"But we'll be much safer when we're deep in the forest," she said. "They'll still know where we are if they pick us up with the scanners. But we can weave about, hide in a cave, make it more difficult for them to overtake us."

"We won't hide," he said. "We'll keep moving until our strength gives out. There are ways of defeating the scanners. If we can get far enough away we may be able to disguise ourselves, take on a new identity."

"I don't see how—"

"Just wait and trust me. Talking about it right now will only delay us."

He reached out and took her hand. "You're right about the need for haste. Come on."

"One more kiss first, darling!"

Her lips burned against his again for an instant. He opened his lips and her tongue darted like a wet lash into his mouth and her hands dropped to her side in passionate surrender. She moaned a little and then pushed him away from her, letting out a long sigh.

"I was the impulsive one that time," she whispered. "Forgive me, darling."

They were out of breath again from running when they reached the heavily forested region. The dark barrier of vegetation which loomed before them cut off two-thirds of the sky and seemed filled with a vast murmuring, as if a thousand small furry creatures were breathing in unison while the wind sighed between the trees and owls hooted from the higher branches.

Quickly they passed into the dark wilderness between the trees, over areas of moist peat moss and across gigantic, hollow logs overgrown with ghost-pale creepers that seemed dreamlike and unreal in the half-light. A faint luminescence streamed from a few of the ground-hugging fungus growths and there were vapor shrouds everywhere, hanging suspended in the air and coiling sinuously about the boles of trees so massive that they resembled redwoods in girth and height, and conveyed an even more awesome impression of hoary age.

They were perhaps eighty feet beyond the edge of the forest wall, well within its pulsing heart of darkness, when they heard the thrumming.

It was faint and far-off at first, but it grew steadily louder, causing Teleman to halt abruptly and stare upward in alarm. High above his head the interlocking branches formed an almost solid ceiling of dark green foliage stirred only slightly by gusts and flurries of wind. 

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