Planet in Peril by John Christopher Page A

Your relief will be along inside five minutes. I wouldn’t fit in your uniform, but this brother will. I want you to let him take it. We will tie you up. The Will of the Lord, brother.”
    The guard nodded. Without hesitation he stripped his equipment and his outer garments from him. In the sentry-box there was the usual plastic exudator . Dinkuhl adjusted the nozzle to quarter-inch orifice, and at a touch the plastic rope ribboned out. Carefully and deftly he tied it round the unresisting guard. Charles watched him while he was himself putting the uniform and accoutrements on.
    Dinkuhl said: "You get the sticky job, brother Charles. The Lord didn’t see fit to provide me with the figure for it. Club him with the Klaberg if he’s wearing his nose filter. In fact, it will be safer to do that, anyway. There doesn’t seem to be a spare filter here, and you would have an even stickier job carrying me if I passed out. Hit him hard, for God’s sake. I’ll be crouched in the box and I’ll come a-running if you get into trouble, but it’s always better to make sure at the start, if you can.”
    Charles felt tense; it was not an altogether unpleasant feeling. The prospect of doing something violent soothed that part of his mind which had been most outraged by Dinkuhl’s explanation of the double trickery that had been practiced on him.
    Dinkuhl completed the tying up, and propped the guard in one comer of his box. He pointed toward the distant house. A gyro was lifting from the roof.
    "There’s your quarry. I’m getting inside. Don’t forget —hit him hard.”
    "Don’t worry,” Charles said.
    He stood just outside the box, Klaberg held loosely, waiting for the gyro. It arrowed down through the wintry air, rotors flapping idly, and perched on the road perhaps ten yards away from him. The left-hand door slid open, and a figure dressed as he was dressed jumped down. It was a relief to observe that he was only of middle height.
    He walked up to Charles. He said curiously:
    “ You’re not Herriot.'’
    Charles made an attempt at disguising his voice. He had his hood close round his face and was not seriously worried about his features being recognized.
    He said: “Herriot went sick. Didn't they tell you?” “Where you from?”
    Charles ignored the question. He stooped down toward the base of the sentry-box, and poked at it with his Klaberg .
    “You know the condition this was in? Somebody should have reported it before now.”
    He straightened up himself as the new man bent down to see what he was talking about. Behind the ear, he thought to himself. He didn't aim well enough, and the butt of the Klaberg landed at the base of the man's neck. He rolled over and lay slack.
    Dinkuhl emerged from the sentry-box.
    “Charlie,” he remarked, “you're a man of action. I could not have done any better myself.”
    The man lay still. With rising nausea, Charles contemplated the possibility that he might have done the job too effectively.
    He said: “I hope I haven't finished him off.”
    Dinkuhl knelt down. He said: “Fetch me a hank of rope. No, he'll live to explain to George what a sucker he’s been. Should make it less tough for Brother in there. For suckers the only safety is in numbers.”
    When he had been adequately roped, the guard was pushed into the box with his companion. Dinkuhl led the way to the gyro. He clambered up through the open door and Charles followed him. Dinkuhl took the controls.
    “Time,” he observed, “is on anyone's side but ours. This is where we move.”
    The gyro climbed steeply, and headed north.

VI
    The r olling countryside of Vermont was spread two thousand feet beneath them. They were heading north.
    Charles asked: “Montpelier?”
    “Thereabouts.”
    But Montpelier came into view below and their course held. Dinkuhl was apparently in one of his moods of concentration; it was abundantly clear that he had his plans and did not want to discuss them. Charles assumed that he had changed