"Estimated return, 1820, give or take four
minutes."
"Varth," Ranthar Jard said, evidently out of the boat's radio. "Your
telecast is being beamed on Dhergabar Equivalent; Chief's Assistant
Verkan is watching. When do you estimate your next return?"
"Any moment, now, sir; we're holding this drop till they
rematerialize."
Vall watched unblinkingly, his fork poised halfway to his mouth.
Suddenly, about a thousand feet below the eye of the pickup, there was
a series of blue flashes, and, an instant later, a blossoming of
red-and-white parachutes, ejected from the photo-reconnaissance balls
that had returned from the Kholghoor Sector.
"All right; drop away," the boat captain called. There was a gush,
from underneath, of eight-inch spheres, their conductor-mesh twinkling
golden-bright in the sunlight. They dropped in a tight cluster for a
thousand or so feet and then flashed and vanished. From the ground,
six or eight aircars rose to meet the descending parachutes and catch
them.
The screen went cubist for a moment, and then Ranthar Jard's swarthy,
wide-jawed face looked out of it again.
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