"Azeela does not know. One large piece of apparatus. He has it in the
plane covered by a black bag. He will not let her touch it. And there
are other things--a pile of disks or something. White--like steel. She
can't see them well--he has covered them also. He is filled with
triumph. His plane is speeding toward Anglese City."
"In space or time?"
"In time. They are hovering in space. Azeela does not know where they
are. Toroh says he will wait, and when the time-world of the island is
reached they will recognize the land. Then Toroh will take Azeela to the
Noths. He says if our father does not yield, he will _kill her_. And
then he and the Noths will conquer the Anglese."
George had lost. But still there seemed nothing that they could do but
try and keep as close to the other plane in time as they could.
Toroh's plane was sweeping forward. He had released Azeela, commanding
her to instruct him in more detail in the handling of the Frazia motors.
Azeela's dials now read some fifty-five hundred years behind the Anglese
time-world. George's read about six thousand.
They came to the cataclysm that formed the island. George had forgotten
it, but he chanced to be gazing down. The gray forests suddenly blurred;
vague chaos passed over the earth, the air, and the sky; then there were
the familiar mountains, the channel, the island! The myriad details of
those hours of upheaval had been compressed, blended into a fraction of
a second. The eye and the mind could not grasp it. The thing was past,
done and away, with only its _effect_ left as evidence that it had
occurred.
George and Dee were above the channel and west of Orleen. No more than a
hundred years now separated the planes.
"What shall we do?" George demanded for the tenth time. And then an
idea came to him. They could not attack Toroh until he reached his
destination. He would be among his own army then, and rescue of Azeela
would be impossible. But if Azeela could separate herself from Toroh
now, he could never find her in time and probably wouldn't try.
George explained it to Dee. Azeela was not bound; could she persuade
Toroh on some pretext to land on the ground--then leap from the plane?
The shock of stopping in time should be no different than when the plane
itself stopped.
Azeela had already thought of it; the idea had been prompted by the fact
that Toroh's plane was running out of fuel. He would have to conserve
it, not use the 'copters, or else he would have none left with which to
get up north.
George was trembling with excitement. "Tell her to suggest that they
land."
Toroh was, at that instant, landing. It was a familiar spot to Azeela;
she described it exactly to Dee, and the younger sister recognized it.
Toroh's plane had entered the second century before Fahn's time-world
when George--some fifty years further back--arrived at the spot in space
Azeela was describing. There was the little rise of ground, with the
channel beyond. The vegetation was different, but the level rock was
there. And Toroh's plane was resting on that level rock.
Dee's voice was shaking so that she could hardly talk. "Will it--kill
her, George?"
He was white faced, tense. "Tell her to read the dials as exactly as she
can."
Azeela read them. George held his watch in his hand; he noted the hour
and minute it gave.
"She has called Toroh's attention to something outside," Dee's voice
translated swiftly. "She opens the cabin door. He is behind her but he
does not suspect."
George kept his eyes on his watch. Two minutes since Azeela gave them
her dial-reading, and he knew the approximate time-velocity of the other
plane.
Three minutes!
"She is on the platform. The blurred rock is only a few feet below her.
Azeela is pretending something is wrong under the plane. Toroh is beside
her--but he does not touch her. He does not suspect she would dare...."
Three minutes and a half.
"She jumps--"