no use of thinking, for there was no answer.

They were dropping down toward one of the fifth tiers of buildings, down and down, closer and closer to the massive blocks of Stone. So close now that their vision was cut off, and the terrace of the tier seemed like a broad, flat plain.

A section of the roof was opening, like a door opening outward into space. The ship, floating on an even keel, drifted gently downward, toward that yawning trap door. Then they were through the door, with plenty of room to spare, were floating quietly down between walls of delicate pastel hues.

The ship settled with a gentle bump and was still. They had arrived at their destination.

"Well, we're here," said Herb. "I wonder what we're supposed to do."

As if in answer to his question, the voice came again, the voice that was not a voice, but as if each person were thinking for himself.

It said: "This is a place we have prepared for you. You will find the gravity and the atmosphere and the surroundings natural to yourselves. You will need no space armor, no artificial trappings of any sort. Food is waiting you."

They stared at one another in amazement.

"I think," said Herb, "that I will like this place. Did you hear that? Food? I trust there's also drink."

"Yes," said the voice, "there is drink."

Herb's jaw dropped.

Tommy stepped out of the pilot's chair. "I'm hungry," he said. He strode to the inner valve of the air lock and spun the wheel. The others crowded behind him.

They stepped out of the ship onto a great slab of stone placed in the center of a gigantic room. The stone, apparently, was merely there for the ship to rest upon, for the rest of the floor was paved in scintillating blocks of mineral that flashed and glinted in the light from the three suns pouring in through a huge, translucent skylight. The walls of the room were done in soft, pastel shades, and on the walls were hung huge paintings, while ringed about the ship was furniture, perfect rooms of furniture, but with no dividing walls. An entire household, of palatial dimension, set up in a single room.

A living room, a library, bedrooms and a dining room. A dining room with massive oaken table and five chairs, and upon the table a banquet to do justice to a king.