"Suppose someone comes out and looks?" the second voice asked.

"Then we unload the girl with the other two, like it was what we had in mind all along. But they won't. We'll unload the two dead ones and I'll get back in as if that's all, and take her away. You stay there."

The floater slowed and lowered to the pavement, and the two men came quickly around and removed first one body, then the other. I could hear another voice coming toward the vehicle.

"Are they dead?"

"They seem to be, sir. I'll take the truck over and clean out the back before the blood dries."

"All right," the new voice said, "do it. But don't take all night." It sounded as if it was right by the tailgate. He almost had to have seen me and pretended not to.

A moment later the floater lifted and moved away. I opened my eyes again; the blast rifle was gone, A minute later the truck set down. I opened my eyes and saw that we were beside a large shed. I heard the marine move away. In another minute he was back and lowered the tailgate. Under one arm he carried a dark bundle-a small plastic tarp; in the other hand was a broom. He saw that my eyes were open.

"I'm going to hide you," he told me. "In a waste bin. You'll have to tough it out the best you can until somebody comes to get you. It'll be a few hours."

He flopped the half-unfolded tarp next to me on the truck bed, then rolled me onto it with an apology, wrapped me in it, and with a grunt got me over his shoulder. He wasn't big, but he was pretty strong. Inside the tarp I couldn't see a thing. He carried me a dozen steps, then I heard a lid raise on squeaky hinges. I felt myself roll off his shoulder, and landed on a jumble of what had to be lignoplastic containers-boxes and bottles. The lid lowered again, and I wondered if I'd get enough air in there. I decided I probably would; it wouldn't be airtight. If it seemed like I was going to suffocate, I'd wiggle loose and prop the lid up a little with something. Meanwhile I'd stay the way I was.

The marine had risked his life to save me; both of them had. And maybe their officer too. And I'd thought the Evdashians were docile because they'd given up their world without fighting! I imagined an empire sprinkled with people like them, learning better and better how to undercut their masters.

Then I imagined him hosing the truck bed and scrubbing it with the broom, the blood of Piet and the marine sergeant-and maybe some of mine-mixing with the water to flow into a sump or something. Then he'd drive back as if everything was normal.

My foot was beginning to hurt. The shock was starting to wear off.

I dozed anyway, drifting in and out of sleep without knowing for how long, a sleep mixed with pain and feverish dreams. But through it all I kept thinking: I must not groan. I must not groan. Someone might hear. And that if I was discovered, the two marines who'd saved me would be executed.

I didn't come wide awake until I felt the bin being lifted. A mechanism screeched, jerked, and I felt myself being tilted, Then I was sliding, and fell into what had to be trash. Pain stabbed my foot like a knife, and I tasted blood where I bit my lip to keep from screaming. Most of the contents of the waste bin seemed to land on top of me, and I passed out.

The next thing I knew the trash was shifting again. Not very much; it was as if the trash truck had tilted, its load sliding. Then the movement stopped, and faintly, through the tarp and trash, I could hear a man talking.

"Motor pool trash, eh? You better not have anything in there that'll damage the chopper again."

"Take it easy, Frelky," another voice said. "We just haul it, we don't pick through it. If someone dumps an old electric motor in a bin and it busts up your chopper, that's no fault of ours."

Next I heard the truck's beeper as it rose and swung away. A minute later I felt someone digging the trash out around me. Two arms wrapped around me as if I were a bundle and pulled me free, then dragged me a little way, which hurt my foot. I felt my feet drag over what seemed to be a door sill, then I was laid out on a flat surface and rolled over twice. I could see.

I was on the floor of a small, unlit office shack. A heavy, older marine corporal in fatigues knelt beside me. On the other side a voice spoke, and dimly I could see a sergeant standing there in what seemed to be early dawn.

"Check her pulse," he said "See if she's still alive."

"She's alive. She's looking at me right now."

"Where are you hit?"

I realized he was speaking to me. "In the right foot," I said. My voice was so weak, I was surprised he could understand me.

"You've got blood all over the front of you."

"It's Uncle Piet's," I told him.

He didn't say anything for a few seconds, then: "Wrap her up again."

While the corporal in charge of the trash processor began to roll me up in the tarp, the sergeant added, "I'm taking you to a safe house. There'll be somebody there who'll take care of you."

I felt them pick me up together and carry me. They put me in what seemed to be the luggage space of a small floater-a staff car or something. A minute later I felt it take off, and I passed out again.

Larn:

While Tarel stood weeping above me, my mind cleared. Four of us were still alive; I include Bubba in my count of people. If we could just stay that way, someday I could find out who did the shooting back there.

Tarel turned and stumbled toward the washroom, and I got up. I'd have liked to help him-his hard hands had saved me from myself twice in maybe a minute- but what he needed was a little time alone.

Just aft of the exit door was the gunnery control station; I recognized it from holodramas I'd seen. But by the time I could hope to figure it out and learn to use it, we'd be dead or possibly "safe" in FTL mode. Once in FTL I'd have plenty of time to work with it. So I walked over to Deneen and sat down in the copilot's seat.

From the side, her jaw looked set and her eyes intent. There was no sign that she knew I'd come over, though I'm sure she did. I looked the instrument panel over; most of it, though not all, was familiar from the cutters dad had owned. Neither Deneen nor I should have any trouble flying it, and she was doing fine.

She'd have to take us out the better part of a million miles before shifting to FTL mode; otherwise, the stresses would tear the ship apart.

In spite of everything, dying wasn't something I wanted to do for a while, and neither did Deneen, I was sure.

Neither had Piet a few minutes ago, nor Jenoor. Nor the marine sergeant who'd laid his life on the line to help us get away, and lost it.

I told myself I wouldn't waste the chance they'd given us.

The array of stars I could see through the wraparound for'rd window didn't mean much to me, so I turned my eyes to the instrument display. We were already 63 miles out; the right-hand digits were a blur, and even the tens were changing too fast to read. At the hundreds position, a 4 replaced the 3 almost at once, followed quickly by a 5, then a 6. Pretty soon, I told myself, the hundreds would be changing too fast to read, too. Short seconds later we turned over 8,000.

I wondered if it was possible we might get away unattacked. There had to be patrol craft on picket around Evdash, between the hard radiation belts, probably piloted by some of the more reliable people the Imperials could identify, or maybe by Imperials themselves. They were sure to have been warned by now that we were outbound fugitives. There were monitor screens above the window that ought to show any approaching hostiles, if I could figure out how to turn them on. Without them, we couldn't take evasive action.

Not that Deneen or I was anything approaching a fighter pilot, but we ought to be able to do something. It might make the difference between getting away and getting blown out of the sky. Without the monitor screens on, all she could do was keep accelerating at maximum for mass-proximity mode, the computer holding us on the curving course that gave us the greatest momentary distance from Evdash.