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SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH MAY RESULT. DEFENSE PROCEDURES WILL TAKE EFFECT AUTOMATICALLY IN THIRTY SECONDS. THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING.
    While the mechanical voice was still shouting, Job turned and fled. He was desperately weary and downhearted, and he ran with failing legs directly away from the perimeter of the Mall zone and away from Cloak House. When he came to the crumbling streets of the eastern ghetto he was exhausted. He flopped down against a wall and stared around him.
    The area was dimly lit, but it was as busy as the streets near Cloak House had been empty. In just a few seconds a dozen people hurried past, giving him not a second glance. One of them was carrying a basket of hot chicken, and its pungent smell made Job ready to faint with hunger. He had eaten nothing for over ten hours, and to a nine-year-old that felt like days. He sat and thought of food, of potatoes and hot meat and new bread. And with that thought the final scene at Cloak House came rushing back. He understood for the first time what had happened to Laga and what it meant. She was gone. He would never see her again. Not a day's separation, or a week, but forever. Job leaned forward and began to weep, silently and hopelessly.
    It was ten more minutes before he lifted his head again, to become aware that not everyone had hastened past and ignored him. A stooped white-haired man was standing thirty feet away. He was gazing thoughtfully at Job.
    "You are out rather late, my lean young man," he said, as Job returned the stare. "Are you a juvenile lycanthrope, or do you perhaps have no home to go to?"
    Job said nothing. It was years since he had thought of the Tandyman as a real menace of the nighttime, but instinct told him that night still carried danger. And the white-haired man did not speak in the comfortable and familiar street jabber oichachara-calle , but in precise and carefully enunciated English.
    "Are you sick?" asked the stooped man, after another quiet half-minute.
    "No. I'm fine."
    The man nodded, and watched Job's shadowed face as two people walked by carrying more of the spiced fried chicken. "But you are hungry?"
    Job nodded.
    "Very well. Then come along." And, when Job did not move, the man switched to street talk. "Do not be afraid, chico-perdido. If you feel leery of me, all you need to do is ask. These basura , they can tell you lots about Professor Buckler."
    Job did not reply at once. He knew he could not stay forever on the street. Tonight was warm, but what about the coming winter? He could ask a passerby what they knew about "Professor Buckler," but could he rely on the answer? Worst of all, could he go back to Cloak House? He dreaded the thought of that, and of Colonel della Porta; but it was the smell and thought of food that finally made him wipe his eyes with his sleeve and stand up.
    "I have no money," he said.
    "Who does, nowadays?" said the old man, again in his refined tone. "Especially in these promiscuous parts. Let us proceed."
    Without looking to see that Job was following, he strolled off along the cracked sidewalk with the air of a man out for a midday stroll.
    They were approaching a part of the city that Father Bonifant had avoided and Job had never seen. It must once have been a district of substance, because the buildings were huge and the avenues between them broad and formerly tree-lined. Now the windows were broken or boarded up, and only weathered stumps remained of lofty oaks and beeches.
    They walked on and on, with Job clinging closer to Professor Buckler's heels. The building that they finally came to was almost as tall as Cloak House. It was fronted by splendid stone stairs, fifty feet across, but they were littered with garbage and the lower floors behind the entrance were dark. One door was not blocked off. High above it one lit window shone out halfway up the colonnaded wall. They climbed the broad steps, and went on up unlit flights of wooden stairs inside the building. Job was at the limit of his