“Slugger, when you talk that stuff, you make it sound rational.”
“That’s because I’m always rational. How well fixed are you for groceries? I’m hungry.”
“You’re as bad as Lummox. The grub sack is over there.”
“Lunch?” inquired Lummox, hearing his name.
“Umm. . . Betty, I don’t want him tearing down trees, not in daylight. How long will it take them to track me down?”
“I wouldn’t count on over three days, big as this place is.”
“Well. . . I’ll hold back food for five, just in case.” He selected a dozen canned rations and gave them to Lummox. He did not open them as Lummox rather liked having the packages suddenly become hot when he bit into them. He finished them off before Betty had their own lunches opened.
After they ate Johnnie started to bring up the subject again. “Betty, do you really think that-” He broke off suddenly. “Hear anything?”
She listened, then nodded solemnly.
“How fast?”
“Not over two hundred.”
He nodded. “Then they are scanning. Lummox! Don’t move a muscle!”
“I won’t, Johnnie. Why not move a muscle?”
“Do it!”
“Don’t get excited,” Betty advised. “They are probably just laying out their search pattern. Chances are they couldn’t identify us either in the scope or visually with these trees to break up the image.” But she looked worried. “I wish Lummie were already in the mine tunnel, though. If anyone is smart enough to run a selective scan straight down that road while we’re on it tonight. . . well, we’ve had it.”
John Thomas was not really listening. He was leaning forward, cupping his ears with both hands. “Hush!” he whisppered, “Betty-they’re coming back!”
“Don’t panic. It’s probably the other leg of the search pattern.”
But even as she said it she knew that she was wrong. The sound came over them, hovered and dropped in pitch. They looked up, but the denseness of the forest and the altitude of the craft kept them from seeing it.
Suddenly there was a light so bright that it made the sharp sunlight seem dusky when it passed. Betty gulped. “What was that?”
“Ultraflash photo,” he answered soberly. “They’re checking what they picked up on the scope.”
The sound above them squealed higher, then dropped; the eyeburning flash occurred again. “Stereoed it,” Johnnie announced solemnly. “They’ll really see us now, if they only suspected before.”
“Johnnie, we’ve got to get Lummox out of here!”
“How? Take him up on the road and let them pinpoint him with bomb? No, kid, our only hope now is that they decide he is a big boulder-I’m glad I made him stay tucked in.” He added, “We mustn’t move, either. They may go away.”
Even that outside hope passed. One after another, four more ships were heard. Johnnie ticked them off. “That one has taken station to the south. The third one was north, I think. Now they’ll cover to the west. . . a pinwheel guard. They’ve got us boxed, Slugger.” She looked at him, her face dead white. “What do we do, Johnnie?”
“Huh? Why, noth-No, Betty look. You duck down through the trees to the creek. Take your flight harness with you. Then follow the stream a good distance and take to the air. Keep low until you get out from under their umbrella. They’ll let you go-they don’t want you.”
“And what will you be doing?”
“Me? I stay here.”
“And so do I.”
Johnnie said fretfully, “Don’t make me any trouble, Slugger. You’d just be in the way.”
“What do you think you can do? You don’t even have a gun.”
“I have this,” John Thomas answered grimly, touching his sheath knife, “-and Lummox can throw rocks.”
She stared at him, then laughed wildly. “What? Rocks indeed! Oh, Johnnie-”
“They’re not going to take us without a fight. Now will you get out of here-fast!-and quit being a nuisance?”
“No!”
“Look, Slugger, there isn’t time to argue. You get clear and fast. I stay with Lummox; that’s my privilege. He’s mine.”
She burst into tears. “And you’re mine, you big stupid oaf.”
He tried to answer her and could not. His face began to break in the spasmodic movements of a man trying to control tears. Lummox stirred uneasily. “What’s the matter, Johnnie?” he piped.
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