“I think we’re getting there, sir,” Abner said over the speaker. “I see the stream.”

  I looked down through the side window and over the flare for the car’s plenum chamber, but that was at such an angle that I could see only the expanse of feathery, dark green foliage. The driver could see straight down through his clear nose panel.

  The car slowed and descended. The canopy was over a hundred feet from the ground with occasional emergents half again that high.

  Abner slid us down through the boundary between treetops on opposite sides of a watercourse. The branches didn’t interlock though the canopies bulged into the spaces between trees across the water.

  Branch tips brushed the plenum chamber but nothing actually got into the fans. Abner was skilled and the vehicle probably had guards on the output side. That would rob them of some efficiency but it was necessary if Platt made landings like this as a regular matter.

  I thought we were going to land on the stream bank but instead Abner kept us twenty feet in the air and eased inland over the heavy growth fringing the steam. The slight thinning of vegetation that allowed the aircar to enter the forest also let in enough light. The undergrowth on the streambanks was a tangle which the shadows only a dozen feet away smothered.

  The windows in the passenger compartment were down—mine as well, though I didn’t know where the control was. The humid air smelled alive and thick. Abner set us down and killed the fans. They hissed faintly as they spun down.

  Abner jumped out with his carbine and tried to look in all directions. I followed Riddle out our side of the car. He had the luggage compartment open and had taken out his carbine.

  “I’ll get mine,” I said sharply as he reached for the shotgun. It had been made for me when I’d turned eleven, a gift from my father. Riddle strode into the forest. Platt and Abner were several paces ahead, and Easton followed Platt closely like a trained dog heeling.

  I stayed well behind. I hadn’t been out with any of these men before and I didn’t trust their gun handling. Not only did I not want to be in front of one of them holding an automatic carbine, I was ready to throw myself flat if one of them spun around while trying to follow a flying bird.

  I still didn’t know what we were after. I was carrying number four shot in a high-energy cartridge. I moved up a trifle and called quietly to Platt, “Should I load solids?”

  Easton turned and hissed, “Shush, you fool!”

  Platt shouldered his carbine and fired a short burst. There was a scream. Platt and Abner ran forward and the other two locals joined them, spreading out slightly.

  I followed. The scream had sounded human.

  The forest opened suddenly into a bright patch. The tree bark had been ringed to kill the trees. The boles remained like the pillars of a roofless temple. With no foliage above, enough light reached the ground to support patches of what I thought was maize. The only grain I’d seen in the compound around Ssu-lung was rice.

  There were huts in the cleared area, beehive shapes about ten feet in diameter made of broad leaves on a framework of bent saplings. In back of the nearest hut, two women had been kneading something in a log trough. They had both fallen when Platt fired, but one of them was trying to get up and the infant in a fabric carrier on the back of the other was shrieking.

  Platt aimed at the wounded woman. “What the hell are you doing?” I shouted and jerked up the muzzle of Platt’s carbine. “That’s a woman!”

  “If we didn’t keep the numbers down, they’d overrun us!” Platt said. “They’re animals!”

  Riddle and Easton were firing deeper in the settlement. They were both carrying bandoliers with extra loading tubes, which had puzzled me at the time. Now I understood.

  Abner bent over the dead woman and brought the butt of his carbine down on the infant’s skull, silencing it. “Stop this!” I shouted. “They’re people!”

  Platt jerked free and shot the wounded woman twice more through the body. I lunged at him but Abner grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me around. Platt must have buttstroked me from behind because everything went white and my limbs went rubbery.

  As I fell forward, a thrown club hit Abner in the temple. Platt whirled but my outstretched hand fouled his carbine. I hit the ground and lost consciousness completely.

  The last thing I saw was a nude man grappling with Platt.

  * * *

  Rick Grenville had expected to be back by early afternoon, but it was almost sundown before he strolled up the Far Traveller’s stern boarding ramp. Soames, whom he’d been training to sound with a pinnace, was a capable bosun’s mate and even well educated for a spacer, but his astrogation had proven so consistently wrongheaded that Rick wondered if there was something organically wrong with the man. His tendency to add when he should subtract and adjust right when he meant left was more consistent than random.

  Rick had finally taken the controls himself and brought Gamma back down to Otko, having proven to his own satisfaction that Soames had no talent whatever for astrogation. For some reason the fellow wanted to remain on the rotation for course soundings. It would be Captain Bolton’s decision, but it seemed pretty clear to Rick.

  An aircar came in from the south and landed while Rick was still on the boarding bridge. He thought about it for a half second, then went into the transport bay instead of up to the bridge to report back formally. The trike was there but the tech on duty hadn’t seen Kent, so Rick went on the Bio Section where he found the driver chatting with Mahaffy.

  “Hey, Kent,” Rick said. “Going to pick up Lord Harper?”

  Kent straightened. “As soon as he calls, sir,” he said.

  “I’m off right now,” Rick said, which was almost true. “I saw the aircar land. If you like, I’ll run over to Platt’s myself. I just feel like chatting with a friend. It’s kinda been one of those days.”

  “Be my guest, El-Tee,” Kent said. “She’s got a full tank.”

  * * *

  Rick motored up the harbor road at a leisurely pace, sharing the pavement with trucks and with cyclos very similar to his trike but with wheels in back instead of treads. There were probably aircars on Otko besides Platt’s but the only other one he’d seen belonged to the Shining compound on the east side of the harbor.

  A ground car from the house side reached the gate of the Platt compound just as the trike arrived on the road. An aircar rested on the lawn in front of the house. Rick waited for the ground car to exit, then started to pull in. The guard tried to close the gate, but Rick already had the trike’s front wheel into the opening.

  “I’m here to pick up Lieutenant Harper,” Rick said. He wondered if he should have informed Platt that he was coming. The household staff hadn’t gotten the word, obviously.

  “Look, I don’t know if I can let you in right now…?” the guard said.

  “Well, you can let me in,” Rick said, raising his voice a bit. “Or else I can come back in a pinnace and land on the front lawn. There won’t be much lawn left if I do that, but whichever way you want it. I’m an officer of the RCN and I am coming in, one way or the other.”

  He could have got Kent to bring him in one of the ship’s aircars, but he was peeved by this officious servant. Did he look like a savage with a bone through his nose to be barred from the compound for safety’s sake?

  The guard pushed the gate leaf wide again. Rick puttered through. He pulled up at the foot of the steps. Instead of going to the door, he called to the driver who was getting into the cab, “Say? I’m here to pick up Lord Harper. Will you fetch him?”

  The driver’s head was bandaged. Blood was leaking through, so the injury must be recent.

  “Look, I don’t know anything about this Harper,” he said angrily. “Go ask somebody inside if you want to.”

  He opened the door of the cab.

  “Look, buddy!” Rick said. “He went hunting with your boss this morning. You carried him! I’m here to pick him up, and I don’t want a runaround!”

  “Master Platt intended to go hunting this morning,” the driver said, “but instead he had a stroke and died. Go ask inside if you don’t believe me. If your Lord Harper actually did come here, he must have walked back.”

  He threw himself into the cab and switched on the engines. If Rick had wanted to continue the conversation, the fan howl deafened anyone standing close.

  The aircar wobbled into the sky. Had the driver been a member of the Fart’s crew, Rick would have ordered him to a medicomp as clearly unfit for duty.

  Rick considered options. He doubted he’d learn more in the house than he had from the driver, though they might be more polite about it.

  He realized that Kent had said he dropped Harry off but hadn’t said that he had stayed to watch the car take off with Harry aboard. Could something have happened to Harry walking along the harbor road?

  Rick hadn’t shut off the trike’s little diesel. He swung around in the driveway. He wanted to talk to people aboard the Far Traveller, to Kent and to Captain Bolton; and also to Technician Joss.

  * * *

  I came around slowly. My face was on the ground. My head hurt, and it hurt a great deal worse when I tried to turn it. I touched the back of my head without moving anything but my right arm and found that touching my scalp hurt almost as much as turning my head. When I brought my hand back there was blood on the fingertips.

  I remembered the blow to the back of my head. A lot of memory returned in a rush. I got my hands and knees under me slowly and carefully. My head throbbed so badly that my vision blurred with each pulse.

  The bodies of the two women and the infant lay by the trough where I’d seen them killed.

  Abner was gone. So was Platt but there was a bloody patch several feet in diameter on the ground where I’d last seen him standing. Two men had walked in the blood, and their footprints led beyond in the direction where we’d left the aircar.

  The guns were gone, including the shotgun; though I still had the reloads in my shooting vest. I walked toward where we’d landed. I found two splotches of blood on the leaf litter, probably where Easton and Riddle had rested the body.

  No one could have lost that much blood and still be alive.

  The aircar was gone. Either Abner had survived the clout on the head he’d taken, or one of the hunters could fly an aircar.

  I took a deep breath and leaned my weight on a fallen tree trunk. When I stopped moving, my stomach settled.

  I walked back to the village. The relatively open sky felt good.

  There were seven huts. The bodies of nineteen adults were scattered around them and there were about a dozen children. Many of the dead had been wounded and then finished off, either by a long burst of shots in the chest or a single round through the head.

  Those were the adults. The heads of the younger children had been crushed, the way Abner had finished off the infant before I tried to intervene. Two of the men carried knives in wooden sheaths. I looked at one. It was made from a section of leaf spring. There was a belt woven from vines and I tried to put it on. The belt was too small for my waist, so I hung it over my left shoulder.

  I searched the houses. I found wooden water tubs in each. Each had a gourd ladle, but I didn’t find any small container in which I could carry water away. I drank deeply from the first one, though. My throat felt dusty until the first sip, and the water settled my stomach as well.

  My head still hurt.

  Most houses had one or more pieces of black and gray pottery like those I’d admired at Platt’s house. More important suddenly was the fabric bag of corn meal mush. Excess water had leaked out through the close weave. I tried a handful and liked it.

  I had a long way to walk, after all.

  Riddle and Easton had left me to die—or maybe thought I was dead. In any case, they weren’t coming back for me. My handheld had to be within a mile or so of a receiver for anyone to hear me.

  The handheld gave me direction, though. I could have set it to guide me straight to the Far Traveller, but I hadn’t. All I knew was that I was south of Ssu-lung and that if hiked far enough I would reach the sea. Then I would have to guess whether to turn east or west, but I’d deal with that when I got there.

  This was a bloody awful situation, but complaining wasn’t going to help. I drank more water, then started hiking through the trees. The handheld kept me from curving into a circle, and I tried to go around each tree bole in the opposite direction: clockwise one time, and counter-clockwise the next.

  * * *

  I’d been hiking about three hours—the handheld would have told me precisely, but why bother?—when I followed a trail through unusually thick undergrowth and realized from the brighter sky ahead of me that I was coming to another watercourse. I wondered if it could be the one by which we’d entered the forest. I was walking in a different direction, but I could only guess at how streams meandered in this jungle.

  I felt a tug on my leading arm and thought I’d brushed a thorn. Then I heard the faint swish behind me. The deadfall hit me in the middle of the back, knocking me forward.

  The blow set off my headache again. I vomited before I could even start to deal with my other problems. I spared a moment to recall the club knocking Abner down and to hope that he was in shape as miserable as mine.

  I lurched up into kneeling on all fours. I closed my eyes. I think I was unconsciously trying to keep my brains from leaking out. The pain was making me nauseous. I pulled against the gripping vine which held my right arm. I managed to draw the knife and rotated my right wrist to saw at the vine. The knife wasn’t particularly sharp, and when I managed to cut into the vine, more gluey sap oozed out and quickly stuck my hand to the knife hilt and the knife to the vine.

  The sap was hardening. I paused for a moment to think, but time was obviously limited and I couldn’t turn my head enough to see how I was being held.

  I tried pulling my body loose, forcing my way forward against the grip holding my vest and shirt. I wondered if I could escape by leaving my clothes behind, but I quickly realized that the sticky mass gripped parts of my torso also. I probably could pull free, but I’d leave large swatches of skin behind. Apart from the pain, I’d lose enough blood to be dangerous.

  A native suddenly came through the brush ahead of me as easily as if he were smoke drifting through the stems and thorns. He held my shotgun.

  The native squatted down to put his face on a level with mine. “Why are you here?” he said.

  I swallowed. The native must have been very confident about the strength of the adhesive in his trap.

  “I came to hunt,” I said. “Birds and animals. Not people. The people I was with intended to hunt people, but I didn’t know until we were here.”

  I took a deep breath and said, “Where I live, people don’t hunt people. I’m sorry this happened.”

  The Almighty knew that was the truth. I was also sorry that I was trapped and at the mercy of someone who’d just watched the men I was with massacre his family, but that probably went without saying.

  I smiled. That probably surprised the native. It certainly wasn’t what I’d expected to do, but it’d struck me that he had every reason to feel confident with his adhesive.

  “I will take the knife,” the native said. He took a bitter-smelling cloth out of the container on his belt it had been sealed in.

  “I can’t let go of it,” I said, but he took my hand firmly through the cloth he was holding. When I wiggled my fingers and found the adhesive was loosening. I was able to pull them away from the knife hilt. The native took it.

  “The gun you have there was given me by my father when I came of age,” I said. “It’s a very good gun, but is there anything I could trade you for it?”

  I was getting ahead of myself here—I still had a long hike ahead of me—but things were moving in a good direction.

  The native moved behind me. He’d thrust his cloth into its container and I smelled the astringent fluid as he took it out again. I felt the liquid on my back as he worked on the trap where it caught my bare skin.

  “You are here to hunt birds and animals?” the native said.

  “Yes, just that,” I said. “Well, crystal buildings, but I didn’t expect to find those.”

  “What will you do now?” the native said.

  The deadfall pulled away from the skin of my back though it still clung to my vest and the loose shirt I was wearing.

  “I’ll hike back to Ssu-lung,” I said.

  “What then?” said the native. He seemed to be working on my vest but I didn’t try to pull on it.

  “Then I’ll talk to the people who brought me here to murder human beings,” I said. “I’ll have friends with me when I do that. What happens after that depends on circumstances. And whether I’m still alive.”

  I thought about Joyeuse and Witmer and the way Captain Bolton had ordered the Far Traveller in to Island 23. I’d have friends. I’m RCN.

  “You will not come back here?” he said. My left arm was now free. The native had refreshed his rag from the container twice more. I wondered how much of the bitter liquid he carried. He must be used to releasing game from his traps, but he probably didn’t normally care about how painful the process was for his victims.

  “No, I won’t come back,” I said. “I’m sorry I came this time. Very sorry.”

  “There is a crystal hut,” the native said.

  “What?” I said as I stood up.

  The native had vanished. I didn’t even know which direction he had gone.

  There was a roar of fans. An aircar plowed through the heavy brush at the edge of the watercourse. It had come in so close that the top of a small tree knocked me down. The branches were wrapped with vines but these were not beaded with sticky sap.

  I struggled to my feet. I saw the muzzle of my shotgun sticking up from the brush. I drew it out carefully.

  Kent and Rick forced their way through the brush to me. Both carried submachine guns. Menta was working his way gingerly through the brush. The signals assistant also carried a submachine gun, but he didn’t look comfortable with it.