ad a few miles ahead.

My next was a thorough covering of the road behind; as I expected
another car was pacing us just beyond the range of my perception for
anything but a rifle aimed at my hide.

Pacing isn't quite the word, I use it in the sense of their keeping up
with us. Fact is that all of us were going about as fast as we could go,
with safety of tertiary importance. Anyway, they were pacing us and
closing down from that parallel road on the right.

I took a fast and very careful scanning of the landscape to our left but
couldn't find anything. I spent some time at it then, but still came up
with a blank.

#Turn left at that feeder road a mile ahead,# I thought at Farrow and
she nodded.

There was one possibility that I did not like to face. We had definitely
detected pursuit to our right and behind, but not to our left. This did
not mean that the left-side was not covered. It was quite likely that
the gang to the rear were in telepathic touch with a network of other
telepaths, the end of which mental relay link was far beyond range, but
as close in touch with our position and action as if we'd been in sight.
The police make stake-out nets that way, but the idea is not exclusive.
I recall hazing an eloping couple that way once.

But there was nothing to do but to take the feeder road to the left,
because the devil we could see was more dangerous than the devil we
couldn't.

Farrow whipped into the side road and we tore along with only a slight
slowing of our headlong speed. I ranged ahead, worried, suspicious of
everything, scanning very carefully and strictly on the watch for any
evidence of attempted interception.

I caught a touch of danger converging up from the South on a series of
small roads. This I did not consider dangerous after a fast look at my
roadmap because this series of roads did not meet our side road for a
long time and only after a lot of turning and twisting. So long as we
went Easterly, we were okay from that angle.

The gang behind, of course, followed us, staying at the very edge of my
range.

"You'll have to fly, Farrow," I told her. "If that gang to our South
stays there, we'll not be able to turn down Homestead way."

"Steve, I'm holding this crate on the road by main force and awkwardness
as it is."

But she did step it up a bit, at that. I kept a cautious and suspicious
watchout, worrying in the back of my mind that someone among them might
turn up with a jetcopter. S