Behind this kitchen was a hallway with other rooms off it on either side. In the roof was a skylight.

A klaxon began wailing somewhere. A robot voice was proclaiming an intruder alert.

There was no time to waste.

The Secondary Form vaulted off the crossed hands of the Battlemaster's hostform and sprang high enough to catch hold of the ledge around the inside of the skylight.

Rhem watched in astonishment as Reena's body performed an Olympian feat and then hauled itself up by its fingertips and swung over the edge of the skylight.

The Battlemaster broke open a fire cabinet and unwound the hose that was kept there. It swung the hose around a few times and then launched the head up to the Secondary Form with perfect precision.

"Climb!" the Battlemaster said to Rhem Kerwillig.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE.

WHILE THE SHARK HOWLED OVER THE CITYSCAPE, COLONEL Chang looked down with unseeing eyes. The big question just wouldn't let go of her.

Where was the damned Directive 115 alien creature?

No one had reported hide nor hair of it in days. What the hell was it up to? Had the damned thing committed suicide? A sickening thought, especially if they never found the body. Was that to be her fate, to go down as the female planetary commander who set off a Directive 115 for an alien that they never found?

How obscure would be the next job they gave her? CO of an asteroid in a bad system way out on the high top of the galaxy? Or maybe running a tanker park orbiting some methane planet with nothing but robots for company. Once again she checked with Captain Cachester at the military spaceport.

Cachester wore a jaunty grin. He was clearly enjoying the situation. After the bombing of the computer room at the base, Chang bad considered putting Cachester under arrest. Then bad come the Directive 115 flap and her problems with Cachester were forgotten. Now Cachester was laughing himself silly with every passing hour. If the thing turned out to be just a chimera then Colonel Chang was done for and there would never be an effective investigation into the computer-room explosion, or into the base audits of the past few years.

"I must report a scene of complete and utter panic here, Colonel," Cachester said. "I don't know how many casualties we have out there but there's going to be hell to pay."

"Yes, Captain, thank you."

"Oh, and by the way, Colonel, we've had six death threats now from the CPS. There are a lot of angry super rads after you."

Chang cut out.

Perhaps the thing had been diseased. Or wounded so badly by the peasants that it expired.

The peasant ATV it had taken had not been recovered. The ID marker punched into the engine cover had been neutralized by either the peasant owner or by the thing.

Peasants moonlighting as Liberators usually did away with the ID tags on their machines, which didn't help in this situation.

To make matters worse, Chang was finding that local police forces were largely uncooperative and quite sluggish in responding to orders from the ITAA.

But without that ATV they didn't know what the thing might have been up to, or where it had been.

She threw up her hands.

There was a soft beep on the commo. "I have a Darel Hopester on the line," said Povet in her ear.

"Well, well, well; put him on," she said after a moment's reflection.

Hopester's glamorous mug popped up on a nearby screen. "Greetings, Colonel, glad we were able to get you."

"Hello, Darel, I take it this isn't a personal call."

"Not with a Directive 115 emergency it isn't; WEXnet is after you. Any chance?"

"Of an interview? Are you crazy? As you said there's an emergency situation."

"Come on, Luisa, give us a chance. It won't take more than a couple of minutes of your time. And we've got good cause, anything we can get out that covers the facts here will help calm the panic. People are dying from it."

"And now it's Luisa, is it? Suddenly this call feels more personal than it did when you started."

"Look, I'm sorry I didn't return your call yesterday, but I told you I don't do anything outside of my marriage while I'm in CKC."

"A low blow, Hopester," she snorted, half-enraged and half-amused. "You know all this is being taped for posterity."

"Luisa, I'll do anything for the interview."

"Now, that's an interesting concept, Darel, I'll think about it. But the point about trying to do something about the panic is valid. I'll do it, but the rules are simple. WEXnet has to distribute the piece to all the other nets."

"Hang on there a second, Colonel. This is media business.

I don't think the ITAA has the right to get into making deals like who gets what news."

"Spacewaste, Hopester, it goes to every channel. WEXnet 7 gets two minutes' advance, that's all."

Two minutes!"

"You heard, good. Let's go. First question."

Hopester was flustered. "Shit, Luisa, we thought we could do it in person."

"Where? I'm in a gunship on the way to Air&Space. I have a shuttle slot in forty minutes."

"I'm at Air&Space myself, you'll be here in ten minutes?"

"Five."

"I'll meet you at the shuttle departure lounge. They have these booths in the cafe that are really good for one-on-one interviews."

"Sounds all right to me."

"Uh, Colonel, can you switch off the recorders?"

"No, of course not. This is Directive 115."

"What's going to happen to the plan, then? That we talked about before."

"Let us just say that plans have been revised. I'm gone from here in less than forty minutes. There's a full-blown sector admiral on his way here right now to take charge. This will switch to a Fleet Command at that point. I'll just be the CO of one OSF in the Twelfth Division."

"A Fleet Command?" he faltered.

"Full martial law, everything. There'll be an entire OSF division in orbit in another day or so. Things aren't going to calm down for quite a while."

"Then you must have more information about this alien threat than has been released."

She sighed. If only there were more information.

"I'm sorry, it's the most damnable thing, but we don't know much. There is a creature of some kind, it did attack some peasants. We think it may have killed and eaten some of them.

It stole a vehicle and it hasn't been seen since."

"And it's loose out there?"

''Yes."

"And the ITAA can't find it?"

"Unfortunately correct."

"You don't know where it is?" Hopester was aghast.

"Not right now we don't."

"And you think this creature is a so-called Saskatch monster."

"The biochem people say it matches."

"Oh, shit, I don't think we're going to calm the panic down much with that news."

"Five minutes, Mr. Hopester, be ready."

Chang cut out. Povet was waiting for her with news.

"Colonel," she faltered.

"What is it?"

"They are attacking Doisy-Dyan. The ITAA base itself has been hit."

Luisa's blood ran cold. Povet sounded tremendously calm considering what she was saying.

"They?" she managed.

"Things, gray coloration, look like greyhounds or something. We had Captain Cachester on line very briefly a few moments ago, then we lost all contact with the base."

"Any more?"

"Numbers are small, but they've killed a lot of people. Cachester sounded pretty bad."

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO.

IT WAS THE MOMENT SHE HAD TRAINED FOR ALL HER LIFE, AT least in theory. This was it, the crucial point.

"Okay, now we know that this is for real. Povet, keep trying Cachester and get me the moment you get him."

"Yes, sir." Povet cut out.

The Shark roared in on CK Air&Space.

Chang went to sit next to Caroline Reese, who looked utterly exhausted.

"The plan has just changed."

Reese said nothing, remote in sullen sorrow. "You're going topside on your own. You'll be picked up from the orbiter and taken directly to Admiral Heidheim."

"Where are you going?" she said at the sight of Chang.

"Doisy-Dyan."

"Why? I thought you were going topside."

"There's been an incident, we're still getting the details. I'm needed there at once, this is a combat mission."

Reese, already pale, seemed to go absolutely white at this.

"What happened?" she breathed.

"Some creatures have attacked the spaceport there. They were armed with shotguns and hunting rifles and they caused a large number of casualties."

"Creatures?" Reese said.

The haunting horror of the name Saskatch returned in full force to her thoughts. Death wailed in an old, unkempt graveyard.

"It will be your death to go back there," she intoned. "You should go topside now, while you still can."

Chang recoiled from this pessimism.