Patriots

The kidnappers climbed in with nervous haste. The car's underside tilted against the dirt, bounced up, and grounded firmly when the last two Zeniths boarded. The driver cursed in despair and fed full power to his motors. The car wallowed a few inches into the air in a gout of dust and pebbles.

"We're too heavy!" the driver cried. "Colonel, you've got to leave them here!"

"Get going!" Berkeley Finch said. "If anybody's left here, it'll be you!"

The car got under way after scraping the undercarriage twice, the first time so hard that Mark thought he heard metal tear. The downslope helped. The overloaded vehicle accelerated to thirty miles an hour with the help of gravity and was able to climb, though very sluggishly, when the terrain started to rise again.

They needed surface effect to proceed. Instead of flying, the car lurched along on the blanket of air squeezed between their skid plate and the ground. The beam of the car's broad bar headlight wriggled down aisles of trees so massive that their branches had shaded out the undergrowth.

The last view Mark had of the Ba

"I don't generally complain about a guest, lad," Yerby rumbled, "but I'd sure appreciate you taking your toe out of my eye-socket."

"Sorry," Mark said. He had normal feeling back in his limbs; enough at least that he felt the sting of the tight cords binding him. He didn't have proper muscle control yet, but he and Yerby managed to squirm so that they were side by side rather than stacked.

Yerby tried to sit up. A Zenith hit him with the butt of her repeller. "Keep your head down or I'll blow it off!" she snarled.

"Now, now," Yerby said in apparent unconcern. "I just want to chat with my good friend Dr. Jesilind. Doc, it's been a while. And to tell the truth, I didn't expect to find you in the present company."

Yerby leaned back so that his shoulders rested on the boots of the Zeniths on the backseat. His eyes remained below the level of the car's sides.

For a moment, Mark didn't think Jesilind was going to reply. Finally the doctor twisted to look over the front seat and said, "Mr. Ba

"How much are they paying you, Jesilind?" Mark said. He was so angry that his voice warbled. "Since it's not a normal kidnapping, you won't just take a share of the ransom, I suppose."

"It's not a kidnapping at all, Maxwell," Berkeley Finch said. He was squeezed onto the rear seat, from which he'd been looking back the way they'd come. "We're a legally constituted posse, carrying those we've arrested back to a court of competent jurisdiction to stand trial. It's that simple."

"Yerby," Dr. Jesilind said, "I realize that you were acting with no more malice than a willful child has, but your presence on Greenwood was a disruptive influence. I couldn't let the progress of civilization be interrupted for reasons of personal friendship. I hope that some day you'll understand."

"Oh, I guess we understand each other, Doc," Yerby said. Mark wondered if Jesilind was smart enough to know that the mild words ought to terrify him.

The car was making better speed than before, mainly because the driver had learned how to handle the vehicle under the present conditions. A dirigible might barely be able to keep up with them, but the kidnappers' repellers would rip the ballonets to shreds in a burst or two. At the speed the pellets traveled, the sparks of one hitting a frame tube would ignite the escaping hydrogen into a pale blue inferno.

A Zenith had claimed he'd "dumped the gas from the blimp." Mark hoped that was true. He particularly hoped Amy wasn't pursuing in the Ba

From the car's heading, the Zeniths had landed at Wanker's Doodle. Their ship was probably waiting for them on the magnetic mass.

The Zenith militia were nervous. They kicked him every time they turned or tried to make a little more room than the car had. That was fair. Mark figured he deserved to be kicked. He'd really meant to set a remote link to the Doodle's landing system the way he had at the Spiker, but he'd been busy…

"Mr. Finch!" Mark said. "Or is it 'Colonel' that you're calling yourself now? May I ask what charges have been brought against me?"

Finch had been looking behind again. He turned. There was almost no light in the vehicle, but his face was a pale blob in greater shadows.

"An informant has identified you as one of the ringleaders of the criminal conspiracy, Maxwell," he said. "We wouldn't have gone after you alone, but we hoped to find you."

Mark began to laugh. "Well, I'm glad to hear Dr. Jesilind has been earning his pay so well," he said. "Or does he get thirty pieces of silver for each of us?"

He wouldn't have recognized that harsh, cruel voice as his own if he hadn't felt it trumpeting from his throat. They'd tied his body, but Mark Maxwell of Quelhagen was still a better man than these thugs from Zenith and the traitor who guided them!

"You see," Mark went on, "I thought perhaps my crime was preventing Dr. Jesilind from committing rape. Having seen what passes for the law on Zenith, that seemed very likely."

"Rape?" said Finch.

Yerby shifted his huge shoulders so that he could look at Mark. "Is this something you've forgot to tell me, Maxwell?" he said with no emotion at all.

"It was a matter that didn't concern you, Yerby," Mark said. "I took care of it, at your sister's request."

Yerby laughed. "Feisty little pup, ain't you, lad?" he said. "Well, I'm right glad you took care of it so good."

"I don't know anything about rape," Berkeley Finch said. He looked uneasily from Mark to the front seat.

"Your guide does, Colonel," Mark said. "Why don't you tell him about it, Doctor?"

"Attempts to blacken my name with falsehoods are of no use to you now, my man," Jesilind said in a haughty voice. "You face the justice of a civilized community."

"Oh, Doc," said Yerby Ba

"Colonel?" said a Zenith looking over the back of the vehicle. "There's somebody after us. I think it's an aircar."

"That's impossible!" Jesilind blurted. "The aircar at Ba

Finch turned. His face was a mask of white rage in light reflected from a passing treetrunk. "What aircar?" he shouted. "You didn't say anything about an aircar!"

"It can't be Ba

The Zenith vehicle lurched into a broad lowland too boggy to support the dryland giants of the higher ground. The car bottomed once in a geyser of watery mud, but the driver didn't lose forward motion.

The going was actually a little easier for the overburdened vehicle, though they wallowed like a slowing roller coaster. The soft-leaved plants covering the ground here flattened beneath the car into a surface smoother than the forest floor. The vegetation was phosphorescent. The vehicle trembled forward in a faint green glow, as if it were being driven through the screen of a light-enhancing device.

The trees growing in the marsh had knobby surface roots that spread as much as twenty yards from their trunks. They didn't pose a real obstacle, because they were so sparsely scattered, but the car on surface effect needed to go around them.

The pursuing vehicle came into sight. It was an aircar, if you didn't care what you said. It staggered from among the treetops, apparently unable to climb over them, and quickly dropped to within a few feet of the ground. Its bow cocked up at fifteen degrees and kinked about the same amount to the direction of flight. It didn't have any headlight or ru