Others also lingered, milling across the trampled festival grounds. Curious onlookers, or those who for personal reasons wished to offer invaders loyalty.

So we/i were not alone to witness what came next. There were several hundred present, staring in awe as the Rothen starship probed and palped the valley with rays, sifting the melted, sooty girders of its ravaged outpost.

Then came that abrupt, awful sound. A cry that still fizzes, uncongealed, down our fatty core. An alarm of anguished dread, coming from the ship itself!

Yes?

You are brave, my rings. . . .

Behold the Rothen ship-suddenly bathed in light!

Actinic radiance pours onto it from above . . . cast by a new ent.i.ty, shining like the blazing sun.

It is no sun, but another vessel of s.p.a.ce! A ship unbelievably larger than the slim gene raider, looming above it the way a full-stacked traeki might tower over a single, newly vienned ring.

Can the wax be believed? Could anything be as huge and mighty as that luminous mountain-thing, gliding over the valley as ponderous as a thunderhead?

Trapped, the Rothen craft emits awful, grating noises, straining to escape the t.i.tanic newcomer. But the cascade of light now presses on it, pushing with force that spills across the vale, taking on qualities of physical substance. Like a solid shaft, the beam thrusts the Rothen ship downward against its will, until its belly scours Jijo's wounded soil.

A deluge of saffron color flows around the smaller cruiser, covering the Rothen craft in layers-thickening, like gobs of cooling sap. Soon the Rothen ship lies helplessly encased. Leaves and twigs seem caught in midwhirl, motionless beside the gold-sealed hull.

And above, a new power hovered. Leviathan.

The searing lights dimmed.

Humming a song of overpowering might, the t.i.tan descended, like a guest mountain dropping in to take its place among the Rimmers. A stone from heaven, cracking bedrock and reshaping the valley with its awful weight.

Rety Rety never believed Kunn's people came across vast s.p.a.ce just to teach some critters how to blab.

Then what was the real reason? And what were they afraid of?

RETY THOUGHT ABOUT HER BIRD. THE BRIGHT bird, so lively, so unfairly maimed, so like herself in its .stubborn struggle to overcome.

All her adventures began one day when Ja.s.s and Born returned from a hunting trip boasting about wounding a mysterious flying creature. Their trophy-a gorgeous metal feather-was the trigger she had been waiting for. Rety took it as an omen, steadying her resolve to break away. A sign that it was time, at last, to leave her ragged tribe and seek a better life.

I guess everybody's looking for something, she pondered, as the robot followed another bend in the dreary river, meandering toward the last known destination of Kunn's flying scout craft. Rety had the same goal, but also dreaded it. The Danik pilot would deal harshly with Dwer. He might also judge Rety, for her many failings.

She vowed to suppress her temper and grovel if need be. Just so the starfolk keep their promise and take me with them when they leave Jijo.

They must! I gave 'em the bird. Rann said it was a clue to help the Daniks and their Rothen lords search . . . Her thoughts stumbled.

Search for what?

They must need somethin' awful bad to break Galactic law by sneakin' to far-off Jijo.

Rety never swallowed all the talk about "gene raiding"- that the Rothen expedition came looking for animals almost ready to think. When you grow up close to nature, scratching for each meal alongside other creatures, you soon realize everybody thinks. Beasts, fish . . . why, some of her cousins even prayed to trees and stones!

Rety's answer was-so what? Would a gallaiter be less smelly if it could read? Or a wallow kleb any less disgusting if it recited poetry while rolling in dung? By her lights, nature was vile and dangerous. She had a bellyful and would gladly give it up to live in some bright Galactic city.

The robot avoided deep water, as if its force fields needed rock or soil to push against. When the river widened, and converging tributaries became rivers themselves, further progress proved impossible. Even a long detour west offered no way around. The drone buzzed in frustration, hemmed by water on all sides.

"Rety!" Dwer's hoa.r.s.e voice called from below. "Talk to it again!"

"I already did, remember? You must've wrecked its ears in the ambush, when you ripped out its antenna thing!"

"Well ... try again. Tell it I might . . . have a way to get across a stream."

Rety stared down at him, gripped by snakelike arms.

"You tried to kill it a while back, an' now you're offerin' to help?"

He grimaced. "It beats dying, wandering in its clutches till the sun burns out. I figure there's food and medicine on the flying boat. Anyway, I've heard so much about these alien humans. Why should you get all the fun?"

She couldn't tell where he stopped being serious, and turned sarcastic. Not that it mattered. If Dwer's idea proved useful, it might soften the way Kunn treated him.

And me, she added.

"Oh, all right,"

Rety spoke directly to the machine, as she had been taught.

"Drone Four! Hear and obey commands! I order you to let us down so's we can haggle together about how to pa.s.s over this here brook. The prisoner says he's got a way mebbe to do it."

The robot did not respond at first, but kept cruising between two high points, surveying for any sign of a crossing. But finally, the humming repulsors changed tone as metal arms lowered Dwer, letting him roll down a mossy bank. For a time the young man lay groaning. His limbs twitched feebly, like a stranded fish.

More than a little stiff herself, Rety hoisted her body off the upper platform, wincing at the singular touch of steady ground. Both legs tingled painfully, though likely not as bad as Dwer felt. She got down on her knees and poked his elbow.

"Hey, you all right? Need help gettin' up?"

Dwer's eyes glittered pain, but he shook his head. She put an arm around his shoulder anyway as he struggled to sit. No fresh blood oozed when they checked the crusty dressing on his thigh wound.

The alien drone waited silently as the young man stood, unsteadily.

"Maybe I can help you get across water," he told the machine. "If I do, will you change the way you carry us? Stop for breaks and help us find food? What d'you say?"

Another long pause-then a chirping note burst forth. Rety had learned a little Galactic Two during her time as an apprentice star child. She recognized the upward sliding scale meaning yes.

Dwer nodded. "I can't guarantee my plan'll work. But here's what I suggest."

It was actually simple, almost obvious, yet she looked at Dwer differently after he emerged from the stream, dripping from the armpits down. Before he was halfway out, the robot edged aside from its perch above Diver's head. It seemed to glide down the side of the young hunter's body until reaching a point where its fields could grip solid ground.

All the way across the river, Dwer looked as if he wore a huge, eight-sided hat, wafting over his head like a balloon. His eyes were glazed and his hair stood on end as Rety sat him down.

"Hey!" She nudged him. "You all right?"

Dwer's gaze seemed fixed far away. After a few duras though, he answered.

"Um ... I ... guess so."

She shook her head. Even Mudfoot and yee had ceased their campaign of mutual deadly glares in order to stare at the man from the Slope.

"That was so weird!" Rety commented. She could not bring herself to say "brave," or "thrilling" or "insane."

He winced, as if messages from his bruised body were just now reaching a dazed brain. "Yeah ... it was all that. And more."

The robot chirruped again. Rety guessed that a triple upsweep with a shrill note at the end meant-That's enough resting. Let's go!

She helped Dwer onto a makeshift seat the robot made by folding its arms. This time, when it resumed its southward flight, the two humans rode in front with Mudfoot and little yee, sharing body heat against the stiff wind.

Rety had heard of this region from those bragging hunters, Ja.s.s and Born. It was a low country, dotted with soggy marshes and crisscrossed by many more streams ahead.

Alvin I WOKE FEELING WOOZY, AND HIGH AS A CHIMP that's been chewing ghigree leaves. But at least the agony was gone..

The soft slab was still under me, though I could tell the awkward brace of straps and metal tubes was gone. Turning my head, I spied a low table nearby. A shallow white bowl held about a dozen familiar-looking shapes, vital to hoon rituals of life and death.

Ifni! I thought. The monsters cut out my spine bones!

Then I reconsidered.

Wait. You're a kid. You've got two sets. In fact, isn't it next year you're supposed to start losing your first . . .

I really was that slow to catch on. Pain and drugs can do it to you.

Looking in the bowl again, I saw all my baby vertebrae. Normally, they'd loosen over several months, as the barbed adult spines took over. The accident must have jammed both sets together, pressing the nerves and hurrying nature along. The phuvnthus must have decided to take out my old verts, whether the new ones were ready or not.

Did they guess? Or were they already familiar with hoons?

Take things one at a time, I thought. Can you feel your toe hooks? Can you move them?

I sent signals to retract the claw sheaths, and sensed the table's fabric resist as my talons dug in. So far so good.

I reached around with my left hand, and found a slick bulge covering my spine, tough and elastic.

Words cut in. An uncannily smooth voice, in accented Galactic Seven.

"The new orthopedic brace will actively help bear the stress of your movements until your next-stage vertebroids solidify. Nevertheless, you would be well advised not to move in too sudden or jerky a manner."

The fixture wrapped all the way around my torso, feeling snug and comfortable, unlike the makeshift contraption the phuvnthus provided earlier.

"Please accept my thanks," I responded in formal GalSeven, gingerly shifting onto one elbow, turning my head the other way. "And my apologies for any inconvenience this may have cause-"

I stopped short. Where I had expected to see a phuvnthu, or one of the small amphibians, there stood a whirling shape, ghostly, like the holographic projections we had seen before, but ornately abstract. A spinning mesh of complex lines floated near the bed.

"There was no inconvenience." The voice seemed to emerge from the gyrating image. "We were curious about matters taking place in the world of air and light. Your swift arrival-plummeting into a sea canyon near our scout vessel-seemed as fortuitous to us as our presence was for you."

Even in a drugged state, I could savor multilevel irony in the whirling thing's remarks. While being gracious, it was also reminding me that the survivors of Wuphon's Dream owed a debt-our very lives.

"True," I a.s.sented. "Though my friends and I might never have fallen into the abyss if someone had not removed the article we were sent to find in more shallow waters. Our search beyond that place led us to stumble over the cliff."

The pattern of shifting lines took a new slant of bluish, twinkling light.

"You a.s.sert ownership over this thing you sought? As your property?"

Now it was my turn to ponder, wary of a trap. By the codes laid down in the Scrolls, the cache Uriel had sent us after should not exist. It bent the spirit and letter of the law, which said that sooner colonists on a forbidden world must ease their crime by abandoning their G.o.dlike tools. It made me glad to be speaking a formal dialect, forcing more careful thought than I might have used in our local patois.

"I a.s.sert ... a right to inspect the item . . . and reserve an option to make further claims later."

Purple swirls invaded the spinning pattern, and I could almost swear it seemed amused. Perhaps this strange ent.i.ty already had pursued the same line of questioning with my pals. I may be articulate-Huck says no one can match me in GalSeven-but I never claimed to be the brightest one in our gang.

"The matter can be discussed another time," the voice said. "After you tell us of your life, and recent events in the upper world."

This triggered something in me ... call it the latent trading instinct that lurks in any hoon. A keenness for the fine art of d.i.c.kering. Carefully, tenderly, I sat up, allowing the supple back brace to take most of the strain.

"Hr-r-rm. You're asking us to give away the only thing we have to barter-our story, and that of our ancestors. What do you offer in exchange?"

The voice made a pretty good approximation of a rueful hoonish rumble.

"Apologies. It did not occur to us that you would look at it that way. Alas, you have already told us a great deal. We will now return your information store. Please accept our contrition over having accessed it without expressed permission."

A door slid open and one of the little amphibian creatures entered the cubicle, bearing in its four slim arms my backpack!

Better yet, on top lay my precious journal, all battered and bent, but still the item I most valued in the world. I s.n.a.t.c.hed up the book, flipping its dog-eared pages.

"Rest a.s.sured," the spinning pattern enounced. "Our study of this doc.u.ment, while enlightening, has only whetted our appet.i.te for information. Your economic interests are undiminished."

I thought about that. "You read my journal?"

"Again, apologies. It seemed prudent, when seeking to understand your injuries, and the manner of your arrival in this realm of heavy wet darkness."

Once again, the words seemed to come at me with layers of meaning and implications I could only begin to sift. At the time, I only wanted to end the conversation as soon as possible, and confer with Huck and the others before going any further.

"I'd like to see my friends now," I told the whirling image, switching to Anglic.

It seemed to quiver, as if with a nod.

"Very well. They have been informed to expect you. Please follow the ent.i.ty standing at the door."

The little amphibian attended while I set foot on the floor, gingerly testing my weight. There were a few twinges, just enough to help me settle best within the support of the flexible body cast. I gripped the journal, but glanced back at my knapsack and the bowl of baby vertebrae.

"These items will be safe here," promised the voice.

I hope so, I thought. Mom and Dad will want them . . . a.s.suming that I ever see Mu-phauwq, and Yowg-wayuo again . . . and especially if I don't.

"Thank you."

The speckled pattern whirled.

"It is my pleasure to serve."