is head. He waved frantically. The two men in the
other car waved back.

"Shall I duck under the trees?" the driver asked.

"Not yet. Not until we have to."

Read fingered the machine gun he had picked up when he got in the
car. He had never been shot at. Twice he had faced an unarmed
mob, but a few shots had sent them running.

Birds flew screaming from their nests. Monkeys screeched and
threw things at the noisy, speeding cars. A little cloud of birds
surrounded each vehicle.

The escort car made a sharp turn and charged their pursuers. The
big rifle fired twice. Read saw the Belderkan cars scatter.
Suddenly machine-gun bullets cracked and whined beside him.

"Evade," Rashid said. "Don't go down."

Without losing any forward speed, the driver took them straight
up. Read's stomach bounced.

A shell exploded above them. The car rocked. He raised his eyes
and saw a long crack in the roof.

"Hit the floor," Rashid said.

They knelt on the cramped floor. Rashid put on his gas mask and
Read copied him. Umluana breathed like a furnace, still
unconscious from the injection Rashid had given him.

_I can't do anything_, Read thought. _They're too far away to
shoot back. All we can do is run._

The sky was clear and blue. The jungle was a noisy bazaar of
color. In the distance guns crashed. He listened to shells
whistle by and the whipcrack of machine-gun bullets. The car
roller-coastered up and down. Every time a shell passed, he
crawled in waves down his own back.

Another explosion, this time very loud.

Rashid raised his eyes above the seat and looked out the rear
window. "Two left. Keep down, Read."

"Can't we go down?" Read said.

"They'll get to Miaka before us."

He shut his eyes when he heard another loud explosion.

Sergeant Rashid looked out the window again. He swore bitterly in
English and Egyptian. Read raised his head. The two cars behind
them weren't fighting each other. A long way back the tree-tops
burned.

"How much farther?" Rashid said. The masks muffled their voices.

"There it is now. Shall I take us right in?"

"I think you'd better."

* * * * *

The station was a glass diamond in a small clearing. The driver
slowed down, then crashed through the glass walls and hovered by
the transmitter booth.

Rashid opened the door and threw out two grenades. Read jumped
out and the two of them struggled toward the booth with Umluana.
The driver, pistol