"Just a little way. When we get to the ship we'll put on a
demonstration."
They tore down the avenue, narrowly evading children, old ladies,
and newsstands. Two more blue-coated officials joined in the chase,
converging and blowing whistles. Several more were coming up in front
of them when they finally reached the ship.
They stopped in the center of the wide street. Traffic screeched to a
halt on all sides.
"Are you sure it's here?"
Kunklin looked around uneasily, then spied the faint hazy circle of
the opening, several feet in the air above them. He pushed at his
anti-gravity knob, felt himself lightening, but not lifting. He swore.
The crowd was reaching them, small boys and men lurched to a stop
around them.
"They're waiting for us to do something," Prule hissed.
"Quick! Before the police get here! Jump!"
Prule looked up helplessly at the hazy circle.
"How"--he began, but Kunklin pushed him aside, assumed a broad stance
in the center of the crowd. He thrust his arms outward dramatically,
as if for silence. Just then the first cop broke through and into the
center of the circle and began to speak virtuously, angrily, in the
manner of cops, but the people around him were staring at Kunklin and
waiting expectantly.
"Well," said Kunklin, speaking cheerfully in Galactic, "it's been fun."
He threw the anti-gravity to full power, waited till he could feel that
the lift would no longer increase. It was not enough to get him off the
ground, but he now weighed next to nothing. He crouched, then leaped
for the haze above. He shot up like a rocket, went through the circle
and disappeared.
A moment later Prule followed him. As he sailed up through the haze the
ship became immediately visible above, he reached out and caught on to
a rung of the ladder below Kunklin. Thankfully, wearily, not bothering
to look down at the stunned, open-mouthed crowd which he could see
below him but which could no longer see him, he followed Kunklin up
into the ship.
Kunklin did not wait at the airlock, he ran quickly away. Prule,
puffing, paused to look down at last on the crowd below. Their ascent
had been a success. The crowd was beginning to applaud.
Prule closed the airlock and the invisible, untouchable ship lifted.
He went to join Kunklin. The big Galactic was bent over the controls,
guiding the ship not upward--as Prule had thought--but horizontally
down the length of the wide street.
"Eh?" said Prule.
"Got to get a live Faktor," Kunklin said anxiously, his eyes glued to
the viewscreen. "We've lost the Earthman. He could be anywhere now, and
we can't help him. He may be headed for the Faktor's main base. If so
he will be killed. We've got to get to the base first."
Prule pursed his lips. "If he dies on our account, just because of your
foolish idea to use him--"
"I know," Kunklin cut in. "So we need a Faktor to tell us where the
base is. They're probably all over this city. I think I even saw one in
the crowd." He stopped. "That's another thing," he said unhappily, "if
there were Faktors in the crowd, they'll know a Galactic ship is here."
Prule grunted, peered down at the left side of the screen.
"Look, isn't that one?"
He indicated a small, furtive-looking man who was walking swiftly away
from the area they had just left.
Kunklin adjusted for a close view.
"Yep." He moved to the instrument panel, worked carefully at a
traversing mechanism. "Get down to the airlock. We'll suck him up."
"He'll die of fright," Prule predicted. "They always do."