The patrolman took a gleaming silver shock-cone from his belt. "I am sorry, Arnol Heric. You must come with me."
Stark panic made Heric drop his book and strike out wildly, smashing a fist into the officer's face. The patrolman staggered back, teetered for balance on the veranda's edge and fell heavily. The sound of his head striking the stone walkway below was as definite as the thud of a dropped melon.
Heric went down the steps and knelt to feel the man's limp wrist. There was no pulse. He put an ear to the slack lips, and there was no breath. Shock numbed him and drove his thoughts into strange, tortured channels.
"I've killed him," he said.
A sound caught his ear and he looked up to see Marta on the dark veranda above him, her face a pale oval blur with enormous, fright-widened eyes. "I didn't intend this to happen, Marta. I—I lost my head."
She came down at once and put a soft hand on his shoulder. "Of course, of course, darling. Here, let me help you."
Together they lifted the patrolman's body into the copter's control seat, where it lolled bonelessly against the instrument panel. Heric touched a button and the machine rose and soared eastward on a random course away from Nyark the first city.
They watched, holding hands like uneasy children, until it was lost against the stars. Then they went inside to the light and warmth of their cottage.
Heric voiced the thought first: "They'll send for me again tomorrow, when he doesn't return."
He had again the ominous sensation, felt a dozen times in as many days, of being very close to understanding the strange auguries that had so troubled his sleep of late. For a moment he hovered on the brink of complete comprehension before his fearful thought recoiled, leaving him uneasy and bewildered.