er. "Ah-ah! Right of privacy." And with swift
seriousness, "You know too much already. I have to assume you can keep
it secret all your life."

"That remains to be seen," Elena said, not looking at him.

VII

Sundown burned across the waters and the island rose like a mountain
of night against the darkening sky. Dalgetty stretched cramped muscles
and peered over the bay.

In the hours of waiting there had not been much said between him and
the woman. He had dropped a few questions, with the careful casualness
of the skilled analyst, and gotten the expected reactions. He knew a
little more about her--a child of the strangling dying cities and
shadowy family life of the 1980's, forced to armor herself in
harshness, finding in the long training for her work and now in the
job itself an ideal to substitute for the tenderness she had never
known.

He felt pity for her but there was little he could do to help just
now. To her own queries he gave guarded replies. It occurred to him
briefly that he was, in his way, as lonesome as she. _But of course I
don't mind--or do I?_

Mostly they tried to plan their next move. For the time, at least,
they were of one purpose. She described the layout of house and
grounds and indicated the cell where Michael Tighe was ordinarily
kept. But there was not much they could do to think out tactics. "If
Bancroft gets alarmed enough," she said, "he'll have Dr. Tighe flown
elsewhere."

He agreed. "That's why we'd better hit tonight, before he can get that
worried." The thought was pain within him. _Dad, what are they doing
to you now?_

"There's also the matter of food and drink." Her voice was husky with
thirst and dull with the discouragement of hunger. "We can't stay out
here like this much longer." She gave him a strange glance. "Don't you
feel weak?"

"Not now," he said. He had blocked off the sensations.

"They--_Simon!_" She grabbed his arm. "A boat--hear?"

The murmur of jets drifted to him through the beating waves. "Yeah.
Quick--underneath!"

They scrambled over the hogback and slid down its farther side. The
sea clawed at Dalgetty's feet and foam exploded over his head. He
hunched low, throwing one arm about her as she slipped. The airboat
murmured overhead, hot gold in the sunset light. Dalgetty crouched,
letting the breakers run coldly around him. The ledge where they clung
was worn smooth, offered little to hold onto.

The boat circled, its jets thunderous at low