Her only weapon was the oldest one of all. She sprang up. The beam flashed upward in a wavering circle as her hands closed on the man's throat. Her weight carried him scrambling back. His heels caught. He fell. His hands stabbed around with the gun as his breath choked off and his muscles worked with panicky power. With her left hand she dug into his windpipe. She released the other hand and tore the mask away, ripping the tough fiber like rotten cloth. She flung the flashbeam away, dragged the guard into the brush. Light beams slashed around as she crouched among the leaves. The man no longer struggled. When she took her hand away from his throat, he still did not struggle. A beam flashed full over her, held. Someone yelled wildly: "The guy who fell out of the helio! He was right. Oh God--he wasn't crazy!" "Don't shoot! Don't shoot, you idiot!" "I tell you he was right! It's Mary! The man was right--" "Don't shoot! That's an order!" She leaped up, caught the limb. She went on up among the thick sweet concealment of a thousand leaves. She swung into the next tree, then the next, faster and faster she moved. The leaves skimmed past her face. Her breath came in ecstatic gasps as the light beams faded behind, and the damp dark freedom of the trees spread away in all directions. She knew which way to go. And she was going there a long time before she even realized the fact. She wondered vaguely for a moment then how it was that she knew where to go, for it was a long way, over the river, and through the hills and the forest. Guards in helios whirred everywhere in the night clouds. Cars whined through the narrow roads around her. A net formed through the forest. A net of men, guns, lights, cars, helios, and many kinds of detectors. For what seemed much longer than it was, her strength held. * * * * * It enabled her to pierce the net again and again when they were sure she was trapped. She went over it, under it, through it, part of the thick night in the trees and the brush. The river was the worst, for she hated water. But she could no longer climb through the comparative safe corridors of the trees. She could no longer run. Air sucked between her teeth. One leg dragged behind her as she crawled slowly through the dark, along the lake, up the winding path. She could only crawl. Finally crawling became a hitching dragging effort that slowed with each attempt. Blood and dirt had formed a sticky mud over her leg and ribs and chest. Damp leaves stuck to her, and the bitter rocks of the path leading up to the cabin had cut her flesh. There were lights in the windows of Lake House. The windows and the door were open to the warm night. Beyond the cabin she could see Daddy Mike's helio on the landing.