"Me?" asked the aged man, stalling for time.
"You—and jump!" yelled Guy, sniping a swift shot at his feet. Guy reached the parked police flier, pushed Charalas in, and then took off on a screaming zoom upwards.
A MacMillan flared and missed, a vortex rolled upwards too slow by half, another MacMillan missed, and then Guy was off and far away and free once more. He grinned. They'd left him his personal thought-beam instrument. They'd find it hard to run him down when he could read their minds. He turned the gain a little lower so that they couldn't read his, and he wondered whether the more powerful instrument would really be destroyed now.
An hour later, along near the ocean's edge, Guy dropped the flier. "Charalas," he said, offering a hand, "I'm sorry."
"You're in a real mess," said the neuro-surgeon.
"I know—but what's Ertene going to do now?"
He snapped on the flier-radio and caught Thomakein in the act of speaking: "—obviously came at the call of the impostor. He was a high official in the Patrol, and was working undercover here. People of Ertene, we must reply! We may not hold up our heads until this insult has been repaid. We now have a fine space fleet, thanks to the vortex and the pressors, and the Terrans. Never could we have built such a fleet here on Ertene; but it is now ours."
Guy growled and snapped Thomakein off.
"What are your plans?" asked Charalas.