eam. "The speed limit along here is seventy,
and we can't be picked up."

"Easy it is, Kinny. But _give_! What's the score? Where's Kolanides? Or
rather, what happened to him?"

"Dead. So are the others, I think. They put him on a psycho-bench and
turned him inside out."

"But the blocks?"

"Didn't hold--over here they add such trimmings as skinning and salt to
the regular psycho routine. But none of them knew anything about me, nor
about how their reports were picked up, or I'd have been dead, too. But
it doesn't make any difference, Fry--we're just one week too late."

"What do you mean, too late? Speed it up!" His tone was rough, but the
hand he placed on her arm was gentleness itself.

"I'm telling you as fast as I can. I picked up his last report day
before yesterday. They have missiles just as big and just as fast as
ours--maybe more so--and they are going to fire one at Atlantis tonight
at exactly seven o'clock."

"Tonight! Holy gods!" The man's mind raced.

"Yes." Kinnexa's voice was low, uninflected. "And there was nothing in
the world that I could do about it. If I approached any one of our
places, or tried to use a beam strong enough to reach anywhere, I would
simply have got picked up, too. I've thought and thought, but could
figure out only one thing that might possibly be of any use, and I
couldn't do that alone. But two of us, perhaps...."

"Go on. Brief me. Nobody ever accused you of not having a brain, and you
know this whole country like the palm of your hand."

"Steal a ship. Be over the ramp at exactly Seven Pay Emma. When the lid
opens, go into a full-power dive, beam Artomenes--if I had a second
before they blanketed my wave--and meet their rocket head-on in their
own launching-tube."

This was stark stuff, but so tense was the moment and so highly keyed up
were the two that neither of them saw anything out of the ordinary in
it.

"Not bad, if we can't figure out anything better. The joker being, of
course, that you didn't see how you could steal a ship?"

"Exactly. I can't carry blasters. No woman in Norheim is wearing a coat
or a cloak now, so I can't either. And just look at this dress! Do you
see any place where I could hide even one?"

He looked, appreciatively, and she had the grace to blush.

"Can't say that I do," he admitted. "But I'd rather have one of our own
ships, if we could make the approach. Could both of us make it, do you
suppose?"

"Not a chance. They'd keep