I've got to lose them, he thought feverishly. I've got to lose them long enough to get Danson back to the cabin and get the hell out again. After that, they can have me. But not now. He looked behind him, trying to determine whether or not they were getting set to fire on him. They didn't look it, but he couldn't tell. Weapons were not a scout ship's strong point. Each ship was armed with a large rocket launcher, but it was seldom used. Speed was the greatest weapon they needed and the military designers of the home planet had poured all their energy into the fast maneuvering of the craft. The heavy caps of ice that covered the continent of Greenland loomed up before him and he hoped that he could lose them in the white wilderness. He would have to throttle back when he reached the jagged waste of ice, but then so would the four behind him. They saw what he was attempting, and poured all the power they could into their ships. Lors flattened the ship out in a shallow dive and pushed the throttle control until it stopped. The needle on the airspeed indicator leaped violently. 24,000 m.p.h. The ice rose against the windshield swiftly. One of the scout ships closed and fired a rocket. He kicked at the rudder pedal and threw the ship to the left. The scout ship responded like a nervous horse and fluttered away as the rocket burned and arced beneath the underbelly. He pulled the throttle control back, cutting the speed of the ship and shoving on the rudder as he hauled at the stick. The maneuver was too fast for the ships behind him. They tore past him in silver flashes, trying to correct their error. He streaked off toward the Azores Islands, slicing into the atmosphere viciously, while he watched the other ships whirling off to come back at him. They would soon have to break radio silence, or they would never get him. It was almost impossible to close on a quarry at these speeds, unless each man knew what his buddy was doing. At 15,000 miles per hour, a micro-second of delay before acting, could slam two ships together with a violence that would atomize everything. Still they refused to make radio contact with each other. Lors watched them coming back at him, minute silver specks on the radar sweep. He shoved the stick forward and dived for the ocean in a shallow plunge. He had the biggest advantage, in that they had to anticipate _his_ moves, in order to get him into their sights. One of them got him in his sights and fired. He watched the rocket spearing toward his ship and slammed the stick over to the right. The discus-like scout ship flipped over in a slow roll, the rocket barely missing the ship. Lors felt a little sick. He eased the throttle back, flattening the ship out not fifty feet above the water of the Atlantic Ocean. Then he shoved the throttle to the wall and raced north.