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“Hector! Hit, break out, and Check Ten. Check Ten….
    They were driving toward one group of the approaching green lights. La Chasse Gallerie was driving with them. Over the shouting back and forth of the Wander Section pilots came the voice of Raoul Penard, shouting, singing—a strange, lugubrious tune but in the cadence and tone of a battle song. As if through the winds of a nightmare, Jim heard him…
    Frenchman, he don’t lak to die in de fall! When de mairsh she am so full of de game! An de little bool-frog, he’s roll veree fat... An de leetle mooshrat, he’s jus’ de same!
    The feeble rimes of the old ship reached out toward the incoming Laagi lights that were ships, pathetically wide of their mark. Something winked up ahead and suddenly the soft, uncollapsed point of the primitive, dust-scarred hull was no longer there. Then Wander Section had closed with some eight of the enemy.
    AndFriend suddenly bucked and screamed. Her internal temperature shot up momentarily to nearly two hundred degrees as a glancing blow from the light-weapon of one of the Laagi brushed her. There was a moment of insanity. Flame flickered suddenly in the interior of Fair Maid , obscuring the picture of it on the screen before Jim. Then they were all past the enemy ships and Jim cried “Transmit!” at the same time that he locked his own magnetic beams on the chopped hull of La Chasse Gallerie and tried to take her through the jump alone.
    It should not have been possible. But some sixth sense in the singing, crazed mind of Raoul Penard seemed to understand what Jim was trying. The two ships jumped together under AndFriend ’s control, and suddenly all six ships floated within sight of each other amid the peace and darkness of empty space and the alien stars.
    Into this silence came a soft sob from one of the other vessels. Jim looked and saw the charred interior of the Fair Maid . Her pilot was out of his seat and half-crouched before the equally charred, barrel-suited figure in the gunner’s chair.
    â€œ Fair Maid !” Jim had to repeat the call, more sharply. “Fair Maid! Acknowledge!”
    The pilot’s headpiece lifted. The sobbing stopped.
    â€œ Fair Maid here.” The voice was thick-tongued, drunk-sounding. “I had to shoot my gunner, Wander Leader. She was burning up inside her suit. I had to shoot my gunner. She was burning up inside her—”
    â€œ Fair Maid !” snapped Jim. “Can you still compute and jump?”
    â€œYes…” said the drugged voice. “I can compute and jump, Wander Leader.”
    â€œAll right, Fair Maid ,” said Jim. “You’re to jump wide, angle off outside Laagi territory and then make your own way back to our side of the Frontier. We’re close enough to outside both territories for that now. Have you got it? Jump wide, and make your own way back. Jump far enough so that it won’t be worth the trouble to the Laagi to go after you.”
    â€œNo!” The voice lost some of its druggedness. “I’m staying, Wander Leader. I’m going to kill some—”
    â€œ Fair Maid !” Jim heard his own voice snarling into his headpiece. “This Section has a mission—to bring back the ship we’ve just picked up in Laagi territory! You’re no good on that mission—you’re no good to this Section without a gunner. Jump wide and go home! Do you hear me? That’s an order. Jump wide and go home!”
    There was a moments’ silence, and then the pilot’s figure moved and turned slowly back to sit down before his controls.
    â€œAcknowledge, Fair Maid !” snapped Jim.
    â€œAcknowledge,” came the lifeless voice of the pilot in the burned interior of the ship. “Jumping wide and going home.”
    â€œOut then,” said Jim in a calmer voice. “Good luck getting back. So long, Jerry.”
    â€œSo long, Wander Leader,” came the