If anything, the wind stiffened from behind, accelerating his approach.

At once, Blade had an idea. One that changed his mind about the cruelty of fate.

This is better, he decided. It will be like that novel I read last winter, by that pre-contact human, Vonnegut. The book ended with the hero making a bold, personal gesture toward G.o.d.

The point seemed apropos then, and even more so now When faced with casual extinction by an omnipotent force, i sometimes the only option left to a poor mortal is to go out" with defiance.

That proved remarkably feasible. Qheuen mouth parts served many functions, including s.e.xual. So Blade made i virtue of his exposed posture, and got ready to present himself to the enemy in the most deliberately offensive manner possible.

Look THIS up in your Galactic Library! he thought, wav- ( ing his sensor feelers suggestively. Perhaps, before he was vaporized, the Jophur would call up reference data dealing with starfaring qheuens, and realize the extent of his insolence. Blade hoped his life would count for at least that much. To be killed in anger, not as an afterthought.

Waves of tingling sensation coursed his feelers, and Blade wondered if danger was provoking some perverted version of the mating urge. Well, after all, here I am, veering toward a big, armored, dominant ent.i.ty with my privates bared.

Log Biter would not approve of the comparison, I suppose.

As the wind pushed him toward the battleship-a thing so huge it rivaled nearby mountains-all sight of it vanished beneath the forward edge of his chitin carapace. It would be out of sight during final approach, an irony Blade did not find amusing.

Then, to his great surprise, there rushed into sight the very thing he had been longing for-a lake. A. large one, dammed up behind the great cruiser, drowning the Festival Glade .under hectares of cool snowmelt.

If they don't shoot me down, he could not help speculating. If they fail to notice me, I might yet reach . . .

But how could they not spy this approaching gasbag? Surely they must already have him pinned by star-G.o.d instruments.

Sure enough, the tingling of Blade's exposed feelers multiplied in rapid waves, as if they were being stroked- then stung-by a host of squirming shock worms. Not a s.e.xual stirring, though. Instead the sensation triggered foraging instincts, causing his diamond-tipped incisors to snap reflexively, as if grabbing through mud at armored prey.

The feelers pick up magnetic and electric vibrations from hidden muck crawlers, he recalled. Electromagnetic . . . I'm being scanned! Each time he panted breath through a leg vent, another dura pa.s.sed. The lake swelled, and he knew the ship must be almost directly below by now. What were they waiting for?

Then a new thought occurred to Blade. I'm being scanned . . . but can they see me? If only he had studied more science at the Tarek Town academy. Although grays tended to be better at abstractions-the reason why they took real names-Blade knewg he should have insisted on taking that basic physics course.

Let's see. In human novels, they speak of "radar" . . radio waves sent out to bounce of,distant objects, giving away the location of intruders, for instance.

But you only get a good echo if it's something radio mill bounce off. Metal, or some other hard stuff. Blade quickly pulled his teeth back in. Otherwise, his bottom was his softest part, featuring multifaceted planes that might deflect incoming rays in random directions. The gasbag, he figured, must seem hardly more dense than a rain cloud!

Now, if only the urrish altimeter would wait awhile longer before adjusting the balloon's height, shooting hot flame with a roar to fill the night ...

The tingling peaked . . . then started to diminish. Moments later, coolness stroked Blade's underside and he sensed the allure of water below. Tentative relief came accompanied by worry, for cold air would increase his rate of sink.

Now? Shall I pull the cord, before the flames turn on and give me away?

Water beckoned. Blade yearned to wash the dust fromt his vent pores. Yet he held back. Even if his sudden plum, met from the sky didn't draw attention, he would land in the worst lake on Jijo, deep inside the Jophur defense perimeter, presumably patrolled by all sorts of hunter machines. Perhaps the robots had missed him till now because the possibility of floating qheuens had never been programmed into them. But a swimming qheuen most certainly was.

Anyway, the water gave him a strange feeling. There were flickerings under the surface-eerie flashes that reinforced his decision to hold back.

Each pa.s.sing dura ratified the choice, as a separation slowly increased between Blade and the giant dreadnought, reappearing behind him as a dark curve with glimmering highlights, divided about a third of the way up by a rippling, watery line. It made him feel distinctly creepy.

Abruptly, a pinpoint of brilliance flared from the side of the globe ship, seeming to stab straight toward him.

Here it comes, Blade thought.

But the flaring light was no heat ray. No death beam, after all. Instead, the pinpoint widened. It became a glowing rectangular aperture. A door.

A mighty big door, Blade realized, wondering what could possibly take up so much room inside a mammoth star cruiser.

Apparently-another star cruiser.

From the gaping hangar, a sleek cigar shape emerged with a low hum, moving gradually at first, then accelerating toward Blade.

All right then. Not extinction. Capture. But why send that big thing after me?

Perhaps they saw his obscene gesture, and understood better than he expected.

Once more, Blade readied the rip cord. At the last moment, he would plummet from their grasp ... or else they'd shoot him as he fell. Or hunter robots would track him, underwater or overland. Still, it seemed proper to make the effort. At least I'll get a drink.

Again, night vision gave him trouble. Estimating the corvette's rate of closure proved futile. In frustration, Blade's thoughts slipped from Anglic and into the easier grooves of Galactic Six.

This specter of terror-I have seen it before. This thing I saw last-as it burned down a city. A city of felons-of sooners-my people.

His legs flexed spasmodically as the ship rushed toward him without slowing ... What the- . . . and kept going, sweeping past with a roar of displaced air.

Blade felt hooks of urrish steel yank his carapace at all five suspension points. One anchor broke free, tearing chitin armor like paper, then flinging wildly as the balloon was sucked after the skyship's wake.

The world pa.s.sed in a blur, teaching him what real Hying was about.

Then the Jophur vessel was gone, ignoring balloon and pa.s.senger with contempt, or else indifference. He glimpsed it once more, still climbing steadily toward the Rimmer peaks, leaving him swirling in a backwash of confusion and disturbed air.

Vubben AFTER A TIME, VUBBEN FINALLY SUCCEEDED IN quelling his busy thoughts, allowing the tywush resonance to pervade his soul, washing away distractions and doubts. Another midura pa.s.sed, and another prayer circuit, while his meditation deepened. After Loocen set, a vast skyscape of constellations and nebulae pa.s.sed overhead. Twinkling abode of the G.o.ds, As he rounded back to the west side, another kind of winking light caught one of Vubben's eyes-a syncopated flash unlike any gleaming star. Still wrapped in his trance, Vubben had to labor just to lift a second stalk and recognize the flicker as coded speech.

It took more effort, and yet a third eye, to decipher it, JOPHUR SMALLSHIP,DEATHSHIP IN MOTION, flashed the lantern on Mount Ingul. HEADING TOWARD EGG.

The message repeated. Vubben even glimpsed a distant sparkle, echoing the words on a farther peak, and realized that other semaph.o.r.e stations must be relaying the message. Still, his brain was tuned to another plane, preventing him from quite grasping its significance.

Instead, he went back to the sensory phantasm that had been drawing him inward-an impression of being perched atop a swaying ribbon, one that slowly yawed and pitched like some undulating sea.

It was not an unpleasant feeling. Rather, he felt almost like a youngster again, growing up in Dooden Mesa, zooming recklessly along a swaying suspension bridge, feeling its planks rattle beneath his rims, swooping and banking without a safety rail while lethal drops gaped on both sides. His taut spokes hummed as he sped like a bullet, with all four eyestalks stretched wide for maximum parallax.

The moment came back to him whole-not as a distant, fond memory, but in all its splendor. It was the closest thing to paradise he had ever experienced on Jijo's rough orb.

Amid the exhilaration, part of Vubben knew he must have crossed some boundary. He was with the Egg now, sensing the approach of a ma.s.sive object from the west. A deadly thing, complacent and terrible, cruising at a leisurely pace uphill from the Glade.

Leisurely-according to those aboard, that is.

Somehow, Vubben could sense gravitic fields pressing down, tearing leaves from trees, sc.r.a.ping and penetrating Jijo's soil, disturbing ancient rocks. He even knew intuitive things about the crew within-multiringed ent.i.ties, far more self-a.s.sured and unified than traeki.

Strange rings. Egotistical and driven.

Determined to wreak havoc.

Blade THE BALLOON'S ALTIMETER MUST BE MALFUNCTIONing, he realized. Or else the fuel tank was running low.

Either way, the automatic adjustments were growing more sporadic. Unnerving sputtering sounds accompanied each burst of heat, and the pulses came less frequently.

Finally, they halted altogether.

The lake had vanished behind him during those frantic duras when the s.p.a.ceship's wake dragged the balloon behind it, past the ruined Glade into a narrow pa.s.s, toward the Rimmer heights. Also gone was Blade's last chance to pull the rip cord and land in deep water. Instead, trees spired around him, like teeth of a comb you used to pluck fleas from your pet lornik.

And I am the flea.

a.s.suming he survived when a forest giant s.n.a.t.c.hed him from the sky, someone might hear his cries and come. But then, what will they think when they find a qheuen in a tree?

The phrase was a popular metaphor for unlikeliness-a contradiction in terms-like a swimming urs, or a modest human, or an egotistical traeki.

This appears to be the year for contradictions.

A branch top brushed one of his claw tips. Blade yanked back so reflexively that his whole body spun around. All five legs were kept drawn in after that. Still, he expected another impact at any moment.

Instead, the forest abruptly ended. Blade had an impression of craggy cliffs, and a sulfurous odor stroked his tongue. Then came a sensation of upward motion!

And heat. His mouth feelers curled in reaction to a blast from below.

Of course, he realized. Go east from the Glade for a few leagues, and you 're in geyser country.

The balloon soared, its drooping canopy now buoyed by a warm updraft.

The Jophur ship must have dragged me into a particular canyon. The Pilgrimage Track.

The path leading to the Egg.

Blade's body kept spinning, even as the gasbag climbed. To other beings, it" might have been disconcerting, but qheuens had no preferred orientation. It never mattered which way he was "facing." So Blade was ready when the object he sought came into view.

There it is!

The corvette lay dead ahead. It had stopped motionless and was now shining a searchlight downward, circling a site that Blade realized could only be the Nest.

What is it planning to do?

He recalled Ovoom Town, where the aliens chose to attack at night for maximum terror and visual effect. Could that be the intent, once again?

But surely the Jophur would not harm the Egg!

Blade had never shown the slightest psi-ability. Yet it seemed that feelings now crept inward from his extremities to the flexing lymph pump at his body center. Expectation came first. Then something akin to intrigued curiosity.

Finally, in rapid succession, he felt recognition, realization, and a culminating sense of disappointed ennui. All these impressions swept over him in a matter of moments, and he somehow knew they weren't coming from the Jophur.

Indeed, whatever had just happened-a psi-insult or failed communication-it seemed to anger those aboard the cruiser, goading them to action. The searchlight narrowed from a diffuse beam to a needle of horrific brilliance that stabbed down viciously. It took duras for sound to follow ... a staccato series of crackling booms. Blade could not see the obscured target, but glowing smoke billowed from the point of impact.

A shrill, involuntary whistle escaped Blade's vents and his legs tightened spasmodically. Yet there was no impression of pain, or even surprise. It will take more than that, he thought proudly. A lot more.

Of course, the Jophur could dish out whatever it took to turn the defenseless Egg into a molten puddle. Their intent was now clear. This act, more even than the slaying at Ovoom Town, would tear the morale of the Six.

Blade urged his windblown vehicle onward, hoping to arrive in time.

Lark THREE HUMANS IN A PRISON CELL WATCHED A PANorama of destruction, reacting in quite different ways. Lark stared at the holoscene with the same superst.i.tious thrill he felt months ago, encountering Galactic tech for the first time. The images seemed to demand habits, ways of seeing, learned at an early age. Things he should recognize-the Rimmer mountains, for instance-possessed a slippery quality. Odd perspective foldings conveyed far more than you'd see through a window the same size . . . especially when the scene hovered over the Holy Egg.

"Your obstinacy-joint and particular-brought yowl people to this juncture, " the tall stack of rings said.

"Destroying mere towns did not sway you, since your socalled Sacred Scrolls preach the,utility of tangible a.s.sets.

"But now, observe as our corvette strikes a blow atyow true underpinnings."

A glaring needle struck the Egg. Almost at once, waves of pain engulfed Lark's chest. Falling back with a cry, he tore at his clothes, trying to fling away the stone amulet hanging from a thong around his neck. Ling tried to help, but could not grasp the meaning of his agony.

The ordeal might have killed him, but then it ended as suddenly as it began. The cutting ray vanished, leaving a smoking scar along the Egg's flank.

Ewasx burbled glad exhalations about "a signal" and "gratifying surrender."

Lark bunched the fabric of his undershirt around the Egg fragment, wrapping it to prevent contact with his skin. Only then did he notice that Ling had his head on her lap, stroking his face, telling him that everything was going to be all right.

Yeah, sure it is, Lark thought, recognizing a well-meant lie. But the gesture, the warm contact, was appreciated.

As his eyes unblurred, Lark saw Rann looking his way, The big Danik had cool disdain in his eyes. Scorn that Lark would react so to the superficial wounding of rock. Contempt that Ling would soil her hands on a native. And derision that the Six Races would give in so easily, surrendering to the Jophur in order to salvage a mere lump of psi-active stone. Rann had already proved willing to sacrifice himself and all his comrades, to protect his patron race. Clearly, he thought any lesser courage unworthy.

Go kiss a Rothen 's feet, Lark thought. But he did not speak aloud.

The corvette had turned away from the Egg. Its transmission now showed the camera gaining alt.i.tude, sweeping above dark ridgelines.

The country was familiar. Lark ought to recognize it.

Lester Cambel . . . They're heading straight toward tester . . . and the boo forest. . . .

So. The sages had chosen to give up whatever mystery project kept them so busy at their secret base-the work of months-just in order to safeguard the Egg.

It shouldn 't be surprising. It is our holy site, after all. Our prophet. Our seer.

And yet, he was surprised.

In fact, it was the last thing he would have expected.

BlaJ, aae SILENTLY, BLADE URGED HIS WINDBLOWN VEHICLE onward, hoping to arrive in time. . . . To do what? To distract the Jophur for a few duras while they burned him to a cinder, giving the Egg just that much respite before the main a.s.sault resumed? Or worse, to float on by, screaming and waving his legs, trying futilely to attract attention from beings who thought him no more important than a cloud?

Frustration boiled. Combat hormones triggered autonomic reactions, causing his cupola to pull inward, taking the vision strip down beneath his carapace, leaving just a smooth, armored surface above.

That instinct response might have made sense long ago, when presentient qheuens fought their battles claw to claw in seaside marshes, on the distant planet where their patrons later found and uplifted them. But now it was a d.a.m.ned nuisance. Blade struggled for calm, schooling his breathing to follow a steady rhythm, sequentially clockwise from leg to leg, instead of random stuttering gasps. It took a count of twenty before the cupola relaxed enough to rise and restore sight.

His vision strip whirled, taking in the dim canyons that made a maze of this part of the Rimmers. At once, he realized two things.

The balloon had climbed considerably in that brief time,

widening his field of view. '

And the Jophur ship was gone!