"They got him from behind, I guess. Then they broke into the arsenal. They're armed, Mia, and heading this way. I dropped everything to fly over and warn you."
"Coming this way?" Mia firmly disengaged her hands. "But why?"
"They're trying to reach the Cloud Mountains and join the Renegade. Your place lies directly between mine and the mountains."
"The Renegade!" Mia's level gray eyes frosted with hate. "The rurals can't catch him. He makes monkeys out of the Security Patrol. What is he? A wizard?"
"You've heard the news?" Bemmelman interrupted. "The Renegade was at my place last night. I've been worried about you, Mia, alone here on the edge of the mountains. Yes sir, I came to take you to my plantation until we have these murderous serfs behind bars."
"But I'm quite safe. I—I...."
"This isn't Earth, Mia," he said in a silky voice. "I haven't much time. No sir. I must return to organize the pursuit. We'll teach those brutes a lesson they won't soon forget."
"If you catch them," put in Cosmo in an amused voice.
"We'll catch them!" Bemmelman turned his small, brown, pig-like eyes on Cosmo. "Yes sir, and the Renegade, too."
Mia said with a grimace: "Thanks, Hal, but I'm not coming."