“Certainly.”  The Medic reached for the emergency kit on the shelf behind him.  “You able to make it?”

“Yes,” Dane was exultant.  It was going to work!  He could toll the Medic away from the village.  Once out among the rocks on the shoreline he could pull the blaster and herd the man to the flitter.  His luck was going to hold after all!

Chapter XV

MEDIC HOVAN REPORTS

Fortunately the path out of the straggling town was a twisted one and in a very short space they were hidden from view.  Dane paused as if the pace was too much for an injured man.  The Medic put out a steadying hand, only to drop it quickly when he saw the weapon which had appeared in Dane’s grip.

“What—?” His mouth snapped shut, his jaw tightened.

“You will march ahead of me,” Dane’s low voice was steady.  “Beyond that rock spur to the left you’ll find a place where it is possible to climb down to sea level.  Do it!”

“I suppose I shouldn’t ask why?”

“Not now.  We haven’t much time.  Get moving!”

The Medic mastered his surprise and without further protest obeyed orders.  It was only when they were standing by the flitter and he saw the suits that his eyes widened and he said: 

“The Big Burn!”

“Yes, and I’m desperate—­”

“You must be—­or mad—­” The Medic stared at Dane for a long moment and then shook his head.  “What is it?  A plague ship?”

Dane bit his lip.  The other was too astute.  But he did not ask why or how he had been able to guess so shrewdly.  Instead he gestured to the suit Ali had lashed beneath the seat in the flitter.  “Get into that and be quick about it!”

The Medic rubbed his hand across his jaw.  “I think that you might just be desperate enough to use that thing you’re brandishing about so melodramatically if I don’t,” he remarked in a calmly conversational tone.

“I won’t kill.  But a blaster burn—­”

“Can be pretty painful.  Yes, I know that, young man.  And,” suddenly he shrugged, put down his kit and started donning the suit.  “I wouldn’t put it past you to knock me out and load me aboard if I did say no.  All right—­”

Suited, he took his place on the seat as Dane directed, and then the Trader followed the additional precaution of lashing the Medic’s metal encased arms to his body before he climbed into his own protective covering.  Now they could only communicate by sight through the vision plates of their helmets.

Dane triggered the controls and they arose out of the sand and rock hollow just as a party of two men and a boy came hurrying along the top of the cliff—­Jorge and the rescuers arriving too late.  The flitter spiraled up into the sunlight and Dane wondered how long it would be before this outrage was reported to the nearest Plant Police base.  But would any Police cruiser have the hardihood to follow him into the Big Burn?  He hoped that the radiation would hold them back.