"Go ahead. Just get everything ready to trigger the boost."

"Why not finish the job?"

Dumarest said patiently, "We'll save it until we need it. It's a long walk back even after we leave the hills and I'd rather ride slow than do it the hard way. Need any help?"

"No." Vardoon swung from the seat and produced a short-bladed knife. "Just keep this thing steady and yell if you see our friends."

A warning for him to get the gun into action, something Dumarest wanted to avoid. He steadied the raft as it bucked beneath him, felt it drop to touch stone, bouncing as it lifted to ride evenly down the pass. Mounded rock lay ahead, a thermal catching the vehicle as it swung past the heap and lifting it high. Too high, another updraft of heated air caught it, lifted it like a scrap of thistledown to reveal a glimpse of the sun, a dark fleck uncomfortably close.

It vanished as he sent the raft diving into the shelter of a pass, solid rock blocking it from sight as it shielded them from any observer. But if they had been spotted the raft would follow and it had the advantage of height.

Behind him Dumarest heard scrapings, a grunt of satisfaction as Vardoon ripped away panels to expose leads and conduits. Within minutes he was ready.

"When you give the word, Earl."

They had time to spare and the longer they could stay hidden the better their chances. Dumarest swung to the left, glided along a defile, turned to the right and into a narrow gap masked from above by jutting outcrops of stone. One path wended, dipped, rose to reveal open sky at the far end, deceptive in its apparent innocence.

"Earl!"

Dumarest saw the thing as Vardoon yelled a warning. It dropped from where it had clung to the underside of the rock, a flattened disc two feet in diameter, fringed with tendrils, more rising in a spined frond from its center. Sparks flashed from it, numbing Dumarest's arm as he knocked it to one side. Another burst as he kicked at it, a third hit the side of the raft as it scraped against stone. From it, from the rock itself, the very air, came a sudden, acrid vapor.

"Hart! Hold your breath!"

Dumarest felt the sting of acrid gases catch at eyes and throat as he voided his lungs. Behind him, slower, Vardoon retched from the invisible fumes. Exudations from the creatures or a part of their environment-unless they could win free they would die.

The raft scraped against more stone, veered as Dumarest adjusted their flight, hit again as tears fogged his vision. Ahead the clear expanse of sky seemed to shimmer, to become ringed with a contracting ring of darkness. Within his chest his empty lungs demanded air.

A pain he ignored as, blinking, he sent the raft arrowing along the narrow passage to the clear air ahead. Reaching it, he aimed for height, blasting the craft with manufactured winds before gulping air into his starved lungs. The inhalations cleared his head. Behind him Vardoon retched again, coughed, drew in air with a moist rattling.

"Hart?"

"I'm all right." Vardoon coughed again. "That damned stink got at me. Burned my throat a little, I guess, but I'll manage. How are we?"

Up and riding away from the hills. Ahead lay the rugged wilderness leading toward the south, the sea and the town. The sun was halfway toward the horizon; a ruby ball ahead and to the west. The sky was touched with puffs of white and flecks of darkness. Cloud-and the rafts hanging like vultures ready to strike.

As they closed in Dumarest said, "Now, Hart! Now!"

He felt the raft surge beneath him, the rush of air a whip lashing at his eyes, his face. Below, the ground blurred, fell away as they climbed, the hills diminishing behind them, the dark flecks of the rafts lost in the distance. Power-robbed from the whining engine-fed to the propulsion units as Vardoon boosted the transmission.

He swore as the raft faltered.

"My knife-the damned thing's burned out! Earl, pass me yours!"

The raft slowed as Dumarest reached for his boot, dropped, sluggishly rose again as he manipulated the controls. Turning he saw Vardoon's back, the hand he lifted, the haft of his knife with the blade reduced to a nub of fused metal.

Saw too the raft which lanced at them from the eye of the ruby sun.

It had been a textbook maneuver and Kline had cause to congratulate himself. To calculate they would head for the south required little intelligence; without protective clothing the men had been left with no other choice. To guess, too, they would seek the protection of narrow passes was equally simple. The hard part in being able to determine where they would emerge and what path they would take. Possibilities countered by having his rafts sweep the hills and form station at the edge of the wilderness. Faster, able to move directly through unhampered air, they had been certain to beat the fugitives. But, as an insurance, he had gone on ahead to wait.

Now he headed in for the kill.

"Halt!" His voice echoed from the loud-hailer. "Halt and hover! Obey or I'll blast you from the sky!"

An empty threat but they wouldn't know that and this time there were no stubborn fools to interfere. No chance of another abortive escape.

His observer said, "They are continuing as before, sir."

Slow, juddering, the raft lifted to drop to lift again as if it had been a crippled moth riding on torn and tattered wings.

Burned out, thought Kline. Power gone, a crash inevitable unless the vehicle grounded soon. Why didn't the fools yield?

"Land! I order you to land immediately! Land or I fire." To the marksman Kline said, "Show yourself. Let them see you taking aim. If I order you to fire make certain you miss." The threat should be enough. As the man took up his position he lifted the loud-hailer. "You in the raft! Land or I'll shoot you down! You have five seconds in which to head downward!"

From the body of the raft Vardoon said, "Give me your knife, Earl. I might be able to get us away."

A surge of power could fail, to leave them wrecked in the wilderness. A gamble with the cards stacked against them- but what else to do?

Dumarest looked back at the flecks of the other rafts, closer now, streaming wide in order to encircle and enclose. Kline was riding high and to one side; a position from which he commanded the immediate area.

Vardoon said impatiently, "Earl, your knife!" He lunged forward to snatch up the gun. "Never mind-this will do it!"

The movement sent the raft veering, which caused the marksman to close his finger in automatic reaction.

Flame jetted from the muzzle of his weapon, bullets whining to hit the raft, the rail, to cut the air with a lethal hail. Dumarest felt the shock as one glanced from his shoulder, the vivid flash as another gouged a bloody path over his left ear. The blow sent him doubled, almost unconscious over the controls as, snarling, Vardoon returned the fire.

A short burst sent the marksman back from the rail. Kline took his place, shouting, face contorted with rage and anxiety as he saw the figure slumped over the controls, but the emotions vanished as bullets churned his face to a pulp of blood and bone.

"Earl!" Vardoon lifted his voice over the snarl of gunfire. "Earl!"

Dumarest stirred as again the gun yammered, lacing shots into the raft, hitting the driver and sending the vehicle spinning toward the ground far below.

"For God's sake! Earl! Get with it, man!"

They were falling, air droning past with feral anticipation. A drone which faded as, sluggishly, the vehicle came under control and headed again toward the south.

Dumarest rose from the seat, swaying, fighting a sudden vertigo. The left side of his face was sticky with blood oozing from the throbbing ache of his wounded temple; one to match the minor hurt of his shoulder. Near misses, but Vardoon hadn't been so lucky.