Terl's motions alarmed Pattie. “Don't believe anything he says,” she pleaded. "He promised us food and didn't bring it. He even made out to us two or three times that you were dead!”

“You'll tell me about it,” said Jonnie, “or I’ll start shooting off your feet.” He aimed his gun.

“Do it!” said Pattie. “He's a nasty old brute! A devil!”

Jonnie was glancing in the direction Chrissie had gone. She was taking an awful long time coming back. He couldn't leave the girls out here alone and certainly not with Terl alive. Be calm, he told himself. You can catch up with it.

“All right,” said Terl as though resigned. "I’ll give you the places it's going.”

"In proper order,” said Jonnie, raising the gun suggestively.

“You'd get a kick out of shooting me up, wouldn't you?” said Terl.

“I don't get any enjoyment out of hurting things the way-'

“That's because you're a rat brain,” laughed Terl.

All this Psychlo talk between Jonnie and Terl was making Pattie very nervous. “Don't listen to him, Jonnie, just shoot him,” she demanded, grabbing Jonnie's gun arm.

“All right,” said Terl. “It’s first target is the bottom of Africa. The next is China. The next is Russia. Then it is preset to fly to Italy and then right here.”

Good, thought Jonnie. He didn't mention Scotland. It 's heading over the Arctic on that course. Scotland. That's its first target. And it would be because the Psychlos couldn't get up there, or thought they couldn't. Thank you, Terl.

“Good,” he said aloud. “For information received, you live a while longer.” It would take it seventeen hours to get to Scotland. Look calm. You can catch it.

Chrissie was coming down. They had been hidden by a dip in the plains. The horse was at a walk. And he saw why as she came near.

It was Thor. She was holding him upright in front of her on the horse.

She had removed her buckskin jacket and used it for bandages. Thor's antiradiation suit was stained with blood around the left shoulder. She had torn it away there and used buckskin and grass to staunch the blood flow. Thor's left arm was broken, bound in rough sticks for splints. It was he who had been shot out of the sky when he was using the jet pack.

With Chrissie's help Thor slid off the horse. He was gray from blood loss and stood unsteadily. He looked at Jonnie ruefully. "I’m sorry, Jonnie."

“It was my fault, not yours,” said Jonnie. “Ease him down on that rock, Chrissie."

Thor looked at Terl. He had seen the monster close up only a couple of times. Thor was wearing a .457 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver from the old base arsenal loaded with radiation bullets. He suddenly recognized Terl and grabbed for his gun to shoot him.

“No, no,” said Jonnie. “Keep the gun drawn and train it on him and shoot him the moment he looks like he's going to move, particularly his hands. Can you sit there okay?”

Thor was about fifty feet from Terl. He eased down further and got the gun trained on Terl.

“Now, Terl," said Jonnie, “that gun he is holding can put a hole in you a horse could dive through. It has special explosive bullets, worse than your own blast gun. Got it?” Be calm in front of these people. You can catch up with it.

He turned to Pattie. He gave her the huge blast pistol to hold. He showed her where the trigger was and she determinedly walked back of a rock so she could support the gun with it.

“I point it like this?”

“And keep it on him.” You have time, he told himself. Do a good job here.

“Why not kill him?” said Thor. “He leaks information,” said Jonnie.

Terl couldn't understand what they were saying but he got their drift.

Jonnie took out a knife and, keeping out of the line of possible fire, made Terl swivel around. He inserted the knife at Terl's collar and cut the cloth down the back. He went around front, watching Terl's eyes for a telltale clench signaling action and pulled the coat sleeves off. He ripped the cloth down the side of each of Terl's legs. He darted a shallow stab at Terl when he sought to spring. Terl subsided. Jonnie got Terl's boots and pants off. He took his watch. He took his cap. The only thing Terl had left was his breathe-mask and Jonnie even took the emergency vials off that. Terl glared.

There he sat, his fur matted with sweat, his claws twitching to rake Jonnie.

Jonnie took the belt and made Terl put his paws behind him and cinched the belt as tight as he could around the wrists. Then he took Old Pork's bridle and tied the wrists and belt and then passed the rope under the mask tube. He cinched it up. If Terl tried to wrestle his wrists loose he would choke himself. Do a good job, Jonnie told himself. Don't panic. In a battle plane you can catch the drone.

He had been working very fast. He now stepped away from Terl and quickly went through the clothes. Sure enough, Terl had two more weapons secreted. A knife and a second assassin gun.

Jonnie fired a round with the assassin gun. It was silent. The bush he aimed at began to burn. He gave the light gun to Pattie and took the belt gun back.

“Let me shoot him now,” said Pattie.

Thor said to Terl, in Psychlo, “The little girl over there is begging to shoot you.”

"I’ll be quiet here,” said Terl.

“Don't go near him. Light a fire from that wreck over here to the side, Chrissie, so that Thor stays warm and you can see this area.” He turned to Thor. “Who was with you?”

"Glencannon," said Thor. “He's over there in the hills somewhere. I think he tried to get closer to the base. I tried to reach him on this mine radio twice. He's got one but he doesn't answer. They've only a five-mile range.” He looked curious. “Where are you going?”

At that moment there was an explosion flash at the compound. A battle plane had come out of the hangar and apparently been hit with a bazooka. It soared in a flame ball and crashed at the sound of the bazooka and then the plane explosion reached them. A second battle plane came out and met the same fate.

“See?” said Jonnie. "I’ll send back a mine car for you.” Be calm. At two thousand miles an hour you can catch that drone.

The girls looked numbly at Jonnie.

But what could he do? He had meant to send them to the Academy base, but Thor was in no shape to travel at all. Why not kill Terl? No, that would solve nothing. Sound calm to these people. The speed of the drone was three hundred two miles an hour, he remembered from the messages he had taken from the hand of a president a thousand years dead. A battle plane could go hypersonic at two thousand miles an hour. Even if it were halfway to Scotland, he could catch it hours before it arrived.

He swung up on Dancer. The base was about twenty miles away. Make it in an hour or so of hard riding.

“We can still make a deal, animal,” said Terl. "If you sent uranium to Psychlo, you're really messed up. It 's been tried before. They have a force field around their receipt platform and if any uranium flashes on Psychlo, that force field triggers solid to enclose their whole platform. The flashback occurs at the sending point just like you saw today. Psychlo will be attacking this place, animal. You'll need me to mediate.”

Jonnie looked at him. He raised his hand in farewell to the girls and Thor and thumped a heel into Dancer, and she streaked off through the declining sunlight.

Ahead of him pulsed and flickered the battle at the compound. He had wasted time. He could not have done anything else. Be calm, he told himself. Don't panic. A battle plane could catch that drone.

As he raced across the plain, he put out of his mind a thought that kept crowding in. Not all the armed forces of the United States in its days of power had been able to do anything at all to that gas drone. Not with planes, missiles, atomic bombs, or even suicide crashes.

You have time. You can catch up with it. Don't panic.