Manning scowled impatiently and bent to sign the papers.

"Where's Mara?" Rynason asked.

"She's already taken one of the flyers out," Harcourt said. "Left ten
minutes ago. We've got her screen in the next room." He waved a hand
toward the door in the rear of the room.

Rynason went on back and found the live set. The screen, monitored from
a camera on the flyer, showed the foothills of the southern mountains
over which Mara was flying. They were bare and blunt; the rock
outcroppings which thrust up from the Flat had been weathered smooth in
the passage of years. Mara was passing over a low range and on to the
desert beyond.

Rynason picked up the mike. "Mara, this is Lee; we just got here. Have
you found them yet?"

Her voice came thinly over the speaker. "Not yet. I thought I saw some
movement in one of the passes, but the light wasn't too good. I'm
looking for that pass again."

"All right. We'll be going up ourselves in a few minutes; if you find
them, be careful. Wait for us."

He refitted the mike in its stand and rose. But as he turned to the door
her voice came again: "There they are!"

He looked at the screen, but for the moment he couldn't see anything.
Mara's flyer was coming down out of the rocky hills now, the Flat