the surface. Helmuth could not remember having heard so
much activity in years.
There was a flat, especially heavy crash, and a long line
of fuming orange fire came pouring down the seething at-
mosphere into the depths, feathering horizontally like the
mane of a Lipizzan horse, directly in front of Helmuth. In-
stinctively, he winced and drew back from the board, al-
though that stream of flame actually was only a little less
cold than the rest of the streaming gases, far too cold to
injure the Bridge.
In the momentary glare, however, he saw something-an
upward twisting of shadows, patterned but obviously un-
finished, fluttering in silhouette against the hydrogen cata-
ract’s lurid light.
The end of the Bridge.
Wrecked.
Helmuth grunted mvoluntarily and backed the beetle
away. The flare dimmed; the light poured down the sky and
fell away into the raging sea below. The scanner clucked
with satisfaction as the beetle recrossed the line into Zone
113.
He turned the body of the vehicle 180, presenting its back
to the dying torrent. There was nothing further that he could
do at the moment on the Bridge. He scanned his control
boarda ghost image of which was cast across the scene
on the Bridgefor the blue button marked Garage, punched
it savagely, and tore off his helmet.
Obediently, the Bridge vanished.
Dillon was looking at him.
“Well?” the civil engineer said. “What’s the matter, Bob?
Is it bad?”
Helmuth did not reply for a moment. The abrupt transition
from the storm-ravaged deck of the Bridge to the quiet, plac-