Through study of the human culture as broadcast for TV the Battlemaster had some understanding now of the human language systems. Still the Battlemaster did not feel confident enough of this skill to undertake the mission ahead without a human "guide." It was another risk to be taken but one that was unavoidable.

The hatching in the cave came on schedule, and the big cocoons broke open and the battleforms emerged. They were lean, gray-skinned things, clad in armor and conforming to the host-form ground plan for limbs while the metabolic processes were sped up enormously.

The things emerged with a prancing, tight-muscled gait. The Battlemaster called them to a halt.

Rhem was staring at what had once been Larshel. How did it make that sound? It was like pieces of metal rubbing together.

Larshel's head swiveled to gaze at Rhem Kerwillig, and the zombie mouth opened and the dead lips spoke.

"You help me," it said in a voice that purred like skin rubbing on wet concrete.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.

RHEM SAT IN THE BACKSEAT NEXT TO THE THING THAT HAD once been the beautiful Reena Kirshtin. Like the one in the front seat that had been Larshel Deveaux, it looked like Reena but it lacked any humanness. There was no liveliness to it, almost as if it were a machine. When Reena spoke now she spoke without emotion, in an eerily monotonous voice.

The Larshel creature sat in the driver's seat. It drove the ATV manually, with the computer damped down to its map-display function and the navbeacon turned off.

This, of course, was an offense all over Wexel, but one that was committed by millions of normal citizens every day to allow speeding, or entry into wildlife zones, or just simple tax evasion.

The Battlemaster understood the principles of satellite surveillance and took routine precautions. It drove on the correct side of the road only, even on the empty stretches. It obeyed all known traffic signals and controls. There was no point in attracting police attention.

The ATV rolled smoothly through the small towns of South Kara State. Rhem knew their names well-Dowensville, Sembrant, Tosca Rego; this was the old stamping ground of the SWALA. Just on the fringe of the Arente Peach Bowl, but beyond the reach of Arente police and Regulators.

The familiar roads sped past, and Rhem was torn by a weird mix of emotions.

He had asked them where they were going and the things had not replied.

Rhem had learned that whatever they were they weren't interested much in Rhem Kerwillig. They rarely answered his questions; they rarely even turned their heads.

Occasionally they spoke to Rhem, usually to ask about the areas just ahead. Always these were to the north.

More occasionally they spoke together, in sounds that Rhem bad never imagined a human could make, a series of rasps and groans that might have been made by cicadas the size of cats.

The sound chilled him every time he heard it.

It recalled the other things, the creatures that looked like the offspring of men and greyhounds. They, too, bad made these sounds, once or twice, in response to the Larshel Deveaux creature.

They had driven together at first, the Benuils' old Casala ATV and the two Mogen ATVs from the SWALA transportation section. A convoy out of hell, moving down from the box canyon and along the banks of the Klimatee river until they came upon an outlying farm, the Peskanva place. It was the Peskanvas' misfortune to possess a small airstrip and a couple of planes.

The ATVs bad driven past the outskirts of the farm and then parked in a hollow just beyond. The greyhound-cum-gladiator things had dispersed into the brush, leaving Rhem with the Larshel- and Reena-lookalike things.

They had waited a few minutes.

There was a distant scream, followed by a shout and then a shot. Then silence fell.

A minute or so later there was another, more distant series of screams, about five seconds' worth.

The silence returned. A weird squeaking, scraping sound emerged from the ATV's CB radio. The Larshel thing gunned them forward.

At the farmhouse they found a scene of carnage. The things had slaughtered everyone and were standing there awaiting orders. They had found several weapons in the house, a pair of shotguns and a rifle, plus an antique handweapon.

There was a woman, decapitated and tossed to the end of the porch. In the kitchen was a fat man, stabbed through the chest, lying in a widening pool of blood.

A little boy had been killed in the front yard; the small body seemed so pathetic, so still.

Rhem found tears in his eyes when he looked away. He was surprised by this; he hadn't felt like that about another human being in years.

Then they had taken Rhem to the farm airstrip, a short takeoff field. There were two planes-an old Gurben Gull and a Wocanic Airdevil, a two-seater VTOL turbo. The Gull was a solid, slow, long-range cargo plane that was popular in the outlying parts of Wexel.

Rhem had little flying experience-he wasn't much of a pilot-but, as he pointed out, the planes were computer-controlled anyway.

This apparently was not satisfactory. The Larshel thing immediately took the instrument panel on the Gull apart and disconnected the computer, and with it its beacon. It did the same thing with the Airdevil.

The beacon function in the navware for each plane was also cut out, with a burst of programming put in through the little portable keyboard computer that Oona Lacordi had bought in Frentana Beach, years before.

Then slowly and methodically it investigated the manual controls, measured the flaps and rudder response, and, with Rhem to translate unfamiliar human devices, went over the rest of each plane's inventory of parts.

Eventually, satisfied that the planes were understood, the Larshel creature instructed the greyhound-gladiators in their use and control. They were similar to a certain class of Imperial air attack craft except that they were absurdly luxurious. Where a pair of humans could be accommodated in the Wocanic, at least four or five of the battleforms could be fitted in.

Rhem listened as the scraping, whining sounds went on until the Reena thing caught his arm in a viselike grip and propelled him back to the ATV. She was incredibly strong; Rhem could not shake free.

The Larshel thing took its seat again, and once more the Casala bad rumbled to life and rolled forward on its oversized tires.

Rhem listened for the sounds of the planes taking off but heard nothing.

A couple of hours later they reached Basking Springs, the biggest town in the region. Here they were to get fresh fuel cells for the Casala, which was running low on power.

But first they told Rhem to get them food. Rhem was vaguely shocked by this; somehow he hadn't imagined they would want food. They didn't seem human enough to need food.

When he'd recovered he told them to drive into a roadhouse restaurant lot called Aya's. They parked by the order-in phone, and Rhem ordered hot sandwiches and milk shakes and crisp fried potatoes.

Mobile robots shaped like hamburgers rolled up shortly and extended trays loaded with the food in colorful biowrap.

Rhem was starving, and he bit deeply into his sandwich and sat back and chewed. Then he noticed Reena putting the whole sandwich in her mouth and gulping it down like a python swallowing a rat.

They demanded more.

Rhem called for more, and more, and more. Larshel and Reena were putting away enough food for a week, it seemed. They barely seemed to chew, either; they just shoved the hamburgers into their mouths and swallowed them.

At last, however, they were sated. Rhem had lost count at the seventh round of Aya's Bigburgers. They burped now, with an unusual intensity. Rhem's hair rose up on his neck; the things sounded like animals, tigers or lions, great carnivores of some kind.

Whatever they were they had hearty appetites.

The burping subsided and the Larshel thing started up the ATV again.

Rhem cleared his throat; they were forgetting something. The robot gate to the lot was already squealing shut. Cameras in protected turrets were swiveling to cover the car.

Both turned to Rhem. They seemed uneasy. Rhem was terrified. Anything could happen in this sort of situation, and the things were armed.

"What is wrong?" Larshel said.

"We didn't pay for our food."

"Pay?"

"Pay money, credit, for the food. It isn't free, you know."

The thing pondered this for a few long moments.

"Ah, value units must be exchanged for food. Host-creature work/value system extends to food supplies. What value units do we have?"

Host-creature value units? What were these fucking things?

"I dunno, I didn't get the opportunity to bring any with me. If you see what! mean."

"See what mean? What is this?" The Reena thing was nonplussed.

The Larshel creature returned to the problem. "What can we do?"

Rhem swallowed heavily. If violence broke out here, he could easily wind up dead.

"Check the glove compartment," he blurted. "Maybe there's a credit card in there."

He then explained as best he could the principle of the credit card.

"Value-unit storage system," the thing said.

To his relief the glove compartment produced a small silver card, an Epoxo Banco fuel card in the name of Jaad Benuil. There was an address but it was entirely unfamiliar to Rhem.

Rhem proffered it to the hamburger robot and got it back a moment later with a fancy printed credit slip.

The gate unlocked and the cameras turned themselves off. Rhem felt his pulse slow down after about thirty seconds or so.

Just how the hell was he going to stay alive in this situation? The slightest thing could set off a holocaust, and Rhem would be right in the middle of it. Escape-he had to get away from the things somehow.

Their next stop was a fuel station. There were half a dozen along Basking Springs's main drag. Once again the Epoxo Banco card of poor Jaad Benuil was used without a hitch. Throughout the transaction the things stayed in the ATV and kept Rhem in his seat.

Once more they were back on the road, heading northward and accelerating on the Central Kara Autoroute.

Pretty soon Rhem knew they were in North Kara and had left the southland behind. Ahead lay Central Kara City, and beyond that the autoroute went on straight and six lanes wide through the Felix Hills and into CK City itself Was that their destination? CK City, the world capital. Rhem hoped it was. In that sort of city he might just possibly be able to escape. At least his chances of getting lost in the crowd would be better.

And, absurdly, he just wanted to see the big town; he'd always wanted to go there, since he was a kid.

But Rhem Kerwillig had only got as far as Frentana Beach, and that just a couple of times.

Now they made swift progress passing the graceful city of Kara Center, the capital of the state, and then an hour later, murky Burcade City, which lay astride the planet's chief iron-ore resource.

Burcade was a serious polluter town, and farther on, the south slopes of the Felix Hills were barren, their forests long since dead and gone. The acidified landscape could scarcely support vegetation, and gaunt crags, bare and rocky, loomed above the road.

Once they were over the Felixes and were coming down toward the north coast, the vegetation returned, with small, pleasant towns succeeding each other by the side of the autoroute as the ATV rolled on. This was the weekend-land of the middle classes of CK City, and the towns were exquisitely kept up. Graceful villas could be glimpsed down avenues of trees.

By midnight they were on the outskirts of Cowdray-Kara itself. The highway lights wound into a maze of other highways, and ahead glittered the lights of the great towers.

The things communicated briefly. Rhem felt almost certain that this was to be their destination. The schematic of the city was on the control screen.

The Larshel thing tapped the controls lightly. It was already highly fluent in the use of human control systems. Being trapped within the limitations of the deceptform had given the Battlemaster much greater understanding of human ergonomics. The human-machine interface was a surprisingly complex place, the Battlemaster had long since decided. The human culture seemed vaster and more complicated with every discovery.

A route in blue indicator appeared on the city map. The route passed along the southern side of the city, following the Coastal Interstate. Then it broke away to the southwest.

Rhem was right: they were going somewhere in CK City's suburban ring. But why were these things so specific? What did they want here? Did they have friends or allies?

Whatever it was he would find out in good time, that much was certain he was grimly aware.

The ATV drove on, through the highway loop below downtown and back out through ring suburbs to a subcomplex of small towers and rather graceful buildings in white stone.

"Cowdray University," Rhem read on a giant sign over the highway by the off-ramp.

The creatures wanted to go to school! Of course, of course, they were planning to take Human Studies, Rhem cackled madly to himself.

He felt the Reena thing turn and look at him. No human emotions motivated that blank face; she said nothing.

The ATV pulled into the university parking lot and came to a halt.

The Larshel creature opened the car door.

"What are we doing here?" Rhem said.

"We need library, there are data bases to study."

"The library won't be open until morning, you know. People like to sleep at night. You know, sleep."

"No, don't know sleep."

"Ash, well, that must be difficult. Old Larshel, now he knew about sleep. Oh, yes."

"How long until library open?" the thing said.

"In morning, when light."

The creatures creaked and scraped together.

They waited.