"Well then. She'll have loyal troops looking for us all along the frontier. If we can get to her people, we can get you back to Oobii."

"If you can get me back to Oobii, it's show over for Nevil." It's what Ravna told them every night.

"Hmmm," emitted Amdi. "So what can we do that will-"

Ritl interrupted Amdi's thinking with a loud suggestion of her own. When it could, the creature would creep near them, quiet and innocent until she was unseemly close-and then insert herself into the conversation.

This time she got a laugh out of Jefri: "That almost makes sense, Amdi, at least if kherhogs had wings."

Amdi was not amused. He bounced to his feet. "She's just a damned troublemaker! Can't you see that?" The eight flounced off into the moonlight-spattered dark.

"He's getting even more sensitive about Ritl," said Ravna. "I wonder whether the Magnificent Amdiranifani is really acquiring a showman's ego."

"I heard that!" Amdi shot back at them. "If I can't think, I might as well do guard duty."

Remnant Screwfloss had returned from ranging around the camp. He was over by the kherhogs, setting down fodder for them. Now one of his heads turned to follow Amdi's departure. When he was done with the kherhogs, he settled down beneath the wagon and commented, "Ritl make him a fool." The remnant was speaking a fair amount of Samnorsk these days, though not with the teasing sarcasm of when he'd been whole.

Ravna looked around the wagon. Normally, Screwfloss staked down the singleton on the other side of the kherhogs. It was more peaceful that way. "Hei, Screwfloss. Didn't you have Ritl tethered?"

The pack cocked its heads, looked out from under the wagon in the opposite direction. Maybe he wasn't going to answer. But then he said, "She get loose."

Jefri gave a little laugh. "Ritl must be learning from your rope tricks, Ravna."

Ravna smiled back. "She's just a good wriggler." Ritl had slipped loose once or twice before; no one but Amdi seemed to get very excited about it. She looked across the dimly glowing embers at Jefri. "Could Ritl be a threat? Remasritlfeer was an enemy-maybe not as bad as Chitiratifor-but still one of Tycoon's henchpacks. Given the opportunity, won't she betray us?"

Even in the dimness, she could see the grin on Jefri's face. "Ah, paranoia speaks." He scooched around the dying fire in her direction. As usual, they had set their pallets out of arm's reach. With Amdi's eight filling the gap between them, there were plenty of warm bodies. Besides, the last few nights had ended in the usual unpleasant arguments. Last night was the first time Ravna ever heard the Blighter fleet called a rescue party. In a way, hearing Jefri say that had been more terrifying than all the rest of this ordeal.

Jefri warmed his hands above the glowing embers. "If and when we run into Tycoon, what Ritl would do is hard to say. Old Screwfloss said Remasritlfeer was one of Tycoon's top lieutenants. Depending on just who comes after us, it's quite possible Ritl would betray us-though I'll bet she's not smart enough to do much more than shout 'Hei, Boss, look here!'"

"Okay. I guess it is silly to worry about that here." She watched Jefri silently for few moments. She'd known him for ten years, had watched the loving child grow up to be their best explorer-and a man who believed the most terrible lies she could imagine.

Jefri looked up at her silence. "What?" he said. There was still a smile on his face, but she could see the wariness in his eyes.

If she said one wrong word, they would slip into another night of argument. But I have to try. "Jefri, we have this terrible disagreement about the Blight and Countermeasure. You know what I think; you know the sacrifices your parents made to escape the Blight. On the other side, there's-"

"There's Nevil, right, a certified monster." Jef's agreement was angry. "But so what? I remember the High Lab. And Down Here, I saw how Countermeasure murdered Pham. Even you admit that Countermeasure raised the Slowness, and probably destroyed civilization as far as we can see the stars on a clear night. What counts is not who's nice and who's not, Ravna; what counts is the truth."

"I'm not talking about being nice, Jefri! I'm talking about trustable observations. You were just a-"

"Just a young child? That's what you said last night!"

But that's what you were! And she would never forget how Jefri and Amdi had tried to comfort her after seeing Pham die. She hesitated, trying to think of something to say, something sensible, something that would make this go right. "Jef, have you ever thought that there might be existing facts, things to be discovered or tested, that might change your opinion?"

"You want me to put my beliefs under review? How very nice. Are you willing to do the same?"

"I-"

"Never mind. At this stage, what undiscovered evidence could there be?" Jefri turned back to the fire. He sat hunched forward, hands extended over the embers. He was silent for a long moment, then: "We're going to get you past Tycoon and Vendacious, safely back to Oobii. Then you'll do what you think is right. If you can't stop Nevil, I will get rid of him myself." His gaze returned to her face. "But you know what? There will still be a Disaster Study Group. And its new leader won't be Bili Yngva."

Ravna drowsed. The moon set and the fire's embers cooled to darkness. She heard an occasional snarfling snore from the kherhogs, but none of Ritl's irritating chatter. Eventually, she heard someone entering the campsite; that would be Amdi, come to wake the next sentry. The thought brought her almost fully awake. She usually took the second watch-though she was sure that neither Amdi nor Screwfloss trusted a human sentry. Some of them would be listening all through the night.

Faint and far away, she heard what might have been Ritl, but not quite as querulous as usual. Then the night exploded into hissing and squealing. Some number of creatures chased each other through the surrounding brush, fighting as they ran.

"Amdi!" shouted Jef. There was no answer, but Ravna heard somepack-Screwfloss?-scramble over the startled kherhogs and bound to the top of the circus wagon.

The shrieking continued, the noise coming together on the far side of the wagon.

Ravna kept one of the lamps with her at night. Now she shook it into surveillance mode. The light flickered in pseudo-random hops, scanning into the underbrush in a pattern that should confuse anyone trying to spot the source.

The sounds of the monster cat fight continued, but she saw no sign of attacking packs. If Ritl had betrayed them, it wasn't to a simple ambush.

"Let me point light." That was Screwfloss from atop the wagon, where the second lamp was stored. He swept the illumination onto something beyond the wagon. Looking beneath the wagon, Ravna saw Tinish legs scrambling around.

"That's part of Amdi!" Jefri started around the wagon. He had his crossbow up and cocked.

Two packs of four came racing round the wagon, one on each side. They ran towards each other, jaws snapping. All were dressed in plain workcloaks just like Amdi wore when they were on the road.

"Huh!" Jefri said. "Amdi?"

All eight collapsed in a heap. The lamplight swung in to spotlight the crowd. Indeed, this was exactly Amdi.

"Are you okay, Amdi?" Ravna knelt beside the pack, looking at each of him. There were cuts and scrapes. One of his ears was torn. "Who did this?" And is it still out there? But she could see that up on the wagon, all of Screwfloss was watching Amdi; he wasn't worried about an attack.

Amdi was hissing and sputtering, but she heard a high, keening whistle behind all his sounds. The pack was in terrible pain. Finally, he slipped into Samnorsk: "No attack. There was no attack. No one's sneaking up on us, though Screwfloss should take sentry duty." He emitted two or three chords. Screwfloss sang something back. The remnant dropped off the far side of the wagon and walked into the bushes.

Amdi wriggled miserably in the bright lamp light, exchanging looks with himself, darting glances at Jefri and Ravna. "Turn off the light, okay?"

Ravna did, and Amdi's voice continued in the darkness. "It was Ritl."

"I don't understand," said Ravna. "If there's no one else out there, how could she do so much harm?"

Ravna heard a muffled click, Jefri safing his crossbow. "I think it's more complicated than that," Jef said, and she heard him go to his knees beside the pack.

Amdi was making a strange medley of sounds. There was the whimpering, almost the sound of a human child. There were chords that she didn't understand, and there was the pack's little boy voice speaking in tones that were full of self-loathing: "The Ritl animal has been a troublemaker from the beginning. She is not smart, but she is always saying the wrong thing when I try to perform. You saw that too, right? She almost got us killed at Winch Top. At the same time, she is in my personal space every chance she gets."

Jefri's voice was soft: "She's a singleton, Amdi. She can't live apart."

The whimpering got a little louder. Ravna had a sense of quick motion within the pack, heard a pair of jaws snapping on air. Jefri made soothing sounds. "Don't be so hard on yourself, Amdi."

After a moment, the little boy voice continued, "Sigh. I knew Ritl was an issue the moment she turned up, but I thought-I hoped it would be like in the romances. Ritl would make Screwfloss whole again! It would have solved both their problems. Instead, that stupid remnant has no interest in her. And Ritl doesn't like Screwfloss either. Then she made, um, advances towards me. But so what, I thought. I am so perfectly matched. There is nothing that having another member could cause me except harm."

Amdi didn't say anything for a moment, though the whimpering continued. "... Tonight I was strung out all the way around the campsite. It's really kind of an interesting way to be. I get very stupid, but I can see so much and the thoughts rattle around one step at a time, each of me adding a little insight." The whimpering got louder. It wasn't a group sound; it was coming from the three members hunched down closest to the ground. "Ritl came in among me. She didn't sneak up exactly; I knew she was there. She started bothering the parts of me..." Amdi's voice rose into keening: "the parts who like her." He twisted around, jaws snapping. Jefri reached down, risking some nasty cuts to caress a head here and there. After a moment, coherence returned to the eightsome. "Ritl is tearing me apart!"

CHAPTER 30.

The maps showed a town thirty kilometers up the road. There were nearer ones on other roads, but this was their best bet for a full provisioning. From there, they could sneak forward, scouting Woodcarver's border forts for the safest one to approach.

This would be their last show, and then the real climax would be ahead. Meanwhile ...

Ravna rode atop the wagon. Nominally, she was driving, though she suspected that all by herself, Ravna-from-the-stars could not have managed a team of four kherhogs. Their cooperation was more likely due to Remnant Screwfloss, who was almost always here and there around the animals, bullying them along.

Jefri and Amdi walked together, dropping further back than usual, their forms almost lost in the morning fog. The eightsome was clustered tight, the posture a pack normally used when in a crowd or coping with bad acoustics or needing to do hard thinking. The fog alone couldn't account for that posture. Since his midnight collapse, the pack had been like this, cheerless and quiet, talking in low tones to his Best Friend.

Ravna gave the reins a tentative slap, just to let the kherhogs know that she wasn't asleep. She glanced at her companion atop the wagon. "So is that what you are, Ritl? A pack wrecker?"

Ritl cocked her head toward Ravna. It was hard to see any expression in a singleton's posture, but the animal seemed to have some understanding. Is she laughing at me? This morning, Ritl's leash was tied short to the cargo railing behind the driver's bench. Getting her up here had been a struggle. She seemed to think that after last night's shenanigans she had achieved privileged status. Her hissing complaints had continued some minutes after they got on the road. Then she had settled into near silence, staring back along the road in Amdi's direction. Every so often Ravna felt a buzzing sensation through the wood of the driver's bench, probably a side effect of Ritl's shouting ultrasonic endearments.

Ravna continued her one-sided conversation with the creature: "You know, among humans, it's considered very bad form to break up another's relationship, even if you're needy yourself."

"Very bad form, very bad form," Ritl looped on the phrase a few times. Then her gaze returned to the object of her immoral advances.

Calling Ritl a "pack wrecker" was not just a figure of speech. Poor Amdiranifani was simply too big to take on another member. That's what he claimed, anyway, and Jefri agreed. Amdi probably couldn't even retain a puppy born of his own pack. Accepting an unrelated adult member would surely split the eightsome. The three male members who were enamored of Ritl would break away. Amdi said that one female was wavering. Either possibility would be the end of Amdi.

Screwfloss shouted something at her, and abruptly Ravna was brought back to the present. The kherhogs were making frightened noises and pulling the wagon to the side, into the undergrowth. Screwfloss had abandoned the animals and circled behind the wagon. Whatever he was saying had brought Jefri and Amdi running forward.

Ravna struggled with the reins. The roadside brush hid a gully and deep mud. She rose from the bench, bracing her legs and pulling as hard as she could at the reins. "Need some help here!" Then she heard the sound. It came out of the fog ahead, the buzz of steam induction engines. Scrupilo's airship! The aircraft was still hidden in the mists, but it was getting closer.

Amdi and Jefri ran past the wagon. "We should get off the road, Ravna," Jef called to her, but softly. Ritl piped up with complaints. Amdi hissed a "be quiet!" at the singleton, and for a wonder, it fell silent.

So now it was Ravna on the reins, and Screwfloss and Jefri and Amdi up ahead guiding the kherhogs into the brush. Fortunately, this was the general direction the animals wanted to go. They just needed help negotiating the roadside gully.

Meantime, the sound of Scrupilo's steam engines had grown louder. Was this salvation, or Nevil's gang? She put the question on hold as the wagon tilted sideways. She didn't quite lose the reins, but now she was aware how easily she might be dumped and crushed.

Then the front wheels were climbing over the far edge of the gully, and she was back in her seat. Leafy branches swept the top of the wagon. Without thinking, she reached up to rescue Ritl from her perch at the top. They huddled together beneath the scraping branches.

"Sorry," came Jef's voice. "I didn't realize the fit was so tight."

"We're fine." Ravna pushed at the heavy, wet foliage. They were well protected against eyeball detection from above. She started down the ladder-stairs from the driver's seat. Behind her, Ritl was complaining. The singleton's voice was still soft, but growing toward loudness. "Okay, you can come, too." Ravna unlatched the leash from the wagon. Ritl immediately scrambled across her shoulders and leaped to the ground.

A moment later, Ravna was standing ankle-deep in the mud. She backed away from the wagon, staring upwards. The buzz of the airship's steam engines was still growing, but with the fog and forest cover she couldn't see anything.

"Amdi!" Jefri's voice was scarcely more than a whisper. "Spread out and get a look-listen."

But Amdi stayed heads together, hissing softly at Ritl. "I can't move with that animal so close," the pack said. "She'd come between me."

Okay ... Ravna went back along the way the wagon had come. If the airship had real surveillance gear, then hiding the wagon was a waste of time. If not, well, she might be able to learn more about them without revealing herself. She moved along the gully, staying under the thickest of the brush, but looking for a view of the sky.

Something scuttled through the brush around her: three, no, all four of Screwfloss. One of him nipped at her pants leg, drawing her down to an opening the pack had found. She went to her hands and knees and followed him up to the edge of the road. Yeah. Ahead was the perfect spy hole.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, the sound of steam induction engines flying just a few meters overhead, moving south but no faster than a human could run. She reached the break in the bushes and cautiously looked out, just in time to see ... the form of the Eyes Above 2 disappearing into the murk, spinning out a helix of foggy spume behind it. Powers take it! A second earlier and she might have seen recognizable faces! Around her, Screwfloss poked a couple heads into the opening. She held her breath for a long moment, listening for any sign that the airship might be turning back; their wagon's maneuvers would have left signs that might be visible from above.

For better or worse, the engine sounds became steadily fainter, vanishing into the south. They stayed low in the dripping foliage for some minutes, but finally even Screwfloss seemed to give up on the possibility of a return. They stumped back to the wagon, where everyone was full of questions.

"We were too far away to see or hear anything," said Amdi. "Did you?"

"You didn't hail them," said Jefri. "Was it Nevil's people?"

"I couldn't see. Sorry. Maybe I was too cautious." Maybe I should have just run out into the road. Very few Deniers could be bothered with primitive gadgetry; surely, Scrupilo would have had a crew aboard.

Amdi and Screwfloss were gobbling back and forth. Ritl stood unseemly close to the eightsome, injecting noise into the conversation. Abruptly, Amdi turned on the interloper, screeching and snapping at it. "Tie it up! I don't have to be nice to it anymore!"

The singleton danced back out of everyone's reach, making sounds that seemed mocking even to Ravna. Catch me if you can!

Jefri leaned down and snatched the singleton's leash where it lay near his feet. He gave it a wiggle, catching Ritl's attention. The animal shot him a wide-eyed glare, then raced around Amdi, trying to trap the pack's legs in the leash. This not being a circus act, Jefri and Amdi managed to outwit the creature, and in a few moments it was bundled-clawing and biting and squawking-up the ladder-stairs to its tie-down point atop the wagon.

"Okay then," said Amdi, ignoring the continuing complaints. "Screwfloss was listening to the flier while Ravna was watching it. He says there were Tines aboard."

Jefri was partway down the ladder. He stopped, considering. "He heard mindsounds?"

"No, it was too far away and humid for that. But he heard Interpack speech."

"I didn't hear any voices," said Ravna. "But that's not surprising. Did he recognize anyone? What were they saying?"

Screwfloss had been following, heads cocking back and forth. Now he answered in Samnorsk: "No sense. No words. But the sound is like two-legs can't make."

Ravna squatted down by the remnant. "Did you hear any humans?"

Screwfloss thought a moment. "No." He gobbled some elaboration.

"He says that if there were any humans aboard, they didn't say anything during the time he had good hearing, and that was at least two minutes."

Ravna stifled an unhappy laugh. "I should have waved them down."

"They'll be back, Rav."

"Maybe. Or maybe they'll just keep searching south. Either way ... I don't see how it changes things now.

Twice that morning, Amdi and Screwfloss claimed they heard the sound of the airship. Both packs spread out from the sides of the road, trying to get a baseline on the sound. All they could be sure of was that the aircraft was far to the south.

Meantime, they had their final show to prep for. As the fog gave way to a misty rain, Jefri and Ravna climbed into the wagon and worked on the costumes and props. Screwfloss drove the kherhogs, and he and Amdi alternated riding on the top of the wagon-except that when Amdi was up there, Ritl was exiled to walk on a leash behind the carriage.

Mostly Amdi seemed to be worrying about what they'd do after this show, how to get out of town and thence to the border with the Domain.

Ravna smiled as she polished the lamp emitters. "Hei Amdi, if this were a tenday ago, your stage fright is all we'd be hearing about."

Amdi's little boy voice drifted through the open window of the cab: "Oh, I still have stage fright, but now it's a solvable problem, like math of tractable complexity." He was silent for a second or two. "Ritl is a different sort of problem. If I can just keep away from her, I think I can stay together. And as long as I can stay together, I can manage easy problems like stage fright." He was silent for a longer time, and then, "I want to thank you for giving me courage, Ravna. I was ready to give up back at Winch Top."