UNTIL SHE saw him sprint across the east plain, a Hooded Dasher close behind, Legata did not know Thomas was at the Redoubt. She stood at the giant screen in the Command Center, the hum of late dayside activity going on all around. Oakes and Lewis were conferring off to her left. The big screen had been set on a scan program, ready to lock onto any unusual activity. She took over the controls and zoomed in on the running man. The Dasher was only a few leaps behind him. The scene was outlined in the harsh cross-light of the evening suns.

“Morgan, look!”

Oakes rushed to her side, stared up at the screen.

“The fool,” he muttered.

Thomas swerved abruptly to the left, made a desperate leap off a dangerously high rock onto the sand at the high tide mark. The Dasher leaped after him, misjudged and landed in a patch of dead kelp washed up by the surf. It immediately began gulping rags of kelp while Thomas ran off down the beach. Another Dasher appeared behind him then, dropping from a high rock, running as it landed. Thomas dodged around a boulder and sped off along the high tide mark. His boots kicked up globs of damp sand. There was no doubt that he heard the Dasher closing on him.

“He’ll never make it. No one can,” Oakes’ trembling voice betrayed his nervousness.

Afraid he won’t get away? Legata asked herself. Or afraid he will?

“Why did you turn him out?” she asked. She kept her attention on the figure darting and weaving away from her, and she remembered that nightside meeting with him outside Colony’s Lab One. She found herself silently urging him on: Into the surf! Dodge into the water!

“I didn’t turn him out, my dear,” Oakes said. “He must’ve escaped.” Oakes turned and called out to Lewis across the room. “Make sure nothing’s been left open to the outside.”

“He was a prisoner. Why?”

“He and the TaoLini woman came back from their undersea venture without Panille, a wild story about hylighters rescuing them. That requires more than simple debriefing.”

Lewis came up to stand beside Oakes. “All secure.”

Thomas had swerved into the water once more, diving under ragged scraps of dead kelp. He surfaced draped with the stuff, and the second Dasher remained behind to feed on the scraps. Thomas was visibly tiring now, his stride irregular.

“Can’t we do anything for him?” Legata asked.

“What would you have us do?” Oakes asked.

“Send a rescue party!”

“That area’s full of Dashers and Flatwings. We can’t afford to lose any more people.”

“If he was foolish enough to go outside, he takes his own chances,” Lewis said. “Isn’t that the rule for running the P?” He stared at Legata.

“He’s not running the P,” she said, and she wondered if Lewis had somehow learned about her own mad run.