glanced from it in a blinding glare. She felt the pain from her torn leg. Her right side seemed crushed. She felt the hotness of blood burning her ribs.

She heard voices murmuring through wet leaves, caught the slight movement of protective green suiting and the shining leer of gas masks. They were far upwind now from where the rocket had crashed to spew out its lethal loads. She didn't know as she squirmed desperately through the jagged hole in the metal, whether or not one of the many subsidiary rockets had exploded up wind from this location.

It was something to look forward to.

She tried to suppress the whimpering moan as the torn leg scraped over the metal. Then she dropped to the damp leaves and crouched there and wondered which way to go. The light beams moved in, criss-crossed now like a tightening wire mesh. She crawled, digging her fingers into the leaves. The leaves whispered a call to her from above.

The light swung. Its beam flooded full and blindingly in her face. A gun came into view over the edge of the beam and feet smashed toward her through the brush.

Her only weapon was the oldest one of all. She sprang up. The beam flashed upward in a wavering circle as her hands closed on the man's throat. Her weight carried him scrambling back. His heels caught. He fell. His hands stabbed around with the gun as his breath choked off and his muscles worked with panicky power. With her left hand she dug into his windpipe. She released the other hand and tore the mask away, ripping the tough fiber like rotten cloth.

She flung the flashbeam away, dragged the guard into the brush. Light beams slashed around as she crouched among the leaves. The man no longer struggled. When she took her hand away from his throat, he still did not struggle.

A beam flashed full over her, held. Someone yelled wildly: "The guy who fell out of the helio! He was right. Oh God—he wasn't crazy!"

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot, you idiot!"

"I tell you he was right! It's Mary! The man was right—"

"Don't shoot! That's an order!"

She leaped up, caught the limb. She went on up among the thick sweet concealment of a thousand leaves. She swung into the next tree, then the next, faster and faster she moved. The leaves skimmed past her face.

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