"Gotcha," Sarah said and closing her eyes, she turned herself around and pointed. When she opened them, her finger directed her to one of the side aisles. "C'mon, Kris."

Kris was still chuckling at Sarah's whimsical manner of choosing when they heaved a crate to the ground and opened it.

"Lord love us, how're we going to sort this mess out?" she said looking at the tumbled collection: books with spines bent and pages crumbled, all heaped together. A few loose pages only added to the tribulations of transfer.

"By starting at the top and working down. I'll get a few of those shelves over here/' Kris suggested, going over to one side where she'd seen the empty shelving, "and separate as we go."

"Good thinking/' and Sarah sat herself down and started pulling out books.

However, they had "unerringly," as Sarah remarked, migrated to a whole case full of mysteries and romances. Their conscientious efforts to perform their assigned task were interrupted by seeing books they either recognized or titles that looked interesting.

"A new Hillerman," Sarah crowed and settled against the back of the crate, shamelessly reading her find. "I'll just read a few pages..."

Kris worked more diligently but not much longer because she found an Elizabeth Peters' Amelia yarn and she, too, couldn't resist reading "just a few pages..."

"Ah, Doctor Hessian, have you come to help shelve books?"They both heard Dorothy say.

When Kris would have moved guiltily back to unpacking, Sarah grabbed her arm and whispered at her.

"No, let's just listen," Sarah said in a very low voice. "Dorothy's been trying to pin him down since he got his mind back. He wants all the Victims to undergo proper Freudian sessions. He feels that he should be in charge of the treatment team, not Dorothy."

"Are you Miss Dwardie..."

"Doctor Dwardie, Doctor Hessian;' Dorothy replied calmly but there was a slight edge to her voice that alerted both Kris and Sarah. Kris wouk have risen but Sarah grabbed her by the arm, pressing her back against the crate.

"You've made a remarkable recovery;' said Dorothy with apparent plea sure.

Sounds like "grumph grumph" and an audible "be that as it may" seemed to indicate that this Dr. Hessian was not in complete accord. His raspy baritone gave Kris a mental image of a portly man of advanced years, probably balding, overweight, and overbearing.

"I was told that there had been new additions to the library and wished to avail myself of some suitable reading material."

"Oh.> Were you not also told that your help in cataloging our new shipment would be sincerely appreciated?"

"Shelving? Books?" was the pompous and astonished reply. Kris thought he sounded remarkably like Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest, declaiming: "Handbag? Station?"

"Doctor Hessian, we all do community work.. :'

"He's from the Freudian school of psychology," Sarah whispered to Kris. "Dorothy's a social learning psychologist... completely opposite to him."

"The community work;' Dr. Hessian went on inexorably, "for which I am eminently qualified is to help those Victims still in severe mental distress.

I am quite willing to allot all the time necessary with some of the more prestigious Victims whom I have recognized, despite their appalling ordeals. I can certainly provide blueprints of the underlying psychody-namic conflicts of their conditions."

"We know what happened to them, Doctor Hessian. As it happened to you, and it is quite a triumph to see you walking about and conversing with everyone. Quite normal again."

"Normal? Normal?" the second repetition was louder than the first.

"What is normal... ah..."

"Doctor Dwardie," Dorothy put in gently. "Shall we take a walk, Doctor Hessian? I think the shelving of the books can wait."

Kris looked chagrined and Sarah evidently felt the same way for they were obviously not supposed to know what Dorothy needed to tell Hessian.

Books in hand, they crept quietly out by way of the tarpaulin.

Although Dorothy had seen the slight ripple of the tarpaulin, she wanted to continue this discussion outside, where there was no danger of them being overheard. Hessian, responding to a tug on his arm, followed her out of the library, saying as they went, "My normal self scarcely compares with anyone else's so-called 'normal state; "and "certainly anyone here" lingered in the air as if the doctor had spoken aloud. "I have only just begun to recall how exceptional my normal self is. You cannot expect... me... to shelve books?"

"If I can do it, why should it be beneath your capabilities, Dr. Hessian?"

"Now, just a moment, young woman," and his voice dripped with opprobrium.

"Doctor Dwardie, Doctor Hessian," Dorothy said firmly but kindly.

"This colony survives because everyone... everyone... is willing to do the basic tasks as well as the application of their previous profession, whatever that might have been. My entire team looks forward to your helping us with the psychological treatment of the remaining Victims. Treating trauma response has been such an overwhelming task that even I have been doing this, as a much needed change of pace. There are so many more Victims," and her voice was not exactly imploring him to be reasonable, as encouraging him, "than we can effectively treat with so few psychologists, psychiatrists, nurses. Will you join our treatment team, Doctor Hessian?"

"Arumph. Be part of a team?" and his voice and manner reminded Dorothy of the English actor Robert Morley at his most pompous and petulant. "You're not serious? I hardly think so. Not with my exemplary qualifications."

Fortunately, there were few people around as dusk settled over Retreat so she steered him to the flagstone path that would eventually lead to his current residence.

"Yes, they certainly are, Doctor Hessian," Dorothy said warmly. "I am quite familiar with your professional background. However, the psycho-' logical team here is under my direction and we have designed a multi-modal treatment program, which has indeed healed the trauma of many of the Victims. While your work within the psychoanalytic community is a valuable asset to the field, we have employed a social learning framework here because of its efficacy with psychological trauma:'

"And I would, I opine, have to use..." and once again Dorothy was treated to the magnificent disdain he could inject into such a small word, "this... this multi-modal treatment?"

"Yes, you would, since we have found it to be so effective. I worked with trauma units before I was... dropped here. But undoubtedly you would not be aware of my professional work in that area:'

"No, I am not," he said in a flat discounting of any expertise she might have. "Especially since you now have someone of my stature in the field.

Surely you realize that a change of treatment models would benefit those still in the grip of what appears to be catatonia. When the main troops ar-five, as it were," and his supercilious tone suggested that he was smiling con-descendingly at Dorothy. "... the reserves are no longer needed."

Dorothy was undaunted. "Let's take a stab at this situation from the viewpoint of research, and see what happens. I understand that it is probably a shock for you to discover that there are other treatment models with empirical efficacy greater than the one you are most familiar with and have evidently spent most of your life studying. I know, for example, that your resume includes eight books on the life and work of Freud in theory and psychoanalysis. I really do believe that you will be a tremendous asset to the Victims."

There was no immediate response by Dr. Hessian.

"Doctor Hessian, please don't misunderstand me. I am not implying any undervaluing of Sigmund Freud or the power of his work. I think that Freud was one of the greatest thinkers of all time in the study of nervous disorders. It's just that we are using a model with proven efficacy, and the model your work is based in is most applicable to a different treatment problem--not neurosis. We're dealing with deep mental trauma, not neuroses."

His earlier long stride, as if he had intended to outwalk her, had shortened.

Now he stood, head down, pulling at his lips.

"I doubt that you and I, Doctor Dwardie, can ever work together with any degree of mutual respect, much less find a basis for a proper course of treatment for these unfortunate Victims."

"I can accept that, although with great regret, Doctor Hessian. No, please don't go yet. There is one trauma case I'd like a chance to discuss with you. It was one that baffled all of us."

"Oh?"

"Yes, now do sit down, Doctor Hessian," and she indicated a strategically placed stone bench that had a magnificent view of the Bay, "this might take a little time."

"I should imagine so."

"Well," and Dorothy seemed to be taking a breath before plunging into this case. "There is a professional woman, Doctor K a psychologist of exceptional brilliance--whose case, though successful, was very difficult. She experienced the mind-wipe shortly after a series of Victim deaths, or so one observer tells us. These had resulted from the effects of the modulated electrical current level. Some of the early deaths were those who had been trained as neuropsychologists although leading professionals of all branches of sciences also were among the dead."

"Yes, I had heard that," Dr. Hessian was willing to admit, "from talks with Doctor Seissmann. Evidently Doctor Stanley Kessler was one. Tragic loss to the field."

"I agree," Dorothy said. "From various sources, we did learn that the Eosi reduced the current to prevent additional deaths due to central nervous system overload. Unfortunately the reason was less humanitarian than selfish. The Eosi were killing before they could complete the retrieval process that would extract the information they wanted. To be useful, the subject had to remain in a state of altered consciousness, therefore alive, during the probe."

"What could be their interest in neuropsychology?" Dr. Hessian asked.

"This is theory, of course, because they mind-wiped leading profes-sionMs and state officials on a random basis but it might have to do with increasing the compliance level of the races they have dominated. They have had an unusual amount of resistance from Earth's races and they may well have been trying to find a way to disempower their ability to resist. Just 'turn them off; so to speak, by inhibiting or altering the synaptic receptor response.

It would have the same effect as removing the drive unit from a computer--you can ptmch the keys but nothing will happen. For some reason, and fortunately for the rest of those subjected to the mind-wipe, the Eosi went off on another tact of mental exploration entirely. Or the percentage of death was discouraging."

"What happened to those who were so examined?"

"Some experienced organic damage to both frontal lobes from experimental current levels. Still others were left with the effects of psychological trauma and some had both. In addition, many have had survivor guilt, as they were aware of the eminence of many that died. They have, quite naturally, questioned their own worth at having remained alive. Others grieved.

Actually, in the case of Doctor K, there was some of both."

"Tell me more," said Dr. Hessian and, to Kris and Sarah, he sounded both curious and smug.

"Our patient, Doctor K, heard of the deaths of several such scientists, colleagues at the university, and prior to her own ordeal under Eosian instrument.

And, while the mind-wipe current level had been reduced and no further deaths resulted, she was severely traumatized. Having the power of her mind stolen by ruthless aliens who had strapped her into a chair and assaulted her with a searing blue beam of bright, laserbrine light was devastating.

She had flashbacks of the blue beam following her, aimed directly at the forebrain, entering her head while she was physically and psycholog ically paralyzed, unable to escape."

"Hmmm. Could cause severe neuroses, indeed." He cleared his throat.

"You have told me about the trauma Doctor K experienced. Now I'd like to know something about her development history, psychological defenses, and pre-morbid adjustment level."

Dorothy took a deep breath as she was coming to the difficult part.

"Pre-morbid adjustment level is not a very useful concept in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder of highly functioning individuals. The focus is more closely conceptualized as helping them gain self-efficacy and self-control over their symptoms at the conscious level."

"Well," and Dr. Hessian's tone was pompous, "if you don't take pre-morbid treatment into account, you are not offering comprehensive treatment."

"In your theory that is true: in mine, technically, it's not," she replied.

"Imagine a nearly new automobile that is totally destroyed in a head-on collision.

We would seldom ask how well it ran prior to the accident or expect it to return to its nearly new form after a visit to the body shop. In fact, such wrecks are discarded. But, with people, the nature of the human spirit often allows them to achieve an amazing level of functioning so that they can transcend the level of the trauma. Teaching how to do that by employing techniques from cognitive psychology, behavior therapy, and multi-modal treatment has proven efficacious."

Another pause. "Well, then, tell me," Dr. Hessian said again with that hint of gracious condescension, "what were the symptoms of post-traumatic stress that were most difficult to treat?" he asked.

Dorothy decided that he was trying to buy time to revise his strategy.

"Doctor K had temporary post-trauma amnesia and flashbacks of the blue light. She could not sleep or remain awake without recurrent images of the blue light attacking her forehead. Everywhere she went, it haunted her. In dreams as well as in waking life, she was trailed by this nasty flashback that impeded every aspect of her recovery:'

Dr. Hessian straightened himself, a smug gleam in his eye and Dorothy wondered what hole he would try to pick in her method. He was making eye contact now while he assumed his characteristic condescending expression.

"This is why pre-morbid adjustment is so important to know;' he said.

"I would guess there was some unresolved conflict in this woman's background that made her more prone to the flashback. Do you know if there was some unresolved guilt toward a parent or unresolved shame in the area of sexuality, for example, that showed itself in this way?"

By now the sun was disappearing behind the mountains. They could hear others hurrying home but no one used this path. She didn't want to rush the man but they would soon have to leave, to avoid the night crawlers.

However, she had to make an end of this power struggle between the two opposing camps of psychological treatment. The base of their current discussion, she reasoned, is power, not just theory. There are two ends to this rope: he is pulling one end and I have hold of the other in this psychological tug-of-war. I will decide not to play and see what happens.

"Well," Dorothy said out loud, "while I would continue our discussion, we must make it back to our respective residences before full dark. I had wanted to tell you that the way we treated Doctor K's flashbacks was to bring under stimulus control using a fading procedure combined with deep muscle relaxation. We also provided her with an imagery intervention which was highly effective."

Dr. Hessian looked at her, unimpressed. He was probably not inspired by the a-theoretical even if it was effective.

"We'd best call it a night;' she said, standing up and his deep-rooted courtesy made him get to his feet, too. "I hope you decide to join us.

Would you sleep on it? We could use your clinical help and perhaps you could summarize Doctor Kessler's work and present it to the treatment staff. It might be a fitting tribute since you knew him. Anyway, let me know what you decide."

She took the few steps back to the safety of the flagstone path but turned back, assuming a humble expression. "Oh," she said, "Doctor Hessian, before I leave, I do need to apologize to you." She even managed the slightest hint of chagrin.

"Apologize to me?" he repeated, obviously pleased that she was seeing the mistake of her own ways.

"Yes, you see, presenting the case of Doctor K was my way of attempting to share with you the power of the treatment model. I guess I was not successful in helping you see that."

"Well," he said, with an almost gracious wave of his hand, "you tried."

"The irony," she responded gently, "was that while most of the case data was accurate, one part was not. I changed the gender of the doctor involved."

"Well, I hardly think that is signifieant."

"Not when Doctor K is you. We used social learning techniques to revive your fine mind, Doctor Hessian, and they worked."

She saw his gaping mouth and hurried away, leaving him to digest that final thrust.

KRIS AND SARAH HAD RUN as fast as they could to leave the scene of their eavesdropping.

"Should we apologize to Dorothy?" Kris asked, her expression repentant.

"How were we to know Hess/an would come in, all ruffled and precipitate a set-down? I hope he got it from her, too," Sarah replied, not the least bit repentant. Then she shuddered. "I hadn't heard her theory about what the Eosi might have been trying to do. Make zombies out of all of us:'

Kris had a sick feeling in her guts. She shook her head slowly in denial.

"No, Zainal is certain that the Eosi were trying to search for possible new scientific theories..."

"And what, pray tell, was that?" Sarah asked acidly.

"A point, but it wasn't just psychologists and psychiatrists that got the treatment. There were heads of state and government departments and whatever NASA personnel they could find. All kinds of specialists." Kris realized she was talking more to reassure herself than Sarah. And she wasn't sure she was convincing. "Well, with all the information that's come back, the High Command," and she managed a grin, "are sure to come to some conclusions. I'm sure Dorothy would have told Leon Dane, at least, since he's still more or less chief medic."

"Well, it's not something we just ask about, is it?"

"Nope, but that doesn't mean we can't find out if it's been discussed;' Kris muttered under her breath. "That's the downside of being away from here. You can't keep up with what's happening."

Sarah raised her eyebrows and regarded Kris with a wry grin. "Look who's talking? You've been traveling the galaxy and I'm stuck at home...

Oops!" She caught Kris' arm, then pointed to the cluster of torches at the dark edge of the settlement. "Demonstration!"

They were not so far away they didn't hear the gasp as the latest arrivals witnessed the emergence of night crawlers. They could hear male shouts of surprise and alarm and female cries of terror. They saw plainly the shadows of a milling throng, wanting to put distance between themselves and the wet, slimy denizens of the night ground. A chant began, and from the depth of the voices, the two friends decided that was a Maasai response to danger.

"I'm glad they're on our side," Kris said.

"Me, too, and Joe won't be on mine if I don't get home," Sarah said and turned off toward her own home on the flagstone path where their way parted.

WHEN KRIS REACHED THEIR HOUSE, Zane was asleep andZainal busy with papers on the table, so she slipped in to check on her son. He'd grown inches in the weeks she'd been away. What else had she missed of his development?

Zainal grinned at her. "He walks well now."

She pulled up another chair to sit beside him, their bodies barely touching at shoulder and thigh. She had worked herself into a nervous wreck on the walk home, thinking about Dorothy's theory. WeLl, eavesdroppers never heard anything good, about themselves or other matters: as just demonstrated.

But maybe Zainal could reassure her. She was certain to have nightmares tonight, remembering the blank looks of the Victims as they had been led off the two K-ships.

"Zainal?" she began and then noticed he was dealing with figures and time slots, and entry windows through the Bubble. "What's being planned now?"

Zainal leaned back, tossing the pencil to the table and stretching until his tendons cracked which made her shudder. The sound made her wince, thinking of bodies on a rack.

"Kamiton met some of the other leaders, and I must agree with some of their ideas." Zainal linked his fingers together across the back of his broad head. Which reminded Kris of the burning question.

She put her hand on his upper arm in brief apology. "The Eosi couldn't come up with a means to turn off all our minds, could they?"

Zainal tipped his head back, roaring with laughter, and she had to hush him. Zane would sleep through a great deal of noise but not a bellow like that.

He slipped an arm around her shoulders and gave her a reassuring squeeze, his face against her cheek.

"They've only one of those mental helmets. They could scarcely cope with the millions of you Humans, and that's what they'd have to do.

Though Ray asked Kamiton, too, if it was possible. It isn't! It would be bet ter if we could put the Eosi under that device." He made a grimace, a new trait of his which made him seem all the more Human. She'd caught the surprise in Kamiton's eyes over Zainal's facial reactions. Very un-Catteni, probably. "Of course, their enlarged heads wouldn't fit so we can't use that as a way of cutting them down to size."

She grinned back at him. "So?"

"So, since Kamiton needs to get back, we are going to see what other mischief... is that the right word;' and his yellow eyes twinkled at her, "we can get into. Actually," and he retrieved the pencil to tap it on the various sheets that she realized were now laid out in a semi-circle on the table, "Beverly wants to dazzle them with surprises everywhere. Everyone who went back to Earth is all for it:' His expression was solemn. "Your planet had taken a terrible beating and still won't succumb to practices the Eosi have always found effective. If not being able to get through the Bubble has been frustrating Mentat Ix, why not prod them elsewhere! Frustrate them more! Confuse them! Harry--I thought that was a man's nameharry them until they don't know how to deal with the various strikes we'll make:'

"Well, there're ways to totally confuse a computer;' Kris said, "and make it blow up. Could there be a way to do that to the Eosi?"

"Kamiton thinks it's a good way to go;' Zainal said, with a sly grin. "He says it might be the right way, too."

"So?" and she pulled one of the sheets toward her which Zainal then deftly shifted back.

"So, since Kamiton can get access to all the recognition codes, and find out which ships of which class have been destroyed or believed lost, we can make our fleet into a much larger one:'

"By changing the code name?"

"And where it appears. For instance, as Emassi Venlik, I need to bring back all the metals I had to off-load in the asteroid belt. First, as Emassi Kulak, I will go to a mining planet and acquire a load.. ;' He interrupted himself. "Walter Duxie says he can't mine enough to make a full load of interesting stuff, so we go where they are mining it. Then, we take that load back to Catten." He stopped and took a deep breath. "I wish to bring my sons to safety here," and he looked her squarely in her eyes.

"Of course," Kris said quickly. "They would be at risk if the Eosi found out you're still alive."

"There is one who is sure I am," Zainal said in a heavy voice.

"Your brother?" And when he nodded, she went, "but where are your sons now?"

Zainal clenched his teeth a moment before he answered. "With my sire."

"Aren't they..." and she stopped because it was obvious from the pain in his eyes and the tension in his body that they were not safe. "Kamiton's seen them?"

Zainal nodded.

"Well, it's an easy way for me to increase my family," she said in an airy tone.

"I will be their father but you will not be able to mother them;' he said, surprising her. He held up his hand. "They are now too old to be moth-ered.

But if you can be their friend, that will help integrate them."

"We've managed to integrate everything from Deski to Maasai, there should be no problem with integrating two Catteni boys."

Zainal gave an odd snort. "They will be safer here than on Catteni and Kamiton wants to bring his. Though he would prefer to bring his woman and set her and them in one of the closed valleys. We may have to assume responsibility for any other young who might be used as hostages by the Eosi against the activities of their sires."

"I'd think..." but she stopped when he put his hand over hers. "Okay, it's your call. So are we all going back to Catten with you?" She really didn't want to: that heavy gravity had been a killer, but she wouldn't desert him for such a specious reason.

"Drassi Kulak proved very useful," he said with a grin.

"So, once we've delivered all this ore, what else is on the agenda?"

Zainal smiled. "Karoitoh can find out the other places where Humans have been dropped. Some of them are very bad places, where many deliveries of workers have to be made, and we may not find any Humans left. But we will make the effort."

"Oh."

"Three of the ships, with a change of ID, will go back to Earth and see what else they can... what does Chuck call it... liber--"

"Liberate;' and Kris grinned.

"Liberate any poorly guarded ships. If they are loaded with loot, we will just take off. Otherwise, we will have what Leon calls a 'shopping' list."

"Well, you guys didn't lose much time planning, did you?"

"Kamiton thinks we must strike as often and as hard as possible to prove to the others in our group that we have ways to annoy and hamper the Eosi domination. To make them helpless to counterattack."

"Lord help us if that Bubble bursts," she said. "But it must be so very satisfying to you, and Kamiton, to make the Eosi helpless."

Zainal kept nodding his head but his smile altered from anticipation to immense satisfaction. "We also do no species injury:'

"Oh, Lord, that's a good thing. I wouldn't want to lose the good opinion of the Farmers. That Bubble is essential to making any of these plans of yours work."

"I do not think the Farmers will find fault with what we do. They are, I think, flexible entities;' And when Kris nodded in agreement, he added with a droll smile: "What impresses Kamiton most about Humans is your flexibility. We Catteni do not possess that."

"Ha! You're as flexible as anyone on this planet."

He stroked her short, blond hair, running his fingers through it. She'd had to wash it nearly fifteen times to get the awful dye completely out.

"I have learned;'

"The more remarkable when all your lifetime before you had to operate on a need-to-know basis."

Zainal turned his head away, looking out into the darkness around them. "I want my sons to know all they want to know."

"I think sometimes we forget what a gift free thought is:'

Chapter 7

THE NEXT DAY, HASSAN FLEW SEVERAL leaders of the Maasai, for the remnants of five separate tribes needed to be consulted and shown, down to the southern end of the continent.

Mpeti Ole Surum, Caleb Materu, and Sikai Ole Sereb spoke some English, understood more, and calmed the other two leaders, Pakai Olonyoke and Tepilit Ole Saitoti, who had excellent Swahili. Bart, who had boned up most of the long night on Swahili words and phrases, came along on the trip in the KDL, as did Yuri Palit, who was nominally in charge of resettlements.

Baby would have been more practical. The Tub would have taken a lot longer but the tall Maasai would have been cramped on the one and experienced some claustrophobia on the other, so Hassan said he'd just make altitude and glide as much as he could on the way, to save fuel.

"I see... planes... often," Caleb said, pointing skyward. He was sitting with great dignity on one of the command chairs of the bridge. Overnight he and many of the older men had managed to equip themselves with lodge-pole spears. The straightness of the wood had fascinated them and Geoff, who did a lot of the iron fabrication around Retreat, had fashioned spear tips. "Never think I fly in one." He grinned all around the bridge cabin.

Mpeti Ole Suture stood directly behind Hassan as the Israeli sat at the control panel, his eyes not quite wide with any readable expression but he missed nothing Hassan did.

Sikai Ole Sereb was the most relaxed of the three English speakers, more like a curious kid having a special outing than the most senior of the Maasai leaders.

"I think they were all so busy setting examples to each other, they didn't have time to be afraid," Hassan told the Head Council that evening when he reported the day's outing. Kris, Zainal, and Kamiton were among the group--so that Kamiton could be shown how the colony governed itself.

Zainal translated in low tones, which did not disturb the others in the big hangar office. "They do understand about the night crawlers. Last night's demonstration certainly was dramatic and frightening enough. They do want their own loo-cows, even if the creatures are ungrateful enough not to give milk. You know, we could import some cattle, or goats and sheep.

They'd be useful for us to have."

"If you can find any," Beverly remarked.

"True but we can look. A lot of Terran animals would do well here."

"Now, wait a minute," Beverly said, raising a big hand in caution, "we have rocksquats which serve as good protein and supply us with quite a few byproducts. I can't promise we can do a Noah's ark bit:'

"We wouldn't know until too late;' Leon Dane said, "if Terran grazers or browsers would survive on Botany... not with night crawlers and those avian terrors)'

"I agree. We've got to go slowly. We've got a lot here going for us without wanting what might not be ecologically feasible," Beverly said.

"The Maasai will be grateful, I think," Yuri Palit said, "to be allowed to live in their own ways on their own land, which was taken from them back on Earth, and make the best of things as we've done, as they've always had to do. We did discuss the need to have shelters, built either on stone--which isn't their way---or on platforms set high enough above the ground and the reach of night crawlers, using steel plates on the underside. I wouldn't trust night crawlers not to eat wood if something edible got spilled on it. I think they'll opt for the platforms. It's a good even climate down there, edging into really hot but Africa's like that, too. Each tribe will have its own com unit and I think they've mastered calling in and taking messages. But I think we better check on a regular basis;'

"Once we know all the women are in good health. Some of them are expecting," Beverly said. "There are only that gaggle of young boys and five or six girls in their early teens who survived."

"Ah, and those boys bring up a minor problem which I think we'd better solve as soon as possible;' Hassan said. "Five of the teenagers are about to go into training as warriors. They are going to require some of the ritual drugs. Olkiloriti," and Hassan stumbled over the unfamiliar word, "is one of them. Joe Marley said that's only Acacia nilotica, which is taken as a digestive excitant and to prevent hunger and thirst on raids. It's also said to prevent fatigue and fear:'

"Were they looking for it here?" Chuck asked. "They seem to be examining every single bush, shrub, and blade of grass)'

Hassan grinned. "They're big on knowing the flora around them. It's how they've survived as long as they have--knowing what to take for sickness and fever and how to keep wounds clean."

"Well, I suppose that we could import some of the acacia for them..."

Bull Fetterman began. "If we can find any in their part of east Africa;'

The roots must be clean, Leon Dane spoke up. "Let's not importTer-ran dirt or we might just import something we don't want growing wild on Botany." As an Australian, Leon knew something of the problems vegetation could cause when transplanted to a different ecology.

"Good point:'

"I've been showing them what we've been growing for medicinal use;' Leon went on with a wide grin. "And the old guy kept telling me everything was good for some ailment and patted me on the back as if I'd done something spectacular to have everything growing in one place;'

"You have," Bull said with one of his deep rumbling laughs.

"Indeed," Hassan said. "They would have to travel many miles to get to where certain bushes grow."

Just then Dick Aarens came rushing in, Pete Snyder trying to keep up with the long-legged mechanic's stride and also reason with him.

"But I've got it! I've got it," Dick said, beaming with self-satisfaction.

He shrugged off Pete's final attempt to control him and spread his arms wide in apology to those at the conference table.

"Hold it, Aarens, we're discussing another problem right now," Ray said.

"Can anything be more important than being able to see and hear outside the Bubble?" Aarens demanded, head thrown back and chin high in challenge.

Ducking her head and putting her hand to her brows, Kris shook her head slowly at this latest display of Aarens' egotism.

"See and hear?" Ray repeated, glaring at Aarens.

"I don't know how such a simple thing could be missed:' And Aarens was contemptuous.

"Then just how did you miss such a simple thing, Aarens?" asked Ray Scott, leaning back in his chair, an absolutely blank expression on his face.

Aarens frowned, knowing he was being ragged.

"You do leave yourself wide open, Dick," Pete said, shaking his head.

He leaned his hands on the table opposite Ray and explained. "The Eosi ship left all its com arrays stuck into the Bubble. They haven't moved in months. I doubt they can, even if I don't know why the material holds them in place. But it does. If Zainal or one of the NASA guys can do an EVA, we can probably make connections on this side of the Bubble and get to use the Eosi equipment to intercept messages and check on who's visiting us.

We've got the spare parts we'd need, thanks to Zainal. We can actually put a com sat up there on our side of the Bubble:'

"You see," Aarens said, his lip lifted in a sort of supercilious superiority.

"Simple thing and you missed it."

"We all missed it," Pete Snyder said, patiently but with an irritable glance at Aarens. "I'm not all that sure we'd get much filtered through the Bubble, but certainly it's worth a try."

"It is;' Zainal said. Then he grinned. "I like it. Using their arrays to do our looking and listening."

"Save us a lot of fuel, too, as we wouldn't have to go make a check before departure," Beverly said, chuckling. "Which we will be doing a lot of soon enough:'

"Do I ever get a chance to come along?" Aarens said, his jaw still stuck out in belligerence.

Ray regarded him. "Only if you can lose about five inches, Dick;' he said in a deceptively genial tone. "You're taller than either Zainal and Kami-ton, and they say they're tall for Catteni."

"You've let Bert Put go, and he's nearly my height," Aarens went on, angry and frustrated.

"He's a pilot, who stays on board and seated so no one checks his height," Ray said. "But if you want to go back to Earth--so long as you .,remain on board the ship--it could be arranged. We'll talk about it again.

After... we've got eyes and ears upstairs."

"Something for something, just like we were back on Earth," Aarens muttered.

"Oh, come off it, Dick," Pete Snyder said, putting a hand on the tall mechanic's back and gently urging him out of the hangar.

"That's a great idea, Aarens;' Beverly said and, taking their cue from the ex-air force general, others murmured appropriate phrases. "Sometimes it just takes the right eyes to see what can so easily be missed."

"It may not work;' Aarens said as he slowly let himself be eased out of hangar. "I mean, we may not be able to get through the Bubble from this side:'

"The idea remains a smart one even if it doesn't prove feasible;' Ray said and then the door closed behind the two men. Ray cleared his throat.

"It certainly would be a help," John Beverly said.

"He's a damned good mechanic--a genius at some things;' Ray Scott said.

"But he's not a team player," was Bull Fetterman's assessment.

"Exactly;' and Ray sat forward at the table, shuffling notes. "I wouldn't trust him not to jump ship at the first chance. Where were we?"

"I think we just settled the Maasai for the time being," Yuri Palit said and settled back in his chair.

"I suggest we see how fast Aarens can fix a connection to the array," Zainal said. "I will help. And so will Kamiton:'

"When we have that, the rest of what we were going to discuss tonight will be easy enough. So let's see if Aarens' idea works. I think this'll be all for tonight," Ray said and, placing his hands on the table, pushed himself to his feet. "Thank you, gentlemen, for your reports and attention:'

A kOT OF JURY-RIGGING WAS NEEDED on the Bubble side of the Eosi array, with both Zainal and Kamit6n working in space suits. One of the NASA communications personnel uneasy at doing an EVA finally solved the problem of the connections. They pulled and tugged at the material of the Bubble until it was as thin as they could make it. Then they rammed into those frail holes the connecting linkages. Dick Aarens had wheedled himself on board with the communications crew and made such obnoxious comments about how ineffective, stupid, fumble-fingered everyone else was that Zainal shoved him into the spare space suit Aarens had to crouch to fit and complained that the helmet was wearing grooves in his skull---and closed the air lock behind them. There were those who wished that Zainal had not securely attached the safety line.

Aarens had known that he didn't like heights. He'd screamed enough when they had to haul him up to the command post to see what he could make of the control panels. He'd been so damned keen to say he'd been in space in an EVA suit that he didn't realize that his height phobia would also include vast, black open spaces where, in every direction, there was nothing.

The other space walker had to push the rigid man back into the air lock.

"Take him inside. He's useless."

But that incident happened early on. The completed connections were initially attached to the Baby's com array to see if they could actually use the Eosi equipment through the thinned skin of the Bubble. They could.

And great cheering and congratulations resounded between Botany and Baby. The next step might take longer since a com sat had to be built but Kamiton sampled the messages that were audible through the link and smiled with great satisfaction at what he learned.

"We can proceed with our plan," he told Zainal in Catteni. Then, in thickly accented English, he added to the rest of the group on board who did not know much Catteni, "Is good. Works. Hear good."

"I told you it would work;' Dick Aarens said, clinging to the door frame, and still very pale from his disastrous EVA. "So how soon can you get this crate back down to Retreat?"

"Soon;' Zainal said and turned back to Kamiton, speaking in rapid Catteni. "We will leave on the KDL as soon as we return. I want to get back to Catten as fast as possible."

"Understood."

WHEN chris's NAME APPEARED on the list for KDL and a return to Catten, she did some counting on her fingers. Well, if they didn't have any delays, she'd be back in time for Zane's first Botanical year birthday. Zainal did not anticipate any delays with the plan he had filed with Ray Scott. He had been amused by the request from the ex-admiral but, with the other ships also departing in opposite directions, he filled in the data.

"Did I do it right?" he asked Kris, shoving the paper toward her across the table in their main room.

"You'd better have," Kris said with mock threat, "or you're no advertisement for my teaching."

He printed in bold letters, using both capitals and lower case as required.

But he spelled properly and, even if he used short sentences, they were correctly phrased.

"You get an A."

"Just an A?" he said, pretending to be disappointed.

"Oh, that's the best you can do;'

"Oh?" and he leaned across the table and neatly lifted her out of her chair and high enough so that, when she bent her knees, she cleared the surface.

"! must lesson you, too, to see if you can achieve the A:'

Zane was long since asleep, so they could indulge in the intimacies that would be impossible for the duration of the trip.

"! hope to bring out my sons," Zainal said, when they lay side by side, mutually satisfied. "You must not treat them--at first--as you would a Human child;'

"How old are they?"

"They are nine and seven."

"Same mother?"

"No. Good Catteni blood in each."

"They will have a lot to learn, won't they?" And, while in one sense Kris felt able to accept the challenge, she hoped she would be able to meet it. Another aspect of it was that Zainal would trust her with his own children.

How badly would they have been treated because Zainal had failed to accept the family's obligation to present himself as Eosi "chosen"?

"We all have a lot to learn," Zainal said and, pressing his face against hers, turned her over so they could sleep, spoon fashion, his heavy arm warmly against her.

"Now COMES ThE FuN PArT," Zainal said to the crew of the KDL, all assembled on the bridge. They were orbiting in to one of the most desolate-looking planets: how could anything, or anyone, live down there?

They had first let Kamiton off at the asteroid belt and lingered long enough to hear him report that the spy sats he had released in the belt confirmed the fact that there had been quite a few ships poking around the field: more likely, for traces of where Zainal/Venlik might have stored the remainder of his cargo.

Kamiton would then proceed back to Catten with the report that he had found no suitable planets in the three systems he was supposedly exploring.

He would have the opportunity to get in touch with any of the other dissidents and assure them that Zainal's refuge was invulnerable. He would also visit Perizec, Zainal's father, and, hopefully, locate the whereabouts of Zainal's two sons. Since the family had supplied so many "chosen," they had acquired many assets on the planet. The two young males could be anywhere.

With a purloined cargo, Zainal would arrive. This time they would have to dock at the space station.

"It will be easier for you as the station is not on full Catten gravity," he had told Kris who had not been looking forward to a second period of feeling more like a piece of compressed stone than a human being. "But you may not leave the ship. You are not Catten enough;' and he had tousled her cropped re-dyed hair.

The rest of the crew was the same. Gino, Ninety, and Mack Dargle had learned to speak, and understand, much more Catteni. Kamiton even taught them a few so-called Catteni jokes which, when translated, left the audience wondering what possibly could be funny about them.

"Old slap-stick routines is what they remind me of;' Kris said. "Sort of Marx brothers without any of the same class. More like the Three Stooges:'

"They were never as good as the Marx brothers," Ninety said.

"Speak Catteni," Zainal said, scowling at all of them.

"Does not translate;' Kris said with mock obedience in a very deep rasping Catteni voice.

WITH-tHE KDL BEARING THE ID OF A SHIP, which Kamiton had found, its forward section embedded in an asteroid it hadn't been able to avoid, they orbited the desolate planet and made contact with the mining station. This was a huge, scarred globule planted like a ravaged blister on one of the main raised areas. This particular station had been chosen because it had no processing plant in which to refine the ore. So their purloined cargo would match Zainal's story of finding such ores in an asteroid belt. Once this planet had evidently had oceans that some unimaginable catastrophe had drained or boiled away. There were other, smaller blisters set in deep ranges of what had once been ocean trenches. As they were given clearance and descended, they could see heavy vehicles drawing numerous, and immense, carts of ore toward the main depot, for that was what Kris decided it must be.

Several such vehicles were already drawing into parallel lines by the facility, which Zainal said was where the cargo levels would automatically be loaded.

"By what?" Ninety said. "We don't have enough space suits..."

Zainal grinned and held up his hands. "That is why there are space locks between the main compartments of the ship and the cargo area. The K-class is a versatile carrier, cargo, slaves, whatever."

There was a bit of a scene when the station Drassi wanted Zainal to take on board three Catteni who had been so seriously injured they were no longer any use to him. All this while the ramps from the loading platform were being extended through the KDL's open cargo bay, and while Ninety, suited up, handled the controls.

"As soon as the decks are full, Ninety, we're taking off," Zainal told Ninety. "So be sure to hang on to something the moment we're full."

"I hear and obey, Drassi," Doyle said, slapping one fist to his chest in a Catteni salute.

"Won't you get into trouble?" Gino asked nervously.

"Just plot a rapid ascent. This station has no weapons," Zainal assured him.

"But can you just refuse to take injured men aboard?" Gino asked.

"Not for a two-week journey back to Catteni with them on board," Zainal said. "This station has frequent cargo ships in. The next one can take them. I won't."

So, when Ninety signaled that all four cargo levels were full, Zainal gave Gino the nod to lift just as three space-suited figures, two helping the third who did not seem to have legs, exited from the surface loading facility.

Zainal reached over and shut off the com board, silencing the threats of the infuriated Emassi in charge of the mining operations.

"We couldn't afford the risk;' Zainal said, aware of the shocked look on the faces of his crew.

WHEN THEY WERE AGAIN IN SPACE, Zainal and Ninety who had come to enjoy such EVA outings, changed the ID symbols on the KDL's hull to match those used in their first trip to Catten. Once more in communication with the immense Catteni Space Station, Zainal became Drassi Venlik again, cheerfully (for a Catteni) back with the ore he had to leave behind in the asteroid belt.

There were some scary moments for Kris, however, when the space station sent officials on board to see if the KDL's cargo should be unloaded into drones for transport to the surface or allow the ship to land at the manufactories needing the ore. The rest of this trip depended on Zainal being ordered to make planetary delivery. One of the officials seemed determined to figure out the site of this rich load.

"It is my site. By right;' Drassi Venlik said, standing with legs parted in a fighting stance, hands at his sides. This semi-belligerent posture was not lost on the officials, even if they were Emassi.

Finally they admitted that they had orders for his ship to land on the surface at the refining plant awaiting these very fine metals. Zainal and his crew saluted the officials off the KDL and received immediate clearance from the facility and the location of the refinery.

"Couldn't have been better if I'd cut the orders myself," Zainal said in English, grinning at his success.

"Yeah," Ninety began skeptically, "but would you really have laid into the Emassi?"

Zainal laughed. "There are many Drassi who are Emassi who did not pass Eosi standards to be chosen. They have family who would come to their assistance. Those station Emassi know only what they need to know," and he dismissed them with a contemptuous flick of his fingers.

Kris decided that Zainal became more Cattenish the nearer he got to his natal planet. She wasn't sure she liked that change in him. Then they landed and the weight of Catten gravity pulled her down, until she felt her belly would end up near her knees. And ordinarily her stomach was as flat as Zainal's. It had a decided bulge to it right now.

She spent the hours the KDL was being unloaded on her bunk, on Zainal's order, being "off-duty" as the corridors swarmed with Rassi and Drassi. Zainal, with Chuck and Ninety in full Catteni dress, eyes, and hair, went to the refinery office to complete the forms required and get the credit voucher for the ore.

It was evidently most unusual for a cargo vessel to require a credit voucher, but Zainal had a story ready for that. They needed special equipment to mine the ores on this asteroid and had been given permission to make such purchases, but would have to show a current voucher to verify that the ship's account would stand the expense.

"THAT DEPOT'S LIKE ALl BABA'S CAVE," Ninety said, returning after the first day's scrounging through the supply warehouse. "Mind you, a lot of the stuff was made on Earth," he added in a sour tone. "But I located most of what the com sat boys ordered."

With great determination, Kris had made a huge stew of the meat Coo and Pess had gone out to the nearest marketplace to get for her. It had taken almost all the energy she could muster with the constant pull of gravity on her muscles and bones. She was sure she'd shrink: she certainly felt compressed.

Zainal did not return that first night. The Catteni diurnal cycle was only an hour longer than Earth's but, to Kris' intense relief, he was back just past dawn the next morning with Kamiton and two other Catteni making a surreptitious dart up the ramp of the open cargo bay.

The men were introduced as Nitin and Kasturi. Bolemb could not leave as yet andTubelin was going to bring Zainal's two boys as soon as the ship was ready to take off again. For Catteni they exuded enthusiasm for the chance to relieve their world of Eosian domination. To believe that Zainal's crew was really Human, every one, including Kris, had to take out their yellow lenses and show the natural shade of skin on their upper arms and legs. Kris was on watch at that moment and thus did not have to reveal her subtly different limbs.

Nitin looked older than Kasturi but later Zainal told her it was the other way round. Nitin had had harder duties than Kasturi, and so looked his years of service to ungrateful Eosi. Nitin said little but Kamiton's exuberance made up for his silence.

The next day the three real Catteni assumed other identities and went about acquiring more of the material that was on the shopping list. Nor, to the Humans' surprise, did they question that they had to buy such odd items in unusual quantities: like the huge iron kettles (which were used by the Rassi to cook their mashes in--about the only thing, Nitin said, that they could manage to do without constant supervision). The kettles were destined for the Maasai who were much, much smarter than most of the Drassi Kris had encountered. She stood her shifts on the com desk and had to deal with the calls of merchants who wished to check on the ship's account and its current position. She had also managed not to reveal her femininity to new members of the Catteni. If Zainal did not think to menú tion it, she would not.

The KDL had been parked to the side of the refinery's double-ballpark of a landing site to allow other vessels to unload. Zainal had neatly maneuvered them close to one of the refinery's secondary gates, to allow access for his "equipment" to arrive without upsetting the regular traffic in and out.

"It's a good place to be," Zainal had said in explanation. "Many ships come and go. It is also the last place where any Emassis would be found."

With their cargo levels full, they waited for word from Kasturi. Kami-ton fretted more than Zainal did and paced up and down the corridors, cursing at the com unit which did not utter so much as a burp. They waited two full days, until Zainal, too, showed signs of stress.

Both men were on the bridge when a low, sputtering ground vehicle came through the gates and trundled around behind the KDL.

"It has stopped," Chuck said, swiveling around in his seat at the com board. He flicked on the exterior camera. "Three, two smallish, one not so small."

Instantly Zainal and Kamiton were on their feet and pounding down the passageway to the cargo air lock.

"Prepare to take off," Zainal called over his shoulder, and Gino hastily started the pre-flight checks as he had done from time to time as something to occupy them during the long wait. "And turn the ship slightly to starboard to incinerate the vehicle." That came through over the intercom from the cargo level.

"Right ch'are, captain," Gino muttered, fingers busy tapping in the necessary code and engaging the rear thrusters to be certain the object was reduced to an unrecognizable lump.

As they were at the refinery, their leaving would go relatively unnoticed.

They lifted and were well above the atmospheric envelope of Catteni before Zainal and Kamiton came forward, both grinning broadly.

"We got them," Kamiton said as Zainal motioned for Gino to move out of the pilot's chair. Kamiton oddly enough dressed in a space suit, and carrying his helmet, positioned himself against the bulwark.

So as not to be seen, Kris thought, when Zainal had to make visual contact with the space station for clearance out of Catteni space. But why was he suited up?

"I'm parked right by net four," Kamiton said as if he had heard her mental query. "Head slightly in that direction now."

Contact was made, clearance was given, and Zainal said that he was going back for another load of the fine ores he had carved out of the space debris.

"Of course, they'll come after you again," Kamiton said. "See you back on Botany;' he added before he put on his helmet and stumped down to the air lock. "Can you read me?" he asked a few moments later.

Kris stuck her finger harder than she needed to on the pad--her body didn't realize she was out of Catteni's depressing gravity--and gave him an affirmative.

Zainal made a small adjustment to his direction, seeming to head directly for the center of net four--large Catteni glyphs had been plastered on the net fabric--one could not miss "4" unless one was totally blind. He also slowed so that when the air lock lights came on, he was almost stationary.

He allowed the KDL to drift a count of two hundred, because Kris was counting right along with him, before he gently teengaged the thrusters and pulled away. Then he made a drastic course alteration and signaled to Gino to pour on the power.

There was a little time for Tubelin to meet the Human crew and for Bazil and Peran to get accustomed to the idea of Humans, and Humans who could speak their language and were not slaves. Kris almost wept at the condition of the two boys: they had come on board filthy, in clothing that was a shred away from being indecent, with many bruises on their limbs and visible through the remaining scraps of their tunics. Their ribs were showing and their faces had the gaunt look of the starved. What they asked Zainal for first--once they had recognized their father--was water.

"They wouldn't take anything from me;' Tubelin explained. "They did not show fright, Zainal. They have your blood and courage. In my opinion, many cruel and vicious things have been done to them."

Zainal himself bathed the boys, carefully tending their hurts and seeming to count every healed scar. Kris handed him Botanical medications, and they had flinched, even from their father's very gentle touch. She was close to tears for how they had been treated... worse than even the Rassi she had seen so casually whipped to work.

All the time Zainal spoke softly to them, not gently, not as he would speak to Zane, but as an adult would speak firmly and reassuringly to a frightened animal.

Tubelin put his head around the door and both boys stiffened, their yellow eyes dark and wide with the fright of surprise, which his unexpected appearance provoked before they could conceal their reaction. Once they recognized Kamiton, they relaxed a little.

"I have clean clothes, Zainal. I'll space those rags if you'll hand them to me, Kris;' She did, holding the mess by the tips of her fingers and letting them all fall into the receptacle Kamiton offered.

"Have you any clear soup to give them, and perhaps some journey bread," Zainal said as he gently pushed the boys ahead of him toward the galley. Coo and Pess were alone at the table but the boys merely glanced through them, as if the two Deski did not exist.

Well, Kris told herself sternly, they've probably been taught that Deski are little better than Rassi.

When Coo and Pess made to rise, Zainal gestured for them to remain where they were. Someone had already put some clear soup in the heater so all she had to do was pour it in cups and get out the travel bread. Zainal raised one finger to show he'd have some, too. Lord, those kids were messed up bad, Kris thought. How will we ever get through what they have been conditioned to expect? Or, having been roughed up so much, would they rough up her son?

Zainal sat opposite the boys, beside Pess, and dipped the bread into the soup, blowing on it to cool it. The boys did nothing, though Kris saw the tongue of the older boy, Bazil, protrude slightly between his cracked lips.

Then Zainal put his bread first in Bazil's cup and then Peran's before he ate it as if to prove it was not only edible, but harmless.

"Eat. You need food. This is good."

Peran, being the younger, could not contain his hunger at that invitation and nearly burned his tongue to get the bread into his mouth. Bazil gave him an almost contemptuous sneer, but he was no less quick to take his first bite.

When they had finished their meal, although their eyes darted back to the heater unit, which they knew still had soup in it, they waited. Peran's lids wearily descended over his eyes, but he shot bolt upright again as soon as Bazil pinched him.

"No more now, Bazil," Zainal said in a neutral tone. "You need sleep, too. There will be more soup when you awaken. That I promise!" Zainal rose and, still not offering them his hands as he would certainly have of-feted one to Zane, he pointed the way for them to go.

Coo leaned across the table and patted Kris' hands; Pess offered a square of fabric when she started to sniff and then to cry.

"Being Emassi not easy;' Coo said.

When Pess' thin arm came about her shoulders, Kris just leaned into the female's embrace and let the tears flow. She didn't even care if one of the other Catteni came in and saw her weeping.

So, by the time Zainal returned, she was over the worst of it. He knew she had been crying because her eyes always turned red.

"They have suffered much," Zainal said. "That shall be considered when this is ended." He reached for the Hooch bottle and poured himself a large tumbler full, taking a big gulp of it.

"Tubelm is a good Emassi but even he did not like what he saw when he visited the farm where they had been made to work like Rassi:'

"Is that why they were so dirty?" Kris heard herself asking with great indignation. "But why were they beaten? They're seven and nine? They've been starved, too:'

Zainal took the hand she was waving about in consternation and clasped it firmly.

"I had not thought Perizec capable but it may have been the idea of my brother's mate. She is such a good Catteni mate;' and his emphasis on "good" was sarcastic. "It will take longer than it should but they will learn much on Botany and want to know more:'

THEY FOLLOWED THE TORTUOUS COURSE into the maze of their infamous and rich asteroid belt and once again, while Nitin, Kasturi, Tube lin, and Zainal's two sons watched with varying degrees of consternation during the twisting route, made contact with Kamiton at his hollowed-out asteroid.

Then Zainal poured on all the power at the KDL'S disposal on the way back to Botany.

The two boys did not speak unless spoken to, and Tubelin, whom they knew almost better than their father, would tell them stories in a decidedly avuncular and uncharacteristic manner. Zainal put them on a feeding schedule of every two and a half hours, each time little meals until their cheeks began to fill out and flesh appeared over their ribs. He also taught them how to print their names in Catteni glyphs and then in English letters. What astonished Kris was their absolute obedience.

"It's been beaten into them to obey without questions, Kris," Ninety said when she voiced her distress to the Humans. "We'll just be sure they never hear another discouraging word on Botany, that's all."

Chuck tilted his head sideways. "I've seen whipped puppies a time or two. It's going to take a lot of patience to make that a happy pair again."

"If they ever were," Kris said glumly. "I don't think Catteni have happy childhoods. Or expect to."

"Now, Bjornsen," and Chuck Milford patted her shoulder, "we'll all help."

And so he contrived to make a checkerboard from a bit of stiff packing casing, coloring it in, and then neatly scissoring out the counters from another piece.

"What makes you think Catteni kids play games?" Gino asked when he saw the finished product.

"Ah, a zemgo board," Kamiton exclaimed in surprise as he entered the mess room.

"What makes you think there wouldn't be something similar in such a warlike culture, Gino?" Chuck demanded, grinning at Kamiton. "Will Bazil and Peran know how to play... zemgo?" he asked in Catteni.

"Hmm. I shall soon find out. Or will you teach them since you made the board?"

"It might be good if I teach, and you tell them the moves at first," Chuck said. "I wouldn't know the right words and they should learn the proper words."

"I will return with them. A good idea, Sshuk," Kamiton said and went to find the boys.

"They were on the bridge, standing watch with their father," Kamiton said when he returned with them. He pointed at Bazil to sit at one side of the table next to Chuck and Peran to sit on the other. Then he sat beside Peran and asked if the boys knew the game.

Bazil managed the barest of negative head shakes. Peran just stared at the bright colors of the board and the round white counters on his side.

"This is a good game for Catteni to know," Kamiton explained. "It teaches how to form your troops for battle and how to win against an equally matched opponent. You are white, Peran, you must start first."

Peran kept his hands in his lap, his little body stiff with indecision.

"Why don't we play, Kamiton?" Chuck suggested.

"He is Emassi," muttered Bazil, glaring up at Chuck.

"So he is;' Chuck said, amiably. "And so am I."

Bazil darted a surprised look at Kamiton and received a confirmatory nod. Bazil sank in on himself in dismay.

"All on this ship are Emassi," Kamiton said.

"Even the little one?" Bazil asked, his dull yellow eyes flickering with doubt. But his tone was more courteous.

"All," Kamiton said.

"So we shall play, Emassi Kamiton?" Chuck asked as demurely as only a sergeant of marines could.

"Yes, let us show Bazil and Peran how this ancient game is played, Emassi Sshuk:'

THE TWO BOYS WATCHED Chuck and Kamiton play four games (ending in two wins each), every time explaining the moves and discussing the game so the boys would know why. Then Gino played Chuck and won, but when he played Kamiton, the Catteni won. The boys showed the first spark of interest. It wasn't until Zainal entered the room and saw that the boys only watched, making no move to play at all, that he pointed to the board and said in a hard voice: "Play! Need to know!"

He left the room and Kris followed, furious with his so-Catteni manner that she almost couldn't speak as she dragged him into the captain's quarters. She slid the panel shut and told him off, madder than she had ever thought she could be with him.

"Those boys have been so mistreated," she railed at him, "could you not show a little give?

He listened, with his Catteni face.

"I've never seen such bruises, nor such constant brutality on boys so young. What were your folk doing to them? Systemically brutalizing them as punishment for what you did?"

"Yes." And his quiet reply, and the sad look in his eyes, silenced her.

"Then why aren't you, their father, from whom they can expect some affection..."

He held up one hand. "Catteni fathers are not affectionate:'

"But you are with Zane!" She was flabbergasted. "How can you differentiate like that? All three are children and need love and kindness and care..." And when he opened his mouth to speak, she advanced on him so infuriated that he recoiled slightly, not trying to evade the hard finger she poked into his chest as emphasis to her words. "And don't tell me Catteni children cannot expect such treatment, too."

"From their mothers, not from their fathers."

"And, I suppose, now you'll tell me that Bazil and Peran are too old to be with their mothers." When he nodded, she made a sound of total disgust and frustration. She was so mad she couldn't think of what to say next. "If you ever... ever... take a Catteni line with Zane, I'll... I'll kill you!"

"Or Pete Easley will," Zainal replied calmly. Mad as she was, she could see the shadows in his eyes. He might have expected the treatment his sons had received, but that didn't mean he liked it.

"Oh, God, Zainal, why am I angry at you?" And she put her arms around him in apology and returned affection.

Hesitantly, she felt, with great relief, his big hands gripping her shoulders, pressing a response to her expression of regret.

"We must treat them for now--as Catteni boys are reared, and gradually, when they have settled, teach them that there are other ways, and that they may learn whatever they want, not just what they 'need to know: I want them to be more Human, too."

"Well, that's better;' she said, sniffing back the tears that pricked her eyes: tears of frustration and relief. "I couldn't stand it if you turned all Catteni on me suddenly. And if you ever..." She raised her finger threat-eningly.

"Zane is Human. He is your son and I will always treat him as I see Human children treated:'

"When in Rome... huh?"

He repeated the phrase without comprehension.

"Oh, I'll explain later, Zainal." And she cupped a hand on his head.

"Must we all be hard with the boys?"

"For now. We must give them the orders they need to know..." And a ghost of a smile pulled at his finely shaped lips. "To make them sure of how to act and what to do. But we will be fair, where others have not. And, if we can get them to play zemgo, it will help. And if you are not as firm as we are, they will not respect you. And they must for they will find out that you are a woman and therefore, now that they are becoming adult, they will need to see you as a being who commands respect, too."

She leaned against him, accepting the burden of such an uncharacter-istic manner for her.

"Am ! not a warrior already, being on this ship?"

"Reinforce that as often as possible, for when we reach Botany, they will see that you are also a woman and a mother. And wonder;'

"They'll have an awful lot to learn on Botany;' she said, ruefully.

"They will have the need to know;' Zainal answered, a lilt of rueful laughter in his voice.

"So, if I preface remarks with 'you need to know this,' it will be all right?"

"They'll... how do you say it... catch on quickly. Neither is stupid."

"Of course. They're your sons."

CHUCK HAD CAUGHT ON to Zainal's method of treating his sons.

Which must have been easiest for Mitford, Kris thought, having had to train recruits in the marines. Gino, whose Italian background was totally at odds with Catteni child rearing, had to be talked into playing it Zainal's way. Coo and Pess had no problem, and Mack Dargle taught them how to carve things out of pieces of wood and how to assemble useful equipment.

They knew how to handle knives but returned the blade immediately after they had finished their turn with it. They liked the assembling best, though, and their fingers were quick once they'd been shown how the first time.

The other Catteni ignored them, save for Kamiton who kept trying to get Bazil to make moves against his counters on the board.

When they were within the Botany system, all stations were on the alert for any possible Eosi presence.

"The work on the moon base has stopped," Zainal observed.

"They were sent the useless materials," Nitin said with a wry expression.

"My contribution. They will be stopped for some time as the regular shipments have also been diverted. They may even run out of oxygen and water."

Kris' sense of fair play was assaulted by such doings, and she had to keep her mouth shut. Catteni could deal with Catteni as they wished...

just so long as Botany was safe from their methods and ethics.

THEY ENTERED THE BUBBLE on the equatorial line, just out of the range of the geo-sync satellite. Prior to that they had spotted a distant "V" formation of Catteni ships headed directly toward Botany.

"See if we can get through to Retreat," Zainal asked Gino who was sitting at the com controls.

"Oh, you're back, are you?" said a female voice. The visual was not clear so only a hazy picture came through the thinned Bubble material. The voice sounded slightly filtered but intelligible.

"Who's this?" Gino asked.

"Jane O'Hanlon, here. Now we can use the array, someone has to man the com desk all the time. Or woman it as the case is today. Gino Marrucci, right?"

"Right:'

Fortunately only Kamiton, of the five Catteni on the bridge just then, had enough English to catch some of the words he knew. But the other four exchanged surprised looks that a female had answered.

"Did you get what you went after?"

"We did but there 'are some boogies.. :'

"We're expecting them. Baby returned last week with her piggyback G-class ship to warn us of the traffic to come. She may have to go back and lead some through the Bubble. You may be needed, too, as the other K's are still wandering around;'

"How many ships were hijacked this time?" Zainal asked, frowning slightly. He was still nervous, despite assurances from Kamiton, Nitin, Tubelin, and Kasturi that, with due care, the disappearance of the ships would not be immediately noticed.

"Catteni ships are all over the galaxy and some never come back," Kamiton had said repeatedly, waving his hand indifferently at such losses.

"It works to our advantage. We must have enough to be able to strike at Eosi before they know that death approaches;'

Since that was not the strategy which Ray and the other head council members were advocating, no one on board contradicted Kamiton, not even Zainal.

"There are three G-class coming back from one of the other colonies where Terrans were dropped. The K's are coming back with supplies and equipment and only a few refugees."

"If the G-class are full;' Zainal said, "we will be very busy."

"Preparations are being made," Jane said, "and Ray Scott is thinking of the closed valleys as safe interim sites. With the K's coming back with food and equipment, what we have won't be spread so thin."

Zainal nodded, occupied with slowing the forward speed of the KDL so that it could gently nudge its way through the Bubble. Immediately the picture of Jane's duty station cleared up.

"That's better," she said, smiling and then caught sight of the four Cat-teni just visible behind Zainal. "Ah, we have guests," and she added in good Catteni, "welcome to Botany, Emassi."

"How does she know we are Emassi?" Nitin asked, as if slightly offended by being addressed as an equal by a woman.

"Why would I inflict Drassi on Botany?" Zainal asked. "The ones we have are more than enough:'

"The ones you have?" asked Nitin, surprised.

"The crews of the ships we have captured have been placed in an isolated area."

"You did not kill them?" Nitin frowned.

"And ruin Catteni uniforms when we needed them?" Gino asked, though there was an edge to his question.

"Those who disobeyed died," Zainal said in a tone that did not leave any need for further questions.

Chapter 8

BIG AS THE FARMERS' HANGAR. WAS, IT could no longer accommodate the "fleet" Botanists were assembling. Jane informed them that they could unload there, but might have to take some of their supplies to other locations, thus cutting down on the transportation problems.

"We need more ground vehicles with heavy load capacities. Doesn't do any good to steal trucks from Earth because we have no gasoline or diesel here. So you'll have to do the transporting.

You don't happen to have a list of your cargo, do you? Then we can figure out where else to send you."

"It's in Catteni," Zainal said with a chuckle.

"Okay, then Sally Stoffers will be supercargo;' Jane replied. "Send it down and safe landing."

And it was. Immediately the stevedore contingent and several of the large flatbeds, plus a forklift which had been "acquired," surrounded the KDL. There was only so much gasoline available for it so the engineers would have to convert it to solar power. Aarens and Pete Snyder were there since Zainal had indeed brought back some of the elements needed by the engineering group. Sally Stoffers was acting as supercargo with two assistants to check off what was to be off-loaded as she translated the manifests from Catteni.

She smiled a greeting at the three new Catteni and added Kamitoffs name to her general welcome. Then she saw the two boys, looking in much better condition landing than they had in boarding. But Kamiton signaled to her to ignore them: a signal she obeyed.

"Zainal says medic for these. We walk."

Ray Scott came hurrying out of his office and took charge of Nitin, Tubel/n, and Kasturi.

"Whose are those?" Sally asked when Kris made her way down the gangplank, avoiding those carrying some of the lighter cargo.

"Zainal's," Kris said, "and we have to treat them as Catteni boys are treated." She gave Sally a sour grimace.

"What? On Botany? Bring up another generation like the one we're trying to educate in new ways?" Sally was indignant.

"To begin with at least," Kris said with a sigh. "You should have seen the state they were in when Kasturi brought them aboard?

"'The sins of the father' sort of stuff?" Sally asked, perceptive as ever.

"In spades," and she broke off, hearing Zainal's familiar step on the cargo ramp.

Zainal looked around and spotted Karoitoh, on his way to the infirmary with the boys following a discreet two steps behind him, and nodded.

He gave Kris a squeeze on the arm but one that subtly suggested that she should not accompany him, and went to join Ray Scott and the new Cat-ten/recruits.

She struggled with an uneasy resentment and won.

"D'you have any questions, Sally? Chuck and Mack marked much of the stuff with English subtitles, as it were, during the return. I can help if you need me," she said.

"Nonsense, girl, go soak somewhere and come back looking completely Human. Here," and she handed over a com unit, 'Tve a spare. If I need you, I'll contact you."

All the Humans on the KDL had removed their yellow lenses as soon as they were safely out of Catteni space: that had been surprise enough for the newcomers. As the supply of water was limited, no one was able to wash the Catteni gray off from more than their hands.

KRIS WOULD HAVE RATHER GONE WITH KAMITON and the two boys to see what their general physical condition was but Zainal had vetoed that. There didn't happen to be any children the ages of Bazil and Peran on Botany, so Kris wondered how on earth the two could be integrated with a peer group.

Zainal solved the problem and took his sons down to the Maasai encampment.

"They are warriors. They have boys the right ages. They will learn Ter-ran ways."

"Not in a Maasai camp;' Kris objected vehemently.

"Why not?" ZainaI was surprised, believing he had made a good decision.

"Because they treat their women the same way Catteni do. I mean, they practically starve a pregnant woman so she'll have a small baby and no problem delivering."

That part of the Maasai culture had been a shock to most of the medical staff for several of the Maasai women were in the last trimester of pregnancy. How the embryos had survived the trip was a matter of considerable speculation at the infirmary. All the women tested had been anemic and undernourished. With some skilful diplomacy on Hassans part, he managed to get the Maasai leaders to allow the women normal pregnancy multi-vitamins on the grounds that they would not have the usual herbal digestive medications. These would replace what the women were used to using. Hassan insisted that the tablets contained no milk, which was a taboo for Maasai pregnant women. That the multi-vitamin contained calcium as well as trace elements was not mentioned.

Kris canceled a half-formed mention of the other extreme racial differences.

There were boys the right ages. The Maasai were warriors, even if they used only spears, and their height would ensure the boys respected them.

"But they won't learn English;' was the only other protest she could summon.

"Not now. That will come. When there are males their ages here in Botany."

They were his children. She had no right to tell him where to send them or how to raise them. The Maasai at least would be fair to the poor waifs. Which was a distinct improvement.

The boys were kept overnight at the infirmary in a separate room.

They both had intestinal parasites, which could not be spread on Botany.

"Considering they have been half-starved for a number of months, they're sturdy boys," Leon reported to Zainal. "At least the Maasai are also eating well now and that can only improve the general health;'

If Leon did not concur with Zainal's disposition of his sons to the Maasai, he said nothing to that point. He did mention that word had reached him from one of the incoming ships that Joe Marley had managed to secure a fair number of the plants the Maasai considered essential, including the olkiloriti though he could give no reassurance that they would survive on Botany. The boys could go on the transport with the plants when they arrived.

"I will go with them, too," Zainal said.

As such matters sometimes work out, it was Kasturi who took them as Zainal was needed to pilot Baby which, with the two K-class ships that had already been "accepted" by the Bubble, was needed to get the G-class ships past it. But Zainal delayed his flight long enough to give instructions to his sons.

"You are going to a warrior camp to train with your age group as befits your rank," he told them in Catteni. "They are different folk but known for courage and (a word which Kris did not recognize.) But you will consider them Emassi as I am, and you are. You will learn from them as you need to know their ways, too."

Small bruised fists hit cleanly clothed chests in the Catteni farewell gesture and, without a backward glance, Bazil and Peran boarded the float and sat among the various bushes, shrubs, grasses, and two saplings in their plastic-covered cans of hydroponic solutions. They each wore a replica of Zainal's Catteni face.

One day, Kris promised herself, they would learn to smile and use expressions instead of those awful alien deadpans.

GETTING THE G-SHIPS THROUGH took all the available Botany fleet to bring them into Botany space.

"We sandwiched them in," Gino said when he returned. "Even then, we had to push the stuffing well back of the bread. That Bubble doesn't fool easy."

"What happens when we want to get them out again?" Bert Put asked.

He'd been piloting one of the G's and privately confessed that he thought he'd never get home. It was his ship which had brought back the Maasai plants as well as others: roots steam cleaned and tested to be certain they brought in no Terran parasites. Seed as well had been irradiated to ensure purity as a much more varied diet was needed, especially the complex proteins.

Rocksquats bred fast but not as fast as the population of Botany was growing. Loo-cows produced one calf at the height of the Botanical summer.

The actual birth took place in a tight, deep circle of other loo-cows, all tramping round and round the female to deter nightcrawlers reaching the newborn, attracted by the bodily fluids also exuded by the birthing female.

The wonder was that the newborn was not inadvertently stamped to death before it could get to its six wobbly legs.

Not so many refugees had been accommodated on the G-ships, but some families of those of the First Drop had been located and there were happy reunions, as well as tearful ones for those relations who had not been found.

There was a celebration for the placement of the permanent Botany com sat when it was connected to the inner arrays. The NASA folk had managed to jury-rig one to serve in the interim.

The infirmary, which now had satellite clinics dotting the continent, had received much needed diagnostic equipment, an ex-ray machine, and generators large enough to power them. And sufficient oil and gasoline to run them. (Empty barrels were then recycled as anti-night crawler defenses and the bases for stilt homes.)

Nitin, Tubelin, and Kasturi began to learn enough English to respond to greetings. They would not conduct meetings with the Head Council in anything but Catteni. Kris often sat in as translator, so did Chuck Mitford, Mack, and Ninety. Their trips had at least improved vocabulary and usage.

Though there were a few phrases which none of the men would translate for Kris. She decided they must be so pejorative and anti-female that she'd rather not know.

Nitin was agitating for speedy returns, to acquire more spaceships--and missiles. He wanted to see the total destruction of all Eosi on Catten.

He dismissed the problem of getting armed ships past the space station that guarded the planet from attack, even a sneak one, by units of its own space force. The ships used in attack missions were based in another system. He pointed out that he knew all the code words to gain access to naval ordnance: there was even a high-ranking officer who was a member of their covert group. But he had been an administrator until he had been dismissed from his post and a much younger junior with excellent blood and Eosian connections had taken his place. That had been sufficient for Nitin to wish to retaliate against a hierarchy that had not rewarded his many years of devoted service.

"Almost Human of him," Hassan Moussa said with a chuckle. "Happens often in Israel."

"But does that attitude assure us of his loyalty?" Ray bluntly asked Zainal.

"Considering that his family bloodlines date back to the Original Hundred, yes, it does. He needs to wipe that dismissal from his family's history," Zainal replied.

The latest news from Earth was both good and bad---the good being that the Eosi had given up their mind-wipe program. The bad was that they were now concentrating on razing cities, towns, settlements of any size, to the ground.

ZAINAL SEEMED TO HAVE NO TROUBLE playing with Zane in the affectionate way he had always used with the child who was walking without assistance. If he fell down, he got himself up. If he bruised himself in doing so and started to cry, Zainal would cock his head and the tears would dry up.

Kris didn't approve of Zainal's attitude toward perfectly reasonable tears. They had another fight over that.

"If he is badly hurt, he may cry," Zainal said. "But, on Botany, he must learn to take tumbles and get up and walk on," he added. "As you did on our initial treks."

"I was an adult, not a baby;' She was also stung that he would bring up those incidents, so long ago she'd forgotten them.

"If Zane walks, he is no longer a baby."

"He's my child and I'll dictate what he may or may not do."

"Tell him not to bother me then;' "Bother you?"

"He seeks my company."

"And you never push him away."

"No, but I will if you do not like the way I treat the son of my mate."

Zainal's face had assumed the cold Catteni look that devastated her, and she caved in.

"I want you to be fatherly toward Zane. He couldn't understand you changing," she said more meekly than she meant to sound.

"I do as I see other fathers here do, Kris;' he replied in a quiet, kinder tone. Then he caressed her cheek. "And when my sons learn that you are really Emassi in spite of being female, I would like you to be elder mother to them."

"Truce?" she said, holding out her hand.

"Truce? Yes, truce. We two should not be angry at each other over nothing."

"Nothing?" That was enough to get her back up all over again but Zainal stopped the incipient quarrel by kissing her so thoroughly that she had to cling to him to keep upright.

He was learning some other tricks of Human males, too, she thought as he carried her to their bed. It was nearly midday but neither was due for duty for another hour so. Zane was already in the crche. They had not been together often enough recently, she thought. No wonder they were fighting.

When they had finished a very satisfactory passage in arms, Kris asked Zainal how plans were going for the next series of "raids." Despite the inconveniences of masquerading and enduring the heavier gravity of Catten, she realized there must be a piraticalcertainly aViking--streak from her ancestry that gave her such enjoyment in these forays. It was so very satisfying to sneak :m under Catteni noses and get away with such good plunder.

Though she gave a little shudder thinking what might happen if they didn't get away with their deceptions. She quickly gave up thinking about that.

"The Council thinks hard about the next step. We," and Zainal turned his thumb in on himself so that Kris knew he meant the other Catteni, "must make additional contact with those who can help with our challenge to Eosi domination."

"Will that mean only you go?" she asked. After being with him again, she hated to be separated. Not that they could indulge in intimacies aboard even the larger KDL, but she would miss him acutely no matter how short a separation.

BY THE FALL OF NIGHT THAT DAY, the residents had another problem.

Some of those brought in on the last G-class ship were young folks, aged between five and twelve: children who had grown up knowing nothing but the Catteni domination. Most of them were either orphaned or had been separated from their parents, and three could not even remember their names. Dorothy Dwardie turned the most violent over to Dr. Hessian since his Freudian training would be valuable in these instances. Their childhoods, if one could use the word, had been so traumatic that, unless therapy was used, they would be neurotic by their teens.

"Children can survive the most appalling circumstances;' Dorothy said as she addressed those who had volunteered to house the orphans, "but the one thing they have, which adults often lack, is resilience. Shown kindness, especially fair play, will do much to show them what we, here on Botany at least, consider 'normal' behavior."

Some of the wildest had had to be sedated throughout the trip. Laugh-rey, who had been captain of the purloined ship, said his crew had been totally unable to cope with this group.

"We did find out that, when we brought them to the ship.. ú the first time;' and he grimaced, "we were Human quislings and were taking them to work to death as slaves. When we rounded them up again, we had to sedate them. Most were covered with infected sores--well, you've seen their scars--and wounds. In my opinion, they're worse off than the Victims. And they're just as much Victims of the Eosi as the mind-wiped."

Every attempt was made over the next few weeks to integrate the children.

The placements were not universally successful, though Sarah and Joe lurked out with a five-year-old girl. Once she realized that she was safe, she refused to be separated from her foster parents and either Sarah or Joe had to have her in tow. She also didn't speak, but Dorothy Dwardie felt that, once she felt really, truly safe, she would talk.

"Children pick up speech patterns from their carets. If they've had no carers, of any kind," and Dorothy shrugged. "There's certainly no impediment in her vocal equipment."

The psychologist grinned, reminding the foster parents of the screams the child had uttered when she was given her three-in-one injection. Two of the children on board the G-ship had had measles so preventative shots were essential.

Maizie, the name Sarah and Joe had given their waif, was derived from her constant look of amazement at foodmall she wanted to eat--and dean covers on a bed that only she occupied. She did take to carrying the fluff-filled pillow with her everywhere. That was a useful habit, not only reinforcing her sense of security, but because she was inclined to take unexpected naps, both hands clutching the pillow.

"I don't think she ever slept on Earth;' Sarah told Kris. "At this rate, you won't have to have a second child," and she cocked her head at Kris.

"Especially now Zainal's got his two sons here."

"Kasturi hid his family away before he defected, and he wants to bring them in. He has daughters. I just hope he doesn't do a Maasai on them;' Kris said in a jaundiced tone of voice.

"If you ask me, it wouldn't hurt some of our latest drop-ins to be sent down to Chief Caleb Materu;' Sarah said.

"I believe that's also occurred to our noble leaders. Dorothy's against it," and Kris paused.

"So are you," and Sarah snorted. "But I catch any of them bullying some of the littler boys again, I'm going to thump 'em."

There was a hard-core group of eighteen who had banded together: six black, eight white, two Japanese, one Chinese girl, and one French lad: ranging from seven to the eighteen-year-old black lad, Clune, who was their acknowledged leader. They had actually been rounded up by the Catteni, as they were old enough to survive the drugged journey. Laughrey freed them from the DC-area holding pens where they awaited transportation.

They had become a unit, fourteen males and four females, calling the Diplomatic Corp. They were still a unit, despite being as-to foster parents. They refused to work but managed to acquire food whenever they wanted it. Several sessions in the stocks for Clune, and his two "consuls," Ferris and Ditsy, failed to correct their attitude. Twice their unit disappeared from Retreat and had to be tracked down by Ru-garians and Deski, with Chuck Mitford in command. The second time, he marched them back without a single rest break.

Not even demonstrations of what night crawlers could do seemed to deter them from defecting from Retreat. The supplies they had acquired on both occasions showed that they could access anything they chose to have: including com units. And they were clever enough to have opened secure premises to get the weapons they wanted. Oddly enough, among the goods they took from infirmary supplies were condoms. One of the group, the seventeen-year-old who called herself Floss, had insisted that none of the girls should get pregnant: an unexpected display of common sense.

It became clear within the first two weeks that they had no intention of integrating. They were not, in Leons medical opinion, physically well enough---after four or five years of eating whatever they could scrounge for the unit--to look after themselves in one of the closed valleys. Which had been suggested as one remedy to their recalcitrant behavior. Floss had been acting as their medic, since she had taken a first-aid course before the invasion, but she would not be capable of dealing with the serious wounds nor the various infections, external and internal, which plagued the young folk.

"We can't let them go half-healed, and that Floss needs a D and C," Leon reported. "Mary said it's not urgent... yet. But fibroid growths have a tendency to keep growing unless there's a curettage."

"Why don't we see if Chief Materu would take them in for a spell," was Laughrey's suggestion. "Let's make it really basic for them:'

"Haven't they endured enough 'basic'?" Dorothy asked, though she could come up with no other suggestions. Almost all the other children that had been rescued were settling in or responding to trauma therapy.

"Not a structured basic," Ray Scott said. "I'd rather they had enough training to survive on their own, if that's the course we have to take with such a hard-nosed bunch. I'll give Chief Materu a call;'

Chief Materu accepted the challenge. It didn't surprise Kris, though that Zainal decided to go along with those marching the Diplomatic Corp down to the southern settlement of the Maasai. She chuckled, thinking of the pace that Zainal would set. Chuck, the two Doyle brothers, Joe Latore, Coo, and Slav came along "for the exercise."

When Chuck met Kris on his return, he said that the trip had been instructive for all concerned. "Chief Caleb's segregating the girls who certainly don't like that part of it. Nor working with only women. But work they will. Good thing those Maasai are so tall." He grinned with satisfaction of an assignment suitably fulfilled.

"Ah... how are Zainal's two fitting in?"

Chuck eyed her. "They are. Even manage to chatter some in Maasai.

Zainal allowed a smile for each of them, and you'd've thought they'd been turned loose in a candy store. They've picked up some sort of skin problem but the Maasai now have the medical plants they need to cope with almost every ailment."

That reassurance gave Kris enormous relief.

"Were our renegades similarly impressed by seven-foot chiefs?" she asked.

Chuck laughed. "What's that word that Ninety uses? Oh, yes, gob-smacked.

They were that in spades. Turns out that two of the black kids were Africans from their countries' respective embassies. They knew the Maasai, certainly by reputation, and enough Swahili to understand basic orders."

Chuck took a long pull on his beer and then folded his hands across his stomach. "Yup, that was a good idea Laughrey had."

THREE DAYS LATER there was an urgent com call for Zainal and Leon from Chief Materu. The skin problem for the two Catteni boys had not responded to Maasai cures and the boys had developed fevers that could not be reduced. Kris offered to come, too, and Zainal was worried enough to want her company. Leon brought what he felt would be the appropriate equipment, carefully strapping the microscope box into a travel net on Baby, as well as a variety of medications.

"It's unusual for Catteni to have skin infections," he murmured to Kris as Zainal drove Baby at its best speed. "Or fevers. Zainal's never shown any toxic reaction to anything here on Botany. That I heard of?" the Australian looked inquiringly at Kris. She shook her head. "Well, we'll just have to wait and see. Not that, with this speed, we'll be long waiting."

ZAINAL LANDED BABY as near to the chief's high-set platform as he could. Materu had heard the noise of the approaching ship and beckoned them to follow him to where the boys were being cared for.

The fevers were high, even when Leon adjusted the thermometer reading to CatteN levels. The sores exuded yellow pus that had a nose-shriveling odor to it. Leon quickly made slides and, taking his microscope out in the light did a quick investigation. He was shaking his head when he returned.

"I've never seen anything like it. It's some sort of... allergic reaction that's causing the skin to erupt like this:'

"Will antihistamines work on Catteni systems?" Kris asked, hands denched into fists with anxiety. Zainal wore his worst Catteni face, and she was sure he thought the boys were dying. So did Chief Materu and his medicine man, or whatever they were called in Swabill.

"It's the one thing I can try. The only Human equivalent to those sores is pyoderma gangrenosum," Leon said. "And that may be the result of a col-iris.

Neither lad had any sign of that sort of problem when I checked them over." Then he asked what the boys had been eating, but he shook his head when the listing was complete. "Nothing they didn't have on board the KDL except for fresh rocksquats and fish, and they haven't bothered Zainal.

Nothing else, Chief Caleb?"

It was the medicine man, introduced as Parmitoro Kassiora, who said something in Maasai to the chief.

"He says he gave them a very, very small dose of olkiloriti because they ate too much and had bellyaches. Much less than he would use with our boys because they are different;'

"Isn't that from the acacia plants that were just brought back?" Leon asked.

Parmitoro added something else.

"He says that some of the Catteni who rounded them up took ill like this, with sores, and died;' the chief translated, looking exceedingly pleased.

"Hey, you could be right about allergy, Kris." He checked through the medications he had brought with him and found several, looking from one bottle to another. "Their metabolism runs at a different level despite other similarities to our own body mechanisms. Give me your arm, Zay," he said.

When Zainal had bared his arm, he did a quick reaction test of all three possible medications. Leon whistled under his breath as he timed the testing. Behind him the boys muttered in their fevers, tossing and almost, but not quite, crying with the pain incurred by moving.

"Not a damned thing;' Leon muttered after the required reaction time was up. "At least you're not allergic to antihistamines;' Then he looked Zainal straight in the eye. "Do I have your permission to try, Zainal? At least I believe they will take no further harm from the shots."

Zainal nodded. Leon bowed slightly to the Maasai medic, who had been observing with close interest but no reaction to what Leon had been doing. Chief Materu had murmured some explanations in Maasai.

"Do I offend your Parmitoro Kassiora by using our medicines?"

Caleb Materu gave them a wide smile of very white and even teeth.

"Not at all. The boys have been good boys, and they are not Maasai so perhaps Maasai medicine could not work on them." Materu turned to Zainal.

"For that he apologizes."

"None needed." Zainal nodded once to Parmitoro in acceptance.

"That takes care of the medical ethics," Leon said in a wry tone. "I'll give one to Bazil here, and another to Peran. Then we've one spare.. :' He made the injections.

And they waited. Some of the women, and that included a rebellious and surly Floss, brought food and cool water. The hut was not only stuffy but also reeked of the suppurations. Kris did edge toward the opening of the hut.

"I want out of here, bitch," Floss muttered as she and an older Maa-sai woman returned with a fresh bucket of cold water.

"Only when you're no longer one, dear," Kris replied in a low tone.

"D'you know what they do to women here?" Floss said, and there was a certain desperation in her eyes now.

"All the more reason for you to reform your outlook on life on Botany;' she said, for she had heard about the female genital mutilation practiced by some African tribes. Were the Maasai one? She couldn't remember.

Floss made a sudden movement toward Kris, which, in retrospect, Kris decided she deserved for the taunt, and immediately the tall Maasai woman grabbed hold of Floss and threw her from the hut. Kris could hear the thud of the girl hitting the hard ground. She thought she'd better make certain that the girls of the Diplomatic Corp were not required, during this reed-ucation period, to adhere to all Maasai customs. They should have brought along one of the Swahili speakers. How the hell was she going to explain this one?

They waited. They could and did try to ease the boys' fevers with the cool water, laying fresh cloths carefully over the sore-covered bodies.

It was dark before Leon extracted a thermometer from Bazil's armpit and exclaimed. "The fever's coming down."

Kris was in the process of changing a cool cloth when she noticed that the sores were no longer oozing. In fact, the smell was lessening, too.

"Hey, look!" And she pointed to the nearest sore. "It's drying up."

Zainal immediately stripped the coverings from Peran, and the younger boy also seemed to be responding to the medication.

"It's four hours. Time to give them another shot."

During the next four hours, the sores seemed to dry up in waves, starting from the chest working downward to the limbs. The boys' temperatures dropped to normal, and they each fell into a deep sleep.

"Empirical but you Catteni are not impervious to the minor ailments to which Human flesh is heir," Leon said as they all left the hut and stood in the fresh night air.

"This acacia? They swallowed it?" Zainal asked.

Materu said. "It is ground fine and a small amount taken with water."

"Do I know what you're thinking, Zainal?" Leon asked, eyebrows twitching and the gleam of a smile on his face.

"The problem would be 'how.""

"Yes, it would, wouldn't it," Leon said.

Kris had no trouble following their line of thought but she also couldn't figure out how the olkiloriti could be administered to the Eosi.

How could they possibly get Eosi to swallow sufficient to kill them? Or at least give them an awful allergic reaction?

"Were the boys in real danger from just an allergic reaction?" she asked Leon. She'd never even had a bad case of poison ivy.

He cocked his head. "If the antihistamines hadn't taken effect, I don't think they'd've survived the night." He looked back at the hut. "They'll still need a lot of care... and no further herbal medications. I hope Parmitoro won't take offense."

"He would take more offense if you had come and the boys had died," Caleb Materu said with an amused snort.

"I do have some salve I used on Catteni wounds," Leon said, dragging his medical bag out into the cool night air. "To heal the sores. I know it doesn't react on Catteni. The sea, too, will help. Can they swim, Zainal?"

"They do now," Caleb said in his deep voice, and in the torchlight, his eyes sparkled.

"When the sores are closed, have them swim in the sea. Salt's still a superb cure-all;'

"You wish them to remain in my care?" the chief asked Zainal.

"I do," Zainal said firmly.

"How are the others doing, chief?" Leon asked and his eyes danced with mischief.

"They learn;'

Kris pulled at Leon's sleeve, to get him to listen to her whisper. "Floss is terrified that the Maasai will do something... down there;' and she pointed to the correct spot.

Leon covered a burst of laughter. "I imagine she would be. Don't worry. Hassan made it plain that the females must return in the same physical condition in which they arrived. He also said that Chief Materu is one of the more modern leaders."

Kris let her breath out with a whoosh.

"Don't reassure her, though," Leon went on. "Being real scared is effective conditioning as negative conditioning. Dorothy and I did discuss an aversion state, like intense fear, to be used to cancel out a lesser, unpleasant state... like choosing to be cooperative if you're angry. If there is something that does terrify that hard-boiled little minx, let's let it stand. Right?"

"Right."

LEON GAVE THE BOYS A THIRD INJECTION. He measured out tablets, which he put in a jar for Parmitoro to give the boys orally during the next ten days. Then the two medical men shook hands.

By common consent the three retired to Baby to sleep for the Botanic night wasn't even half over when the boys began to improve. In the morning, when Leon had gone over to check on his patients, Kris heard an odd noise, small but definitely not a regular sound.

She caught Zainal's attention and pointed to the passageway. Two of the Diplomatic Corp girls, and one of them was Floss, were attempting to squeeze into one of the storage compartments. It was the opening of the panel that Kris had heard.

Zainal had no sooner made it to the doorway with Floss under one arm--and Kris behind him with an arm lock on the other, younger girl than four Maasai women arrived.

"If you behave, Floss;' Kris said sternly as the Maasai women took firm charge of the would-be stowaways, "you'll come back in the same physical condition you arrived here. But if you continue to misbehave... well," and Kris spread her hands wide to indicate the outcome would be out of her control.

Floss turned dead white under the tan she was acquiring. Then she gathered herself up to snarl back and, before she could utter a word, she was pinched so painfully by the headwoman that whatever invective she had been about to spit out at Kris was lost in her yelp. Zainal drew Kris back in the ship. He was grinning.

"Doesn't like you, does she?"

"I can't blame her, but tough love works;'

"Love?" Zainal queried.

"Well, discipline meted out fairly for failure to obey." And she pointed to the tableau of Floss. Balancing a big basket on her head with both hands, she was bracketed between two tall Maasai women who moved with a grace Floss had yet to achieve. The younger girl was sobbing softly, her arm in the grasp of the headwoman.

Kris didn't at all like the sexism practiced by the Maasai but, if it taught Floss discipline and respect, she might even become a useful colonist when she returned to Retreat.

THE CIRCUMSTANCES of this medical alert were immediately reported to Ray Scott and the other Catteni were hastily gathered together. When Zainal had explained what he hoped to achieve, Nitin and Kasturi both started shaking their heads.

"Eosi are well aware that even the Emassi who surround them might seize an opportunity to use a poison. Anything they consume is first tested by a Catteni," Nitin said gloomily.

"Perhaps it is effective only on young bodies which have not matured enough to deal with dangerous substances," Kamiton said.

"Care to try it?" Leon said, taking out a vial containing some of the powdered olkiloriti. The Australian had an odd sense of humor.

Zainal held out his hand for it but Kamiton snatched it first. He pulled out the cork top and sniffed deeply.

"See?There is no danger.. :' His yellow eyes turned up in his skull and he started to have such severe convulsions that he jerked off the chair he was sitting in.

Leon sprang into action. Fortunately he still had his medical kit handy and, muttering under his breath about what dose would be sufficient to counter the reaction, he filled a syringe. Zainal and Kasturi were trying to keep Kamiton from hurting himself with the severity of the spasms that beset him but, strong as they were, they were having difficulty holding him.

Leon tried twice to pierce the tough Catteni hide with his hypodermic needle, cursing about elephant hides and crocodile scales, but managed to plunge the medication in.

The convulsions did not immediately cease, though Kris, watching anxiously for she had come to like Kamiton, thought they were not as violent.

Leon readied a second syringe from a different bottle with the longest needle Kris had ever seen.

"Let's hope your hearts can take this kind of convulsion;' he said as Kamiton's spine arched grotesquely. "Here, hold this, Kris. Hold it up:' He gave her the hypodermic and got his stethoscope out.

"Keep his arms out of my way, can you Zainal, Kasturi?" he asked in Catteni. Over Kamiton's inarticulate cries, whatever he managed to hear worried him. "I don't like the sounds in his lungs. Inhalation was a damned foolish idea. Cardiac arrest is possible. Kris, call the infirmary and send the team down here fast as possible;'

"I've already called in a medical emergency," Ray said, com unit in his hand as he stared down at the writhing body of the Catteni. "I think that shot is beginning to work:'

"It is?" Leon said, surveying the contortions. "You're right. The spasms are reducing in intensity."

"Eosi must breathe, mustn't they?" Kasturi remarked in Catteni to Nitin, their eyes still on the slowly relaxing body of their colleague.

"Yes, even Eosi breathe," N/tin observed. "But their living quarters are so carefully guarded..."

"Crop dusting might do," Leon observed with the fingers of one hand on Kamitoffs neck. "Pulse still racing. Damned fool thing to do with a drug he knew was dangerous."

"A very Catteni thing to do/' was Kris' rejoinder, her pulse racing as well from fear of the consequences of Kamiton's rash impulse. "Do I need to keep this?" she asked, meaning the syringe she still held.

"We might. I'd rather have conducted a controlled experiment but the empirical test was certainly conclusive," Leon added in an admiring tone.

Kamiton's body twitched only slightly now but his breathing was still labored, and he had not regained consciousness.

"Crop dusting?" Zainal asked, looking up at her, not having understood Leon's remark.

"A term for an aerial application of fertilizer or insecticides over large areas. Airplanes are used," and she made a sweeping gesture with her free hand.

"What has she said?" Nitin asked, his English being almost nonexistent.

When Zainal explained, Nitin once again shook his head. "No aerial traffic is allowed over Eosi compounds."

"There's more than one way to kill a cat without choking him with butter," Kris said.

"Say again?" asked Zainal, blinking with a lack of comprehension.

"'There are nine and sixty ways of singing tribal lays/" Leon chanted, "'and every single one of them is right.""

Ray Scott laughed. Kris wouldn't have thought he'd know Kipling that well. But they needed a spot of relief after the anxiety over Kamiton.

"I'm sure we'll think of some way," Scott said.

Just then the cardiac arrest team arrived.

"There has to be some way," Kris said.

"We will find it," Zainal said, stepping away from Kamiton as the emergency team moved in on him.

Leon was explaining what had happened and what precautions he wanted taken when they got Karoiron to the infirmary. Almost as an afterthought, he took the syringe from Kris' hand as he followed the team, with Karoiron carried on a stretcher out the door.

"Are there any dissidents on board an Eosi vessel?"

"If this stuff is spread through the air circulation, it would kill everyone on board," Ray said, putting the stopper back in the vial and placing it well away from the remaining Catteni.

"More will be needed, too," Zainal said, regarding the little container with considerable respect.

"Why?" asked Nitin, returning to his seat. "There is no way it can be spread for Eosi to inhale."

"There must be;' Zainal said, giving the table a pound with his fist that rattied the vial of olkiloriti. Ray immediately steadied it.

"We will somehow contrive," Kasturi said, giving Nitin a dire look for his pessimism.

"Meanwhile, we have other problems," Ray said, "and, while I am relieved that your sons survived their ordeal, Zainal, we've a meeting later today to decide how to cope with the growing destruction of our own planet;'

With a nod of dismissal, he pulled his keyboard to him and began to call up a program to consider.

Zainal, Kris, Kasturi, and Nitin left the hangar office in thoughtful silence.

"WHAT'S THIS ] HEAR about a lethal drug for the Eosi?" Raisha asked when Kris came to collect Zane from the cr&he.

Kris paused in lifting her jubilant, and heavy, son into her arms. "Boy, the grapevine works faster than light."

Raisha grinned broadly. "Well, we did see the cardiac arrest team speeding down to the hangar and then back... so naturally, we had to find out the details. And thank goodness, Zainal's sons are all right:'

"Yes, that was pretty tricky for a while. So who's spreading the word?

'%u or Sarah?"

"Actually, Mavis rushed down. She was collecting her daughter after her shift." When Kris, busy with her son, was not forthcoming, Raisha added more curtly than her usual manner, "Wellll?" and she raised the elegant curve of her fine brows in query.

"Yes, there is a substance that produces a violent allergic response in Catten/, young and old. But whether it can be got to the target area is the moot point. Don't get your hopes up."

"I will try not to, but it will be hard," the pilot said. "There simply has to be a way..."

"We'll find it. Maybe we'll hear from the Farmers. It's been long enough," Kris said, hoping to distract the woman.

"Huh! I have come to believe more in your Yankee in-gen-oo-ity," and Raisha grinned, parodying Zainal's use of the word.

"See you, later. Say good-bye, Zane and thank you to Raisha."

"Goo-by, t'ank," the obedient child managed.

"You should have another before he is much older," Raisha said.

"Ha! Won't need to if we import more kids."

"Has that wild group settled in with the Maasai?"

Kris chuckled. "They've had no choice."

Raisha nodded with satisfaction.

"I think Zane'll have to spend the night here... a big meeting this evening. I'll feed and bathe him first:'

"This good boy's always welcome."

ZAINAL WAS NOT IN THEIR COTTAGE so Kris let Zane wander about the place while she cleaned up from their hurried departure the previous day.

All the time her mind kept working through possibilities, but any bright ideas that occurred required more knowledge than she had of Eosian habits and habitats, information she did not have on hand. Even if Nitin was so pessimistic, she had the feeling that Zainal and Kasturi were not.

Her com unit buzzed, and Beggs informed her in his prosaic manner that her presence was requested for twenty hundred hours at the hangar for an emergency session of the complete Council. She opened her mouth to thank him when he closed the connection. She didn't like him and he knew it, but Beggs was the sort who would do his duty though it choked him.

And he was efficient. With the com unit in hand, she called the infirmary to ask how Kamiton was.

"He's left," was the report from the agitated receptionist. "Dr. Dane tried to keep him in for observation, but he just walked out."

"He's all right then," Kris said, chuckling. No Cartertl worth the rank of Emassi would let a thing like a near brush with death keep him abed. So he'd be there at the meeting. That meant that Tubelin would probably side with Zainal, so it would be three Catteni for and one against.

No, she shook her head, correcting herself. The meeting was about other matters entirely. While wiping out the Eosi would be the answer to many problems, that wasn't the panacea for all the woes that currently beset Humanity.

That was the subject of the meeting.

John Beverly addressed those who crowded into the hangar. When the numbers attending exceeded space available, a com system was hurriedly set up to allow those outside to hear what was being said. Kris noted with approval that the four Maasai chiefs were there, with Hassan Moussa whispering translations.

"Our last trip to Earth showed us what the Eosi are doing to our planet... stripping it of anything valuable and destroying what they do not understand. They are also systematically shipping Humans out as slave labor. The old, the very young, the infirm, the injured or sick are being left to fend for themselves and many will die. We cannot, here on Botany, continue to provide succor to those, much as we would like to. There is a finite limit to what Botany can provide.

"However, Kamiton has been able to supply us with the information of the other planets--some of them as habitable as Botany--where Humans have been dropped, as we were, to make the best of what was avail able. We want to check on these. If necessary, support them with tools, medicines, and other supplies. That will mean healthy people to take back to Earth when it's ours again. I'd like volunteers to go with our--"and he paused to emphasize the recent acquisitions"--G-ships to show them how.

There are five other drop"--and he grinned to use the term"--planets that we know of and we want to visit each. We also know of four installations where, according to Kasturi, Humans are being used as slave labor in appalling conditions. Some of our Maasai were sent to an ice planet. We want to free those we can. Right under Catteni noses, so to speak;' And Beverly flashed a smile when someone demanded to know how. "Pretend we're Catten/shifting work forces. We've inside help now besides Zainal."

And he turned to indicate the four dissident Catteni seated to one side of the table. "We can't emancipate--" and again that roguish grin on the air orce general s face"--all the slaves but we can try.

"Why?" someone roared. "They'll be half-dead. I don't mind helping now and then, but all the time?"

There was considerable support to that complaint.

"I know, I know," John said. "Altruism can go too far. And if we can, we will disperse these folk on some of the other planets we know about.

"Don't lose sight of the fact that the reason for these forays is to spread confusion among the Eosi and the Emassi in charge by a series of totally unexpected shifts of personnel and material which will disappear completely.

The Eosi don't like mysteries."

"Yeah, but won't they just retaliate by killing more of us back on Earth?"

"They might, if they could see the connection;' John Beverly said.

"We'll be using Catteni ships they haven't yet realized we have. How can they hold Earth responsible when Catten/are the only ones involved?

"Meanwhile, Catteni dissidents will be mobilized-and there are many Catteni who want to be free of Eosian domination just as much as we do."

"You going to use that dust to kill those bastards?" someone shouted.

John Beverly paused a moment, smiling. "Doesn't take long for rumor to circulate Retreat, does it?"

There were good-natured chuckles.

"We now have a means, but we don't have a way."

"Set up a Ways and Means Committee then;' some wit shouted and laughter greeted that suggestion.

"We have. Any ideas are cheerfully received. Now," and John looked down at his notes, "we're making another foray to Earth, to collect supplies, visit the other planets where Humans have been dropped, so I'm asking for some of the First Drop to come along in case we can help. Zainal's making another run to contact other dissidents."

Suddenly Gino Marrucci, who had been in the bridge on com link watch, came rushing up the steps to the platform and whispered something in Ray's ear.

He rose. "We may not be able to implement those plans just yet;' he said. "Gino says there's a massive attack force approaching. We may just have annoyed the Eosi too much."

"What do we do now?" a woman wailed in the silence that followed the announcement.

Kris had no trouble identifying the wailer as Anna Bollinger.

"I think we go out the back door NOW ;' Zainal said, gesturing for John Beverly to nominate his crews.

"What if the Bubble bursts?" Anna screamed.

"Don't be so stupid, woman." And Aarens was on his feet and faced her.

"The Farmers design much better than the Eosi do:'

Kris smothered her laugh. Anna's panic did spread. Those at the head table rose to try and restore calm. Beverly didn't waste any time, but pointed out those he wanted as crews for his ships. He took them off with him, gathering other men and women as he went. The hangar was emptying rapidly, with many running outside to look up in the darkening sky to check on the Bubble's distant nebulosity.

Many watched the barrage all night long. In some places, the force of the repeated assault turned the Bubble a glowing orange. There is no noise in space, of course, but there was plenty on the com sat link. Those who gathered in the bridge rooms of Baby and the two K-class in the hangar lis tened to the sharp exchange of Catteni and Eosi commands. Kris had joined Zainal and the other Catteni at the bridge installed in Ray's office where the ex-admiral and the rest of the Council followed what they could of the attack.

"Mentat Ix seems to be in charge," Ray said, looking at Zainal. "All the orders seem to be issued in his name."

Zainal only nodded as he reached for paper and pencil and, with Kami-tons help, listed the force trying to batter down the Bubble.

"Both the new AA-ships;' Kamiton said, "and five of the big H's that have been refitted with missiles;'

"Ah," and Nitin was cheered up slightly. "I hear Niassen is commander of one of the H's. He's useless."

"All he has to do is follow orders," Kasturi said, grinning.

"Isn't Redinit on that H?" asked Tubelin.

"Yes, I believe he is," Nitin said. He had supplied Zainal with the captain and crew complements of most of the ships the Eosi had been using against the Bubble.

"Don't we have three on the HHT?" Kasturi asked.

"Not in command posts, unfortunately," Kamiton said with a sigh.

"Can you give me some idea of how larg a dissident group you're talking about?" Ray asked.

"Roughly three thousand, spread throughout Eosi-dominated space;' Kamiton said.

Nitin regarded Kamiton with some apprehension, but the Catteni shrugged the implied reprimand away.

"Only three thousand?" Ray said, having hoped for a much larger subversive element.

Zainal laughed. "It is the nature of our group that's far more important than the number. Most of them are in strategic positions. Quality counts more than quantity."

"I suspect it could;' Ray admitted.

"Oops," and even Gino recoiled when the Bubble above the com sat area turned a livid shade of red. "They're obviously hoping the fabric of the Bubble is weaker around the array."

"Is it holding?" Ray demanded with a hint of anxiety in his voice.

"It'll hold," Gino said, "but it's taking a beating."

At some point during that long vigil, Ainger arrived, much annoyed, with a folded note from John Beverly.

"I resent being used as a messenger simply because I happened to be on hand;' he grumbled as he handed over the paper.

"John's taking all the G's out the back door," Ray said, frowning a bit.

"Isn't he exceeding his prerogatives?" Ainger said with an expression of deep censure. "Unless, of course, you intended him to attack the Eosian?"

"With G-ships carrying a minimum of weapons?" Zainal asked, surprised. "No, he's going to provide further distractions, as was planned."

"He's away," Gino said, grinning.

"He broadcast?" Ainger was livid.

"In Morse," Gino said, laughing. "I just caught it. Thought it was only static at first, but he's got it on repeat. I'd best tell him his message was received."

He manipulated some toggles on the com board and then, listening intently to the chaotic Catteni messages, finally nodded. "Yeah, he got it."

THE BARRAGE OF THE BUBBLE WENT ON all the long Catteni night and into morning, but the fabric of the sphere did not collapse. The sun blotted out the colors the bombardment made but Bert Put, working the dawn shift as com officer, said he could hear the orders for continued barrage.

"This should infuriate the Mentat Ix," Zainal said, a smile of intense satisfaction on his face.

"Too bad there's no way to use that anger to our benefit;' Ray said.

"Ah, but there is," and Zainal held up one finger, his smile deepening.

"How?" Nitin said. "There's no way to get that dust..." and Kami-ton gave an uncharacteristic shudder.

"Having failed, the Mentat will have to explain its defeat to its peer group," Kamiton said, rubbing his hands together. "And such a convocation can be of benefit to us."

"How? We have the dust but not how to disperse it to kill 'em all off, even if they are in one place together?" asked Ray.

There was a long and thoughtful pause, which Jim Rastancil finally broke.

"Where are they likely to assemble?" he asked.

"Ah, now that is something we should find out," Zainal said, "and as soon as possible." He jerked his head at the other dissenters. "Nitin, what's your best guess?"

"My guess?" And Nitin seemed surprised to be asked such a question.

"Where they seem safest, of course," Kamiton said, flicking his fingers.

"Where?" Jim asked, looking at Zainal for a translation.

"Catten itself," Zainal replied.

"Most likely," Kasturi agreed, nodding.

"No," Nitin corrected him, frowning. "The space station where everyone can be searched and monitored. Security will be very, very thorough," and Nitin looked more pessimistic than ever. "You won't be able to get in;'

"They will, however, need missiles to replace what they have wasted against the Bubble," Zainal said with a satisfied grin. "Emassi Venlik and a cargo of very useful ores would be made welcome."

"You don't have more than a few immature bushes of the olkiloriti down south," Kris felt obliged to point out.