Parquit was taken aback. "I said?"

"Truly! 'Attempt to destroy it,' you said. You cannot even conceal your own uncertainties, Commander."

"That may be," replied Parquit quietly. "But it is also for that very reason that we must continue to study it. Its ability to survive extraordinary assaults demands that we try to learn how this is accomplished. It promises us secrets to be learned nowhere else. I will not surrender these prospects to insubstantialities and personal fears."

Cannot sighed. "Let us hope they remain only that." The diminutive Observer turned back to his inspection of the dull hulk. Instinct betrays one, he thought perversely as he wildly wondered what the thing's flesh would taste like. The oddest thoughts occurred to one at the oddest times.

His nursery was light-years and weal years away. He wished be were in it.

The Vom rested quietly. It was aware of the small army of intelligences poking and prodding at it. It was aware of instruments sending questing energies throughout its structure and it did not resist, although certain information was allowed to be picked up subtly changed, carefully mottled. It did not even resist when one cluster of figures set about removing a small section of physical self, an unforgivable insult. In time past the very thought would have meant slow death for the thinker. Now, the Vom did not react. It could do penance.

The mistake it had just made required a good deal of it.

Very well, it would continue to present an aspect of docility that bordered on death. Also, it had much thinking to do.

So, and so. It had underjudged its captors. It reminded itself that under certain conditions a large number of small intelligences could act as efficiently as a single great one. Demonstrably, they could sometimes surpass it. It had relied too much on its unmatched body to carry the attack through. In forgetting to reason it had forgotten everything. It had been fortunate, yes, fortunate to have survived. After retaining life for millennia of near-starvation, it bad nearly invited extinction by a single rash act.

It perceived that a group of the small intelligences bad been gathering large groups of lower beings to one side, outside its first retainer. The Vom could not read minds now, but it was an astute interpreter of emotions and actions. It detected the long tubes leading into the vault from outside and the devices whose function would be to remove much of the tame water. So its captors were going to supply it with organics. It contented itself and calculated the time needed to regain its former plateau the various sections reported: surprisingly little. In addition to many other things, the Vom had forgotten its own recuperative powers.

The next time it took action it would be much stronger. A properly planned course would be pursued.

The thought of having to endure captivity by another kind of intelligences was strange and repugnant. In fact, it was harder to bear the thoughts in the minds of its captors, which pictured the Vom as a prisoner, than it was the reality. The Vom firmed its resolution and counted this another form of penance for its errors. Soon it would be strong. Not as strong as it bad once been (it had energy to spare now for remembering) but, yes, strong enough. Time brought power.

The little girl couldn't have been more than nine or ten. She crouched fearfully behind a moss-covered rock in the dense rain-forest. Warm water dripped off the trees all around. It was the only movement in the dead, humid air; the sound the only sound. Drops fell heavily from branch to branch in the riot of silent greenery. Filicales and bryopsids dominated the scene.

Clasped tightly in her right hand was a small blaster. Cautiously, she raised herself enough to peer over the rock. The forestscape showed nothing unusual. Nothing to see but the delicate trees, mistiphytes, and an occasional patch of chromatic fungi.

A dull maroon something moved between two mushroom things on her left. The gun twisted around and fired and the maroon thing exploded in steam and green blood. Bits and pieces continued to hump around in a horrible travesty of retained life.

The girl stepped around the boulder, keeping the blaster focused on the area of destruction. When the remnants of the still unidentifiable thing had ceased their life-burlesque, she lowered the weapon and moved forward.

She wasn't looking up, so she didn't see the fire-constrictor as it dropped silently from its branch. Just as she didn't see the double rows of tiny scimitar teeth which sank inches into the muscle at the back of her neck with the force of a hammer.

Kitten blinked as she exited the booth, rubbing a spot above her left ear where the head contacts had chafed slightly.

"Well," asked a foppishly clad Porsupah. He was sitting on a bench gayly lit from within, chewing a stick of arromesh. "How was it?"

She replied in a broadly accented, aristocratic tone. This, lace Porsupah's suit, was for the benefit of the many who strolled the noisy, glittering pathways of the amusement arcade.

"Rather dull, I'm afraid. Oh, ofitself, it doesn't fail. And the killer-illusion choice was somewhat different slinkering is something I haven't done more than once or twost before. But compared to the simies of Terra or even Myra Ian, it's not much. The cortex of a fire-constrictor doesn't permit much of the real pleasure of the kill to seep through, if you know what I mean."

"I told you we should have gone fishing!" Porsupah put on a petulant look. "How anyone can compare the thrill of hooking a parapike with the sterility of the imitation stimuli of a simie booth-it's all just so, so gauche!"

He handled the role of a spoiled merchant's nephew with a skill and verve Kitten couldn't hope to match.

"Fishing, fishing! Honestly, Niki, sometimes I swear you'd be happier a fish yourself. And I never compared the two." She flicked ashes idly from the long stick of Terran tobacco. "Even if some of the fish are bigger than your hoveraft, I can't see much of a challenge to someone using a powerhook and reel."

"The thrill's in the play and the landing, not the size of the fish. At least I don't use an explosive hook, like some. And it's a more honest form of fun than plugging yourself into one of those infantile joyboxes!" He waved contemptuously at the row of simies. A few had lights on over the doors, indicating they were in use. Each one they passed had a more garish sign than the next, promoting this or that forbidden thrill in safety and perfect simulation.

"Meretricious mental masturbation!" the Tolian concluded grandiosely. He rose and started to walk down another arcade way. Kitten followed, strolling on his left.

"And furthermore," he continued as they passed a stall where a tall alien was vending home-cooked pastries, just like Emethra used to make, "there's nothing stopping you from trolling for giant groupert or malrake with plain old hook and line, you know."

She drew herself up haughtily. "I may enjoy taking risks now and then, it's true, but I'm notcrazy , Niki."

"Does my lady seek something a bit more intense yet sure and private, then?" came a voice from one side.

They turned together. A portly human was seated in a wicker chair at one side of the still walkaway. In an age of multiple diet chemical controls and adequate cosmetic surgery, the man was a living fossil. He was fat.

It was moderately aesthetic fat, however, Perhaps the effect wasn't entirely unintentional. Rather than sagging, it ballooned tautly against his cheekbones and forearms. There is a great deal of difference appearance-wise between a fat man who looks like Santa Claus and one who seems composed of wet rags. This one was a Santa.

The blue eyes, set like lapis-lazuli on either side of the marquise-cut probosis, did not twinkle, however.

They stared unwaveringly back into one's own.

The portatables surrounded the man like metallic pygmies attending an idol of gluttony. They were piled with tridee cubes of planetary scenery, hand-carvings of Replerian ivory and fine woods, and an occasional bit of good jewelry. The stock was a little better than the average of the type but displayed nothing extraordinary.

"Well now," Kitten began, "we're not averse to suggestions from even the most unlikely quarters, my pudgy purveyor."

"A lady who follows her soul, I see. Better than calling me plain fat,' which is what I be."

Kitten gestured with the tobacco stick at a rack of cubes depicting fishermen in time-honored poses with victims of the sport a Terran counterpart would scoff at as trick photography.

"Your miserable attempts at flattery do me no honor. Unless you've more for sale than pretty pictures favoring the local cretinisms, I fear you waste our time."

The man sneezed. "The administration really ought to do something about covering over these seaside amusement ways. At least the walkaways could be subheated." He wiped his nose with a big multicolored hanky and heaved himself forward in the chair, wheezing.

"If you've the inclination," he continued much more softly, "and the money-yes the money-for something most definitely different, I think we might do business."

Kitten moved closer and leaned over part of the tables. She pretended to examine a carved walrus-like creature with thin silver whiskers and rose-crystal tusks.

"The desire is always there, merchant. And I have enough credits for anything in the way of entertainment this damp sod-ball could possibly offer. Endeavor to provide specifics, please."

"Bloodhype," the man whispered evenly. "A narcotic, if you haven't heard of it. The finest, rarest, and most pleasureful drug this end of the opposite Arm. If you've the mind and guts to try it, that is."

Kitten drew back, sighing. "Oh my. And I really hoped you might have something worthwhile, too." She took in the whole City in a contemptuous jerk of her head. "Your market for such a product is everywhere evident. No doubt the sophisticated populace makes heavy demands on your thin stock.

The woods must be aswarm with beboggled loggers and trappers!"

She handed the man the figurine and her credit slip. He went through the motions of recording the purchase. He pursed his lips in surprise as her credit rating flashed on his doublecheck screen.

"You do have the money, lovely lady-lady. Yes you do. As for your sarcasm, I am not offended. People migrate, .'lady, and so do many products. A number of such pause here on their way to other, more lucrative markets. But some is always available at points of transfer. That smokestick off yours, for example, is Terran tobacco, is it not?" Kitten nodded. "There, you see? For someone with the proper attitude and resources, anything is avail. able anyplace." He was very jolly about it all.

"Then you're serious? It's really available in this backwater?" She put just enough disbelief and suppressed excitement into her voice.

He continued to wrap the little carving in decorative foil. "As serious and real as your beauty, lass."

"And you've samples with you?"

He chuckled lightly. "My ancient human history is not the best, but from the tapes I can recall, I believe the court fools were traditionally on the slim side. No, lady. The equal of Hivehom the local constabulary may not be, but their machinery is as good as that on many of the more metropolitan worlds. I trust that you would not be averse to a short sea journey?"

"Well ... how long?"