Frantically, she raced toward the heavy foliage on the shore. The sound increased and seemed to arrow toward them. They settled in a crouch under the densest cover they could find. But still the sound came on. Suddenly Deva gasped. “I should have remembered--!” “Remembered what?” “Quick!” she urged, grasping his arm. “Into the water!” Not understanding, Rick stumbled riverward through the brush. “What for?” he asked. “Infra-red detectors. They’re certain to have them. They may be trained on us already. The water may not mask us. But it’s our only chance.” * * * * * They were out of the underbrush now and descending the sloping bank. The sound of the beating vanes was so loud in their ears that it seemed almost upon them. Suddenly a tiny spurt of light snapped out of the sky. Momentarily it cast a ball of flaming brilliance about Deva. Then she cried out and fell to the ground. “I’m hit! Go on, Rick. Into the water. Forget about me--” VIII In his office high in the tower of Orientation Center, Dr. Bernard Jackson put down the report of the Twelfth Sector Watch Police and sighed. He removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, his features haggard with strain. “Action completed,” he said finally to Dr. Flora Johns, who occupied a chair nearby. “Everything went precisely according to schedule. I hope it works out. I liked those two. Remember what he called himself and the girl? A Rillo range sire and a salt grass heifer! I’ve got an idea he’ll change his mind about her before long!” “I fail to see why it was necessary to order the Police to deliberately shoot her,” Flora Johns said with a tartness that verged on bitterness. “She might have been killed. We don’t know yet how serious the injury was. The Police aren’t that good at shooting a moving target from a plane.” “It was a necessary risk. You know that. You read the Machine’s instructions.” “But I don’t always believe them!” “It was necessary because he would have taken her to the first Outlander Settlement, left her there, and gone on his own way. And if he had suggested anything else she would have opposed it. “It was absolutely necessary to put her in a state of complete dependency on him for a long enough period to enable her to overcome her resistance to his presence. The injury was the only available means.” “So says that idiot Machine!” Dr. Jackson smiled. “Careful, Flora--even the walls have ears. Or so it is said.” “I don’t care! If the Machine was going to drag us in for insubordination it would have happened long ago. Sometimes I wonder just what the devilish thing is up to, anyway!” “That’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time,” he said slowly. “And I think that with this present case I’ve been able to figure it out.” “What have you figured out?”