Dan'nor took a moment to make sense of that. "The video works?" he repeated dumbly.

The man nodded, leaning a little closer. His eyes were bleary, his chin wet and shiny in the glare from the screen. And his breath smelled worse than the river.

"That's right," he said. "You mean you haven't heard?" He barked out a laugh. "They blew the thing up into little pieces-just before morning." Straightening, he lifted his drink in a clumsy salute. "Here's to them. No work for me today, Brother, and I thank them heartily for it."

Dan'nor didn't have to ask who they were.

The man couldn't have known that the saboteurs to whom he drank were quite likely in this very tavern-but that didn't seem to dampen the kinship he felt with them. For the first time, Dan'nor realized that his father's movement was more than just a small group of activists. Somewhere along the line, it had captured the imagination of the people-or at least some of them.

It somehow put matters in a different light. Gave the conspirators' efforts a kind of legitimacy.

He recalled what he'd heard on his last visit here: the argument between the ones called Ma'alor and Zanc'cov, about the capacity of the masses to rise up against the authorities. Perhaps that capacity was starting to assert itself after all.

Dan'nor himself had yet to see the captured saboteur-Ralak'kai, wasn't it? -on the videoscreen. But that didn't mean that Ralak'kai hadn't appeared at one time or another; Dan'nor hardly watched the Conflicts as much-or as closely-as he had before.

Had Ralak'kai's presence on the battlefields roused the anger of the people, as Zanc'cov had expected? Or did the incidents of sabotage have more to do with it?

No matter. In either case, something was happening. Something huge, something frightening.

The man was still looming over him, holding his mug aloft-as if he wanted some kind of response from Dan'nor. Dan'nor gave him one.

"To them," he said. He raised the mug the man had given him.

That seemed to suffice. Grinning, the man withdrew into the crowd that surrounded the bar.

It was only a moment later that he saw his father. Apparently, the conspirators' meeting had broken up for the night.

Trien'nor had been the first to emerge from the hallway. Behind him was Ma'alor-Dan'nor would never forget the dark hair, the unrelenting scowl behind the knife.

The younger Tir'dainia rose to catch his father's eye. He felt a faint apprehension that the others in the group might disapprove of his being there. But if Trien'nor had invited him to join their movement, it had surely been with the group's approval. They would not condemn him out of hand.

And in any case, this was a public place. The conspirators couldn't risk a show of violence here, not even before a largely sympathetic crowd. It would only draw attention to them.

Sure enough, Trien'nor and Ma'alor noticed him at the same time. And neither of them looked all that surprised to see him there.

Still and all, Dan'nor did not leave his place. He sat down again and waited for his father to join him.

The elder Tir'dainia exchanged a couple of words with Ma'alor. Then he started to thread his way among the tables, as his compatriots headed for the door or the crowd at the bar.

Before Trien'nor had gotten halfway to Dan'nor, however, the tavern door burst open. And a flood of blue uniforms came pouring in.

The Civil Service, he realized. Here. To get Trien'nor and the others-for what they'd done. Somehow, they had been identified. Traced here.

Dan'nor was transfixed for a long, painful moment. But his father was not. Without hesitation, Trien'nor flipped a table out of his way and met the rush of Civil Service agents head on-entangling himself with them, slowing down their progress into the tavern.

There was a blow to the older man's head, another to his stomach. Dan'nor felt his insides clench. He moved to help, to come to his father's rescue-but someone grabbed him from behind.

He managed to twist around a bit, to see who was holding him. He knew the face-it was one of the men in the back room circle, one whose name he had never learned. Dan'nor struggled to free himself, but the man was immensely strong. And his eyes carried a message-which, after a frantic second or two, began to sink in.

I'm not to intervene, Dan'nor interpreted. I'm to stand by and let my father be dealt with as the Civil Service sees fit.

He was not unfamiliar with the tactic; he'd learned about it in the course of his Military training. Cut your losses-live to fight another day.

But it wasn't so easy when it was one's father. Dan'nor twisted around again, saw that Trien'nor had gone down. He was doubled over, firmly in the grasp of a half dozen agents. But his efforts hadn't been for nothing, it seemed.

Ma'alor and some of the others were streaming back down the corridor, headed in the direction of the back room. The crowd, galvanized by Trien'nor's act of courage-and even more sympathetic than Dan'nor had guessed-was doing its best to get in the way of the uniformed invaders. There were shouts of defiance, bottles smashed. For every citizen who got a blaster-butt in the face, another managed to fill the breach.

As the confusion mounted-and the promise of a full-blown riot became more and more a reality-some agents stepped aside and Dan'nor's father was revealed to him. Trien'nor's face was mottled and bruised; there was a thin trickle of blood oozing from the corner of his mouth. Their eyes met across the room, and Dan'nor felt something he hadn't felt since he was very small. There was a thickness in his throat that he couldn't swallow away.

Suddenly, there was a greater commotion coming from the back of the tavern-the place to which Trien'nor's comrades had retreated. More blue uniforms came shooting out from the corridor, pushing a couple of the conspirators before it. One of them was Zanc'cov-Dan'nor knew him by his smallish stature, his sharp-featured face.

But Ma'alor wasn't with him. Nor were many of the others. Somehow, they had escaped.

With the influx of reinforcements, the crowd was intimidated into backing off. After all, these people weren't part of the movement; they had been only momentarily inspired by the destruction of the video works. More than likely, they'd be as docile as ever once this day was forgotten.

Unless, Dan'nor couldn't help but add, there were other days like this one. Other incidents of sabotage, other Civil Service raids on suspected conspirator gathering places.

As this occurred to him, the mob was contained and moved away from the bar. The man behind him let go of his arms, knowing he couldn't penetrate the wall of citizens that had formed between him and his father. Before long, they were forced all the way to the wall.

Dan'nor himself had his back to the screen. The man beside him-the one who had restrained him from helping Trien'nor-was bathed in the lurid light of the Conflicts. Some battle or other crawled behind them, a fitting backdrop to the more immediate violence before them.

Minutes later, the crowd had more or less subsided. It was still surly, but it had no heart left. The Civil Service agents had skillfully carved out the ringleaders, those most inclined to rebellion.

Dan'nor couldn't see very much-not with all the bodies that pressed against him. But as the citizens' noises diminished, a voice rose above them. An even voice, a trained voice. Obviously, one of the Civil Service officers.

"Tonight," he said, "you were spared the presence of criminals in your midst. Apparently, you were unaware of them, and of their crimes-or you would never have attempted to defend them as you did. In the future, all law-abiding citizens will provide more cooperation-or they will be considered criminals themselves-and treated as such."

The door opened and there were scuffling sounds-as of prisoners being dragged out against their will. Then the blue uniforms must have filed out after them, because those he could see dwindled in number. Finally, they were gone altogether.

This night, Geordi's fellow workers had built their fire on the other end of the bridge. Normally, they would have slept on the side where the armored ones had decided to settle-but as if at an unspoken signal, understood best by those who had been here the longest, they'd placed the ravine between themselves and the newcomers.

The switch didn't seem to bother anyone, however. Everybody drowsed off before true darkness fell-everyone except Geordi himself. He waited just long enough to establish that all the others had closed their eyes.

And then he made his move.

He stole away from the dying fire. Slunk out onto the bridge as silently as he could. Crossed it, hugging the fiber guides and supports on one side, so as to minimize his chances of being seen. He felt the thrumming of the wind in the planks, the subtle swaying of the entire structure as it displayed its meticulously crafted resiliency. Caught glimpses of the ravine, deep and black and hungering beneath him.

Finally, as he neared the far terminus, Geordi slipped down from the wooden surface and took to the jumbled face of the cliff. Making good use of all the hand-and footholds provided, he moved sideways for ten meters or so before pulling himself up onto a ledge.

The drivers' fire was now almost directly above him, marked by a trail of spitting embers and thin, whitish smoke. The wind, noisier up here than usual, carried the sparks past him into the updraft from the ravine, where they became lost among the plentitude of stars. He could hear the snapping of the wood as it burned, the rough-edged ebb and flow of voices.

Unlike the workers, it seemed, the armored ones were still awake. He'd prepared himself for this possibility-it would just mean additional care on his part.

Holding his breath, he climbed a little higher, pressing himself into the gravelly incline-hoping fervently that he wouldn't dislodge a sizable rock and send it crashing down onto the ledge. Fortunately, he was familiar with this particular slope, though he'd never given it such close attention as he was giving it now.

At last, he'd hauled himself up enough. Nestled under a strangely situated outcropping, he craned his head up and around the side of it. At a glance, he learned all he needed to know for the moment.

The drivers had made a campfire of scattered wood splints apart from the clustered wagons. They appeared to find the company of their prisoners distasteful-even more so than the company of their burden-beasts, who stood full-bellied and content, tethered nearby to individual formations of rock.

Geordi didn't have to concentrate on the wagons for very long. Their relative positions seemed to correspond with the mental picture he'd made of them; his earlier scrutiny had come in handy.

Rather, he focused on the armored ones themselves. And saw that although some were still aware enough to engage in conversation, others were beginning to doze. Unfortunately, the dozers were still in the minority.

Geordi ducked down again. Damn. He could wait, sure. But it only increased the chances of someone taking a stroll and spotting him.

Should I slip farther down the slope? he asked himself. Maybe go back to the bridge and hide underneath it for a while?

The craziness of what he was doing began, for the first time since he'd conceived it, to sink in. This is suicide, he mused. Insane. If I had a rational bone in my body, I'd go back to the other side and forget the whole thing.

Maybe he was a criminal, as Beff't-the oily-looking one-had suggested when he first woke up in this place. If he was capable of what he was doing now, he was probably capable of anything.

And yet, even all his self-flagellations weren't prying him off the incline. Not after what he'd seen on the bridge.

The stone was cold beneath him. It began to eat through his homespun garb, to excite tiny shivers in him.

And here I am without a cloak. Of course, he couldn't have brought it. It would only have slowed him down.

Geordi was just preparing himself for a long wait when he heard the voices above him become clamorous. For a moment, he froze, wondering if his presence had been detected after all. Then, when there were no approaching footfalls, he dared to poke his head up a second time.

What he saw almost made him want to smile. Two of the wagon drivers had stood up and begun to strip off their armor, while the others-those still awake, anyway-moved to arrange themselves in a circle. From the way the standing ones were eyeing each other, from the way the onlookers hooted and jeered and roared, Geordi was able to get a pretty good idea of what was going on.

The two on their feet were going to engage in a physical confrontation. As an entertainment, apparently, for the rest of them. But not a fight to the death; they were making too big a show of tossing their weapons away. Then what? A wrestling match?

Geordi didn't wait to find out. He'd gotten just what he needed-a distraction. Something to hold the armored ones' attention while he did what he'd set out to do.

As the din became even louder, he traveled sideways again, gingerly edging his way closer to the wagons, but not without a certain sense of urgency. There was no telling how long the confrontation might last.

When he'd milked his concealment for all it was worth, he crawled up off the slope and onto the flat. Half creeping, half wriggling, Geordi closed the gap between him and the nearest wagon. As luck would have it, it was one of the vehicles filled strictly with supplies. But it provided some cover for him, allowed him to breathe a little easier.

It was good that the beasts had been tethered elsewhere, apart from the wagons. Otherwise, it would have been nearly impossible to pull this off. As likely as not, he'd have been trampled before he got very far.

Geordi negotiated the forest of wooden, metal-bound wheels and came up on the far side of the second wagon. This one contained a couple of the prisoners, still sitting back to back because their bonds prevented them from shifting to another position.

One was bird-faced and dark, darker even than Geordi himself. The other was pale, so much so that one could see the blood vessels beneath his skin. Neither of them was sleeping. What's more, they must have seen his approach because they didn't look startled in the least-nor did they make a sound. Not even when he took out the sharpened rock he'd tucked into his tunic and leaned toward them with it.

The fiber that bound them was the same kind that held the bridge together. It didn't yield easily, not to so rudimentary a cutting tool. But in time, the rock had its way with it.

A quick look of gratitude, some rubbing of tortured limbs to get the circulation back. Then the two of them were clambering silently out of the wagon, headed in the direction of the incline and, ultimately, the bridge.

By the time they were out of sight, Geordi was working on the next pair. Like the others, they appeared to be ready for him, to divine his intentions. Again, the liberation process went without a hitch.

The same with the third pair.

When he reached the fourth wagon, however, Geordi had a sense that the noise surrounding the drivers' combat was diminishing. Dying down, like their fire.

His heart seemed to enlarge in his chest. It banged against his ribs so hard it hurt.

But he couldn't stop now. Not yet. There was still time to free this last pair, wasn't there? How damned long could it take?

Thrusting his edged rock between them, he sawed furiously. And as he did so, he glanced at their faces.

He saw the caked skin of blood from the temple down to the jaw, recognized the man who had impressed him with his dignified demeanor. These, then, were the first prisoners who had come over the bridge. The ones who'd given him his first inkling of the deception under which he'd labored.

It renewed his sense of anger-of having been violated. And because of that, he gritted his teeth and worked even harder.

Finally, the fiber gave way. The pair should have been free now to unravel the rest of it themselves.

But they weren't. For some reason, these two had been bound more surely than the others. Each was tied hand and foot with his own fiber, in addition to the one that had held them together.

Geordi glanced in the direction of the fire. Most of the armored ones were standing now, bodies bulked against the night. The confrontation seemed to be over, or almost over.

There was no time, he told himself, to cut both of them loose. So he tugged at the bonds of the nearest one, the wounded man, and worked on those.

Sweat trickled down the side of his face, cold and clammy, the product of his exertions. He could hear his breath rasping a little in his throat and he tried to control it.

It took longer than he'd expected, but at last the still-living strands of the fiber began to fray. To break and peel back. Finally, the whole fiber just snapped.

Quickly, efficiently for one whose arms and legs had to be awakening with pain, the prisoner turned around and applied himself to his companion's restraints. With his fingers alone, he clawed at the knots.

"No," said Geordi, leaning closer in-his voice barely a whisper, yet crystal clear in its insistence. "We've got to move-now."

He saw the muscles work in the wounded one's jaw. "I have no choice," came the response, hissed over the man's shoulder. "He saved my life."

Geordi had done all he could. If he waited any longer, they'd all get caught. But even so, he couldn't pull himself away. He couldn't abandon them.

Cursing himself for a half dozen kinds of a fool, he put his rock to work again.

The wounded one looked at him. "Thank you," he whispered.

Geordi just grunted and concentrated on his sawing. That is, until he heard the sudden uproar among the drivers-and saw a number of them lumbering toward the wagons, weapons in hand.

There wasn't a second to waste. If he bolted now, he might still make it over the bridge ahead of them. Maybe lose them in the shadowy terrain on the other side. At least, he had a chance.

But the wounded one might make it too-if he tried. And having gone to the trouble of freeing him, Geordi was reluctant to see him bound again. Particularly when there might be reprisals for trying to escape.

"C'mon," he said, grabbing the man by the shoulder. "It's too late-let him be!"

The wounded man resisted. "No-you go. Just give me the rock."

The drivers were getting closer. There were five or six of them-and though they moved cautiously, they were definitely headed this way.

Geordi pressed the rock into the other one's hand.

But he didn't retreat toward the bridge. Instead, he scurried under a wagon and came out in the open-where the drivers could see him.

Geordi waited just long enough for one of the armored ones to note his presence-to point and alert the others. Then he took off, determined to make the best possible use of the jagged formations that punctuated this high ground.

He had no illusions that he could elude these drivers forever. After all, the only reasonably sure escape route was in the direction of the bridge, and he had already forsaken that option.