They were; hence the discussion then turned naturally to the question of how this none-too-easy feat was to be accomplished. The two Patrol ships had climbed and were cruising in great, slow circles; the spy-ray men and the other observers were hard at work. Before they had found anything upon the ground, however:
"Plane, ho!" came the report, and both vessels, with spy-ray blocks out now as well as thought-screens, plunged silently into a flatly slanting dive. Directly over the slow Lyranian craft, high above it, they turned as one to match its course and slowed down to match its pace.
"Come to life, Kim—don't let them have her!" Clarrissa exclaimed. Being en rapport with them all, she knew that both unhuman Worsel and monster Nadreck were perfectly willing to let the helpless Lyranian become a sacrifice; she knew that neither Kinnison nor Tregonsee had as yet given that angle of the affair a single thought. "Surely, Kim, you don't have to let them kill her, do you? Isn't showing you the gate or whatever it is, enough? Can't you rig up something to do something with when she gets almost inside?"
"Why ... uh ... I s'pose so." Kinnison wrenched his attention away from a plate. "Oh, sure, Chris. Hen! Drop us down a bit, and have the boys get ready to spear that crate with a couple of tractors when I give the word."
The plane held its course, directly toward a range of low, barren, precipitous hills. As it approached them it dropped, as though to attempt a landing upon a steep and rocky hillside.
Immaterial fingers of tractor rays snatched at the plane an instant before it crashed—