Piet had actually been a regional chairman of the Glondis Party on Evdash! Until he'd made a slip that was sure to get him uncovered before long. So he'd arranged an "accident," and disappeared.

Some of that was new to us, especially the part about Piet. The point was that he had resistance contacts, or he had had, in the Party, the Evdashian military, and the public at large. But he didn't know who was still alive and in place, or whether any of them was in a position to help.

On the fifth night after the wedding, we all got up at first dawn light After a breakfast of jon gas and raw fish, we loaded everything we wanted to take with us into the floater. There wasn't very much. By the time we lifted through the forest roof, the sun sat red and swollen on the watery horizon. The treetops were spotted with flowers now-white, pink, yellow, violet-brought out by the rains. Piet stopped for a minute while we took in the view. Then he punched in a navigation sequence that would take us to a point near Delta City, a seaport. There he'd slip us into the general traffic corridors. If nothing went wrong, we'd head up the Jarf Valley from there, for Jarfoss, the town where Evdash's main naval station was located. He hoped to contact friends there, and get enough information to plan with.

"Who knows," he said. "Maybe we'll even get a line on Klentis and Aven there." I didn't allow my hopes to build, but it did make me feel a little better.

It seemed to me, when I let myself look at the situation, that we had almost no prospects of getting a s.p.a.ce cutter. But then, our chances had looked even bleaker when Deneen and I had been on Fanglith.

Now we had two and a half years' additional experience. The Fanglith experience was worth about ten years all by itself, not in data so much as in getting grooved in on operating in dangerous situations without much information. Doing the right thing-or a right thing-at the right time; or at least not doing something fatally wrong.

To cut down the risk of detection, Piet ran just above the water the whole 423 miles to the coast. There he joined the spa.r.s.e early morning traffic-mostly cargo carriers but with a mixture of public transports and private vehicles. We were a pretty scruffy bunch. Piet and I had beards, something rare on Evdash, and Tarel's was starting to show too. The only clothes we had, dirty and mildewed, hadn't been properly washed since we'd put them on more than fourteen weeks earlier. To prepare ourselves for civilization, we'd used the hairbrushes Deneen and Jenoor had carried when we'd left home, but that was it.

There weren't as many police floaters in traffic as I'd expected to see though, and none paid any attention to us.

Finally, near the naval station, Piet turned into an approach pattern to an outlying officers' housing area, set in a matrix of dark forest and light green meadows, of recreation grounds and parking lots and shopping centers, of streets lined with houses whose roofs were red and green and cobalt, of emerald yards with pale blue swimming pools.

It was very nice. I wondered what Imperial troops thought of it-troops from the paved and crowded high-rise population centers of the central worlds. Presumably the people stationed here were still Evdashians.

Piet had said the top command positions, with their personal sta ifs would be filled by Imperials now, and there'd probably be a garrison of Imperial Marines here for intimidation purposes. But the princ.i.p.al forces, such as they were, would be Evdashian-the same people as before, acting under new commands and policies. There'd have been some changes, of course. Officers thought of as especially hard-nosed Evdashian patriots would have been shot or imprisoned as examples. Their replacements would be people who seemed willing to carry out Imperial intentions. And a few would be eager to prove how loyal they were to the Empire, Of course, some of them-people who seemed to just be trying to adjust and get along-would actually be resistance people, or potential resistance people. And so would some of the apparent turncoats who were singing the Imperial song and giving the Imperial salute. That's where our hopes lay.

Our first contact was going to be critical. We had to find a friendly who could help us clean up and get civilized looking, because the way we looked now, we were ripe for stopping and questioning. If we were stopped, we'd say we were just getting back from a hiking vacation, but that would hardly be convincing. We had no useful identification, and at least fourteen weeks' wild growth of hair to explain.

The streets here were gra.s.s, neatly trimmed. Piet dropped down low over one of them, then skimmed along as if he knew exactly where he was going. After a few hundred feet he turned smoothly, pulled into an attached garage as if he parked there every day, and put us down on the concrete, leaving the floater-field generator on. I didn't know whether he'd picked this place just because the garage door was open, or whether he knew the people who lived here. "Larn," he said, "take the controls. If anything happens to me, you're in command."

"Right," I said.

He got out and I moved into the pilot's seat. Looking like something washed up on the beach, he walked casually to the connecting door, but before he could knock, it opened. Behind it was a woman in a summer house suit, with a blast pistol in her hands.

For just a moment she stared at Piet, then without saying a word, lowered the gun. He thumbed toward us. She shook her head and murmured something too quietly for us to hear, then reached to one side and the garage door closed behind us. If anything went wrong now, we couldn't make a quick getaway, but that didn't seem to bother Piet. She disappeared, closing the door behind her, and Piet stepped back over to the floater.

"She has company," he said softly.

"What's she going to do?" I asked.

"Knowing Dansee, she'll think of something."

The situation felt about as uncomfortable as it could get. Knowing almost nothing about what was happening inside, I hadn't the foggiest idea what to do, so I just sat there while Piet stood next to the floater door. From beside me, I could feel Jenoor's hand on my forearm, resting lightly, not gripping.

Looking behind me I saw Tarel, his hands fisted. Beside him, Deneen watched intently the door the woman had closed behind her. Bubba probably knew what was going on, but whispering wasn't one of his abilities.

Nothing happened for the slowest several minutes on record. Then we heard voices outside the garage door- women talking and laughing. It sounded as if they'd just come out of the house. One of them seemed to stay in place while two others became more distant. Then the talking stopped, and we heard a house door close. A minute later the woman appeared in the door again, grinning this time and without her blaster.

"Get in here," she said, not trying to be quiet now, and held the door for us. Piet went first, the rest of us trooping after. As we pa.s.sed, she looked us over, then closed the door behind us. She came across as a nice-looking middle-aged lady who still did something or other athletic. She herded us down a hall and into a kitchen, where we stopped. "Piet," she said, "I'd hug you if you looked a little more sanitary." She indicated the living room with a head motion. "I'm reasonably sure my visitors didn't suspect anything.

They were sitting with their backs to the window; I was the only one who saw you float in."

"What did you tell them?"

She chuckled. "That from had told me not to leave the garage door open again. Which was true, as far as it went."

"How did you explain the blaster?"

"They never saw it. It's my kitchen gun. Who are your young friends?

Or can't you tell me?"

He hesitated a second. "Why not? Dansee Jomber, this is Mr. and Mrs. Larn kel Deroop-Larn and Jenoor. These are Deneen kel Deroop, and Tarel Sentner. And Bubba. Bubba's a kel Deroop too.

Those are their real names incidentally."

She was studying Bubba. "Is Bubba an esp wolf "Right."

"Well, that's got to be a big plus-point." She sized us all up. "I can see what you need first, unless you're famished. There's a shower in the bas.e.m.e.nt and a complete cleaning facility upstairs. Just choose up who uses what. When you're done I'll have something edible for you and start cutting hair.

"Best you hustle now. I'm not expecting anyone else till from comes home about half past fifteen, but then, I wasn't expecting any earlier guests either. Where are your other clothes?"

"M'dam," said Piet, "there are no other clothes. These are it."

"Mmh! All right, get at it. Throw what you've got on into the hall I'll dig up something temporary and put your old things in the cleaning drum as soon as I have a chance."

Piet and Tarel went into the main-floor bath, while Deneen went with Jenoor and I into the bas.e.m.e.nt guest apartment. I offered Deneen first chance at the bathroom there, and minutes later Dansee Jomber came down with clothing.

"These'll do for now," she said, putting them on the couch. "We'll worry about fit later." Then she turned and went back upstairs. Deneen didn't take more than six or eight minutes in the shower, and when she was done she left, while Jenoor and I got ready and showered. We scrubbed each other pink and then, wishing we had more time, put on the clean clothes and followed the others upstairs.

By that time Deneen was giving Bubba a cleaning.

An hour later we'd been fed and herded back to the bas.e.m.e.nt-a safety measure in case any unexpected visitors came by. We took all our camping stuff with us from the floater. In the bas.e.m.e.nt we got barbered, and by that time our own clothes were clean and we put them back on. They looked surprisingly presentable now for field clothes. Dansee had used clippers on Piet's and my faces when she'd cut our hair, and Piet and I, and Tarel too, de bearded with from Jomber's facial kit. After that we killed time reading and napping until, late that afternoon, we heard a pair of heavy male feet start down the stairs.

Piet and from Jomber didn't discuss very much in front of us. Instead, after a few minutes they left in the Jombers' floater, saying they weren't sure when they'd be back. I got the idea that they didn't want us to know anything we didn't need to-the old "need-to-know principle'in case we got arrested. What you don't know, no one can get out of you.

After they'd left, Dansee Jomber baked sweet crisps and made hot me loren and asked us about our weeks on the island.

We were so used to sleeping half the clock around that we went to bed well before midnight. Jenoor and I were put in the Jombers' spare bedroom, while Tarel and Deneen slept in the bas.e.m.e.nt on a bed and a couch. Bubba was happy with a pallet on the floor.

It was sheer luxury to be clean and comfortable and alone together. I'm glad I didn't know what would happen before daylight.

According to the dresser clock, we'd slept about three hours when Piet woke us. He tossed two Evdashian Marine uniforms on the foot of the bed and told us to get dressed fast. Now was our chance, he said, and if we missed it, we might not get another.

If they'd been Imperial Marine uniforms, what happened probably wouldn't have. But those weren't available-at least not on short notice.

Mine had a bolstered blast pistol and stunner on the belt. So did Piet's and Tarel's. Piet also carried a blast rifle and wore a senior sergeant's insignia. Jenoor and Deneen, besides belt weapons, carried attache cases attached to chains around their necks. It was as if we were their escorts.

There was even a guard can id control collar and leash for Bubba, barely big enough to fit around his wolfy neck.

In ten minutes we were ready. No one told us anything-no one even talked except for a few brief, low exchanges between Piet and from-till we left in Piet's floater. As Piet piloted, he briefed us, and brief was the word. We'd be meeting a guy, an Evdashian marine noncom who'd be driving a marine floater. He was a courier with a pa.s.s authorizing him to enter the scout park-the small landing field where naval scouts were parked when not on station. This guy knew which craft were ready to fly.

What he would try to do was drive into the scout pool, something his pa.s.s didn't authorize. He'd claim to have high-security packages to put aboard one of the scouts.

Our man was waiting for us in the employee parking lot at the local utilities central, a civilian agency.

Piet's floater didn't emit the proper identification signal and would have been shot out of the air if we'd tried to fly it into the air s.p.a.ce of a military installation. Piet parked a hundred feet from the marine vehicle, got out, then stood pretending to talk to us through the rear window. That was the signal. A few seconds later the marine floater drifted over, stopped, and we got in.

In the back of the marine floater was a box with a handle at each corner. The marine told Tarel and me to take out our blast pistols and hold them conspicuously in our laps; that was how courier escorts would carry them. Gate guards would check us, and we were to make and keep eye contact with them while they looked us over; it would be expected of us.

At the field we were stopped at two security gates. At each, a marine guard came over to the floater while two others stood nearby with blast rifles ready, pointed in our direction, guard can ids at heel. After questioning our driver briefly and examining his pa.s.s, the guard looked into the floater, taking in our uniforms and weapons. At each gate the guard's hand lamp paused on Jenoor and Deneen. In the Evdashian Marines, women were almost solely clerical personnel. And besides, both Deneen and Jenoor looked awfully young.

Their attache cases may have helped, but I believe it was Bubba who cleared us. At each gate, after the guard's lamp beam dipped to examine him, the guy waved us through. Our having an apparent guard can id made us real to them.

Finally we were in the scout pool, moving down a broad service lane a foot or so above the pavement.

Our driver stopped about twenty-five yards from the nearest scout, a forty-five-foot patrol scout. The area was lit more than I liked, by lights on tall poles around the perimeter of the field.

"That's it," the sergeant said, jerking a thumb in the direction of the scout. "Piet, get out with the can id and stand about ten yards in the other direction. Keep looking around, but act bored. And light up a weed; it'll make things look relaxed."

"I don't smoke."

"Have one of mine. Here's my lighter." He turned to Jenoor and Deneen. "You two walk with me. And you two," he added to Tarel and me, "follow us with your sidearms in your hands, looking as if you're guarding us. But not as if you're worried. Could be no one's actually watching us, but we need to look as if what we're doing is entirely according to regulations. Nothing sneaky is going on, and nothing tense-nothing worth paying attention to. Got it?"

Tarel and I answered yes in unison, and we started out. At the scout, our marine put an ID plate in the slot and the door opened. We got aboard. The marine took a hand lamp off his belt and, without turning it on, put it on the deck.

"Don't turn on any ship's lights, not even inside," he said. "That would draw attention." He looked at Tarel and me. "And I don't want any needless activity out here either, for the same reason, so you two stay aboard." He turned to Jenoor and Deneen. "Come on."

With no more than that, he stepped down the ramp onto the pavement again, the girls close behind. My guts tightened; something about this didn't feel right. I told myself it was being separated from Jenoor and Deneen in a situation like this, and I watched them cross the pavement to the floater. There the sergeant apparently said something to Piet, because Piet, with Bubba beside him, walked over to them with his blaster still at the ready.

The marine got into the floater, then backed out, pulling the box I'd noticed. Again I could hear his voice, quiet but fast. He took the handles at one end and the girls took the handles at the other, and they started toward the scout.

Beside me, Bubba growled. Then a floodlight beam speared through the night to bathe them in brightness. From across the field a loud-hailer called for them to stop. They did, for just a moment, then started for the scout, still carrying the box.

The guard tower didn't use its blasters. Maybe they thought the package was contraband and didn't want to destroy it. Instead, projectile weapons ruptured the silent night with bitter racket. Bullets struck the side of the scout, and both Tarel and I ducked back out of the open door. Scant seconds later, Deneen and Bubba came dragging the box.

"Close the door!" she yelled as they came through it. "Close it now!"

"No!" I cried. "The others!"

She screamed in my face. "The others are shot! Close the door!"

Instead I dove for it, blast pistol in hand, and started down the ramp. Then strong hands grabbed the back of my jumpsuit. I twisted. It was Tarel holding me, and I yelled at him. The heel of his hand slammed me in the forehead. Lights flashed in the s.p.a.ce behind my eyes, and for a moment there was only blackness. I was vaguely aware that someone, Tarel, was dragging me back into the scout, and that the projectile weapons were firing again. Inside, Deneen was sobbing and cursing-I'd never heard her do either before-and I opened my eyes. She had the hand lamp, and seemed to be hunting for the door controls. I got back up and lunged clumsily for the door, but Tarel slugged me again, on the back of the neck this time.

When my eyes opened, the door had been closed and the power unit activated. A cabin light was on, Deneen was at the controls and Tarel was standing over me. I just stared. She must have found the force shield controls, something our family cutter hadn't had, because through the windows I could see flashes as blaster bolts dissipated their energies in flickering sheets around us.

The basic controls operated like those on our family cutter. Abruptly we rose, climbing in ma.s.s-proximity mode, wrapped by the drive field in a mini-s.p.a.ce of our own that divorced us from any inertia relative to real s.p.a.ce. In seconds, we were beyond blaster range.

Tarel looked at me with the strangest expression I'd ever seen on a person. "They're dead, Larn," he said. "They're dead. There was nothing you could do for them. They're all dead."

Then his face crumpled like plastic melting in a fire, and silently he started to cry. All I could do was stare, while my guts withered inside me.

SIX.

Jenoon: When the shooting began, the sergeant went down at once. I turned and saw Piet stumble to his knees, so I dropped my corner of the box to try to help him. I didn't take more than a step, though, when I felt a bullet smash into my foot, and I fell forward onto the pavement. I scrambled the last eight or ten feet to him on my hands and knees, I'm not sure why. Maybe I thought I still could help him somehow, maybe drag him to the scout.

But by the time I reached him, he was lying on his back. I'm pretty sure that he'd been hit some more; he'd been shot almost in two at the waist. All I could do was lie there, half on top of him. I think I was crying then. The automatic projectile weapons were still making a terrible racket across the field, their bullets smacking and whining all around. It seemed impossible that I was still alive, and I expected to be killed any moment. That went on for a long time-maybe as long as a minute. The bullets only stopped when the blaster bolts started sizzling.

Scared as I was, somehow I raised my head enough to look toward the scout. The ramp was in, the door was closed, and I could see that the cabin was lit. Someone had activated the force shield, because the energy of the blaster bolts was flickering around it like some weird aurora. It seemed to me that they might actually get away-whoever had made it to the scout- and I felt jubilant. As I watched, it lifted, then almost leaped upward, the blaster fire following it, still sheathing it in flickering light until it pa.s.sed out of sight half a minute later, too high to see anymore.

Then I was filled by a sense of abandonment more terrible than anything I'd ever imagined. But that lasted only seconds, replaced by a sense of-I guess resignation is the best word for it, I closed my eyes and laid my head down on Piet's shoulder. I realized that my hands were in a pool of what had to be his blood, and also that my foot didn't hurt. There was a feeling there, but it wasn't what you'd call pain yet.

I knew there'd be enough of that when the shock wore off. I also knew that someone would come out pretty soon and I'd be arrested. And executed sooner or later.

After another minute I saw a small utility floater coming out low, and I laid my head down again and closed my eyes. I heard it settle right beside me, and a man spoke in Evdashian. "I saw her move," he said. "Well put her in on bottom and the other two on top of her."

Then I felt two men grab me by the knees and under the arms and load me into the open back of the floater.

"If we're caught .. ."I heard the second one say.

"We won't be. From there they don't even know how many are down out here. She was lying on top of the big guy."

Then I heard them grunt, and a moment later a heavy dead weight was put down on top of me. "Sorry,"

the first voice said. After another moment there was a third body. Next I heard a light thump, and opened my eyes enough to see Piet's rifle lying on the deck. The two marines got in the front and drove off, seeming to keep within a few feet of the pavement.

"Suppose someone comes out and looks?" the second voice asked.

"Then we unload the girl with the other two, like it was what we had in mind all along. But they won't.

We'll unload the two dead ones and I'll get back in as if that's all, and take her away. You stay there."

The floater slowed and lowered to the pavement, and the two men came quickly around and removed first one body, then the other. I could hear another voice coming toward the vehicle.

"Are they dead?"

"They seem to be, sir. I'll take the truck over and clean out the back before the blood dries." "All right,"

the new voice said, "do it. But don't take all night." It sounded as if it was right by the tailgate. He almost had to have seen me and pretended not to.

A moment later the floater lifted and moved away. I opened my eyes again; the blast rifle was gone, A minute later the truck set down. I opened my eyes and saw that we were beside a large shed. I heard the marine move away. In another minute he was back and lowered the tailgate. Under one arm he carried a dark bundle-a small plastic tarp; in the other hand was a broom. He saw that my eyes were open.

"I'm going to hide you," he told me. "In a waste bin. You'll have to tough it out the best you can until somebody comes to get you. It'll be a few hours."

He flopped the half-unfolded tarp next to me on the truck bed, then rolled me onto it with an apology, wrapped me in it, and with a grunt got me over his shoulder. He wasn't big, but he was pretty strong.

Inside the tarp I couldn't see a thing. He carried me a dozen steps, then I heard a lid raise on squeaky hinges. I felt myself roll off his shoulder, and landed on a jumble of what had to be lignoplastic containers-boxes and bottles. The lid lowered again, and I wondered if I'd get enough air in there. I decided I probably would; it wouldn't be airtight. If it seemed like I was going to suffocate, I'd wiggle loose and prop the lid up a little with something. Meanwhile I'd stay the way I was.