When he awakened, he thought she had gone. He was alone by the flyer and the forest was noisy with birds. The plastic mattress cover was now too warm as the sun advanced across the sky. He got up and repacked his bed and cover in the flyer and munched on a biscuit. He didn't hear her return until she was nearly up to the flyer and then he stared. She was dressed in a green, two-piece knit suit that covered her entirely from her wrists to her ankles. She was delicately slender and well formed. He realized he was staring at her only when she flushed slightly and turned away. With a disturbing sensation that he had made a mistake in not letting her wait for her husband he jerked his chart from the flyer and walked to the trees to sit down and mark off one night. Later in the afternoon he strapped on his sonic gun and hoped one of the cats would make an appearance that day.
The third night they came upon the first of a series of boulders that jutted out into the clearing. By day, or even by night, at a reasonable speed, it would have been simple to avoid them. As it was he had to cut his speed in half, and then some more, to keep the flyer above them, and out of the trees. Left to itself it would try to maintain the eighteen inches he had set, but in doing so, it would veer upward and meet disaster against the branches of the trees. Four hours after starting he called a halt for coffee.
"How did they find out an attack was coming?" Marilyn asked, holding her cup in both hands to warm them.
Keith leaned back, grudgingly grateful to her, and forced his mind off the boulders he knew lay ahead of them. He demanded obedience from his muscles and nerves, compelling himself to un-tense. "One of your teachers from Lanning had a group of boys on Taros for a holiday and geology trip and he came across the scanner. He had enough sense not to disturb it and reported it immediately to the Control. From his description they decided it was probably a heat-sensing device and this plan fit. There were several alternative plans already drawn up, if the opportunity ever came to use them. The fleet was dispatched to maneuver in this sector for cover and then ostensibly withdraw again. When they leave, every person on Kulane is to be aboard the ships ready to take off. That will give us two days or more to finish setting the trap; it'll take them at least that long to gather in the sector, but this time it will be different."
"But you said there'd be no battle," she said quickly, a note of hope making her voice husky.
"There won't be. They'll think they've done it again. Hit and run. But we'll have a fix on them and follow them to home base."
"I see." Her voice went flat again. "Kulane will be destroyed as the other worlds were. Why didn't you tell them the truth?"
"This was the only way," Keith said coldly. "As it is, this mass evacuation is a calculated risk, and if there had been four thousand more inhabitants, it wouldn't have been attempted." He started the motor again, remembering the look on her face when he set the lock on the two seater flyer that was fast enough to get from the village to Lanning in a single night.
In eight and a half hours they made only five-hundred fifty miles. Keith drank his coffee quickly and stalked away. He walked several miles scouting the road that lay ahead of them and returned in a vicious mood. Marilyn avoided his eyes as she handed him the rest of his breakfast.