"No use," said Holmer. "They've got their shields on. They must have known how we did it at the prison."

He turned the thing off. Birrel realized, with a certain desperation, that it was up to him.

He had one advantage, he thought. If those pursuing were from another world, they would not be able to drive an Earth automobile as expertly as he could.

Kara said, "They could cut us down with the"—(another totally incomprehensible word)—"but they won't dare use that here! It would let everyone in this part of Earth know they're here!"

What weapon it was that the pursuers, the Irrians, had but might not dare to use, Birrel could not guess. But the fear in Kara's voice was enough to make him conjure up nightmare visions of awful agencies and powers that might be loosed on them.

It decided Birrel. Better to take the risk of cracking up than let that car hang onto them. He would use his one advantage.

"Hold tight," he said, and turned sharply at the next side road.

Birrel began a crazy twisting and turning on the network of back roads. He had always been a good driver. Tonight, with desperate purpose urging him, he forgot all about road-risks.

He forgot about everything except the ribbon of road under his headlights, the sharp curves that he skidded around in racing turns, the instinctive feel of what grade, what dip, what crossroads, came next. It was late and the farmhouses were dark now, sleeping people in them not dreaming of what screamed past them in the night, what flight and pursuit of folk from far worlds.

The rhythm of the racing motor got into Birrel's mind, as his tension rose higher. There was nothing but the headlights and the road and the dread of what came behind them. He was sharply startled when Kara's voice broke the spell, speaking close to his ear.

"We lost them, long ago!" she was saying. "Rett, slow this thing before you wreck us."

Birrel eased the gas-pedal. Beside him, Holmer looked scared.

"These clumsy Earth cars—I'll never get into one again!" he said, with feeling.

They were running up a hillside, with scrub woods on either side of the road.

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