The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

minutes Peake’ll be here with rations. I’ll leave this door unlatched. There’s another storage cabin across the corridor—see if you can hide there, then trick him into getting in here and lock him in. Got it?”
    Vye nodded.
    “Then—make for the exit port. Here.” He snapped a packet loose from his belt. “This is a flare pak, you saw how they worked on the island. When you get on the ramp beyond the atom lamp, throw this. It should hit the camp force barrier. And the result ought to hold their attention. Then you head for the flitter. Understand?”
    “Yes.”
    The flitter, yes, that was the perfect escape. With a camp force barrier on, any fugitive could only break out by going straight up.
    Hume gazed at him soberly, listened once more, and then went. Vye counted a slow five before he followed. The cabin across the corridor was open, just as Hume had promised. He slipped inside, waited.
    Peake was coming now, the metallic plates on his spaceboots clicking in regular pattern of sound. He earned another ration container and crooked it in his arm as he snapped up the lock bar on the other cabin.
    There was an exclamation of surprise. Vye went into action. His hand, backed by all the strength of his thrusting arm, thumped between Peake’s shoulders, sending him staggering into the prison compartment. Before the other could recover either his balance or his wits, Vye had the panel shut, the bar locked into place.
    He ran down the corridor to the well ladder, swung down its rungs with an agility born of necessity. Then he was in the air lock, getting his bearings. The flitter stood to his left, the flashing atom lamp, where the men were gathered, to his right.
    Vye stepped out on the ramp. He wiped his sweating hand across his thigh. There had to be no failures in the tossing of the flare pak.
    Choosing a spot, not directly in line with the lamp but near enough to dazzle the men, he hurled it with all the force he could muster. Then he was running down the ramp, forward to the area of the ship.
    There was a flash—shouting—Vye curbed the impulse to look back, darted for the flitter. He jerked open the cabin compartment, scrambled into the cramped space behind the pilot’s seat, leaving that free for Hume’s quick entrance. More shouting—now he saw the lines of fire wavering from earth to sky along the barrier.
    A black shape put on a burst of speed, was silhouetted against that flaming wall, then passed the spacer, grabbed at the open cockpit, and slid in behind the controls. Hume pulled the levers with flying fingers. They arose vertically at a pace which practically slapped Vye’s stomach up into the lower regions of his throat.
    The searing line of at least one blaster reached after them—too slowly, too low. He heard Hume grunt, and they again leaped higher. Then the Hunter spoke:
    “Half an hour at the most—”
    “The safari camp?
    “Yes.”
    They no longer climbed. The flitter was boring forwards on a projectile flight, into the dark of the night.
    “What’re those?” Vye suddenly leaned forward.
    Had some of the stars across the space void broken free from their fixed orbits? Flecks of light, moving in an arc, headed towards the speeding flitter.
    Hume hit a button. Again they arose in a violent leap above those wandering lights. But ahead on this new level more such dots flocked, moving fast to close in on the flyer.
    “A straight ram course,” Hume muttered, more to himself than Vye.
    Again the flyer drove forward in a rising thrust of speed. Then the smooth purr of the propulsion unit faltered, broke into protesting coughs. Hume worked over the controls, beads of sweat showing on his forehead and cheek in the gleam of the cabin light.
    “Deading—deading out!”
    He brought the flitter around in a wide circle, the purr smoothed out once more in a steady reassuring beat.
    “Out run them!”
    But Vye feared they were back again on the losing side of a struggle with the unknown alien power. As they had been herded along the river, so now they were being pushed across the sky, towards the mountains. The enemy had followed them aloft!
    Some core of stubborn will in Hume would not yet allow him to admit that. Time and time again he climbed higher—always to meet climbing, twisting, spurting lines of lights which reacted on the engine of the flitter and threatened it with complete failure.
    Where they were now in relation to Wass’ camp or that of the safari, Vye had no idea,