It narrowed down to that when a man was on the frontier worlds--humans
stood together. Vye wanted to deny it, but his own emotions, as well
as the centuries of age-old tradition, argued him down. Wass was a
Veep, one of the criminal parasites dabbling in human misery along
more than one solar lane. But he was also human and, as one of their
own species, had his claim on them.
Vye watched Hume take over the controls, felt the flitter answer
another change of course, then heard the frantic yammer of the
distress call as they leveled off to ride its beam in to the hidden
camp.
"Automatic." Hume had turned down the volume of the receiver so that
the clicks in the mike no longer were so strident. "Set on maximum and
left that way."
"They had a force barrier around the camp and they knew about the
globes and the watchers." Vye tried to imagine what had happened in
that woods clearing.
"The barrier might have shorted. And without the flitter they would
have been pinned."
"Could have taken off in the spacer."
"Wass doesn't have the reputation of letting any project get out of
his hands."