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quite comfortable. I had often surprised wild animals down there, including actual tobs, to our mutual diversion.

  The opposition now had a delicious dilemma. They could circle, hoping to get me, and chance missing their interception; or they could stick to their mission and be driven mad. They wisely chose the latter. I popped out at them twice and got another aircraft with a burst in the belly. They then crossed the Road and were over the southern grassland.

  "Center, Eisenbeak." Under actual combat conditions, we dispensed with formal procedure.

  "Go ahead," said Snapey.

  "The Zhenders have broken free of the forest. We’re now facing twelve of an original fifteen."

  "Good on you!" "Superb scouting." "Good old Eisenbeak!" broke out over the landline. I basked and preened, needless to say.

  I circled under the trees until I heard Felknibb's voice: "Heads up, Blue Squadron," he said. "Zhenders in sight at ten o'clock."

  Then came the voice of Debblemin, today's Combat Leader: "Blue Squadron, this is Covey One. Engage the enemy. Use Echelon Right. Do it, chaps!"

  The next thing the poor Zhenders knew, fourteen blue and black Decker's Tobs, the hunted – ha! – had born down on them in perfect Echelon and passed through, dispensing a veritable shower of BB-shot. Two Zhenders were hit, for a total of five, and we hadn't taken a single hit!

  But our opposition were no amateurs. They now did a neat splitting maneuver I'd never seen before, and, as we came round, got two of our Post Vee. That woke us up. I was able to join the fight at that point. I paired as usual with Krimby, Hub Leader with an Old Earth Valkyrie painted on his fuselage, and we picked a Zhender to engage.

  We soon had him blinking red. I understand the American Air Corps, flying against the Japanese eighty earth-years back, engaged in pairs rather than individually, using a weaving tactic, and achieved a casualty ratio of nearly fifteen to one against better aircraft. One day, I thought, I might read more about the "Jap Zero" in Old Earth Fighter Aircraft.

  The opposition were giving a better account of themselves, and the encounter was shaping up into some elegant dogfights, when Snapey’s voice came over the landline. "Blue Squadron, this is Center. Emergency. Emergency. Disengage at once. Return your aircraft to base. Ending Transmission."

  Naturally everyone spoke at once. "What the devil?" "We're in the middle of a scrap!" "What do you mean, 'disengage'?" "Go to blazes, Center!" "What 'emergency'?"

  The Commander cut through firmly. "This is Center. All aircraft, return to base. There's been a serious incident back in Dinnorbinn. Let me know when you're free. Ending transmission."

  We took two casualties disengaging amid grumbles, but finally the Zhenders began to extricate themselves as well. They pulled up and started northeast with no formation. They were indeed based at Wangrove Mesa, then.

  Debblemin called in when we were on course for Grand Mesa. "Center, this is Covey One. We're headed for base. Now what's going on? Over to you."

  Snapey's voice came back. "Center. There's been a kidnapping: gangsters of the Kabun-Zai Circle have abducted eight schoolchildren on their way to an overnight field-trip."

  Amid the exclamations, my stomach slowly turned over. "Snapey, this is Bretcher. Did you say a field-trip?"

  "Afraid so, Bret. The names have been made public – our new Mayor's policy with Circle mobsters. Your twins, Drent and Linnea, are two of the eight. You see why I called us off."

  There were exclamations of surprise and concern. At that moment, the very worst of my life up to then, I had two thoughts. The first was that if the twins' wishes had prevailed they would have been with me today and not on that confounded field trip. The second thought took the form of an image. It was of the two vehicles I had seen on the Old South Road.

  "Snapey, this is Bretcher again. I'm going to branch off. I saw something I need to investigate. It may be nothing, but I have to find out."

  "Bret, this is hardly the time to . . ."

  "It's my twins, old man."

  Pause. "All right, but keep us informed."

  I didn't bother answering. Hardly the time, indeed. I pulled away from the formation, shed altitude, and picked up the line of the ruined Road. A bit later, as I flew along it, I heard the rest of the Squadron coming in to land. Presently, there was a knock at the door of my carriage.

  "Open," I said, displacing an earphone and glancing back.

  Snapey peered in at me. "What have you got, Bret?" I could see Krimby and the others behind him.

  I turned back to the screen, moved the stick to get to the center of the Road again. "As I was scouting this morning, I saw a couple of vehicles on the Old South Road. I don't see them now. They must have pulled off into the Forest."

  "Vehicles on the Old South Road?" There was some muttering behind him. "They might be the kidnappers!"

  "My thought precisely. This spot would be a good place for them to go to ground. I'd like to have a look."

  "Well, do be careful," said Snapey.

  Again forbearing to answer, I presently passed the turning point I had used that morning, with its sparser woods and Hornets' nests. The shallow lake was visible through the trees.

  "Getting close now," I said.

  Snapey spoke. "Best pick up some altitude, Bret. If they hear your engine . . ."

  "Yes, I know," I said. "I'll have to glide when I get there and hope they don't look up."

  More muttering. I went high and reduced speed to fly along quietly. Presently I saw tracks in the dust where vehicles had crossed the shoulder to enter the north treeline. Kidnappers or not, they must be there, and not far inside the trees. I circled south and squared up.

  "Here goes," I said. I cut power to the engine, and my propeller stuttered to stillness before my windscreen. All working systems now depended on the batteries. I had practiced this, but not enough to get a real feel for gliding a powered craft; my glide angle was a bit too steep for comfort. I flashed between the trunks just under the top foliage, perhaps two hundred feet up, and strained to look ahead.

  "There they are," yelled Snapey. He had pushed forward into the cockpit.

  There they were indeed: two vehicles with people round them, some upright, some supine. I eased back on the stick, soft and left, tracked the right lens and punched the imaging button five times. At the end of the turn, I was all the way round and gliding low into the open shade over the Road.

  I banked hard right, my angle still uncomfortably steep, and, when I had nearly grounded, engaged the ignition switch. The prop kicked over and vanished! I fed fuel, saw the welcome surge of speed, and banked up over the southern trees, delirious with relief.

  "Very nice," said Snapey.

  "I almost lost it," I said. I transferred the images from combat memory onto a flake and passed it to Snapey. "Set those up in the Display, will you? I'll be along when I've landed."

  "Right," said Snapey. The others backed out, and they started for the Briefing Tent.

  When I had landed and come over, he had the screen set up. It was the children, all right. Frame Three showed the scene best: the victims were face up on the ground, gagged with their limbs taped; Drent, our boy, and Linnea, his sister, were numbers two and six. A couple of hard-faced men, long-haired and stripped to the waist, were manhandling a sizable crate out of the larger vehicle, while a third sat on a crate behind them, checking over a power rifle.

  I sat back. "So what are these thugs up to?"

  To Table of Contents

  3. Situation Report

  "Nothing pleasant," Snapey replied. "According to the radio news, which I usually listen to during engagements, three Kabun-Zai Circlists took these children last night, leaving their teacher tied up. This morning, Mayor Kendring got a call from a spokesman for the Kabun-Zai. They propose to trade the children for six convicts currently in prison. The Mayor has refused."

  "As he must," I said. "Who says these kidnappers are Kabun-Zai?"

  "The kidnappers do," said Snapey. "When the te
acher was located and freed, he said they were wearing armbands with the Kabun-Zai cachet. They also said they were Kabun-Zai."

  I shook my head. "I've never heard of such behavior," I said. "The main strength of the Circles is their anonymity. They use the cachets as warnings, or some such nonsense, when they've murdered an informer. They do not use them to identify themselves as perpetrators of a crime in progress."

  Snapey shrugged. "There've been some calls saying it's not the Kabun-Zai, but the teacher saw the cachets quite clearly."

  I was too blunt. "Apparently you didn’t hear me. You don’t have to be Kabun-Zai to call yourself Kabun-Zai or to display their cachet. In fact, it wouldn’t make sense for a Kabun-Zai member to do it."

  There were interruptions, but I held up a hand.

  "Think about it: what are the possible results? If the Mayor eventually agrees to their demands – very unlikely with this Mayor – they get six members back they can never use again. If the Mayor refuses, they slaughter these children, and then what?"

  Lanky Maundel spoke. "I know what you mean. I thought it sounded a bit daft myself."

  "Exactly. If they actually killed children, the Kabun-Zai would be making endless trouble for themselves. Public apathy would end. Potential witnesses might even cease yielding to their threats. And yet look!" I pointed at the screen. "The children aren't blindfold, and the Circlists aren't masked."

  "So?" said Snapey.

  I was patient. "They're planning to kill the children, whatever happens. Make sense of that, please."

  After a