Jarl bit down hard. With savage effort, he forced himself to think; to shake off the bleak despair that kept rising in him, ever higher. "What chance could we have if we went back through the tube, the air-vent?"
"We could maybe hide...."
"On Vesta—?" Jarl laughed aloud. "They'd find us as easily as in our cells!" He broke off. The laughter went out of him, replaced by an urgency even more feverish than that which had gone before. "No, Ungo! It means we've got to run! We'd have to even if we could find a place to hide!"
"But why, Jarl—?" The big Jovian scowled and fumbled.
"A weapon like that, and you ask why?" Jarl cursed in harsh, bitter syllables. "What about the others—the outlaw worlds? What will it mean when the Federation fleet sweeps down on H'sana?—on Ceresta?"
It was Ungo's turn to curse. Jarl shoved the wave-pencil into his hand. "Here! Break out the men! And hurry!"
"But you—"
Jarl laughed. Of a sudden, once again, recklessness was boiling in him. "We came here on a mission!"
"Not the woman—!"