Now Lark did shut up. He had gone too far, even in the name of truth. Raggedly, trying to maintain some remnant of her dignity, Ling swiveled and strode off to the acrid lake that lay below a boulder field of tumbled Buyur ruins. Does anybody like having their treasured worldview torn away? Lark mused, watching Ling hurl stones into the caustic pond. Most of us would reject all the proof in the cosmos before considering that our own beliefs might be wrong.

But the scientist in her won't let her dismiss evidence so easily. She has to face facts, like them or not.

The habit of truth is bard to learn, and a mixed blessing.

It leaves no refuge when a new truth comes along that hurts.

Lark knew his feelings were hardly a testament to clarity.

Anger roiled, mixed with shame that he could not hold on to the purity of his own convictions. There was childish satisfaction from upsetting Ling's former smug superiority . . . and chagrin at finding such a motive smoldering inside. Lark enjoyed being right, though it might be better, this time, if he turned out to be wrong.

Just when I had her respecting me as an equal, and maybe starting to like me, that's when I have to go stomping through her life, smashing idols she was raised to worship, showing off the bloodstained hands of her G.o.ds.

You may win an argument, boy. You may even convince her. But could anyone fully forgive you for doing something like that?

He shook his head over how much he might have just thrown away, all for the torrid pleasure of harsh honesty.

Wasx DO NOT BE AFRAID, MY LESSER PARTS. The sensations you feel may seem like coercive pain, but they convey a kind of love that will grow dear to you, with time. I am part of you now, one with you. I will never do anything to cause us harm, so long as this alliance serves a function.

Go ahead, stroke the wax if you wish, for the old ways of memory still have lesser uses (so long as they serve My purpose). Play over recent images so we may recall together events leading to our new union. Re-create the scene perceived by Asx, staring up in awe, watching the great Jophur warship, Polkjhy, swoop from the sky, taking the pirates captive, then landing in this tortured valley. Poor, loosely joined, scatterbrained Asx-did you,we not stare in tremulous fear?

Yes, I can stroke another driving motivation. One that kept you admirably unified, despite swirling dread. It was a cloying sense of duty. Duty to the not-self community of half beings you call the Commons.

As Asx, your stack planned to speak for the Commons. Asx expected to face star-traveling humans, along with creatures known as "Rothen." But then Jophur forms were seen through our ship ports!

After some hesitation, did you not turn at last and try to flee?

How slow this stack was before the change! When knives of fire lanced forth from this mighty vessel, how did you react to the maelstrom of destruction? To hot ravening beams that tore through wood, stone, and flesh, but always spared this pile of aged rings? Had you then possessed the bright new running legs we now wear, you might have thrown yourselves into that roaring calamity. But Asx was slow, too slow even to shelter nearby comrades with its traeki bulk.

All died, except this stack.

ARE YOU NOT PROUD?.

The next ray from the ship seized this multistriped cone, lifting it into the night air, sweeping the fatty rings toward doors that gaped to receive them.

Oh, how well Asx spoke then, despite the confusion! With surprising coherence for a stack without a master, tapping waxy streaks of eloquence, Asx pleaded, cajoled, and reasoned with the enigmatic creatures who peered from behind glaring lights.

Finally, these beings glided forward. The starship's hold filled with Asx's ventings of horrified dread.

How unified you were, My rings! The testimony of the wax is clear. At that moment, you were one as never before.

United in shared dismay to see those cousin toroids your ancestors sought to escape, many cycles ago. We Jophur, the mighty and fulfilled.

Dwer THE ROBOT PROVED USEFUL AT HEAPING DRIFTwood onto the seaside shoulder of a high dune overlooking the Rift. Without rest or pause, it dumped a load then scurried for more, in whatever direction Rety indicated with an outstretched arm. The Danik machine seemed willing to obey once more-so long as her orders aimed toward a reunion with Kunn.

Such single-minded devotion to its master reminded Dwer of Earth stories about dogs-tales his mother read aloud when he was small. It struck him odd that the Taber- nacle colonists brought horses, donkeys, and chimps, but no canines.

Lark or Sara might know why.

That was Dwer's habitual thought, encountering something he didn't understand. Only now it brought a pang, knowing he might never see his brother and sister again.

Maybe Kunn won't kill me outright. He might bring me borne in chains, instead, before the Rothens wipe out the Six Races to cover their tracks.

That was the terrible fate the High Sages foresaw for Jijo's fallen settlers, and Dwer figured they ought to know. He recalled Lena Strong musing about what means the aliens might use to perform their genocide. With gruesome relish, Lena kept topping herself during the long hike east from the Rimmer Range. Would the criminal star G.o.ds wash the Slope with fire, scouring it from the glaciers to the sea? Would they melt the ice caps and bring an end by drowning? Her morbid speculations were like a fifth companion as Dwer guided two husky women and a lesser sage past a thousand leagues of poison gra.s.s all the way to the Gray Hills, in a forlorn bid to safeguard a fragment of human civilization on Jijo.

Dwer had last glimpsed Jenin, Lena, and Danel during the brief fight near the huts of Rety's home clan. This same robot cut poor Danel down with lethal rays, instants before its own weapons pod was destroyed.

Indeed, the battle drone was no dog to be tamed or befriended. Nor would it show grat.i.tude for the times Dwer helped it cross rivers, anchoring its fields to ground through the conduit of his body.

Mudfoot was hardly any better a comrade. The lithe noor beast swiftly grew bored with wood-gathering ch.o.r.es, and scampered off instead to explore the tide line, digging furiously where bubbles revealed a buried hive of sand clamettes. Dwer looked forward to roasting some . . . until he saw that Mudfoot was cracking and devouring every one, setting none aside for the humans.

As useful as a noor, he thought, quashing stings of hunger as he hoisted another bundle of twisty driftwood slabs, digging his moccasins into the sandy slope.

Dwer tried to remain optimistic.

Maybe Kunn will feed me, before attaching the torture machines.

yee stood proudly atop the growing woodpile. The diminutive urrish male called directions in a piping voice, as if mere humans could never manage a proper fire without urrish supervision. Rety's "husband" hissed disappointment over Dwer's poor contribution-as if being wounded, starved, and dragged across half of Jijo in a robot's claws did not excuse much. Dwer ignored yee's reprimand, dumping his load then stepping over to the dune's seaward verge, shading his eyes in search of Kunn's alien scoutship.

He spied it far away, a silvery bead, cruising back and forth above the deep blue waters of the Rift. At intervals, something small and shiny would fall from the slender s.p.a.cecraft. An explosive, Dwer supposed, for about twenty duras after each canister struck the water, the sea abruptly frothed white. Sometimes a sharp, almost musical tone reached sh.o.r.e.

According to Rety, Kunn was trying to force something-or somebody-out of hiding.

I hope you miss, Dwer thought . . . though the star pilot might be in a better mood toward prisoners if his hunt went well.

"I wonder what Ja.s.s has been tellin' Kunn, all this time,"

Rety worried aloud, joining Dwer at the crest. "What if they become pals?"

Dwer waited as the robot dropped another cargo of wood and went off for more. Then he replied.

"Have you changed your mind? We could still try to escape. Take out the robot. Avoid Kunn. Go our own way."

Rety smiled with surprising warmth, "Why, Dwer, is that a whatchamacallum? A proposal What'll we do? Make our own little sooner clan, here on the wind barrens? Y'know I already have one husban' and I need his p'rmission to add another."

Actually, he had envisioned trying to make it back to the Gray Hills, where Lena and Jenin could surely use a hand. Or else, if that way seemed too hard and Rety rigidly opposed returning to the tribe she hated, they might strike out west and reach the Vale in a month or two, if the foraging was good along the way.

Rety went on, with more edge in her voice.

"B'sides, I still have my eye set on an apart'mint on Poria Outpost. Like the one Besh an' Ling showed me a picture of, with a bal-co-ny, an' a bed made o' cloud stuff. I figure it'll be just a bit more comfy than scratchin' out the rest of my days here with savages."

Dwer shrugged. He hadn't expected her to agree. As a "savage," he had reasons of his own for going ahead with the bonfire to attract Kunn's attention.

"Well, anyway, I don't suppose the bot would let its guard down a second time."

"It was lucky to survive doin' it around you once."

Dwer took a moment to realize she had just paid him a compliment. He cherished its uniqueness, knowing he might never hear another.

The moment of unaccustomed warmth was broken when something ma.s.sive abruptly streaked by, so fast that its air wake shoved both humans to the ground. Dwer's training as a tracker let him follow the blurry object . . . to the top of a nearby dune, which erupted in a gushing spray of sand.

It was the robot, he realized, digging with furious speed.

In a matter of heartbeats it made a hole that it then dived within, aiming its remaining sensor lens south and west.

"Come on!" Dwer urged, grabbing his bow and quiver. Rety paused only to s.n.a.t.c.h up a wailing, hissing yee. Together they fled some distance downslope, where Dwer commenced digging with both hands.

Long ago,. Fallen the Scout had taught him-If you don't know what's happening in a crisis, mimic a creature who does. If the robot felt a sudden need to hide, Dwer thought it wise to follow.

"Ifni!" Rety muttered. "Now what in h.e.l.l's he doin'?"

She was still standing-staring across the Rift. Dwer yanked her into the hole beside him. Only when sand covered most of their bodies did he poke his head back out to look.

The Danik pilot clearly felt something was wrong. The little craft hurtled toward sh.o.r.e, diving as it came. Seeking cover, Dwer thought. Maybe it can dig underground, like the robot.

Dwer started turning, to spot whatever had Kunn in such a panic, but just then the boat abruptly veered, zigzagging frantically. From its tail bright fireb.a.l.l.s arced, like sparks leaping off a burning log. They flared brightly and made the air waver in a peculiar way, blurring the escaping vessel's outlines.

From behind Dwer, streaks of fierce light flashed overhead toward the fleeing boat. Most deflected through warped zones, veering off course, but one bypa.s.sed the glowing b.a.l.l.s, striking target.

At the last moment, Kunn flipped his nimble ship around and fired back at his a.s.sailants, launching a return volley just as the unerring missile closed in.

Dwer shoved Rety's head down and closed his eyes.

The detonations were less Jijo-shattering than he expected-a series of dull concussions, almost anticlimactic.

Looking up with sand-covered faces, they witnessed both winner and loser in the brief battle of G.o.d chariots.

Kunn's boat had crashed beyond the dune field, plowing into a marshy fen. Smoke boiled from its shattered rear.

Circling above, the victor regarded its victim, glistening with a silvery tint that seemed less metallic than crystal. The newcomer was bigger and more powerful looking than the Danik scout.

Kunn never stood a chance.

Rety muttered, her voice barely audible.

"She said there'd turn out to be someone stronger."

Dwer shook his head. "Who?"

"That smelly old urs! Leader o' those four-legged sooners, back in the village pen. Said the Rothen might be a-feared of somebody bigger. So she was right." "urs smelly?" yee objected, "you wife should talk?" Rety stroked the little male as yee stretched his neck, fluting a contented sigh.

The fallen scout boat. rocke'd from a new explosion, this one brightly framing a rectangle in the ship's side. That section fell and two bipeds followed, leaping into the bog, chased by smoke that boiled from the interior. Staggering through murky water, the men leaned on each other to reach a weedy islet, where they fell, exhausted.

The newcomer ship cruised a wary circle, losing alt.i.tude. As it turned, Dwer saw a stream of pale smoke pouring from a gash in its other side. A roughness to the engine sound grew steadily worse. Soon, the second cruiser settled down near the first.

Well, it looks like Kunn got in a lick of his own. Dwer wondered-Now why should that make me feel glad?

Alvin BONE-RATTLING CONCUSSIONS GREW MORE TERRIfying with each dura, hammering our undersea prison refuge, sometimes receding for a while, then returning with new force, making it hard for a poor hoon to stand properly on the shuddering floor.

Crutches and a back brace didn't help, nor the little autoscribe, fogging the room with my own projected words. Stumbling through them, I sought some solid object to hold, while the scribe kept adding to the mob of words, recording my frantic curses in Anglic and GalSeven. When I found a wall stanchion, I grabbed for dear life. The clamor of reverberating explosions sounded like a giant, bearing down with ma.s.sive footsteps, nearer . . . ever nearer. . . .

Then, as I feared some popping seam would let in the dark, heavy waters of the Midden ... it abruptly stopped.

Silence was almost as disorienting as the jeekee awful noise. My throat sac blatted uselessly while a hysterical Huphu clawed my shoulders, shredding scales into torglike ribbons. Fortunately, hoon don't have much talent for panic.

Maybe our reactions are too slow, or else we lack imagination.

As I was gathering my wits, the door hatch opened and one of the little amphibian types rushed in, squeaking a few rapid phrases in simplified GalTwo.

A summons. The spinning voice wanted us for another powwow.

"Perhaps we should share knowledge," it said when the four of us (plus Huphu) were a.s.sembled.

Huck and Pincer-Tip, able to look all ways at once, shared meaningful glances with Ur-ronn and me. We were pretty rattled by the recent booming and shaking. Even growing up next to a volcano had never prepared us for that!

The voice seemed to come from a s.p.a.ce where abstract lines curled in tight patterns, but I knew that was an illusion. The shapes and sounds were projections, sent by some ent.i.ty whose real body lay elsewhere, beyond the walls. I kept expecting Huphu to dash off and tear away a curtain, exposing a little man in an emerald carnival suit. Do they think we're rubes, to fall for such a trick?

"Knowledge?" Huck sneered, drawing three eyes back like coiled snakes. "You want to share some knowledge? Then tell us what's going on! I thought this place was breaking up! Was it a quake? Are we being sucked into the Midden?"

"I a.s.sure you, that is not happening," came the answer in smooth-toned GalSix. "The source of our mutual concern lies above, not below."

"Explosions," Ur-ronn muttered, blowing through her snout fringe and stamping a hind hoof. "Those weren't quakes, but underwater detonations. Clean, sharp, and very close. I'd say soneone up there doesn't like you guys very much."

Pincer hissed sharply and I stared at our urrish friend, but the spinning voice conceded.

"That is an astute guess."

I couldn't tell if it was impressed, or just sarcastic.

"And since our local guild of explosers could hardly achieve such feats, this suggests you have other, powerful foes, far greater than we feevie Six."

"Again, a reasonable surmise. Such a bright young lady."

"Hr-rm," I added, in order not to be left out of the sardonic abuse. "We're taught that the simplest hypothesis should always be tried first. So let me guess-you're being hunted by the same folks who landed a while back in the Festival Glade. Those gene raiders Uriel got word about before we left. Is that it?"

"A goodly conjecture, and possibly even true . . . though it could as easily be someone else."

"Someone else? What're you say-ay-aying?" Pincer-Tip demanded, raising three legs and teetering dangerously on the remaining two. His chitin skin flared an anxious crimson shade. "That the eatees-tees-tees on the Glade might not be the only ones? That you've got whole pa.s.sels of enemies?"

Abstract patterns tightened to a tornado of meshing lines as silence reigned. Little Huphu, who had seemed fascinated by the voice from the very start, now dug her claws in my shoulder, transfixed by the tight spiral form.

Huck demanded, in a hushed tone.

"How many enemies have you guys got?" when the voice spoke again, all sardonic traces were gone. Its tone seemed deeply weary.

"Ah, dear children. It seems that half of the known sidereal universe has spent years pursuing us."

Pincer clattered his claws and Huck let out a low, mournful sigh. My own dismal contemplation-umble roused Huphu from her trancelike fixation on the whirling display, and she chittered nervously.