"Try it again," Symington said. "Sometimes I'd try a quarter in a candy machine and it wouldn't work the first time, then it would work perfectly the second time. These machines are stupid, sometimes."

Singh handed the pa.s.s back to the robot, but the results were the same.

In addition, the little light in the machine's forehead that had been blinking green suddenly started blinking yellow. The robot's suspicions were definitely aroused.

In. desperation, Singh handed the robot his own personal pa.s.s. The machine rejected that, too, and the yellow light blinked faster.

"Oh, f.u.c.k it!" Symington said. Pulling his beampistol, he blew the robot to pieces. Immediately the air was filled with the sound of sirens, and the gates ahead of them slammed shut with a blinking red light.

"Wonderful!" Singh exclaimed. "What a perfectly s.h.i.theaded thing to do. Now how do we get out?"

"Like this." Symington pulled a grenade from his pocket and flung it at the gates. The ma.s.sive metal portals blew apart from the explosion, leaving just enough of a gap for the floatcar to ease through. "See how simple?" Symington said.

"Yeah, simple answers for simple minds," Singh said. But regardless of whether he approved of the method, he was not about to pa.s.s up the opportunity. He piloted their vehicle slowly through the twisted wreckage of the gates, then gunned forward.

They sped along for more than a minute while the sound of the sirens died in the distance. Then Belilo's sharp eyes spotted something on the horizon ahead of them. "What's that?" she asked.

Singh squinted forward. "d.a.m.n. The outer perimeter line went up.

Must have happened automatically when we breached the gate."

As they came closer, they could see the walls rising out of the ground,with gun turrets stationed every few hundred meters around the top. The big guns pointed outward, but a few of the smaller guns could swivel in toward the center-and they were doing so now. As they approached the wall, they would soon be coming under heavy fire.

"Even if we get through the wa'l, we won't be safe," Singh said. "They'll point the big guns at us then and blow us off the map. Our only chance is to take out one of the turrets and hope it'll give us an escape route."

Following his own advice, he steered the floatcar straight for the nearest gun tower. His pa.s.sengers needed no instructions to get down as low as they could; they were all veterans of countless fire battles.

As the floatcar came within range, Singh began an evasive pattern that he hoped would keep them out of the automated gunsights long enough to reach their objective. His pa.s.sengers were b.u.mped frantically around against the walls and one another during his maneuvers, and then jolted forward as the car screeched to a halt.

"You can get up," Singh said. "We're at the base of the tower. We'll need a few grenades to bring it down and open ourselves a hole."

Costanza had been on top of the pile, so he was the first one up.

Grabbing a grenade from his pocket, he hurled it at the tower and, without waiting to see the effect, took out a second.

Several things happened at once. His first grenade exploded against the base of the gun turret, knocking it off balance and bringing it halfway to the ground, pointing at a c.o.c.keyed angle. At the same time, a beam from one of its guns neatly sliced off Costanza's left arm halfway between shoulder and elbow. The soldier screamed in pain and fell out of the floatcar, still holding the grenade in his right hand. Hawker tried to get up to help him-but before he could, Costanza scrambled to his feet once more and charged directly at the wall. Several more deadly beams. .h.i.t him, but his momentum carried him up to the barrier and the grenade exploded, destroying him as well as blowing a hole in the wall large enough for their craft to fly through.

Singh did not hesitate, but gunned the floatcar through the breach.

There was no need to comment on their comrade's heroism; they'd all learned to view death as a temporary phenomenon. Costanza would be resurrected next time with no memory of this incident- and he himselfprobably wanted to make his death a quick one, rather than suffer the pain from the loss of his arm.

Their destruction of the gun turret seemed to have done the trick; they had a narrow alley of escape through which the base's fire could not reach them. The guns on either side did not overlap their range completely.

Singh took advantage of this, racing the vehicle at top speed away from the installation. The other guns along the perimeter continued to fire, sometimes coming dangerously close, but Singh somehow avoided sustaining further damage.

"We've got company," Symington commented. He'd been looking back over the edge of the seat, and was the first to spot the pursuit craft coming toward them. The runaways had perhaps a two-minute head start, but the army had at its disposal vehicles that were much faster than a simple floatcar. Unless Singh could think of a few more tricks, their mutiny would be very short-lived.

The terrain around the base was largely undeveloped, dominated by heavy brush. As they sped outward, the land became more thickly wooded, and there appeared to be a forest up ahead. The floatcar's maximum alt.i.tude was no more than a few meters, not nearly high enough to clear the trees-and the woods were dense enough to make pa.s.sage through them difficult, if not impossible. They would either have to skirt around the edge, thus losing more time to their pursuers, or else abandon the car and continue on foot, hoping to lose the pursuit in the forest. The latter was a forlorn hope, considering the sophisticated sensors the army now had available.

"I'm going to slow the car when I reach the edge of the forest," Singh said calmly. "Then I'll turn and dart off to the right. I want you all to be prepared to jump out when I give the word. If we're lucky, they'll still be too far away to see you leave, and they'll chase after me. You can hide in the woods with Green while I'm evading them. I'll come back and join you after I shake them."

"But..." Hawker began.

Singh stopped the protest. "Relax. Without your weights in the car, I can make this f.u.c.ker do miracles. Get ready... now!"

The car swerved sharply, slowing and banking so abruptly that thepa.s.sengers were nearly tipped out. Hawker grabbed Green and leaped out with him; Symington and Belilo jumped out on their own. The instant the others were free of the car, Singh raced off to the right without a word of farewell.

Bruised from the rapid exit, Hawker got slowly to his feet, staring at the rapidly departing floatcar until Symington nudged him. "Come on, we can't stand out here all day. We've got to hide." The two men picked up Green's limp body and carried it into the woods without another glance after the vanishing car. Belilo was in the lead, picking a path for them through the woods. All three fugitives knew they'd never see Singh again in this lifetime.

They went just a short way into the forest, deep enough so they couldn't be spotted by surveillance craft outside, and then found places to dig in.

They had no way of knowing whether the army knew they were here, or thought they were all still in the floatcar, but they knew there were certain tricks they could use to minimize their chances of detection. Motion was one of the easiest qualities to detect, as was their body heat. By scattering themselves out so they weren't clumped together, each heat spot would be that much smaller and harder to find; and by staying in one place for several hours, a searcher might mistake them for part of the natural landscape.

Hawker stayed with Green, while Symington and Belilo were each a hundred meters away in different directions. As night approached, Hawker huddled with his friend for warmth, whispering quietly the story of what had happened so far. He wasn't sure how much of the tale Green could comprehend, but there were occasional flashes of awareness in the other's eyes that rea.s.sured Hawker he was doing the right thing.

With the coming of night, the temperature dropped severely. Hawker's uniform was specially constructed for temperature control, but he could do little for his hands and face. He checked to make sure the controls on Green's borrowed uniform were working correctly; he didn't want to have gone through all this trouble only to have his friend die of exposure.

After about three hours, with the full darkness of night covering them, he heard a rustling in the bushes that turned out to be Belilo. "I think we're probably safe enough for now," she said. "If they'd had any idea we were in here, we'd have seen some sign of them before this. I'll go get Symington and we'll close ranks again. We can stay here for the night andthen move out in the morning." She didn't say where they would move out to; at this point, she had no more idea of that than Hawker.

She was back a few minutes later with Symington. The three soldiers discussed their situation briefly, and agreed that the best direction for them to go was away from the base. None of them had much idea of the geography of Cellina; they could be heading out into a wilderness with no hope of survival. But that didn't matter at the moment.

They had no idea, either, of what possible dangers might lurk in these woods, so they agreed to keep a watch. Hawker was still feeling too keyed up to sleep after the day's activities, so he volunteered to take the first shift. Belilo and Symington moved off a short way into the brush, and from the noises they made Hawker could tell they were relieving their tensions in other ways than sleeping. He tried to ignore them, but he couldn't help feeling mildly jealous. Belilo was not the most attractive woman he'd ever seen, but she had a strength of personality that was subliminally s.e.xual. He knew, too, from previous experience that deadly peril could be a powerful aphrodisiac.

He shrugged. Maybe later. In the meantime, he had his job to do. The noises stopped after a while, and by the time he went to wake Belilo for her watch, she and Symington were sleeping a meter or so apart on the cold ground. Neither Hawker nor Belilo made any comment; she got up quietly and he took her place on the ground. He thought he might still be too nervous to sleep, but the day's exertions finally caught up with him and he slept until Symington woke him at daybreak.

They were all ravenously hungry, and finding something to eat became their first priority. Belilo discovered some berry bushes whose fruit proved both edible and delicious. Symington shot a small furry animal. At first he and Hawker were worried that they might have to eat it raw, but Belilo showed them how to turn down the intensity of their beampistols to use as simple heat generators. They did not dare build a real fire for fear the smoke might give away their location.

They gave some of the fruit and meat to Green. At first they could just put it in his mouth, but after some time he got the general idea and began eating on his own. His stomach rejected the meal, however, and he threw up almost immediately afterward. This worried his friends, but there was nothing they could do about it now. All they could do was try again later and hope that eventually they would find something he could digest.Belilo wondered how they would manage to carry Green, but Symington settled the point by hoisting the man over his shoulder and insisting he'd been on forced marches with a heavier pack than this. They set off through the forest at a slow but steady pace.

Hawker and Belilo would occasionally relieve Symington, carrying Green between them. The woods were not so dense that walking was difficult, and the trees kept them out of the worst rays of the sun. They made what they considered reasonable time under the circ.u.mstances, and by evening they found themselves at the far side of the small forest facing an open plain of tall, waving gra.s.s.

They tried once again to feed Green, and again his stomach rejected what they offered. The twisted man looked at them apologetically, but could not speak comprehensively enough for them to understand him. He seemed, at one point, about to cry, but his friends comforted him until he again lapsed into his normal trance.

Symington kept the first watch that night, and it was Hawker's turn to go off into the brush with Belilo. They made love with impersonal pa.s.sion, both too tired from the day's march to do more than go through the mechanical motions.

Afterward, as they lay side by side, Hawker said, "I'm sorry.""

"What for? You weren't that bad. We're both tired."

Hawker shook his head, even though she probably couldn't see the gesture in the dark. "No, I mean about this whole thing. I just wanted to help my friend, and now it looks like it's all been for nothing. I'm sorry I had to get you all involved in this. It's so silly..."

"It's not silly. In fact, it's the first thing I've done in I don't know how many lifetimes that isn't silly."

"But it's such a waste. We haven't really accomplished anything except smear our own records."

"So? As I told Costanza, what can they do to us that they haven't already done?" When Hawker didn't answer, Belilo propped herself up on her elbows and looked at him, although the darkness made them scarcely visible to one another. "Look, we've both been the army's slaves forhundreds of years. We've fought for causes we can't understand, against beings we've never even met, on planets where we couldn't even survive without help. We don't even get a single thank-you-just shoved under the scanner to have our patterns copied for the next time, and the next, and the time after that. We live, but we're not alive, if you know what I mean."

"Green said, when this whole experiment began, that we'd be losing our souls," Hawker said quietly.

"He was right," Belilo nodded. "Smart guy; I wish I'd known him better.

Makes it all the more tragic that this had to happen to him. But the point I'm trying to make is that now, for the first time, we're fighting for ourselves, for something we want. It doesn't matter how hopeless the cause is; it's our cause, and that makes all the difference. That makes it worthwhile."

She settled back onto the ground, staring up at the sky. "Did you see the expression on Singh's face just as he flew off to lead the army away from us? I did. He was happy, he was alive. I'll bet Costanza felt that way, too. Sure, we're going to die eventually. The army's too big to fight off forever. They'll track us down and kill us, because it's too dangerous to let us roam free for too long. My biggest regret is that I won't be able to remember this episode in my future lives. But the point is that we are free-and as long as we are, I intend to enjoy it. So there's no need to apologize."

Hawker lay silently on the ground, also staring at the sky while he tried to a.s.similate what she'd told him. Her hands were caressing him gently; after a few minutes she rolled over on top of him and Hawker found, much to his surprise, that he was capable again this soon after the last time.

It was during Hawker's watch, just as dawn was lighting the sky, that he first saw the bubbles.

He was sitting with his back to a tree at the edge of the forest, looking over the wide expanse of meadow in front of him. Behind him, hidden in the woods, Symington and Belilo slept, near Green's gruesome body.

Hawker had willed his mind to a state of semi-blankness, a private meditation technique he'd taught himself over the years; he merely repeated the word "army" over and over again like a mantra until his mind relaxed in nothingness. It was restful and allowed him to relax, while at the same time keeping him awake in case some emergency should arise.His eye caught a movement in the sky to his right, bringing him instantly alert. His grip tightened on his rifle, which had lain casually in his lap, but he did not raise the weapon, nor did he cry out to wake his companions. The danger was riot imminent yet, and he was too well trained to panic.

A series of translucent bubbles was floating across the sky. They looked like the soap bubbles he'd blown as a kid, drifting several kilometers up in the air and catching the light of the sun, which hadn't even climbed above the horizon yet. It was impossible to tell how big or how high the globes were-but somehow, despite their fragile appearance, Hawker got the impression the bubbles were tougher than they looked.

He searched the memories that had been implanted in his mind by the training probe when he'd been dupled this time. The army had no such weapons or vehicles, of that he was reasonably sure; they moved too slowly to be of any practical military use. Similarly, his experience with the aliens he'd been created to fight told him that this was nothing in their a.r.s.enal, either. Whatever these things were, they were probably incidental to the war effort, and thus he'd been given no explanation for them.

He watched them over the course of the next half hour. They posed no immediate threat, and were beautiful to watch. There was some intelligence behind them; that was obvious from the way they interacted.

They glided through the sky, perhaps twenty of them-they never held still long enough for him to count them-dancing and interweaving with one another in an elaborately ch.o.r.eographed ballet of the air. The pattern was hypnotic as they spun and danced and glistened. Sometimes the bubbles would touch and merge for a few minutes, only to separate again and fly apart. Sometimes they would join together with a thin connector between them, like giant dumb-bells, and whirl crazily through the sky. Their colors shifted in the changing sunlight, and sometimes they took on unexpected hues of their own. Some turned dark while others glowed so brightly they rivaled the sun itself.

More and more of the bubbles drifted over the horizon to join the ballet. Bedazzled, Hawker could only watch their giddy dance until suddenly he realized there were hundreds of the bubbles filling nearly half the sky, and that the approximate center of the complex dance pattern was moving slowly to a point overhead. Suddenly the bubbles didn't seem quite as innocent as they had before.Moving quietly and not letting his attention stray from the aerial display, he moved back into the forest and woke his two comrades. He explained in a few words that something unusual was happening, and brought them with him to the edge of the woods to observe the bubbles for themselves.

Symington and Belilo stood awestruck for several minutes by this airborne fantasy, not sure what to make of it. They suggested several possible explanations for the phenomenon, but nothing very convincing.

Like Hawker, they were reluctant to use their weapons on the globes unless provoked; opening fire without due cause might give away their position here, and could conceivably incur some counterattack.

The bubbles now were so numerous it was impossible to follow all their intricate movements at once. It was Symington who first spotted the descending globe, drifting softly down from the sky to land in the field near the edge of the forest, barely fifty meters from where the trio stood watching. At this closer distance, they could see that the bubble, while seeming translucent, gave them no indication of what might be inside it.

It was considerably bigger than they had estimated, more than twenty meters in diameter, easily big enough to hold several rooms inside it.

Nothing happened for several minutes, and the three soldiers stood with weapons raised, ready to fight the instant a hostile move was made.

Then they saw a crack appear in one side of the bubble, widening to form a doorway. A man stepped out onto the ground-or at least, someone whose ancestors had probably been of human stock.

He was of average height, with a deep chocolate brown skin, but his body was oddly proportioned; his legs and waist seemed much too large for that trunk and head. He was naked except for two wide bands of red cloth, running from shoulder across the chest to opposite hip and up again around the back, forming an X front and rear. He had no body hair, but growing from his head was a full and magnificent set of antlers. Belilo snickered quietly and pointed with the barrel of her rifle to indicate the fact that the man from the bubble had two p.e.n.i.ses.

The soldiers watched nervously as this being left his bubble and walked into the forest off to their right, apparently not noticing them. The door in the side of the bubble remained tantalizingly open. Hawker suggested they go in and investigate, but Belilo shook her head."Too risky. We have no idea what we'd be getting into. Those bubbles are some sort of craft, but we still don't know what makes them go or how to work them. I think we might better try to capture our h.o.r.n.y friend and see what information we can get out of him."

The two men agreed, and the trio fanned out through the forest, moving in the direction where they'd last seen their quarry. The man from the bubble made no attempt to conceal himself as he walked deeper into the woods at a leisurely pace, checking the trees as though looking for a special kind. Belilo gave the signal and ran out of her hiding place to tackle him. Hawker and Symington were there a scant second later to help her. Their victim, after his initial moment of surprise, put up no resistance.

"All right, friend, who are you?" Belilo asked him.

The man stared up with wide, calm eyes. "Consakannis," he replied.

"And if I really am your friend, you have an odd way of showing it."

The serenity with which he answered, despite the difficulty of his position, was a little unnerving, but Belilo had to tough it out. "You're either our friend, or dead," she told him. "The choice is entirely yours."

"Oh." He paused to consider that. "I suppose I might be your friend for a while. It could be amusing."

"It's anything but amusing," Symington said. "There's a lot at stake here."

"Indeed?" If Consakannis had had eyebrows, one would have been lifted.

Hawker didn't like the way this conversation was turning. "What's that bubble you came down in?" he asked.

"That's my home-sphere."

Symington grabbed Consakannis by the crossing strips of cloth and pulled him roughly to his feet. "Take us in there."

"If you like."The antlered man led the way back through the forest to the bubble, which rested quietly at the edge of the field exactly as he'd left it. He walked without hesitation through the doorway, and the three soldiers followed quickly after him, afraid he might make the bubble rise into the air once more and get away before they could stop him.

Inside, the bubble was lit with a soothing yellow glow that diffused from the walls. They were in a small compartment barely large enough for all four of them to move around. Holes in the ceiling and the other walls seemed to lead to other rooms. "A little cramped, isn't it?" Symington asked.

"I wasn't expecting guests," Consakannis replied calmly. "I'll just take a second to adjust it."

He reached his left hand out against the wall and tapped his fingers lightly on the surface like a typist tapping out a pattern. The outer wall remained as it was, but the inner walls receded until the room was large enough for them to walk around. "Is that better?" he asked.

"Much," Belilo said, trying to disguise her worries about exactly what sort of person they'd captured. "But doesn't it get boring living in a bare room? Don't you have any furniture?"

"What kind would you like?" Consakannis tapped another pattern on the wall and the material of the floor began shifting, flowing upward and molding itself into the shapes of a long blue sofa and two large green stuffed armchairs. "If the colors aren't suitable," he said, "I can always change them."

"Do you live in here by yourself?" Hawker asked, concentrating on the important questions to take his mind off the disturbing powers their prisoner possessed.

For the first time, Consakannis seemed perplexed. "Of course," he said, tilting his head in puzzlement. "Who else could possibly live in my home?

People visit from time to time, but..." His face brightened. "Would you like to go up and meet them?"

"No," Belilo said emphatically. "We're staying right here until we get all of this sorted out.""You really are antisocial, aren't you?" Consakannis said. He crossed the room and started to sit down in one of the armchairs.

"No one said you could sit," Symington growled.

"It is my home." The prisoner sat defiantly and crossed his legs.

Belilo was sweating. She could feel the entire situation slipping from her grasp, and she didn't like that one bit. "We're giving the orders around here," she said. "You'll sit when we tell you to, and not before."

"This is really getting rather boring," Consakannis said, not moving from his comfortable position.

Belilo pointed her rifle directly at the captive's midsection. "Get up, d.a.m.n you!"

"And if I don't?"

"Then I'll shoot you where you are."

Then I'm afraid that's what you'll have to do. You've become too tiresome to bother with."

Belilo glanced nervously at her two companions. If she backed down now, they might as well just surrender, for they would be Consakannis's prisoners within this bubble. Much as she hated to admit it, they'd lost control of their captive. He wasn't afraid of them, and she saw plainly that nothing she could do would bring her any power over him. Reluctantly she squeezed the firing stud and watched the energy beam lash out to devour Consakannis's body.