"Fine. "

I do not know much about fighting. When the Hlutr fight, we do it with song and the slow, inexorable power of genetics. Doku fights in the animal style, with movement and speed. For her size and features, she is still an adult, and trained; experience succeeds where strength and numbers might fail. Very quickly she has defeated the bullies and they flee, along with a large portion of the crowd.

Panting, Doku opens the door. The boy creeps hesitantly out, meets Doku's eves, and smiles.

"What's your name?" she asks in a gentle voice.

"R-R-R-Robbie. "

Doku extends a hand to him. "Come on, Robbie. You can't stay here. Let's see if we can't get you someplace safe."

The children of the Lower City make their homes wherever they can find a dry and secluded spot. As slow Karphos dusk settles. Doku and I follow Robbie to a makeshift tent on the roof of a small building near the slaughterhouse. Here we crouch together, sharing Doku's compressed rations and a few handfuls of nuts and fruit that Robbie had hidden in his pockets. I eat, wondering if Human food is nutritious to Shalit's folk.

Robbie is quickly confused and it is difficult for him to speak. Still, he attempts to answer our questions.

First, where are we?

"The m-m-m-mountain is Corella. This," he waves unsteadily, indicating the buildings and caves, "is the L-l-lower City." He frowns, concentrating; I hear discord in his mental song, and I do what I can to strengthen his inner melodies. He points upslope. "Middle City. Then Upper. Walls around them. Only special k-k-k-kids can go there. The Peak is at the t-t-t-top. Ships take off and l-l-l-land there." He scans the sky, then points. A bright star is visible at zenith through a break in the clouds. "Heaven. Mister Avidore lives in Heaven. Good kids go there."

"What happens to bad kids?"

Robbie shakes his head. "The hunt. The Hole. W-w-worse places."

"How do we get to Heaven, Robbie?"

The child shrugs and turns his attention to his food.

I have attuned my own song to Robbie's, and he does not seem surprised when I speak. "Robbie, how did you come here?"

"M-m-m-my friend brought me. In a big sp-sp-sp-s.p.a.ce ship. I don't remember his name. He told me all about Mister Avidore. He told me that I would he happy here."

"Are you happy, Robbie?"

He considers the question, while the song of his mind is alive with raucous discord-images of casual cruelties intertwined, some from his past life and some from this place. Then he nods. "I'm happy. It's good to he happy."

A little wistfully, he adds, "Some of the kids say that there are happier places in the jungle, far away from here. I've never been in the jungle. M-m-m-maybe someday I'll got there to see."

"Do you want to go home?"

Robbie quivers with fear. "They were b-b-bad to me there. I don't want to go hack." He lies back on the slate roof. "I like it here."

"Go to sleep. Robbie." I have worked with Humans like Robbie before, and it is simplicity itself to blend my song with his Inner Voice, to subtly persuade him to drop into a temporary, healing sleep.

Staring at the mountain looming above us. Doku shakes her head. "All right, what next?"

"We have found the children."

"I suppose so." She sighs. "I couldn't bring much equipment along, but I have one implant: an ultrawave set that should he able to reach civilization. But without knowing what planet we're on. I can't tell anyone how to find us. Can the Hlutr help?"

"You forget that I am on Escen as well as here. I can give information to Sten Koleno. Or I can summon a Galactic Rider to fetch us. These things I will not do until our mission is complete."

"Well, can't your people help us find Fenelia?"

"My friend, this is Karphos. There are no Hlutr here."

"Karphos? I thought that was a myth."

"It is too real."

"No Hlutr?" She shivers, and I understand her distaste. The lower orders of life are accustomed to the presence of my folk on all the Scattered Worlds; it disturbs them to be without us. In honesty, it disturbs me as well. "Can you find Fenelia?"

I listen deeply to the song of the planet, to the voices of ten thousand sleeping Little Ones. "She is here. I do not know where."

"Let's find her, then get off this rock and go home."

"No, Doku."

"What?"

"Finding Fenelia is not our only task here."

"What do you mean?"

"Someone called Avidore has stolen Human children, brought them here at great expense and risk. I must know why. The Hlutr must know why." I can no longer deny it to Doku or to myself my inquiries have drawn the attention of my Elders beyond the stars, and there is growing Hlutr concern with this matter. As vet, the Elders merely listen- but they are interested.

"This place makes me sick. Once we get home, the Hegemony Navy can come back and settle accounts."

"Will they? According to your records. children have been coming here for nearly two of your decades. Why have the Humans in authority done nothing in all that time?"

She does not reply, for she knows that there is no answer. Karphos, once a world of death, is now a living planet of mystery; surely Doku is not the only Human ever to care?

"What is this bright star that Robbie calls 'Heaven'?" I ask.

"It must be a settlement or station in synchronous...o...b..t. He said Avidore lives there."

"I think we must go to Heaven, my friend. Answers may await us there."

"Did Robbie say that ships take off and land on the peak?" She leans back, regarding the mountainside. "Any idea how we're supposed to get there?"

"Robbie may know. I will awaken him."

Our young comrade is ready with his answer. "To get to the P-P-P-Peak we have to get past the walls. It w-w-won't be easy." He frowns, and his will sings with the effort of disciplining recalcitrant thoughts. "I know a way through the f-f-f-first wall. There's a nice lady in the Middle City who m-m-might help us."

"Can you take us there?"

He nods, but his eyes are wild and his body tense.

I touch him with Shalit's gentle hands, the hands of a healer and a musician. "Do not he afraid, Robbie. The Hlutr are with you, and we will not allow you to come to harm." So the Universal Song repeats its constant refrain, as once again a Hlut vows to cherish and protect a Little One.

We three move silently through the night of the Lower City; and moving around us are the ghosts, for seventies upon seventies of Human children have died upon this mountain.

All races have stories of ghosts. Even we Hlutr know them, for our departed ones are ever with us...the taste of their memories in the sweet soil and the silver rains, the echo of their Inner Voice that rebounds through the Galaxy, the influence they have had upon the shape of the Universal Song. Standing here in the tranquil midnight of Escen, I can hear the song of the first of our folk to grow upon this globe, when s.p.a.ceborne seeds found spa.r.s.e nourishment in the primitive organic molecules and simple cells that thrived in primordial seas. I remember the acrid touch of methane and ammonia winds on hardened bark, the ever-so-careful manipulations to encourage that photosynthesis which would make Escen a fit home for life.

As the voices of these ancient ancestors sing within me, I hear echoes in their minds-echoes of a still earlier era, three billion years ago, when the Eldest of All was young and Hlutr spores first left the security of the Galactic Core to venture into the night of the Scattered Worlds. Still older voices sing, telling of a time before the Pylistroph, when the Seven Races lived in turmoil beneath the seventy billion suns of the Core, and even the Elder G.o.ds were unknown.

There is no end to Hlutr ghosts, and not a few foolish saplings have lost their way in the song of ages gone by, returning to themselves only to find half a billion years pa.s.sed and their worlds changed beyond recognition. I have no ambition to suffer such a fate; yet the ghosts call, beckoning me to remember a time before my home Escen was yet formed, when the Five Animal Races were unborn and the Hlutr sang their lonely song from the good soil of lost Paka Tel. Even then, four billion years ago as Humans count time, my folk had a long history; our bodies were different and our minds a bit strange, but still we sang the Universal Song and dreamed of our place in its melody. We regarded the skies, and knew that it was our destiny to bring life and diversity to all those distant, lovely stars.

And before the first Hlut sang with the touch of the Inner Voice? Before we gained our command of biological evolution, and structured our own natures to fit our purposes? Our ghosts do not tell. Perhaps the Talebba know, those crystalline intellects whose slow song awaited the first true Hlutr who cast their minds toward s.p.a.ce. Hlutr legend tells that some of the Talebba were formed from light and matter in the very birth throes of the universe; perhaps their ghosts know of the beginning of my folk. For myself, I have presumed enough for one night, enough perhaps for one lifetime. Gratefully, I return my attention to Doku, Robbie and the children of Karphos.

The high wall separating Lower and Middle Cities is not impa.s.sable. In places stone and metal have been severely weathered, or broken by rockslides; in other locations the deliberate work of Human tools is evident. Robbie leads us over the rubble, then pauses, thinking.

In the Middle City structures are more elaborate and more numerous than below; buildings are laid out along unpaved streets in an arrangement that resembles the plan of Moulmein, Nerang or the other cities of Escen. We follow Robbie up one narrow street to a large back building where a single flickering light burns in one corner window.

"T-T-T-There's a nice lady here, she'll help you." Robbie taps on the wooden door, which swings open after a second. A little girl, perhaps eight Escen years old, peers out.

"Go away," she hisses. "It's the middle of the night."

"Please L-i-i-let us in."

The girl looks up and down the street. "You I know...what about her?" She indicates Doku.

"She's my f-f:friend. Please."

"Come in." I follow Doku, but the Human girl bars my way with a foot. "Leave the animal outside. What is that thing?"

Before Doku can answer, I rise up on my hind legs and look the Human girl directly in the eyes. "I beg your pardon. I am not a 'thing.' "

She backs off. and I cross the threshold behind Robbie and Doku. The door slams; in dim, reflected light I see that we are in a small entryway. Doorways lead into other rooms.

The girl faces Robbie. "You should have known better than to bring them here. Especially an alien. They're probably from the Peak. I ought to throw you all out in the street-"

"Elly, what's going on out here?"

The new voice comes from a young woman, no longer a child and yet not fully adult, who stands in a doorway. She is twice Doku's height, and her long dark hair falls down her back like a luxurious mane. Although her voice is calm and quiet, it fascinates like the cry of a nightbird. With wide, friendly eves she examines us, then smiles.

"Welcome. I am Lusela Holic, and this is my school. Robbie will you and your friends come with me? Elly, that's all."

"But ... "

"Good night, Elly." When the girl has withdrawn, Lusela Holic beckons us to follow her into the corner room, where she sits before a computer terminal. "Make yourselves comfortable. Elly didn't mean any harm; it's just that everyone has been jumpy lately."

Doku, apparently completely at ease, takes a chair. "You're the first grownup we've run into."

"I'm hardly a grownup. You're right, though- I'm nineteen, and I'm the oldest person you're likely to see outside the Peak." She lowers her eyes. "That's part of the problem."

"What problem?"

"I've been here for fifteen years, and I'm getting too old. So far, the Peak hasn't been able to do anything to me ... I've helped a lot of kids, and I have friends." She spreads her hands. "Sooner or later, that won't help me."

Wrinkling her nose, Doku says, "I don't understand."

"You're new. Corella is a place for children. Once you get too old, if you're not one of those on the Peak, then it's the Hunt, or the slaughterhouse...or maybe one night you get a visit, and you're not around the next morning." Lusela Holic sighs. "That's my problem, not yours. You must need help, or you wouldn't have come to me. What can I do for you?"

"They w-w-w-want to go to the Peak," Robbie says.

"I'm Doku Tomich and this is Shalit, my friend. We're looking for a particular child. Robbie says we need to go to the Peak."

Lusela narrows her eyes. "You're from the Outside?"

"We are."

"And you're not a child."

"Does it show?"

"Only to me." She shakes her head. "Others have come through before, wanting to rescue a particular child. Avidore always finds out. You're in danger, you know that?"

"Who is Avidore? What kind of power does he have?"

"Mr. Avidore runs Corella, and he knows everything that goes on here. You're just going to get caught. And he doesn't like people from Outside. You should leave this planet, now." Her voice and her inner song both are firm.

"You make it sound like it's easy to leave."

"I a.s.sume you have a way to get offworld. If not, I can arrange something. I still have friends on the Peak."

Doku is surprised. "You've helped others to get away?"

"Some. Over the years."

My friend's voice is filled with puzzlement. "Then why hasn't this place been investigated before?"

"Now I know for sure that you are not truly a child. Some who went home told of Corella. They were not believed. Adults don't credit what children tell them. They say that we're pretending, or that we don't know what we're talking about. Many children were even sent back."

"I don't believe any parent would do that."

Lusela shrugs. "You see?" She shakes her head and turns to the terminal. "Never mind. Who is the child you're looking for? Maybe I can find some reference to him."

I look at her and I can tell that she is captivated by Shalit's deep eyes. "I believe you, Lusela Holic. Now believe me- changes will come to this world. Humans may ignore what happens here; but now the Hlutr are interested, and I promise you that something will be done."

For a second, she does not react; then her face changes and the melody of her inner song alters. Lusela Holic is sensitive enough to the Inner Voice that she feels the truth of what I say.

"Thank you." She brushes a hand across her eyes, the smiles. "What is the child's name?"

Ten minutes later, we have an answer.

"This girl you're looking for must be awfully cute, or terribly smart. She's on the Peak."