Beastchild

of the car and dripping inside from a hundred different places. In seconds, it would have enough of itself within the car to destroy the boy.
        Frantically, Hulann considered starting the engines and hoping the abruptness of the action would cause the Isolator to draw back long enough for them to rock the car right-side-up and get out of there. But he knew such a strategem was pointless, for an Isolator could never be surprised. It was far too clever for that. The only way to beat the Isolator was to divide it into so many parts that none of them could carry enough group consciousness to move efficiently…
        And he had the answer. In its wild rambling from one point to another, his overmind had discovered the only thing that might work. Hulann reached down, primed the engines, and reached for the switch.
        "I thought you said that was useless," Leo said.
        "It may be. But I've just realized that, since we're on our side, the Isolator is pressed up against the blades, perhaps meshed right in there with them."
        Leo grinned. Hulann was amazed at the human's capacity for humor in such a dire circumstance.
        He turned to the switch, twisted it, felt the engines cough. They did not catch.
        The mass of amoeboid flesh within the car was half as large as Leo now and growing larger every second. It drew toward him, slopping over the seat, an amber pseu-dopod tentatively feeling in his direction.
        Hulann hit the starter again.
        The shuttlecraft groaned and shuddered. Then the blades stuttered, whirred, and burst into life, chopping through the huge mass of the Isolator's weapon, shredding it into thousands of minute pieces and scattering those across the sand in every direction.
        The mass within the car jerked and twitched like an epileptic. It surged back toward the glass and the metal through which it had come. The Isolator was confused, perhaps even momentarily panicked. It pulled away from the glass, trying to heave itself free of the car. It merely succeeded in getting more of its bulk sucked into the whirling rotors where it was hacked into useless segments and tossed messily into the hot air.
        "Rock the car!" Hulann shouted above the whine of the blades. "In time with me." He started swaying heavily back and forth, putting most of his force into the surges to his left.
        Leo joined in, happier than ever.
        The car leaned too far, at last, and crashed upright again, bouncing on its rubber rim, then leaping two feet above the sand as the air cushion buoyed it. Hulann leaned over the wheel, thrust his splayed foot into the wide band of the accelerator, and sent them slipping swiftly across the desert toward the road the bat thing had driven them from only a short time ago.
        "What now?" Leo asked.
        "We move fast," Hulann said. "With luck, we'll escape from this area before the Isolator can get another weapon after us."
        "What about that?" Leo asked, pointing at a mound of quivering amber flesh on the floor between them.
        "It's too small for the Isolator to control," Hulann said. "It's on its own now-brainless. We'll just endure it until we're out of the danger area. I don't want to waste time stopping and getting rid of it."
        Leo pulled close to his door and watched the glob of flesh carefully, though it seemed quite as harmless as Hulann said it was.
        Thirty minutes later, Hulann's spirits were tremendously revived. He was fairly certain the Isolator was not going to reach them now. It had more than likely suffered physical shock when such a large portion of itself had been chopped into separate, uncontrollable entities by the blades of the shuttlecraft. If it had recovered from that by now, it would find it too late to manufacture a new weapon, he hoped. Ahead, a mile or two, laid the opening in the valley wall that, he imagined, was the end of the Isolator's domain. Beyond that, freedom…
        Rising over the top of the rock wall was Docanil's copter, the blades like the wings of a dragonfly, mere blurs of gray against the lighter gray of the sky.
        Hulann's foot strayed toward the brake, then slammed back into the accelerator once more. There was nothing to be gained by stopping. There might be equally little to gain by going on with the Hunter so near, but it was the only reasonable choice they had.
        He looked at the boy. Leo looked back, shrugged his