"They can't see us now," Deve Jennet said with a slow smile, "and we can't see them."

"Let's go," breathed Aram.

He hurriedly began rigging the Serpent for flight, warming the jets, energizing the pumps and aerators. He gave silent thanks for the rigid training of the Thirty Suns Navy, for his hands automatically and swiftly found the proper instruments and controls. Gyros began their ascending crescendo, whining in strident unison with the shield generators to shape a harmonic pattern that pulsed in the eardrums and set the teeth on edge. Accumulators filled slowly, relays clicked shut as the Serpent poised itself for flight.

A harsh, thumping sound made Aram Jerrold pause. He cursed bitterly and resumed his work. The Greens, of course, were not fools. They could not see the Serpent, nor, presumably, had they ever encountered an invisible craft before. But having melted down the steelite portal at last and flooded into the vast pit, they could hear the Serpent's, myriad warnings of impending takeoff, and they must have begun raking the pit with projectile fire. Some of the shots were finding the invisible Serpent, and Aram knew that the destroyer's light armor could not long withstand a shelling.

"Deve! Has Mikal had time to get the Star Cluster clear of the locks now?" Jerrold shouted at the girl over the whine of machinery.

Deve Jennet had heard the projectiles too. She nodded her head and braced herself against the navigation table. "Let's go!" she shouted back.

With pounding heart, Aram Jerrold lifted the Serpent off the floor of the pit. Blindly, he let the invisible starship nose into the open shaft above. He knew that the moment the Greens realized their quarry was gone, they would begin firing blindly up into the vertical tunnel above them. If one shot should hit the jets...! Aram shuddered. The destroyer would come hurtling down out of the shaft to smashing destruction on the floor of the pit. He held his breath and eased the power forward. The Serpent responded eagerly, leaping up the mile-long tunnel....

Ahead lay the second set of locks and then the shallows of the sea. The small starship careened upward, scraping its flanks on the smooth metal of the shaft. Aram sat frozen before the controls. A thousand questions burned in his mind, and there were no sure answers for any of them.

He couldn't be sure that Mikal had gotten the Star Cluster free. He might at this moment 

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