Campbell made a short, bitter laugh. "Plan, hell. It's a gamble on a fixed wheel, and you're fools if you play it."
"And if we don't?"
"I'm going anyway. The Kraylens—well, I owe them something."
"Tell us the plan."
He did, in rapid nervous sentences, crouched behind the shielding wall of thought from those alien brains. Marah laughed softly.
"By the gods, little man, you should have been a Keshi!"
"I can think of a lot of things I should have been," said Campbell dourly. "Hey, there goes our wall."
It hadn't been more than four minutes. Long enough for them to look and go away again. There might still be time, before the Spaceguard came.
There was, just. The getaway couldn't have been more perfectly timed. Campbell grinned, feeding power into his jets with exquisite skill.
He did
