He repeated the verse several times, and soon, under his encouragement, the males were beating time to the song, crooning along. Sara recalled thinking, if he wound up stranded on Jijo and had no future in any other profession, the fellow could certainly find employment in one of those modern Tarek Town day-care centers.

If we still have such luxuries when all this is done.

Prity plopped herself in front of Sara. Sn.i.g.g.e.ring softly, the little chimp flattened a patch of sand and began drawing figures with a stick-mostly convex, parabolalike shapes that climbed, turned over, and fell once more to zero. Prity chuffed and pointed, as if eager to share a joke. But Sara could not concentrate. Fatigue overcame the throbbing of her abused body, drawing her down to helpless slumber.

She dreamed of Urchachka-world of gra.s.s-its plains whipped endlessly by hot winds, seared by frequent fires, or else swept by scorching rains of glittering volcanic dust. After each scalding episode, the plains seemed strewn with ashy death-yet bright stems always burst forth in prolific flashes, pushing skyward fast enough to be tracked by a patient eye.

On busy Urchachka, water seldom stayed long on the ground. Life sucked it up, caching it in buried tuber reservoirs that meshed across whole continents, or else in bulbous, multihued spore-pods, or in the lush gra.s.s stems themselves. These, in turn, were browsed by herds of grazing beasts-nervous brutes whose three-p.r.o.nged horns used to wave threateningly toward danger, till they found themselves tended in great herds, protected by creatures more formidable than any past predator.

In the manner of dreams, Sara dwelled concurrently both within and outside the images. At one level, her mind's eye peered through a forest of waving fronds, feeling wary and fearful, alert to dodge being trampled by the great beasts, or worse, being gobbled by accident in their ever-crunching maws.

Holes in the fecund loam led down to underground warrens-a lightless, crowded realm of sweet roots and frequent violent encounters-a domain that had lately begun to seem all too cramped, confining. The world of light above now appeared paradise by comparison-for those large enough to snake their necks above the tips of wafting gra.s.s.

With a slim, detached portion of her mind-the fragment that knew she was dreaming-Sara marveled at the power of imagination. A gift allowing her to inflate what little anyone on Jijo knew about Urchachka-from terse entries in a prelanding encyclopedia, plus a few fables pa.s.sed by urrish storytellers. Tales about days before their fallow breed was discovered on its torrid home world, by a patron race who dropped from the sky to claim that strain of clever herders, guiding them upon the Rising Path. The road of uplift, toward the stars.

The detached part could observe but had no other power over a fantasy like this one. A color dream, potent, forceful, and emotional. A fey fantasm, with momentum all its own. A vision of clouded, insentient paranoia.

Darting between bulbous stems, evading the big dumb herbivores, she followed a smell of drifting smoke and came upon the trampled circle surrounding a smoldering pit of ashes, with a crowd of lanky four-legged figures lounging around its rim. She peered cautiously at the Big Ones. Only lately had she recognized them as larger versions of herself, older cousins and aunts, instead of dangerous horrors with flashing hooves and alarming tempers. Now she spied on them, creeping closer, fighting an ever-growing temptation.

An urge to step forward, out of the gra.s.s, and announce herself.

She had seen others do so, from time to time. Other small ones like herself, shaking off the dust of their burrows and stretching out their necks. Boldly moving to a.s.sert their claim, their birthright to a place by the fire. About a third of those who did so were ignored, then tolerated, accepted, and finally welcomed into the tight web of intermeshing loyalties. The rest did not meet happy ends. There seemed to be a trick of timing involved. A ritual of twisting necks and groveling abas.e.m.e.nt that varied from group to group.

Then there was smell. It was best to approach a band that had a good aroma. One like your own.

Stealing closer, she watched the party of adults, some with pouches that squirmed with lucky males who had found safe refuge from the dangerous world. Dimly, she recalled having once lived in such a place. But now she was much too big.

The adults lay sheltered by tall stems from the beating sun, resting with their long necks curled round upon their backs. Now and then, one of them snorted when her breathing fell briefly out of phase with the others. The third eye-the simple one without lids-kept watch.

Overhead, a swarm of tiny flying things hovered in parasitic avarice, wary for any chance to dive and briefly suck at an exposed lip, or pouch flap, or even a blood-rich eyelid, and get away again before quick hands or jaws snapped. Sara watched as one unlucky bug was s.n.a.t.c.hed before landing. In a fluid motion, the adult popped the buzzing bloodsucker into her mouth, crunching away without bothering to rouse from her slumber.

I don't recall diving insects when I read about the urs homeworld, pondered the detached part of Sara's drowsy mind, or in any tale of Urchachka.

Gradually, it dawned on her that she wasn't making it all up. Rather, her unconscious was borrowing from events in the real world. Her eyes were open just a crack, and through the dreamlike diffraction of her interlaced lashes, she was watching actual urs do what she had thought she imagined.

As before, half of the Urunthai lay curled on sandy wallows, breathing with uncanny unison under the blur-cloth canopy. Nothing seemed much changed from when she had last gazed at her captors. But then something happened that correlated eerily with her dream-a low, buzzing sound, accompanied by whizzing motion through the air. A small, insectlike object darted from left to right, toward one of the dozing urs. In a flash, the sleeper s.n.a.t.c.hed the hurtling speck out of the air with her gaping, three-jawed mouth, chewing contentedly with both main eyes still closed. The central one, unlidded and faceted, retained the gla.s.sy dullness of full sleep as the warrior settled back down, snoring heavily.

I've never seen that happen before, Sara pondered. Are there bugs here in the foothills that attack urs like those on their homeworld?

Taut, bowstring tension ran up Prity's spine as the little chimp edged backward, pressing against Sara with an elbow. Sara slowly lifted her head to scan the Urunthaj. Those awake fondled their arbalests and switched their tails nervously, as if beginning to suspect that something was wrong. Their long necks stretched, waving left all at the same time, then at Dedinger's desert men, and onward to the right. When they turned away again, there came another low tw.a.n.ging buzz, so familiar it almost seemed unnoticeable. Once more, a small shape sped toward a dozing urs. Again, it was s.n.a.t.c.hed from the air and consumed without rousing the sleeper.

Sara followed the arc of that brief flight, backward across the tent to where the Stranger sat at his dulcimer, still plucking at the lowest note, creating a steady hypnotic rhythm. The rewq draped over his eyes only partly masked an enigmatic smile.

Sara realized two others were watching the star-man-Dedinger and Kurt the Exploser.

Sniffing at the humid air, UrKachu motioned for Ulgor to join her outside. The four painted warriors on duty went back to tending their weapons.

The Stranger bided his time, softly plucking the string. He kept up a slow, soothing cadence until the wary Urunthai guards settled back down. Then, with his left hand, the Stranger touched the side of his head and slipped two fingers under the filmy covering provided by the rewq-reaching into the hole in his head, Sara realized, with a touch of nausea. When the fingers emerged, they held a tiny object, a pellet, about the size of one of the message b.a.l.l.s used in the Biblos Library. While his right hand plucked the string another time, his left brought the pellet forth, poising it for the next stroke.

He's using the dulcimer as a launcher! Sara realized, watching in fascination.

She noted a slight difference in the sound, a buzzing dissonance as the tiny pill spun through the air toward another sleeping urrish rebel. It missed this time, dropping half a body length short of the target.

Dedinger was in motion, surrept.i.tiously nudging his comrades, using furtive hand signs, telling them quietly to prepare. He doesn't know what's going on, but he wants to be ready when the pulp hits the screen.

The tent flap opened, and UrKachu reentered, without Ulgor. The chieftain sauntered over to one of the sleeping Urunthai and prodded her-an action that normally would have a wiry urs on her feet in an instant. But there was no response. The raider kept on snoring.

Alarmed, UrKachu began jabbing, then kicking the sleeping warrior. Others hurried over to help. In moments it grew clear-of eight who had gone down to sleep, all but two were lost in a soporific stupor.

The dulcimer tw.a.n.ged again, and several things happened at once.

UrKachu swiveled angrily and shouted in Anglic- "Stof that infernal racket, now!"

Meanwhile, a tiny object sailed over the dying coals, toward the confused warriors. One of them snapped reflexively, taking it with her jaws. Almost instantly, her nostril flared and her neck stretched to full extension, trembling along its length. The urs began to wobble at the knees.

Sara would not have thought she could react so fast, scrambling backward with Prity, gathering up the blanket-swathed Jomah, hauling the sleeping boy to the rear of the tent. Swift as ghosts, Dedinger's men were already deploying in a crescent, surrounding the Urunthai, with arrows nocked and drawn.

"What's going on?" Jomah asked, rubbing his eyes.

The wobbly urs drifted to one side, fell against another, and collapsed, ribcage heaving slowly, heavily.

"Remain calm," Dedinger announced. "I urge you to lay down your weapons. You are in no condition to fight."

UrKachu stared blankly, dismayed by the sudden reversal of power. Her group had outnumbered the humans. But now her remaining followers stood in a cl.u.s.ter, unready, at the Earthlings' mercy. The Urunthai leader growled.

"So, in this (perfidious) treason, the nature of human (so-called)friendship is revealed."

"Yeah." Dedinger laughed, a little smugly. "As if you planned things any different, when the chance came. Anyway, there is no cause for panic over this. We'll still keep our side of the bargain, only as senior partners, with a few slight changes, such as the destination for tonight's march. Once there, we'll let you send a message-"

He might have meant to sound soothing, but the words only infuriated UrKachu, who cut in with a shrill battle cry, hurling herself toward Dedinger, unsheathed knives flashing.

"No!" screamed the Stranger in an outburst of reflex horror as feathered shafts sprouted from the thorax of the Urunthai leader. "No dammit! dammit! dammit!"

UrKachu's remaining followers followed her example, charging into a hail of arrows. Half were riddled during the first half dura. The survivors leaped among their bipedal foes, slashing and drawing some blood before being dragged down by weight of human numbers.

Finally, with no living Urunthai left on their feet, the panting, wild-eyed desert men began turning their knives on the unconscious ones, those whose drugged stupor never let them take part or defend themselves.

To the Stranger, this was the final straw. Screaming curses, he threw himself on the nearest human, throttling his neck ganglia. The hunter struggled briefly, then sagged with a moan. The star-man leaped at another, hurling streams of epithets.

Sara pushed Jomah toward the tent flap and cried-"Prity, take him to the rocks!"

In the blurry muddle of split instants, she saw three of Dedinger's hunters turn and a.s.sail the Stranger. One tumbled away, tossed by some tricky twist of the alien's body, while another found himself suddenly burdened with a new problem-Sara-hammering at his ribcage from behind.

If only I listened, when Dwer tried to teach me how to fight.

For a moment things went well. Sara's short-but-burly adversary groaned and turned around, only to catch her knee in the gut. That didn't stop the hard-muscled hunter, but it slowed him, letting Sara get in two more blows. Meanwhile, the Stranger threw his remaining foe aside in a dazed heap and started to turn, coming to her aid- The avalanche hit then. A tide of male-human wrath that dragged both of them down. Sara struck ground with enough force to knock the breath from her lungs. Someone yanked her arms back and sharp agony made her gasp, wondering if the limbs were about to tear off.

"Don't harm them, boys," Dedinger commanded. "I said ease off!"

Distantly, through a muzzy fog of pain, she heard blows landing as the former sage slapped and hauled his men back from the brink of murderous revenge. Desperately, Sara managed to swing her head around to see the Stranger, pinned down, red-faced, and bleeding from the nose, but well enough to keep up a faint, hoa.r.s.e stream of inventive profanity. The outpouring was as eloquently expressive, though not quite as fluent as song. Sara worried that shouting and straining so hard might reopen his injuries.

The leader of the human rebels knelt by the Stranger, taking his face in both hands.

"It's too bad you can't understand me, fella. I don't know what you did to the urs, but I truly am grateful. Made a complicated situation simple, is what it did. For that reason, and because your living carca.s.s is still valuable to us, I'll hold back my guys. But if you don't settle down, I may be forced to get unpleasant with your friend here."

With that he nodded pointedly at Sara.

The Stranger glanced at her, too, and somehow seemed to grasp the threat. His stream of scatological curses tapered, and he ceased heaving against the men holding him down. Sara felt relieved that he stopped straining so hard-and strangely moved to be the reason.

"That's better," Dedinger said in the same smooth, reasonable voice he had used before UrKachu's fatal charge. "Now, let's take a look at what you've got hidden in that handy little hole in your head."

The ex-sage began to peel back the Stranger's rewq, revealing the wound from which he had taken the mysterious pellets.

"No!" Sara shouted, despite sharp pain when two men yanked her arms. "You'll give him an infection!"

"Which his star-friends will cure, if they so choose, once we make our exchange," Dedinger answered. "Meanwhile, this stuff he was feeding the urs seems worth looking into. It could prove powerfully handy during the years ahead."

Dedinger had finished pulling back the rewq and was about to insert his hand, when a new voice broke in, whistling a trill-stream of rapid Galactic Two.

"Sara, I (earnestly) urge you to (swiftly) close your eyes!"

She turned her head and glimpsed Kurt, the Tarek Town exploser, holding a small brown tube. A burning string dangled from one end, giving off sparks at a furious pace. The exploser cranked his arm back and threw the tube in a high arc, at which point Kurt dove for cover.

Sara squeezed her eyes shut tight as Dedinger began to shout a warning to his men- A flash like a thousand lightning bolts filled all reality, stabbing through her eyelids. At the same instant, roaring noise shook her like a bird in a ligger's jaws, rolling the ma.s.s of sweaty men off, releasing her twisted arms, so that waves of relief clashed with agonizing sensory overload.

It was over almost the moment that it happened- except for howling reverberations, rebounding off the stony pillars that now could be seen towering over the shredded tent ... or perhaps they were shock waves hammering inside her own head. Hurriedly she fled the tangle of screaming men, who clutched their useless eyes. Blinking past purple spots, she made out one other human who could stand and see: Dedinger, who would also have understood Kurt's brief warning. The desert prophet peered ahead while holding forth a gleaming blade of Buyur metal.

He yelled past the bedlam in her ears and charged at Kurt, knocking the old man down before the exploser could bring a new weapon to bear. Sara recognized a pistol from pictures in ancient texts.

"So much for exploser neutrality!" Dedinger shouted, twisting Kurt's arm until the old man groaned and the weapon fell. "We should have searched you, and tradition be d.a.m.ned."

Overriding pain, Sara tried to spring at the ex-sage, but he lashed out with savage backhand, knocking her down amid a swirl of spinning stars. Consciousness wavered. Only gritty resolution let her rise again, turning on her knees to try one more time.

There came another flash-and-roar, as Dedinger fired the pistol just past her and then tried awkwardly to c.o.c.k for a second shot-before being bowled over by two hairy forms, hitting him from both sides. Sara somehow managed to fling herself into the fray, joining Ulgor and Prity in subduing the former scholar, whose wiry strength was astonishing for his age.

Fanaticism has rewards, she thought, as they finally managed to tie Dedinger's hands and feet.

Recovering his weapon, Kurt backed away, taking a rocky perch where he could watch the moaning remnants of the desert gang, as well as the surviving urs. Especially Ulgor. The tinker's sudden return might have been fortuitous, but that would not make him trust her.

A sticky sensation made Sara stare at her hands, trying to separate red stains from vision-blotches left by Kurt's stun bomb. The stains had the color and scent of blood.

It isn't me-and Ulgor wouldn 't bleed this shade of- It was Prity stanching a crimson flow from a deep gash in her side. Sara took the trembling little chimp into her arms and fought a sudden fit of weary sobs.

The wrecked tent was a horror scene of dead or delirious Urunthai and flash-blinded men. The Stranger seemed in better shape than most, when he finally staggered to his feet. At least he could see well enough to help Ulgor bind the arms of Dedinger's. crew, while young Jomah returned to hobble the legs of sedated urs. Still, it soon grew clear that the battered man from the stars could not hear a blessed sound.

Against every instinct that urged her to be thorough, Sara forced herself to make do with a pressure compress over Prity's wound. It did not seem immediately life-threatening, and someone else might yet be saved by quick action. So with the chimp's grunt of approval, she hurried over to one wheezing quadruped, a young urs thrashing feebly with an arrow through her neck, whose labored breathing made noisy, purple bubbles- and who died with a shuddering gasp of despair, before Sara could do a thing to help her.

Asx BATTLE-ECHOES GOUGED THE LAND, ONLY A FEW short duras ago. Firebolts lashed from heaven, scourging the Six, laying open flesh, chitin, and bone.

Traekis gushed molten wax across the tortured valley, or else burst aflame, ignited by searing beams.

Oh my rings, what images lay seared throughout our trembling core!

The dead.

The dying.

The prudent ones, who fled.

The rash heroes, who came.

Their blur-cloth tunics are now grimy with mud and grue, no longer quite as slippery to the eye. Young tree farmers and donkey-drivers. Simple keepers of lobster pens. Junior hands on the humblest fishing coracles. Volunteers who never imagined their weekend training might come to this.

Our brave militia, who charged into that maelstrom, that cauldron of slicing rays. Amateurs, soft and unready after generations of peace, who now wince silently, clenching their limbs while horrid wounds are dressed or while life slips away. Bearing agony with the gritty resolve of veterans, their suffering eased by the only balm that soothes.

Victory.

Was it only yesterday, my rings, that we feared for the Commons? Feared that it might fly apart in jealous hatreds fostered by crafty star-devils?

That dread fate may yet come to pa.s.s, along with a thousand other terrors. But not today. Right now the arrogant aliens stand captive, staring about in surprise, stripped of their G.o.dlike tools, their h.e.l.lish robots destroyed by the crude fire-tubes of our brave militia.

A day of reckoning may not be far off. It could swoop at any moment from an unforgiving sky.

Yet there is exhilaration. A sense of relief. The time of ambiguity is over. No more subtle games of misdirection and innuendo. No more pretense or intrigue. Ifni's dice have been shaken and cast. Even now they tumble across Jijo's holy ground. When they stop rolling, we will know.

Yes, my second ring. You are right to point this out. Not everyone shares a sense of grim elation. Some see in recent events cause for nihilism. A chance to settle old grudges, or to spread lawlessness across the land.

One vocal minority-"Friends of the Rothen"-demands the release of Ro-kenn. They advise throwing ourselves prostrate before his G.o.dlike mercy.

Others call for the hostages to be done away with at once.

"The starship may have means to track its lost members, " they claim, "perhaps by brain emanations, or body implants. The sole way to be sure is to grind their bones and sift the dust into a lava pool!"

These and other testy groups might think differently, if the full truth were told. If only we sages could divulge the plans already set in motion. But secrets are innately unfair. So we hold our peace.

To the folk of the Six, we say only this- "Go to your homes. See to your lattice screens and blur-webs. Prepare to fight if you can. To hide if you must.

"Be ready to die.

"Above all, keep faith with your neighbors-with the Scrolls-with Jijo.

"And wait."

Now our survivors hurry to pull down pavilions, to pack up valuables, to bear the wounded off on litters. Children of all races spend one sacred midura scouring the Glade for every sc.r.a.p of dross they can find. Alas, that midura is all we can spare for tradition. There will be no festive mulching ceremony. No gaudy caravan, bearing ribboned crates down to the sea and ships-the most joyous part of any Gathering.

Such a pity.

Anyway, the aliens' ruined station will take generations to haul away, one donkey-back at a time. That task must wait for after the crisis. If any of us remain alive.