"Got it," he a.s.sured her with more confidence than he felt. "You just drive this thing and make sure we don't get into an argument with a tree."

"Don't worry about that." She gave him a last smile before turning to the control console.

The skimmer rose and turned, heading slowly back toward the somnolent herd. When they were just ten meters from the nearest animal, Lauren pivoted the craft and hovered, studying the scanner's display of the forest ahead.

Violent grunts and an occasional bleating sound began to issue from the herd as Flinx held the still tightly sealed flask over the stern of the skimmer. He looked around until he found a piece of thin cloth and tied it across his nose and mouth.

"I should have thought of that," she murmured, watching him. "Sorry."

"Don't you want one?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I'm up here, and the wind will carry the scent back away from me. I'll be all right. You ready?" Her hands tightened on the wheel.

"Ready," he said. "You ready, Pip?"

The flying snake said nothing; it did not even hiss in response. But Flinx could feel the coils tighten expectantly around his left arm and shoulder.

"Open and pour," she instructed him.

Flinx popped the seal on the flask as Lauren slowly edged the skimmer forward. Even with the improvised mask and a breeze to carry the aroma away from him, the odor was all but overpowering. His eyes watered as his nostrils rebelled. Somehow he kept his attention on the task at hand and slowly measured out a tenth of the liquid.

A violent, querulous bellow rose from several ma.s.sive throats. As the skimmer slipped past a cathedral-like cl.u.s.ter of hardwoods, Flinx could see one huge male pushing itself erect. It seemed to dominate the forest even though the great trees rose high above. The metallic red eyes were fully open now, the tiny black pupils looking like holes in the crimson.

The Devilope shook its head from side to side, back and forth, and thundered. It took a step forward, then another. Behind it, the rest of the herd was rising, the initial uncertain bellowing turning to roars of desire and rage. A second male started forward in the wake of the first; then a third took up the long, ponderous stride. At this rate, Flinx thought, it would take them days to reach the camp.

But even as he watched and worried, the pace of the awakening herd began to increase. It took time for such ma.s.sive animals to get going. Once they did, they ate up distance. Not long after, Flinx found himself wishing for the skimmer to accelerate, and accelerate again.

The herd was bearing down on the weaving, dodging craft. Lauren had to avoid even the smaller trees, which the herd ignored in its fury to locate the source of that pungent, electrifying odor. She turned to yell something to him, but he couldn't hear her anymore.

Trees whizzed by as Lauren somehow managed to increase their speed without running into anything. Behind them sounded a rising thunder as the noise of hundreds of hooves pulverizing the earth mixed with the crackle of snapping tree trunks and the moan of larger boles being torn from their roots.

Red eyes and horns were all Flinx could see as he poured another tenth of the herd-maddening liquid from the flask, drawing the thunder down on the fragile skimmer and its even more fragile cargo....

There was nothing in the small operating theater that had not been thoroughly sanitized. Mother Mastiff had no strength left to fight with as they gently but firmly strapped her to the lukewarm table. Her curses and imprecations had been reduced to whimpered pleas, more reflex than anything else, for she had seen by now that nothing would dissuade these crazy people from their intentions. Eventually, she lost even the will to beg and contented herself with glaring tight-lipped at her tormentors.

Bright lights winked to life, blinding her. The tall black woman stood to the right of the table, checking a palm-sized circle of plastic. Mother Mastiff recognized the pressure syringe, and looked away from it.

Like her companions, Haithness wore a pale surgical gown and a mask that left only her eyes showing. Nya.s.sa-lee plugged in the shears that would be used to depilate the subject's skull. Brora, who would execute the actual implantation, stood off to one side examining a readout on the display screen that hung just above and behind Mother Mastiff's head. Occasionally, he would glance down at a small table holding surgical instruments and several square transparent boxes frosted with cold. Inside the boxes were the microelectronic implants that he would place in the subject's skull.

A globular metal ma.s.s hung from the ceiling above the operating table, gleaming like a steel jellyfish. Wiry arms and tendrils radiated from its underside. They would supply power to attachments, suction through hosing, and supplementary service to any organs that exhibited signs of failure during the operation. There were microthin filament arms that could subst.i.tute for cerebral capillaries, tendrils that could fuse or excavate bone, and devices that could by-pa.s.s the lungs and provide oxygen directly to the blood.

"I'm ready to begin." Brora smiled thinly across at Nya.s.sa-lee, who nodded. He looked to his other colleague. "Haithness?" She answered him with her eyes as she readied the syringe.

"A last instrument check, then," he murmured, turning his attention to the raised platform containing the microsurgical instruments. Overhead, the jellyfish hummed expectantly.

"Now that's funny." He paused, frowning. "Look here." Both women leaned toward him. The instruments, the tiny boxes with their frozen contents, even the platform itself, seemed to be vibrating.

"Trouble over at power?" ventured Nya.s.sa-lee. She glanced upward and saw that the central support globe was swaying slightly.

"I don't know. Surely if it was anything serious, we would have been told by now," Brora muttered. The vibration intensified. One of the probes tumbled from the holding table and clattered across the plastic floor. "It's getting worse, I think." A faint rumble reached them from, somewhere outside. Brora thought it arose somewhere off to the west.

"Storm coming?" Nya.s.sa-lee asked, frowning.

Brora shook his head. "Thunder wouldn't make the table shake, and Weather didn't say anything about an early storm watch. No quake, either. This region is seismically stable."

The thunder that continued to grow in their ears did not come down out of a distant sky but up out of the disturbed earth itself. Abruptly, the alarm system came to life all around the camp. The three surgeons stared in confusion at one another as the rumbling shook not only tables and instruments but the whole building.

The warning sirens howled mournfully. There came a ripping, tearing noise as something poured through the far end of the conference room, missing the surgery by an appreciable margin. It was visible only for seconds, though in that time it filled the entire chamber. Then it moved on, trailing sections of false log and plastic stone in its wake, letting in sky and mist and leaving behind a wide depression in the stelacrete foundation beneath the floor. Haithness had the best view as debris fell slowly from the roof to cover the mark: it was a footprint.

Nya.s.sa-lee tore off her surgical mask and raced for the nearest doorway. Brora and Haithness were not far behind. At their departure, Mother Mastiff, who had quietly consigned that portion of herself that was independent to oblivion, suddenly found her voice again and began screaming for help.

Dust and insulation began to sift from the ceiling as the violent shaking and rumbling continued to echo around her. The multiarmed surgical sphere above the operating table was now swinging dangerously back and forth and threatening, with each successive vibration, to tear free of its mounting.

Mother Mastiff did not waste her energy in a futile attempt to break the straps that bound her. She knew her limits. Instead, she devoted her remaining strength to yelling at the top of her lungs.

As soon as they had entered the monitored border surrounding the camp, Lauren had accelerated and charged at dangerously high speed right past the central tower. Someone had had the presence of mind to respond to the frantic alarm siren by reaching for a weapon, but the hastily aimed and fired energy rifle missed well aft of the already fleeing skimmer.

At the same time, the wielder of the rifle had seen something flung from the rear of the intruder. He had flinched, and when no explosion had followed, leaned out of the third-story window to stare curiously at the broken gla.s.s and green-red liquid trickling down the side of the structure. He did not puzzle over it for very long because his attention-and that of his companions in the tower-was soon occupied by the black tidal wave that thundered out of the forest.

The frustrated, enraged herd concentrated all its attention on the strongest source of the infuriating odor. The central tower, which contained the main communications and defensive instrumentation for the encampment, was soon reduced to a mound of plastic and metal rubble.

Meanwhile, Lauren brought the skimmer around in a wide circle and set it down between the two long buildings on the west side of the camp. The camp personnel were too busy trying to escape into the forest and dodging ma.s.sive horns and hoofs to wonder at the presence of the unfamiliar vehicle in their midst.

They had a fifty-fifty chance of picking the right building on the first try. As luck would have it, they choose correctly... no thanks, Flinx thought, to his resolutely unhelpful Talent.

The roof was already beginning to cave in on the operating theater when they finally reached that end of the building.

"Flinx, how'd ye-?" Mother Mastiff started to exclaim.

"How did he know how to find you?" Lauren finished for her as she started working on the restraining straps binding the older woman's right arm.

"No," Mother Mastiff corrected her, "I started to ask how he managed to get here without any money, I didn't think ye could go anywhere on Moth without money."

"I had a little, Mother." Flinx smiled down at her. She appeared unhurt, simply worn out from her ordeal of the past hectic, confusing days. "And I have other abilities, you know."

"Ah." She nodded somberly.

"No, not that," he corrected her. "You've forgotten that there are other ways to make use of things besides paying for them."

She laughed at that. The resounding cackle gladdened his heart. For an instant, it dominated the screams and the echoes of destruction that filled the air outside the building. The earth quivered beneath his feet.

"Yes, yes, ye were always good at helping yourself to whatever ye needed. Haven't I warned ye time enough against it? But I don't think now be the time to reprimand ye." She looked up at Lauren, who was having a tough time with the restraining straps.

"Now who," she inquired, her eyebrows rising, "be this one?"

"A friend," Flinx a.s.sured her. "Lauren, meet Mother Mastiff."

"Charmed, grandma." Lauren's teeth clenched as she fought with the recalcitrant restraints. "d.a.m.n magnetic catches built into the polyethelene." She glanced across to Flinx. "We may have to cut her loose."

"I know you'll handle it." Flinx turned and jogged toward the broken doorway, ducking just in time to avoid a section of roof brace as it crashed to the floor.

"Hey, where the h.e.l.l do you think you're going?" Lauren shouted at him.

"I want some answers," he yelled back. "I still don't know what this is all about, and I'll be d.a.m.ned if I'm leaving here without trying to find out!"

"'Tis you, boy!" Mother Mastiff yelled after him. "They wanted to use me to influence you!" But he was already out of earshot.

Mother Mastiff laid her head back down and stared worriedly at the groaning ceiling. "That boy," she mumbled, "I don't know that he hasn't been more trouble than he's worth."

The upper restraint suddenly came loose with a click, and Lauren breathed a sigh of relief. She was as conscious as Mother Mastiff of the creaking, unsteady ceiling and the heavy ma.s.s of the surgical globe swaying like a pendulum over the operating table.

"I doubt you really mean that, woman," she said evenly, "and you ought to stop thinking of him as a boy." The two women exchanged a glance, old eyes shooting questions, young ones providing an eloquent reply.

Confident that Lauren would soon free Mother Mastiff, Flinx was able to let the rage that had been bottled up inside him for days finally surge to the fore. So powerful was the suddenly freed emotion that an alarmed Pip slid off its master's shoulder and followed anxiously above. The tiny triangular head darted in all directions in an attempt to locate the as-yet-unperceived source of Flinx's hate.

The fury boiling within him was barely under control. "They're not going to get away with what they've done," he told himself repeatedly. "They're not going to get away with it." He did not know what he was going to do if he confronted these still-unknown a.s.sailants, only that he had to do something. something. A month ago, he would never have considered going after so dangerous an enemy, but the past weeks had done much for his confidence. A month ago, he would never have considered going after so dangerous an enemy, but the past weeks had done much for his confidence.

The herd was beginning to lose some of its fury even as its members still hunted for the puzzling source of their discomfort. Females with young were the first to break away, retreating back into the forest. Then there were only the solitary males roaming the encampment, venting their frustration and anger on anything larger than a rock. Occasionally, Flinx pa.s.sed the remains of those who had not succeeded in fleeing into the trees in time to avoid the rampaging Devilopes. There was rarely more than a red smear staining the ground.

He was heading for the hangar he and Lauren had identified from their hilltop. It was the logical final refuge. It didn't take long for him to reach the building. As he strode single-mindedly across the open grounds, it never occurred to him to wonder why none of the snorting, pawing Devilopes paused to turn and stomp him into the earth.

The large doorway fronting the hangar had been pushed aside. Flinx could see movement and hear faint commands. Without hesitation, he walked inside and saw a large transport skimmer being loaded with crates. The loading crew worked desperately under the direction of a small, elderly Oriental woman. Flinx just stood in the portal, staring. Now that he had located someone in a position of authority, he really didn't know what to do next. Anger and chaos had brought him to the place; there had been no room in his thoughts for reasoned preparation.

A tall black lady standing in the fore section of the skimmer stopped barking orders long enough to glance toward the doorway. Her eyes locked on his. Instead of hatred, Flinx found himself thinking that in her youth this must have been a strikingly beautiful woman. Cold, though. Both women, so cold. Her hair was nearly all gray, and so were her eyes.

"Haithness." A man rushed up behind her. "We haven't got time for daydreaming. We-"

She pointed with a shaky finger. Brora followed her finger and found himself gaping at a slim, youthful figure in the doorway. "That boy," Brora whispered. "Is it him?"

"Yes, but look higher, Brora. Up in the light."

The stocky man's gaze rose, and his air of interested detachment suddenly deserted him. His mouth dropped open. "Oh, my G.o.d," he exclaimed, "an Alaspinian minidrag."

"You see," Haithness murmured as she looked down at Flinx, regarding him as she would any other laboratory subject, "it explains so much." Around them, the sounds of the encampment being destroyed continued to dominate everyone else's attention.

Brora regained his composure. "It may, it may, but the boy may not even be aware that-"

Flinx strained to understand their mumblings, but there was too much noise behind him. "Where did you come from?" he shouted toward the skimmer. His new-found maturity quickly deserted him; suddenly, he was only a furious, frustrated adolescent. "Why did you kidnap my mother? I don't like you, you know. I don't like any of you. I want to know why you've done what you've done!"

"Be careful," Nya.s.sa-lee called up to them. "Remember the subject's profile!" She hoped they were getting this upstairs.

"He's not dangerous, I tell you," Haithness insisted. "This demonstrates his harmlessness. If he was in command of himself, he'd be throwing more than childish queries at us by now."

"But the catalyst creature." Brora waved a hand toward the flying snake drifting above Flinx.

"We don't know that it's catalyzing anything," Haithness reminded him, "because we don't know what the boy's abilities are as yet. They are only potentials. The minidrag may be doing nothing for him because it has nothing to work with as yet, other than a d.a.m.nable persistence and a preternatural talent for following a thin trail." She continued to examine the subject almost within their grasp. "I would give a great deal to learn how he came to be in possession of a minidrag."

Brora found himself licking his lips. "We failed with the mother. Maybe we should try taking the subject directly in spite of our experience with the girl."

"No," she argued. "We don't have the authority to take that kind of risk. Cruachan must be consulted first. It's his decision to make. The important thing is for us to get out of here now with our records and ourselves intact."

"I disagree." Brora continued to study the boy, fascinated by his calm. The subject appeared indifferent to the hoofed death that was devastating the encampment. "Our initial plan has failed. Now is the time for us to improvise. We should seize the opportunity."

"Even if it's our last opportunity?"

Flinx shouted at them. "What are you talking about? Why don't you answer me?"

Haithness turned and seemed about to reply when a vast groaning shook the hangar. Suddenly, its east wall bulged inward. There were screams of despair as the loading crew flung cargo in all directions and scattered, ignoring Nya.s.sa-lee's entreaties.

They didn't scatter fast enough.

Walls and roof came crashing down, burying personnel, containers, and the big cargo skimmer. Three bull Devilopes pushed through the ruined wall as Flinx threw himself backward through the doorway. Metal, plastic, and flesh blended into a chaotic pulp beneath ma.s.sive hoofs. Fragments of plastic flew through the air around Flinx. One nicked his shoulder.

Red eyes flashing, one of the bulls wheeled toward the single figure sprawled on the ground. The great head lowered.

Coincidence, luck, something more: whatever had protected Flinx from the attention of the herd until now abruptly vanished. The bull looming overhead was half insane with fury. Its intent was evident in its gaze: it planned to make Flinx into still another red stain on the earth.

Something so tiny it was not noticed swooped in front of that lowering skull and spat into one plate-sized red eye. The Devilope bull blinked once, twice against the painful intrusion. That was enough to drive the venom into its bloodstream. The monster opened its mouth and let out a frightening bellow as it pulled away from Flinx. It started to shake its head violently, ignoring the other two bulls, which continued to crush the remains of the hangar underfoot.

Flinx scrambled to his feet and raced from the scene of destruction, heading back toward the building where he had left Lauren and Mother Mastiff. Pip rejoined him, choosing to glide just above its master's head, temporarily disdaining its familiar perch.

Behind them, the Devilope's bellowing turned thick and soft. Then there was a crash as it sat down on its rump. It sat for several moments more before the huge front legs slipped out from under it. Very slowly, like an iceberg calving from a glacier, it fell over on its side. The eye that had taken Pip's venom was gone, leaving behind only an empty socket.

Breathing hard, Flinx rushed back into the building housing the surgery and nearly ran over the fleeing Lauren and Mother Mastiff. He embraced his mother briefly, intensely, then swung her left arm over his shoulder to give her support.

Lauren supported the old woman at her other shoulder and looked curiously at Flinx. "Did you find who you were looking for?"

"I think so," he told her. "Sennar and Soba are properly revenged. The Devilopes did it for them."

Lauren nodded as they emerged from the remains of the building. Outside, the earth-shaking had lessened.

"The herd's dispersing. They'll reform in the forest, wonder what came over them, and likely go back to sleep. As soon as they start doing that, this camp will begin filling up with those who managed to escape. We need to improve our transportation, and fast. Remember, there's nowhere near a full charge in the skimmer. You and I could walk it, but-"

"I can walk anywhere ye can," Mother Mastiff insisted. Her condition belied her bravado-if not for the support of Flinx and Lauren, she would not have been able to stand.

"It's all right, Mother," Flinx told her. "We'll find something."

They boarded their skimmer. Lauren rekeyed the ignition, removed to prevent potential escapees from absconding with their craft, and they cruised around the ruined building back into the heart of the camp.

Their fear of danger from survivors was unfounded. The few men and women who wandered out of their way were too stunned by the catastrophe to offer even a challenging question. The majority of them had been administrative or maintenance personnel, quite unaware of the importance of Flinx or Mother Mastiff.