Already, the tenuous mist was closing around them. The Ormoo still spiraled upward. Cosmo saw a patrol flash by beneath them, pause like a humming bird over the patio. Another, then another streaked in from different directions. Mia MacIver leaned over all at once, shrieked in a despairing voice: "Help! Help!" "You little wretch," Cosmo grinned, clapped his hand over her mouth. She bit him. He jerked his hand away. Before she could cry out again, the wool-like cloud blanket smothered them. Everything disappeared in moist white fleece. Mia slumped forlornly in Cosmo's powerful arm. "Home," Cosmo shouted. The giant bird wheeled off at an angle, wings beating with the rhythmic swish of waves lapping at a beach. Guided by some peculiar sixth sense, it headed by the shortest route for the Cloud Mountains. For a while, the whish--swish of the Ormoo's wings was the only sound. It was like flying through a warm blinding blizzard. "Does it know where it's going?" Mia twisted about in Cosmo's arm, curiosity overcoming her terror. Already her brown piquant features dripped with moisture. Her damp yellow tunic clung to her pliant figure like skin. "Yes. The patrol planes can't navigate in these clouds. But the Ormoo can. It flys by instinct." She relaxed, laid her damp black curls against his shoulder. "Cosmo, why did you turn renegade?" Her attitude had undergone such an about face that his green eyes hardened warily. "It's a long story." Mia snuggled deeper in his arms. "Was it because your father and mother were killed and Bemmelman stole your plantation?" "That was part of it. My nurse fled with me to the Cloud Mountains. The Jovians trailed us, hunted us for months, then we fell in with a party of outlaws. They were rough men, but kind. I didn't understand much that was happening at the time, but later I managed to piece it together. I swore I'd make Bemmelman pay." He laughed mirthlessly. "It was no use. The authorities weren't interested in hearing anything against him. I thought maybe if I could get concrete evidence, that would force them to act. I broke into his manor house. I was discovered, but I got away. I was wearing a hood to conceal my features. The newscasters played it up. The hooded man. The Renegade. I suddenly found myself notorious--an outlaw." "But you raided other plantations. You stirred up the serfs!" She couldn't keep the edge of hate and accusation out of her voice. "Some," he admitted with a grin, "though we preyed on other outlaws principally. But whenever the Security Patrol couldn't solve a crime, they laid it to the Renegade. The list is astounding: murder, rapine, theft." He chuckled grimly. "I've even been credited with committing two killings at the same time over five hundred miles apart." "But even if you get Bemmelman," Mia pointed out; "what can you gain. You're still an outlaw. You'll be sent to the disintegration chamber."