They wanted her alive, or her helio with her as part of it, would have been disintegrated long before this. She could understand why. The worst that she could do she had done. There was no need in killing her to prevent more sabotage. They wanted her alive. They wanted to know who she was, what she was, what organization or organizations she represented, if any. They had no idea who she was. Or at least it seemed unlikely yet that they had found out. Perhaps they even thought she was a Martian. Whatever they thought, they didn't know. She realized how desperately they had to know. The helio dropped straight down toward the deceptive softness of the forest sea. The wind sighed around the helio as the green darkness loomed up, seeming to rush up from all sides, its softness changing suddenly into the harshness of jagged limbs and bulging trunks. She clung to the dead controls as though there were some kind of promise in them, some solidity. But everything dropped from under her, a sickening dislocation, as she clung as though she had no support, as though the earth itself were falling away. The tearing impact was like a thousand echos of her terrors. And the forest and the wet shine of harsh wood that tore metal and ripped like flashes of hot light, the blanket of crushing leaves, and the cooling shadows rushed smothering in around her. Lights fingered through the leaves. She could hear footsteps, stealthy and invisible, flowing among the lights. The lights moved around, streaming in from all directions, like the shifting bars of a tightening cage. She wasn't dead! When she moved slightly in the twisted shine of metal, a beam of light glanced from it in a blinding glare. She felt the pain from her torn leg. Her right side seemed crushed. She felt the hotness of blood burning her ribs. She heard voices murmuring through wet leaves, caught the slight movement of protective green suiting and the shining leer of gas masks. They were far upwind now from where the rocket had crashed to spew out its lethal loads. She didn't know as she squirmed desperately through the jagged hole in the metal, whether or not one of the many subsidiary rockets had exploded up wind from this location. It was something to look forward to. She tried to suppress the whimpering moan as the torn leg scraped over the metal. Then she dropped to the damp leaves and crouched there and wondered which way to go. The light beams moved in, criss-crossed now like a tightening wire mesh. She crawled, digging her fingers into the leaves. The leaves whispered a call to her from above. The light swung. Its beam flooded full and blindingly in her face. A gun came into view over the edge of the beam and feet smashed toward her through the brush.