ably from the east to engulf them.
And then, abruptly, the bus had started down.

"They're hanging a neat frame on you, sir," Mason said. "Making
certain you don't get the women you ask. By kidnaping some, they plan
sure as hell to make it look as though Ihelian desperation is
responsible. And bingo, your side's in the dog house in nothing flat.
No deal!"

"They're damnably cunning," Kriijorl said. "It will not be the first
time they have come near making utter fools of us. I can't understand
that."

"But how would they have gotten those women?" Judith asked. The helio
was slanting downward, and was now less than five miles distant from
the fast vanishing bus. It began to skim the tree tops of a great
tract of spruce, its chauffeur awaiting Mason's signal to drop quickly
out of their quarry's line of sight.

"Video ads, of course," Mason answered quickly, straining his tensed
eyes to estimate distance in the fast gathering darkness. "Some big
deal. Spaceliner hostess at twice the going rate of payment. Anything
like that...."

The bus finally vanished less than a half-mile ahead of Mason's helio,
and there was a dark vertical shadow jutting just above the tree tops.
He knew it was one of their shuttle boats, and from its apparent size
would easily hold all the bus would be able to carry--perhaps a full
three hundred. He gave orders quickly to the chauffeur, and then the
helio was hovering inches above the tree tops, and he tossed a
plastiweave ladder over the side.

"Don't use the radio," he snapped to Judith. "Just get back to New-UN
headquarters. Inform them any way possible of what's going on, and
then flash the air patrol and tell 'em to come gunning!"

He didn't give her a chance to argue. He simply swung over the helio's
side, Kriijorl after him, and within moments they were on the ground,
and running with what silence they could through the darkness toward
the towering Thrayxite ship a quarter-mile distant.

"Their action is incomprehensible to me," the Ihelian grunted between
gulps of air. "It violates the most basic tenets of the ancient Book
of the Saints, sacred to us both--"

"Better save your breath for running," Mason told him, and they
sprinted across the soft pine needle forest floor, shielding their
eyes from treacherous, low hanging boughs, dodging the trees
themselves as best they could in the moonlit darkness.

And they burst upon the clearing in which the Thrayxite ship had
landed almo