.

Reaching the roof, they saw the police ship and the man (one of their
own) guarding it. He nodded to Morgan, ran toward the railing of
converging walls as if alarmed by sounds from below. Morgan came
behind and clubbed him unconscious with the butt of the rifle. He
leapt up into the ship, where Elonna was already strapping herself in.
Her hands would not stop shaking. He jammed the door shut, made ready
to lift off. Six seconds later, they were in the air.

He started the small, fast ship forward just as the first of the air
patrols drew near him. He fired twice and banked sharply left.

His shots went high and wide, and as he turned, the lead ship strafed
his exposed underside. Smoke and trickling flame burst out within and
the shields collapsed, but he kept the ship moving. Broken by the
concussion, Elonna lay limp in her seat, only the harness keeping her
in place. He steered the ship low between a gap in the oncoming hills,
as unseen emplacements opened fire on his pursuit.

*

Morgan stepped wearily through the entrance of the unfamiliar cave,
trying to support his broken shoulder with the opposite hand. The boy
broke free from the woman's grasp and came toward him. Seeing only the
man, he broke into an angry despair.

"Where's Miss Elonna?" he cried.

Morgan tried to speak, but the boy ran up to him in tears, punching and
kicking.

Then Elonna passed through the narrow arch.

"No, Johnny, don't. It's all right. I'm all right."

She wiped the tears and grime from her face and knelt and hugged him
deeply. The child buried himself against her.

........................................................................
.........

STALAGMITE

The day was so dark that Dobrynin began to wonder if something wasn't
seriously wrong. He stopped the pede-like cruiser at the foot of the
great volcano, looked up through the glass at the warping sky. Black
clouds continued to roil up from countless hollow, sharp-edged peaks
all across the planet.

The satellite readout only confirmed what his eyes and instincts told
him. Tremors and quakes shook the ground beneath him as a heavy static
storm crackled white and spindly light through the poison atmosphere.
Marcum-Lauries One was caught between the pull of its two suns, which
happened roughly every three hundred years. But even so, internal
pressures were much too high. It boded ill for the hopes of his