Morrison said between his teeth, "This would have had to be done anyway." Still watching Durham, he reached one swift hand into the belt of his tunic. Susan made a muffled cry and started to get up. None of the motions were finished. A shadow came out from the darkness of a corner behind Morrison's chair. It flicked against him and he fell across the table, quite still. The darkbird came and hung in the air in front of Durham. "Jubb," it said. Durham put down the bottle and wiped the sweat off his forehead. He looked at the darkbird, feeling cold and hollow. "I want to go to him. You understand? To Jubb." Up and down it bounced, like the nodding of a head. Susan said, "What are you going to do?" "Try and steal a lifeboat." "I'm going with you." "No. Morrison doesn't want to kill you, but don't push him too far. You stay. Then if I don't make it you'll still be--" He broke off. "That's taking a lot for granted, isn't it? After all, Hawtree is your father." She whispered, "I don't care." "It's the biggest decision you'll ever make. Don't make it too fast." He kissed her. "Besides, if you wait, you may not have to make it at all." He took Morrison's gun and went out, and the darkbird went with him, bunched small and darting so swiftly that the two men it struck down never saw it. Durham turned aside into the communications room, and the darkbird saw to it that there was no alarm. He damaged radio and radar so that it would take some time to fix them. Then he went on down the corridor to the plainly marked hatch that led to Lifeboat No. 1. He got into it, with the darkbird. As soon as the boat hatch itself was shut, automatic relays blew him free of the pod on a blast of air. "Jubb," said the darkbird. It touched him, and to his amazement there was no shock, only a chilly tingling that was not unpleasant. Then it simply oozed out through the solid hull, the way smoke oozes through a filter, and was gone. Durham had no time for any more astonishments. The controls of the lifeboat were designedly very simple and plainly marked. Durham got himself going and away from Morrison's ship as fast as he could. But he knew that it was not going to be anything like fast enough if the darkbird didn't hurry. It hurried. And Durham was closer to Senya Dik than he realized. In less than three hours he was in touch with a planetary patrol ship, following it in toward the green blaze of KL421, and a dim cool planet that circled it, farther out than the orbit of Earth around Sol, but not quite so far as Mars. VII