"We will see," said Urushkidan. He touched studs, levers, and buttons. The engines thuttered and the little vessel shook.
"Let's go!"
The rocket stood on her tail and climbed for the sky. Urushkidan brought her around, the gyros screaming at his clumsy management, and lowered her on her jets directly above the patrol ship. An atom-driven ion-blast is not good for a patrol ship.
"Now," said Dyann as they took off again, "you, my policeman friend, vill call this Camp Muellenhoff and tell them to release Ballantyne to us. If you do that, ve vill set you down somevere. If not—vell—" She tested the edge of her knife on his ear. "You may still be a police, but you vill not be very alive."
"You can't escape," said the Jovian with a certain hollow lack of conviction. "You'd better throw yourself on the Leader's mercy."
Dyann knocked a few teeth loose.
"You savage!" he gasped. "You cruel, murdering—"
"I tought you Jobians were always talking about te glories of war and te rutless superman," snickered Urushkidan. "Also destiny and tings. Better call te camp as she says."
A few minutes later the ship lowered into the walled enclosure of Camp Muellenhoff. It was a dreary place, metal barracks lying harsh under the guns of the watchtowers, spacesuited prisoners clumping to work through the thin chill air of Ganymede. A detail hurried up and shoved an unarmed, suited form into the airlock.
Their leader's voice rattled over his helmet radio of the ship's telereceiver, "Major, sir, are you sure they want this man in the city now? We just got an alert to look out for a couple of escaped desperadoes."