Rip was still slumped in a muscle
cramping posture, breathing heavily. Dane bit out a forceful word born of
twinges of his own, and then snapped on the visa-plate.
For a long moment he was sure that he was not yet awake. And then, as his
dazed mind supplied names for what he saw, he knew that Rip had failed.
Far from being in the center--or at least well within the perimeter of
the dread Big Burn--they must have landed in some civic park or national
forest. For the massed green outside, the bright flowers, the bird he
sighted as a brilliant flash of wind coasting color--those were not to
be found in the twisted horror left by man's last attempt to impress his
will upon his resisting kind.
Well, it had been a good try, but there was no use expecting luck to ride
their fins all the way, and they had had more than their share in the
E-Stat affair. How long would it be before the Law arrived to collect
them? Would they have time to state their case?
The faint hope that they might aroused him. He reached for the com key
and a second later tore the headphones from his appalled ears.
Pages:
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222