CHAPTER 12.

It was late afternoon, and Flynn was re-sorting his weapons pouches at Toby's rough-topped table, when through the open door he heard the sound of an approaching air vehicle.

Lying on the bed across the room, Jensen stirred. "Sounds like a patrol boat," he said, starting to get up.

"I'll check," Flynn told him, waving him back down. "You stay put."He was two steps from the door when Toby appeared in the doorway, moving as fast as his limp would allow. "Security," he puffed. "Get up-get up."

"Where are they?" Jensen asked. He was already sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling on his boots.

"Looks like they're heading into town," Toby said, hobbling toward the corner that held the sink and toilet. "But I'm guessing they'll be up here soon enough."

"I don't suppose this mountain has a back door," Flynn said as he scooped up the rest of his weapons and

refastened the various pouches to his belt.

"As a matter of fact, it does," Toby said. Getting a grip on the edges of the box the toilet seat was mounted on, he gave it a tug.

And to Flynn's surprise, the whole box swung forward on concealed hinges, revealing a large hole in the

cabin floor.He stepped over for a closer look. It was a large and very deep hole, he saw as he gazed down into the fissure that Toby had called his natural latrine. Narrow and steep-sided, it extended a good two hundred meters straight down. "Don't worry, I'm not expecting you to fly," Toby grunted, rummaging beneath the firewood in the bin built into the side wall. "Here-catch," he said, pulling out a coil of rope and tossing it to Flynn.

"Where'd you get this?" Flynn asked, frowning as he brushed bits of bark off the rope. It was old but in

excellent shape, made of some unfamiliar synthetic. It was smooth enough to be easy to handle, but rough enough to hold secure knots.

"The tooth fairy," Toby said tartly. "Here's Jensen's."

Flynn caught the second coil. "Now what?" he asked, handing it to Jensen. "We tie knots in them and hang on?"

"Do it like this," Jensen said, shaking out the rope and finding one end. With deft movements, he wove the rope around his waist and thighs and chest in a deceptively simple pattern that left him securely trussed up. "Where does the other end go?" he asked Toby.

"There are a couple of pulleys under the floor on opposite sides of the hole," Toby told him, pointing toward the latrine as he resettled the wood in the bin. "Better make a knot in the end once it's through, just in case."

"Right." Carefully, Jensen lay down on his stomach by the hole and turned his head to look under the floor. "Got it," he said, reaching under the boards with his rope and fiddling with something out of Flynn's view. "Flynn?"

"Almost ready," Flynn said, tightening the last knot in his impromptu harness and giving it one last check as he stepped to Jensen's side. "These boards don't look all that sturdy," he warned as he handed

over the end of his rope.

"No, but the beams the pulleys are actually attached to do," Jensen assured him as he put Flynn's rope through another unseen pulley.

"Come on, come on," Toby said urgently. "I think I see someone coming."

"Working on it," Jensen grunted, pulling industriously on his rope as he ran the slack through the pulley.

He made it to the end and fed the knotted end through two of the ropes in his harness, again pulling the

slack rapidly through and letting the end drop down through the hole. "Flynn?"

"As ready as I'm going to be," Flynn said, pulling his own rope taut and feeding the end through his harness the way Jensen had.

"Just do as I do," Jensen said. Gripping the rope, he slid his legs over the edge of the hole and

disappeared through it.

Flynn leaned over. Jensen was dropping in a controlled fall down the ravine, playing out the rope as he lowered himself down. "This is nuts," he muttered under his breath as he sat down on the edge of the hole and prepared to follow.

"Wait a second," Toby said, hobbling toward him.

Flynn turned, flinching reflexively as he saw the small but nasty-looking slug pistol in Toby's hand.

Before he could even reach for his shuriken pouch, though, the old man reversed the weapon, offering him the grip. "They might search the cabin," the other explained. "Don't drop it.""I won't," Flynn said, his face warming in embarrassment as he took the weapon and stuck it into his belt."Now get moving," Toby ordered, leaning down and getting his fingers under the edge of the box. "I'll close up behind you."

Taking a deep breath, Flynn got a grip on the rope and pushed himself off into the abyss.

For a moment he hung there, fighting back a sudden flood of vertigo and a terrible sense of

vulnerability. Hang gliders, even malfunctioning ones, were no big deal to him. But dangling at the end

of a rope, with Security above and shattering death below, was a very discomfiting sensation.

Above him, the diffuse light abruptly shut off as Toby swung the box back into place. Grimacing, Flynn started down.

To his mild surprise, once he was actually in motion most of the discomfort evaporated. The harness design held him securely, and Jensen's method of threading the rope through it provided enough friction to take most of his weight. It wasn't really any worse than rappelling, he decided as he picked up his pace, with the extra bonus of not having to worry about twisting his ankle as he bounced his way down a building or cliff face.

Jensen was waiting for him as far down as he could go without actually letting go of the rope. "Good,"

the blackcollar said as Flynn brought himself to a halt. "Now hook the knotted end around these ropes here." He indicated the technique with his own rope and harness. "That should hold you, though you'll want to keep a hand on it just in case it starts to loosen."

"Right," Flynn said, copying the other's technique. "I wonder what Toby uses these pulleys for."

"Probably not much," Jensen said. "Been a while since they've been used."

"Oh?" Flynn asked, his vertigo threatening to return as he looked up at the floor of the cabin nearly a

hundred meters above him. "How long a while?"

"Don't worry, they'll hold just fine," Jensen assured him. "Nice souvenir."

"What?"

"Your new toy," Jensen said, pointing at the gun in Flynn's belt. "Toby give you that?"

"Oh." Flynn looked down at the weapon. "Yes. He didn't want any visitors catching him with it."

"I don't blame him," Jensen said, his forehead wrinkling as he gazed at the gun. "Security doesn't like

concealable weapons in civilian hands."

"Security barely tolerates hunting rifles in civilian hands," Flynn countered, studying the other's expression. "Anything wrong?"

"Not really," Jensen said. "I was just thinking that gun has a definite military look about it."

Flynn glanced up at the bottom of the cabin. "You think Toby was in the war?"

"It's possible," Jensen said. "I know that on Plinry, at least, the Ryqril tried to tag all the vets when they

took over, particularly the officers. Maybe Toby holed up out here hoping to evade the net."

Flynn thought about the old man living in a one-room cabin for the past thirty years. "Seems to me the hunt should be over by now."

Jensen snorted. "It was probably over three to five years after the occupation started," he said. "If he's

hiding from the Ryqril, this is serious overkill."

"Maybe he likes it out here."

"Or maybe he got the gun some other way," Jensen said, his voice going dark. "Found it, or stole it."

A chill ran up Flynn's back. "Or killed for it?"

"Possibly," Jensen agreed grimly. "It might explain why he's still out at the back edge of nowhere."

"So what do we do?"

"For now, we stop talking," Jensen said, wincing as he rearranged his harness around his injured ribs.

"Sound can carry strangely in the mountains."