Joe sensed that something was wrong and a hurried glance down the trail revealed a glimpse of white that had not been there a few min- utes ago. Adrenalin rushed through his body and he began running along the trail in the opposite direction with hair and skirt flying as he ran. He rounded a bend and stopped dead as he realized that he stood face to face with two statuesque blonde women. They both wore identical white jackets and skirts that vaguely reminded Joe of the majorette's uniforms that he had often envied at home. He looked around for a rock or stick to be used if needed, but nothing was readily available.

His thoughts of resistance were abandoned when two more women dressed like the first two came up from the direction that he had just left. At least he was encouraged to realize that he had indeed seen a flash of white further down the trail so his mind was not playing tricks on him. He thought for a moment of cursing Jo-Anne and her stupid animal but that wouldn't help things much now so he dropped the matter for the moment. One of the women stepped closer to him and smiled. She said something in a strange language and then used ges- tures when she saw that Joe did not understand. An order was given in the same liquid language and the five of them started off down the trail. Two of the women walked in front of Joe and two followed behind giving every indication that he was a captive.

They had gone about 500 yards when they came to a small vehicle which sat in a clearing beside the trail. Joe knew then that he would have walked right into them whether he had stopped to help the trapped animal or not and so he felt pleased that he had done at least one thing right that day. They entered the ship and Joe noted a look of hatred in the eyes of one of the four. He braced himself for the acceleration forces that would accompany the take-off. The expected forces never came and he was astounded as the ship rose vertically to altitude and then shot into level flight with no sound of rocket engines. It almost seemed as though these people had discovered the secret of anti-gravity. Joe noticed that there was no chatter being exchanged among the four wo- men and he began to wonder if they might be members of a military or police group since they seemed to be so serious. He still did not know what was going on, or how he had gotten where he was, but he was glad that he had not been captured by the dreaded outspacers for they would surely have killed him in space had they found him.

After about ten minutes of flight a modern city came into view and the small craft headed directly for one of the buildings and landed on a roof-top area designed for that purpose. Joe was taken to a room

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