"Aside!" the girl was calling, and he obeyed, flattening against a cross-weaving of vine stems. She was risen upon one knee, crossbow to shoulder. It twanged, flashed, and once again its successful charge sounded its chock. Planter glanced down the trail in time to see a fourth and last Skygor drop down.

He found that he was gasping for air, and trembling as though the danger were still to come instead of past. The girl rose, came to him, and touched his arm. She smiled, her eyes shone. Gone was the contempt, the superiority. She only admired, completely and frankly.

"Sink me, you're a fighter," she said. "Ecod! I saw only the flight of fists, and a Skygor went down, and another! You saved my life—and we have four Skygors to strip, with none to boom about where we went from here. Your name, friend?"

"Planter," he said. "David Planter."

"David Planter," she repeated. Her "A" was very broad, so that she made the name almost "Dyvid." Again she smiled. "A king's name, is't not? I am called Mara. Come, help me take what is valuable from this carrion."

Planter's heart warmed to her. "Thanks for your kind words," he smiled back. "But I did what any man would do."

"All men are slaves," she surprised him by saying. "You will amaze the other girl-warriors, when I bring you to the Nest."

Disbro, standing on the glass port-pane that was now floor for the control-room, labored and cursed at his keyboard. He pressed one, two, an octave. The nosed-over ship stirred, but did not rise.

"Max!" bawled Disbro to the upper hatch. "Pressure!"

"Giving you all there is," Max informed him timidly.

Disbro turned from his controls, shrugging in disgust.

"Those bow-tubes are jammed or displaced," he cursed. "We can't clear off till we get her up and clean them—and we can't get her up and clean them until they work. Huhh!"

Max's big, diffident face framed itself in the hatchway, registering a small hope.

"We're floating," he volunteered. "Close to those trees and things."

Disbro showed interest. "Then we'll get our feet on solid ground, or nearly solid. That tentacle-thing won't be sloshing around." 

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