Children of the Gates by Andre Norton Page B

If Linda was not just running from her own imagination, they could be watched by things from the trees. Or hunted by those to whom his calls would serve as a guide. Though the grass was so tall it was hard to tramp through, he thought he saw ahead the end of the woods.
    “Nick—there’s water.” Linda angled to the left across his path.
    The hollow was not a pond, but rather a basin that the hand of man, or some intelligence, had had a part in devising. For the water trickled from a pipe set in a wall about a hollow. Then that was cupped in a rounded half-bowl and fed once more into a runnel that ran on out into the meadow and disappeared.
    Linda knelt, loosing Lung, who lapped avidly at the basin. She flipped the water over her flushed face and then drank from her palms cupped together. Seeing the water, Nick was struck by thirst, just as an ache within him signaled hunger. But he waited until the girl had drunk her fill, standing on guard, his attention swinging from woods, to sky, to open fields, watchful and alert. As Linda arose he ordered:
    “Keep a lookout.” He went down in her place, the clear, cold water on his hands and face, in his mouth, down his throat. He had never really tasted water before. This seemed to have a flavor—like mint—
    “Nick!”

7

    He choked and whirled about, water dribbling from the side of his mouth. One look was enough.
    “Get back!” Nick forced Linda, by the weight of his body and his determination, into the brush fringe of the woods.
    “Keep Lung quiet!” He added a second order.
    They were no longer alone in the meadow. Two figures had rounded the rising bulwark of the ridge, were running, or rather wavering forward desperately. They were dressed alike in a yellow brown that could easily be seen against the vivid green of the grass. But they did not try to take cover. It was as if some great terror, or need, drove them by the most open ways where they could keep the best speed they could muster.
    Both staggered, as if they kept erect and moved only with the greatest of efforts. One fell and Nick and Linda heard him call out hoarsely, saw him strive to pull up again. His companion came to a wavering halt, looked back, and then returned to help. Linked by their hands they went on.
    “Nick—in the sky!”
    “I see it. Keep down, out of sight!”
    A small saucer craft, such as the one that had hunted the Herald, snapped into view. Now it was almost directly over the runners who may or may not have had an instant or so to realize their peril.
    Both men continued forward, their agonized effort plain. It might have been that the grassy meadow had been transformed into a bog in which sucking mud held them fast. Then they wilted to the ground and lay very still.
    The saucer hung motionless directly above them. From its underside dripped a mass of gleaming cords looped and netted together, lowered by cable that remained fastened to the ship. And swinging down that came another figure.
    The saucer man (if man he was) was small, dwarfish. But little could be seen of him save a silver shape. For he wore suit and helmet not unlike those of an astronaut. A second such joined the first and they busied themselves with the net and the inert men on the ground. At a signal the net swung up, heavy with the runners, the suited crewmen riding with it.
    The craft swallowed up captives and captors. But it did not disappear as Nick hoped desperately that it would. He began to fear that those on board had knowledge of their presence also. Who knew what devices the hunters might operate?
    “Nick—!” Linda’s whisper brought a warning scowl from him.
    Her hand went to her mouth as if she needed to physically stifle her fear. Lung crouched beside her, shivering, but he did not utter a sound. Dare they try to move? Edge farther back into the woods where they were more protected by the trees? Nick was not sure they could make it—not now. It could be that they were needlessly alarmed. Still the