forgot the plane, glided across the jungle like a great shadow, headed back toward Greeno and the girl.

Pressing his eye to the filterscope, Flint brought them up close, standing in the wreckage of the trees, scanning the sky. They didn't know the bat was on the way back, coming in low now behind them.

"Run!" Flint yelled the word as if they could hear him across the five miles between them. Standing there beside Greeno, Karen Vaun's hair glistened in the twilight, her eyes looking right at him, almost as if she could see him. Flint beat his fists on the control panel helplessly.

Then they heard the rush of the bat's wings behind them. They whirled, stood there frozen before the gigantic creature hurtling at them. Then, too late to run back for the house, they fled toward the woods. And the woods was just where the bat wanted them.

Flint knew he had to get there now. He had to do something quick. The bat started systematically flattening the trees, searching for them in the terrifying way it always hunted its prey. Four times the size of an elephant, the winged monster splintered like matchsticks hundred-foot high mahogany and ironwood trees.

Flint's hands jerked the plane's controls as if he could hurl it bodily forward, dragging the weight of cable and tree behind him. But the ship was now a winged snail. And when he did get there, he knew there wasn't a chance of getting the bat in his sights. He couldn't outmaneuver it any more. And there was no time now to land and do what he could afoot with a pistol.

Then, with his hand on the ice pistol's butt, his eyes on the raging bat slowly nearing below, an idea flared in his head that brought him to his feet like an electric shock.

Quickly, he headed the plane down toward the bat, set automatic pilot. Then, fingers flying, he ripped a wire from the control panel, looped one end through his pistol's trigger guard, the other end through his belt. Then he ran to the door.

Standing in the air lock, he forced the outside door against the wind. He looked down at the cable, caught firmly on the hook, dangling under the plane. He reached out, got his hand on the cable and swung out over the jungle far below. The door clanged shut behind him.

He started down the cable hand over hand. Guided by the automatic pilot, the ship moved slowly ahead. He got down the cable and into the dangling tree.

 Prev. P 21/25 next