"How did they find out an attack was coming?" Marilyn asked, holding her cup in both hands to warm them. Keith leaned back, grudgingly grateful to her, and forced his mind off the boulders he knew lay ahead of them. He demanded obedience from his muscles and nerves, compelling himself to un-tense. "One of your teachers from Lanning had a group of boys on Taros for a holiday and geology trip and he came across the scanner. He had enough sense not to disturb it and reported it immediately to the Control. From his description they decided it was probably a heat-sensing device and this plan fit. There were several alternative plans already drawn up, if the opportunity ever came to use them. The fleet was dispatched to maneuver in this sector for cover and then ostensibly withdraw again. When they leave, every person on Kulane is to be aboard the ships ready to take off. That will give us two days or more to finish setting the trap; it'll take them at least that long to gather in the sector, but this time it will be different." "But you said there'd be no battle," she said quickly, a note of hope making her voice husky. "There won't be. They'll think they've done it again. Hit and run. But we'll have a fix on them and follow them to home base." "I see." Her voice went flat again. "Kulane will be destroyed as the other worlds were. Why didn't you tell them the truth?" "This was the only way," Keith said coldly. "As it is, this mass evacuation is a calculated risk, and if there had been four thousand more inhabitants, it wouldn't have been attempted." He started the motor again, remembering the look on her face when he set the lock on the two seater flyer that was fast enough to get from the village to Lanning in a single night. In eight and a half hours they made only five-hundred fifty miles. Keith drank his coffee quickly and stalked away. He walked several miles scouting the road that lay ahead of them and returned in a vicious mood. Marilyn avoided his eyes as she handed him the rest of his breakfast. "Do you think the others are having trouble?" she asked after a long silence. "It'll be easier for them. Those trucks, cars, or whatever you call them, are made for skimming. The flyer isn't." He didn't add that there were also enough men to drive in shifts. She nodded gravely and prepared her bed. He wondered if she slept and knew she must sometime despite the growing hollows beneath her eyes and the darkness of the hollows. * * * * * That afternoon he unloaded some of the food and replaced it with boulders. Marilyn helped, rearranging the remaining food, straining to help lift the heavy stones into the flyer. "Might do some good," Keith grunted wiping his face with the back of his hand. "Do you think we'll make it to Lanning in time?" she asked quietly.