-end-shack. His eyes shone.

"I got--" he swallowed--"Zani. I said"--he swallowed again, "we will
come." He added: "Our language."

Soames looked at him sharply.

"Maybe you do read minds. Was anybody listening in? Anybody else beside
Zani?"

"Two men," said Fran. "Two. They talked. Fast. English."

"One man would be a monitor," said Soames grimly. "Two means a
directional fix. Let's go!"

By that night they were hundreds of miles from Calumet Lake.

The highways were crowded with the people who'd evacuated the cities.
The high population of remote places was a protection for Soames and
Fran. He worried, though, about Gail, her situation, and that of the
three other children, was far from enviable. In the present increasing
confusion and tension they were hardly likely to have any improvement in
their state.

"I think," Soames told Fran reflectively, "that at night, and with the
kind of disorganization that seems to be increasing, you can get away
with talking to the kids again. Nobody'll try a parachute drop in these
mountains in the darkness." They were then a hundred miles south of
Denver. "They couldn't get organized before daybreak, and I doubt that
they could block the highways. See if you can make contact, eh? And find
out how they're getting along?"

Fran nodded. He moved so that the heat of their fire would not fall on
him, to tell that he camped out-of-doors. He found a place to lie down
in comfort, so that there would be no distracting sensation. He closed
his eyes. Soames saw him press the end of his tiny communicator and
release it quickly. After an instant's pause he pressed it again. He
held the communicator on for several seconds, half a minute. He released
it and sat up.

"You try," he said in a puzzled fashion. "You try!"

Soames closed his eyes. He pressed the little pin-head button at the end
of the instrument which was hardly larger than a match-stick. He felt
the sensations of another body. That other body opened its eyes. Soames
saw who it was, Gail's face was reflected in a mirror. She was pale. Her
expression was drawn and harried. But she smiled at her reflection,
because she knew Soames would see what she saw.

He spoke, so she'd hear his voice as he did.

"Gail!"

He felt a hand--which was her hand--spill something on a levelled
surface before her. It smoothed the spilled stuff. It was face-powder,
spread on a dressing-table top. A finger wrote. She looked down at what
was