Of course I didn't answer the driver. He would have interpreted it that I was running away!

We got very cold crossing the first ridge of the Blike Mountains but we came down very fast into the valleys beyond it. This country is all hunting preserve areas, under the domination of the Lords, patrolled and guarded. But it is so vast, there are so many plateaus and gorges, that you can get lost in it utterly and no one would ever find you if you didn't want it to happen. It is full of all manner of game, some of it even brought in from other planets.

"Somebody followed us over that first range," said my driver.

I looked. I saw nothing behind us in the sky. An airbus has no detectors. I was nervous.

"I don't see him now," said the driver.

I told myself sternly that it was just my nerves: after all, I had had a trying time lately. It was proof I needed a hunting trip!

Amazingly, dusk was falling. Perhaps it was just dropping lower behind the first range of the Blikes, but it seemed awfully dark. It's not a country to land in, in the dark!

I quickly chose a landing spot. It was a little plateau. Grassy, a few scrub trees. It was right on the edge of a three-thousand-foot drop down to a white running river. But there was a line of rock at the edge that jutted up.

"Land!" I ordered.

He did. He shut off the drives. What beautiful quiet! Just the hiss of wind through the scrub trees and the mutter of water far below in that gorge. I relaxed. Delightful. After a bit I got out and walked over to the piles of rocks that rose at the edge of the cliff. I climbed up. There was an animal path on the other side, a couple of caves and way, way below, the water. My, it was black down there: already you could see no more than some white foam.

The driver had gotten some sticks together. I put a little firepowder on them and when the air soaked into it, the blaze crackled happily. It was cool and it was getting very dark.

The driver ripped the feathers off the thrillers and we put them on sticks and began to roast them. After half an hour of fond attention, they were done.

I was sitting on a boulder, eating a thriller. The fire was bright. Beyond it sat the driver eating another bird. I had just reached back for another stick.

WHAP!

The blastshot was right where my head had been!

The heavy concussion blew the fire out totally!

Believe me, I scrambled!

The driver heard me going and he followed. I got over the mound of rocks at the cliff edge and got to the other side. If my driver hadn't plowed into me, almost knocking meloose, he would have gone three thousand feet down!

I crouched down on the animal trail on the cliff. I was not going to peer over the top of those rocks. Not yet!

"I was right," said the driver. "Somebody followed us!"

"Get up there and peek over," I said.

He scrambled a bit. A rock came loose and started a small avalanche. That sound was what did it!

A spray of blastfire roared over the top of the rocks. The concussion was awful! Whoever it was was using a fangun! It is a weapon that puts out electric fire in a forty-degree front arc! No hunting weapon that! No gamekeeper weapon! That was military! My Gods, who was after us? The Army?

"Maybe they made a mistake," said the driver. And before I could stop him, he yelled, "Hey! This is just us!" Another fangun blast! This time it actually took some of the tops off the protective wall rocks. Splinters, melted rock, spattered us.

But the enemy, whoever it was, had made a mistake. He or they had given me light to see by. We were crouched on an animal path. About ten feet to our left was a cave. Three thousand feet down was the river, unseen now. It was black night!

"It's robbers," said the driver. It is true that people were often robbed in these mountains. But it wasn't true that he had ever learned much working with the contrabandists.

ROOOOOOOOAR!

They or whoever it was were shooting at his voice!

But I am up to such things. I whispered to the driver, "Can you do a dwindling scream?"

"No," he said.

"Well, you just better imitate what I do. As soon as I do it, I will dive for that cave and as soon as I do it, you do it and dive for that cave. Understand?"

"I don't know how!" he whispered. The idiot. It is right in the training manuals.

I shouted, "Go away!" ROOOOOAR!

I shouted a dwindling scream. When you do it right it sounds like it is declining in the distance. Whoever it was would think they'd made a hit and knocked me off the edge.

I was diving for the cave.

My driver, prompted by necessity and probably on the verge of screaming anyway, imitated it for all he was worth. He spoiled it a little bit because when he hit his knee landing in the cave beside me he said, "(Bleep)!" We crouched there. After a few minutes a light played down over the path where we had been. We hugged back out of sight in the cave.

The light went off.

Then, mysteriously, a couple of minor shots sounded. Then a crackle of flames.

Finally, in the distance, there was a screech of a vehicle's drives starting up and then a roar as it went away. The sound racketed around the mountains and died out.

I became brave. I sent the driver up to look.

"My Gods!" he said at the top.

He was still standing there and hadn't been shot so I went up.

"We're stranded in the Blike Mountains!" said the driver.

The airbus was burning.

"Good," I said.

"But we can't cross those mountains! Even in the passes the air is too thin." I suddenly remembered that my driver had a name. I never used it. Now was the time. "Ske, have you ever dreamed of the sylvan life, the woods, the trees, the streams? Living off nature? With no cares?" It had no appeal, apparently. He started cursing like fury and ran down and started throwing sand on the wreck. I didn't help him at all. It was just the engine burning. Whoever it was had fired a shot into the fuel capacitors and another one into the generator converter. That engine would never run again.

I hummed happily. I found my needle blastrifle in the brush. I found my game bag and the ammunition. I pulled somewhat toasted sweetbuns out of the back and somewhat boiled sparklewater from under the driver's seat. And while I was doing this, I suddenly beheld that the toolbox lid was open and the toolbox was empty.

I sat down and began to laugh. I laughed and laughed. It was the first time I had laughed for a long while. The driver, who had gotten the engine fire down to a flicker, looked at me a little scared. Well, maybe I did sound a bit hysterical.

"What's so funny?" he demanded.

"The money! It's gone!" And I went off into another spasm. "They followed us in to rob us. They cut their engines way back and coasted in. They crept up carefully. They thought they killed us. And . . ." It was so rich I had to laugh and laugh again. The driver got me by the shoulders to steady me or shake me or something. I didn't mind. I sat down and laughed some more. Finally, I could talk again.

"They did it all to rob us of counterfeit money! Spreading that much around they will start a major investigation. And they'll be executed out of hand!" Ske didn't think it was funny. "All I know is, we're completely off all traffic lines, we don't have any communication at all, we can't walk out of here and we're surrounded by deep canyons and a country full of savage beasts."

"That's the nice part of it," I said.

I watched him build up the cooking fire again – whoever it was would just think the airbus was still burning if they looked back and saw a pinpoint of light. He located some of the game birds and began to pick the dust and rocks off them. I sat there grinning.