"I--I don't know," Stone muttered. "Saddler ... double-crossed Henley. I guess ... he wanted her for himself. I don't know where he's taken her. I'm telling you the truth. You've got to believe me." "All right," Corriston said, easing Stone back on the sand. "I believe you. Take it easy now. They've got the lamprene off." He stood very still, waiting for his heart to beat normally again, telling himself that Saddler had taken an almost suicidal risk in leaving the ship on foot with no certain refuge in mind. By taking along a helpless girl, he was making himself a target for the rage and relentless enmity of men who would never rest until they had tracked him down. There could be no sanctuary for him anywhere. If he escaped Henley's vengeance, the colonists would capture him in a matter of days. But Corriston wasn't thinking in terms of days. He was thinking in terms of minutes, hours. He stared at the empty stretch of desert ahead, trying desperately to control the despair that was welling up inside him. How long a head start did Saddler have? Had he left the ship only a few minutes, or hours before? He'd have to ask Stone one more question. Like a fool he'd put off asking it, dreading the thought of what Stone's answer might be. But now he had no choice. He must ask, and risk knowing that pursuit could not be immediately undertaken by one man, that Saddler was miles away across the desert, hiding out in some remote and inaccessible cave and that tracking him down and putting a bullet through his heart would have to be a joint undertaking. It was a cruelly frustrating possibility. It increased Corriston's rage, his bitterness. The hate within him seemed suddenly violent enough to destroy anyone or anything. He preferred to go on alone, in relentless pursuit of Saddler and if it took days to track him down.... It was Freddy's voice that brought him back to reality, startling and sobering him. Freddy was coming toward him between the tractors, shouting at the top of his lungs. 21 Corriston couldn't quite catch what the lad was shouting at first. Something about the dunes and the ship and footprints. Then he caught the name of Helen Ramsey and his mouth went dry and for an instant he couldn't seem to breathe. Freddy was shouting that he had found Helen Ramsey. Dr. Drever started and leapt quickly to his feet, his eyes darting with an understandable solicitude toward the small figure coming toward them across the sand. He moved quickly to place himself directly in front of Stone, as if fearing it would be bad for Freddy to see a man so close to death. Then the full significance of Freddy's words seemed to dawn on him, and his solicitude for his son was replaced by a larger concern, a wider sympathy. "You talk to him, Corriston," he said. "You've been living through a short stretch of hell. If he's really found her--"