A few minutes later they passed the ruins. A pocket-sized faux Versailles moldered beneath vines and overgrowth. Graceful balconies, fallen-in roofs, tree limbs thrust through empty windows.

"The Marqumas were decimated in the civil war. They got out after that. But they have refused to sell their land, or to allow these woods to be cleared."

"What protects these trees from the local people, then?"

"Same thing that protects them from thieves. The Regulators pay rewards for information."

"And then more bodies are found in the grotto."

"Of course."

After another couple of kilometers walking through these woods, with nothing but insects for company, they came to the Shabbulus River.

"The ford is a little to our right," murmured Blake. "Our contact will be waiting in the woods beyond."

The river was wide but shallow at this point, and where they crossed it barely came to waist height.

On the other side the woods thinned out shortly, and they came upon a road, with stone walls on either side. Small fields bounded by more stone walls stretched before them.

They moved along, parallel to the road, bidden in the woods.

Suddenly a peasant dressed in the customary ragged homespun stepped out from cover and signaled to them to follow him across the road.

"That way," said Blake, and they went on through groves of cedar and Thor pine.

"What's going on?" whispered Chang as they tiptoed along a leafy lane.

"Regulators are in the village."

Soon they were in a vegetable garden behind a rather dilapidated peasant's cottage.

From beyond the house there came the sound of blows and cries of pain.

They stepped forward, filtering into the dark, squalid interior of the cottage. From a dark corner a peasant girl stared at them with blank, hopeless eyes.

Blake shoved the girl roughly to the back door and told her to run to the safety of the trees.

Chang peered out through a crack in the wooden shutter that covered the window.

In the village square stood a group of men in shiny black uniforms with steel helmets. A number of green-and-black ATVs were parked nearby.

Chang saw what these men were doing and felt her gorge rise in horror.

A number of metal T-frames seven feet tall had been set up. Hanging on each of these frames was a man, crucified.

A knot of the men in black was gathered around one of the crucified. As she watched, they asked questions and he answered them with curses. One of the men in black, a huge brute, took up a knife and cut open the belly of the man hanging on the T-frame. With both hands he reached in and hauled out the victim's intestines and let them dangle down into the dust of the square.

Another black-clad thug lit a propane torch and began playing it back and forth inside the body cavity of the dying man on the frame.

The other men in black guffawed at the weak cries of horror that emerged from the dying man's throat.

Chang shivered, then found she had been joined at the peephole by Blake.

"Regulators at work, Colonel. Not a pretty sight."

Chang felt a fury rising inside her.

"What's next, Captain?" she snapped.

"Difficult bit, we can't very well start shooting. Too many innocent people will get killed. Have to record the atrocity and hit the Regulators as they leave."

"You mean we will allow them to carry on with this?"

"Not much else we can do, unless we want to risk shooting any number of civilians."

Chang looked back into the square. The Regulators were at work on another victim, a boy of no more than twelve, strung up on one of the frames. They were slicing off his genitals, and then, to a roar of laughter, they shoved them into the boy's mouth, choking him.

A man on the ground, with his wrists bound behind his back, somehow got to his feet and charged the Regulators.

He was knocked down and then hoisted up and placed on a frame next to his dying son.

Now the Regulators went to work on him, with knives and propane torch, roasting his liver inside his body.

Chang ground her teeth.

"I count fewer than twenty Regulators. Take them down." She turned on Blake.

He gave her a cold stare.

"Do it!" she snapped.

Blake give the order via his communicator.

On the count of four the ITAA squad opened fire, taking the black-clad thugs completely by surprise.

In a matter of seconds most were down.

A handful of survivors were left, however. They returned fire. One of them reached an armored ATV and opened up with the ATV's twin twenty millimeters.

The people in the square screamed and groveled, trying to dig themselves into the ground.

Chang herself crouched in the muck on the floor of the cottage as the wall above disintegrated under a hail of twenty-millimeter cannon shell.

Blake was moving; Chang noticed him zip through a hole in the side of the cottage from the corner of her eye. Then she was forced to duck once more as the twenty-millimeters came sweeping back. The ceiling fell in and parts of the rear wall collapsed.

It looked as if Blake had been right and she'd done the absolutely worst thing.

Fresh screaming broke out, signifying casualties among the people trapped in the square.

Luisa cursed herself, slipping into her mother's Chinese to do so.

There came a heavy thud, and another, and the twenty-millimeter guns were silenced.

Still, other weapons were in play. There were more detonations, more screaming; the sound of automatics and assault rifles cracked the air.

Chang remembered her own Lessingham and wriggled around until she could draw it from her holster.

Just above her head there were six-inch holes blasted through the mud-brick wall. She risked a peek through one of these.

The last Regulator, clutching his rifle, was running for the ATVs. He was hit the next moment and went tumbling.

Blake was in the square, along with Cormondwyke and Sergeant Jun.

Chang got to her feet and staggered to the side door and stumbled out into an alley. In her right hand she was still clutching the Lessingham machine pistol.

A sound behind her gave her warning. She ducked, just as a gun went off behind her ear.

The bullet rang off her helmet but it was only a glancing blow, and though she fell she was unhurt. From the ground she found herself firing the Lessingham exactly as trained, without even consciously thinking of it.

The Regulator's body bounced backward into the alley gate and hung there jerking under the fire. She emptied the clip into him.

The body slid off the gate.

Chang's mouth was dry and hard with fright. Her stomach twisted suddenly at the smell of the man's blood and the terrible reality of his death.

When Blake arrived on the scene, she was still there, fighting down the nausea, still holding the warm gun in both hands.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE FOLLOWING DAY CAROLINE REESE FLEW DOWN TO DOISY-Dyan and then took the next flight on Transcon Air back to CK City. With her she took a small refrigerated case containing six tissue samples taken from the small, repulsive creature in the tank.

Caroline was operating on a high level of excitement. She felt that she had been caught up in great events, for the first time in her life. There was a thrill in the knowledge that she had discovered a hitherto unknown alien form of life. And there were all the exciting possibilities. The thing did appear to be alive.

It was all so sudden and so wonderful.

The opportunity of a lifetime, and one that had so suddenly dropped into her lap.

This thought started others, and she chewed her lip and stared out the window at the clouds as she wondered what she should do next.

First she had to get a bioanalysis program and an analyzer unit. She couldn't just give this to someone in the biology building, ask for an analysis of an alien lifeform, and not expect some tough questions.

She would call her friend Soille Benuki, who was an assistant professor of med science. Soille had access to the biology building. She could sign out the necessary equipment and software.

Then, once she had the samples in analysis, she would turn to the other aspect of the situation.

Karvur. The name brought up an involuntary feeling of fear. There was something about him that was chilling.

She had to find out who on the faculty had given Karvur his information about her. It had to be someone who knew her well, someone who knew Gottschalk, someone familliar with the workings of the university.

Karvur had Mends and she needed to know who they were. Because she had already decided she would not return to Karvur's farm.

She had been quite genuinely terrified by Karvur for a week, all alone with him out on the excavation and then surrounded by his grim-faced servants on the farm. He was unstable, liable to do anything. And she would always be alone up there, an outsider among Karvurs and their underfamilies. She would not risk that again.

But she had the samples, and she knew the fast track to getting published and announcing the discovery. That would be enough if she moved quickly.

The flight finally descended to the guide path to CKC airport.

After landing she transferred to the commuter chopper, and twenty-five minutes later she was in her office.

It was enormously reassuring to be back in her own empire, surrounded by her own possessions. She made phone calls, touching base with assistants and colleagues.

She went through the stuff on her desk. Department administrative matters for the most part. There was a message from Gottschalk, chastising her bluntly for running off suddenly for a week. They would have to 'discuss this matter' on her return.

Then she called Soille and told her she needed a big favor. Soille was excited to hear from Caroline and they agreed to meet for dinner that same evening.

Caroline went home, showered, took a nap and then made more phone calls to Mends. She explained her week's absence as a mission of mercy to her hometown, where an aged aunt was very ill. Since her hometown was a remote spot in the state of North Trias this brought out a certain sympathy and interest in friends.

Later she met Soille at the Brown Cow restaurant on Pure Street, which featured revivals of ancient terrestrial cuisines.

A bottle of North Coast Chardonnay arrived with the pseudoshrimp cocktails, and Caroline sipped the wine and felt herself relax with a nearly audible groan of pleasure.

Soille was watching her with bright, inquisitive eyes. "It's good to be back, I take it," she mused.

"Damn right."

"Where are you from again? Enxor?"

"No, North Trias."

"Oh, that's incredible. North Trios, isn't that a huge dustbowl or something?"

"No, not really, anyway."

"And your aunt was sick or something?"

"Yes, but that's not what I want to talk to you about. Soille, I'm onto something very exciting; it's in my field but it requires a biological analysis. However, for reasons I can't go into yet, I have to keep it a secret."

Soille's antennae twitched. So this is what Reese wanted. "So you can't just take it over to the bio department."

"Exactly. I have to analyze this myself I need hardware and software."

"For how long, I mean how much analysis are we talking about?"