They didn't have suckers on their feet but that was the impression you got, Kris thought. They stood firm behind the ropes they let down for others. So did Zainal, who was the first humanoid to follow. Some way or other, in the five ascents made, Kris always seemed to get hauled up by Zainal, who grinned each time he handed her safely onto the next level. She felt oddly pleased by his continued attention . .

. considering the fact that it was all her fault he was on this planet anyhow.

A day on Botany, which was what Kris privately decided to call the planet, was longer than on Earth and Barevi, so they'd been going quite a long time before the sun was at zenith, which was when Zainal called a meal-break halt on the summit. The ration bars would have gone down more easily with some water to soften them, though they'd all had a good drink at the last stream. Kris, dangling her legs over the edge of their vantage point, munched away and looked at the view, trying to figure out what crops were being grown, and for whom. As far as she could see, the land was cultivated or used as pasture, yet Zainal had repeatedly said the planet was not inhabited, so who was nurturing it and why? Considering that the harvestings were stored in caves, could the consumers be cave dwellers, residing deep within the planet? That would explain why there were no cities or visible occupants.

Not that Kris was eager to meet troglodytes.

The range of hills, of which this was an outcropping, loomed behind and around them, spreading to the east.

Mitford had marched them northwards from the field on which they had been dropped by the Catteni, up the ravines until the caves had been found. But those had showed no signs of occupation, past or present, even by the local wildlife which apparently favoured forested and vegetated areas. Curiouser and curiouser, Kris thought.

Just then the Rugarian, Slav, uttered an odd cry and pointed, his oddly jointed furry arm directing everyone's attention to the northwest. Kris could see nothing but more rolling fields in their neat patchwork arrangements.

Shielding his eyes, Zainal peered out and jabbered

something to the Rugarian who gave his head a sharp affirmative nod.

Zainal turned to the others. "Slav has seen what is different'.

. . not animal." He made a cube shape with swift gestures.

"Any people?" Kris asked, thinking that the presence of geometrical objects might indicate another drop point and more castaways. Not that she really wanted more people whose needs had to be considered.

The field was a fair distance away, though there were two little forests to traverse and, in each, the guys with slingshots brought down some of the alien birdy-like things and enough rock-squats to make the hunt worthy of the name. Kris had coaxed one of the hunters into letting her try her hand with the sling when he didn't need it. By the time they had reached the second wood, she was getting closer to the target she aimed at.

"Wait'll you see a covey of the critters," Cumber suggested, "and then, if you miss what you're aiming at, you might hit something else." "You're encouraging," Kris replied.

"Are you?" and Cumber cocked his head at her, his eyes bright with suggestion.

"Well, on that score, no, buddy, not encouraging," she said bluntly but with a smile.

She would have liked to stride forward, right up on top of Zainal's heels, but that didn't seem a good idea either, so she shortened her stride and dropped back with the Deskis, who were ambling along, both festooned with necklaces of the rocksquats which their unerring aim had downed. They were as good as hunters as they were as climbers.

The cubes were indeed Catteni-issue: one was even unopened and contained blankets, which Zainal parcelled out among the hunters to be carried back. There were dried brown puddles in an irregular pattern across the field but little else. Kris felt a wave of regret for those who had lost their lives here from "unknown assailants', as a news bulletin might say.

Reassembling her clutch of blankets, Kris saw the Rugarians quartering the field while Zainal had several others spread out and searching the borders.

"Think those flying things got "em?" Cumber asked, returning to her.

"Could be. But all of them? When the crates have been opened?"

"Or what comes out of the ground in the dark and sucks corpses dry," Cumber went on, waiting to see the effect his words had on her.

"This world does its own recycling," she replied. "No waste, no debris, no Coke bottles nor dead aerosol cans."

"Huh?" Cumber was plainly a literal-minded man and her facetious remark did not register with him.

Then one of the border patrol let out a shout and everyone, of course, had to go and see what he'd found: a clear trace that some large objects had pushed their way through the bushy hedge.

"Looks like something stampeded through there," Cumber told Kris.

She could see the line of retreat, or flight, through the foot-high crops in the next patch. At that moment one of the Rugarians shouted.

"Quiet, he says," Zainal said in his deep-voiced Barevi just loudly enough for the entire group to hear him.

Slav was gesturing with his knife, and then Kris clearly heard him use the Barevian word "hot' "Hot metal?" she asked, making her voice carry as far as she could.

she strode towards the knot of people clustering about Slav.

"Hot metal?" he was asked. Someone else pulled out their knife, miming a hot blade.

"Yissss," and the Rugarian pointed downhill and inhaled deeply.

"He smells hot metal," Kris said.

Zainal took charge, directing everyone to hide behind the hedges, and for Slav and a human male to go and investigate.

"Hot metal? The people who farm this planet coming to see who's messing up their fields?" Kris asked of noone in particular.

"Bout time someone came to have a looksee, if ya ask me," Cumber said in a pessimistic tone.

"And all we got is knives!" The returning scouts were not much ahead of the "thing' that lumbered after them. Only it wasn't after them: it was following a course to the fields above. It was gliding along on an air cushion, for it negotiated the hedges in a smooth hop and, while Kris and everyone else watched in fascination, it reached one of the crop-bearing fields and immediately went into a different mode: spraying the field.

"Willya looka that!" The speaker rose to full height in his surprise. Immediately those on either side of him pulled him back down behind the screening hedges. "Ah, it am got no eyes. It's just a farm machine. An' I think I saw another one down below, spraying another field." He was correct, as everyone iminediately discovered, by the simple expediency of taking a careful look.

"Close look now," Zainal said in Barevi and pointed at not only Cumber but Kris and Slav to take the detail.

"Stay down. Stay quiet. Don't know what these machines can do."

"Wal, I doan mind restin' my dawgs," was someone's response. "That Cat can sure trot the clicks." Kris was rather pleased to be singled out as someone whose opinion on the machine might be useful. Crouching low, and indeed Zainal moved as close to being on all fours as she'd ever seen a man move - even in Rambo pictures - they traversed the field where another group of whilom settlers had been deposited. They could see the top third of the machine, diligently switching back and forth, spraying evenly.

"That's why the fields are so damned regular, Cumber muttered beside her. "So the machines don't have to do corners or nothin'."

"Work efficient," ris replied in a whisper.

Zainal's hand figgged at them, and they saw him put his finger to his lips for silence. Kris grimaced at having to be reminded.

Machines who came all on their own to do even methodical tasks might be programmed for other actions.

When they got closer to the farther hedge, Zainal motioned them to get even flatter to the ground. Kris suppressed a groan as she fell to her belly and inched along like the rest of them.

They found gaps at the base of the hedges, between the thick trunks of the vegetation, and peered out at the machine which was now on the far side of the field. It was still balanced on its air cushions, still spraying, and the only mechanism that it reminded Kris of was a Dalek from old Dxtor Who videos.

"Exterminate. Exterminate." The Dalekian cry echoed through her head and she wondered just how apt it was.

Was the thing spraying fertilizer or insect killer? It was nearly finished, whatever. When it got to the last corner, however, it turned and came towards them.

Zainal signalled for them to make themselves as unnoticeable as possible by squinching up against, under if possible, the thick hedge.

Kris heard the thing nearing just as she also damned near gutted herself on a pointy root. Grimacing, she endured the discomfort for what seemed to be hours.

She heard a clicking, whirring, and other such noises that were so much like the sounds of that old Doctor Who series that she was also close to laughter. Except this wasn't a laughing matter.

Then the machine "jumped' the hedge and they all got a blast of hot, smelly, metallic air before it swept across the field, not touching any of the debris but certainly, Kris felt sure, checking it over.

Another hopscotch leap and it left, fortunately never getting into the field where the rest of the hunters were, hopefully, making themselves as scarce as possible.

"That thing's dangerous," Cumber told Zainal who merely nodded.

"We get the others and leave, he said, emphasizing the last word significantly.

Slav, who had been listening carefully to the Catteni, now raised his hands to his lips and emitted a shrill sound that wasn't bird call or dog call or anything.

It was answered by a similar call from Zewe.

"Tell. Go," and Slav pointed uphill, the way they had come.

"Good!" And so they started on the way back, joining the rest of the hunters by the time they reached the next field.

The Deski then gave one of their warnings, quick gestures indicating flying things and everyone froze in their tracks. A formation of five flyers came gliding in from the east, swooping down over the field and then quartering it. As nothing moved, the predators were baulked of their reward and, with squawks of complaint drifting back to the breathless waiting hunters, they proceeded on down the slope.

"Wow!" Cumber said in a low and respectful voice.

"That damned machine called in an alarm."

"We weren't seen by it," Kris said thoughtfully, "so it must have some sort of sensor because it sure knew we were there. Like a Dalek."

"A what?" Cumber clearly had never watched the old SF serials.

"A robot with deadly intentions.

One of the other men grinned and said in a nasal falsetto, "Exterminate! Exterminate !"

"Hey, Mac, keep it down!" someone else ordered in a nervous whisper.

"What is said?" Zainal quietly asked in English.

"The machine reported our presence," Kris said, miming the actions of her words. "It may be heat sensitive. Knew we were in the hedge because of body heat." Zainal nodded. "Take good care. We go to caves now.

Hunt. But watch always." He tapped Slav and Zewe and gave them some rapid orders. "They hear best," he added to Kris.

The two Deskis moved to the sides of the group and then, on Zainal's signal, everyone moved off again.

The return home was even rougher, with all the descents to be made while they were laden with the rewards of their hunting. No unusual hazards were encountered. On the plus side, the six-legged grazers which they had spotted in the field bled red blood when nicked. Two were slaughtered and dressed right there in the field so that their meat could be portioned out among the hunters to carry home. The additional blankets were put to good use. And were very helpful later when the insects began to rise after the sun went down.

Deskis evidently had a sharp homing instinct because they led the way back in the serni-darkness. Kris had never been so glad to see the campfires of home!

There was certainly applause for the hunters when they returned so well laden. No sooner had Kris divested herself of her burden than Zainal touched her arm and gestured for her to join him in reporting to Mitford.

Cumber and Slav were there, too.

"Cumber said you identified these machines, Kris," Mitford said.

He looked very tired.

"Me? No, not really, only that they're some sort of robot.

"Cumber said they didn't even touch the ground."

"Air cushion propulsion?"

"Hmmm. High tech. And heat seekers?"

"Well, the machine must have called in those flying predators," Kris said. "And there were five of "em, so I'm extrapolating that the machine sensed our five bodies hidden in the hedge. But anyone's guess is as good as mine," she ended modestly.

"But yours is a tad more educated from watching all those kidvids.

I'll buy it, Bjornsen, I'll buy it. G'wan now, and you as well, Cumber. We've got a sort of bread tonight, soda bread." He grinned.

"One of the chemists found a deposit of sodium bicarbonate. Bread doesn't taste half bad - if you're hungry enough and you ignore occasional grits from the grinding.

No sooner had Kris reached the main cave, to stand in line for her hunk of bread, than Patti Sue discovered her.

The girl threw her arms about Kris's neck and howled with tears of relief.

"Hey, now, Patti Sue, I was perfectly all right," Kris told the girl, trying to calm her down to mere hysterics.

Sandy came to her rescue. "There now, Patti, I told you Kris can take care of herself." Patti Sue was persuaded to release her death hold on Kris. As she stood back, she looked down at her front, now smeared with what also covered Kris's garment.

"Oh my gawd, what's that?"

"Probably blood," Kris said, for the meat she had lugged back had dribbled down her, attracting the insects.

"Oh my gawd!" And Patti Sue backed away from Kris as if she had turned leprous.

"Guess I need a bath," Kris said cheerfully and, taking her portion of bread, ate it on the way down to the underground lake to make herself more presentable.

She wasn't the only one to want to get clean. There were quite a few white bodies splashing in the water.

Someone had added more ropes. Pausing only to add her wrap-around boots, food packet and blanket to the row of similar belongings awaiting the return of their owners, she grabbed a spare tether and plunged into the water. Twisting the rope about one wrist, she then winkled herself out of the garment and rinsed it thoroughly. The water was invigoratingly cool and somewhat restored her energy level. She got out, drying herself on her blanket and then wrapping it sarong fashion. She squeezed the water from her coverall and then made her way back out of the lake cavern. She was sure she'd sleep that night.

She did. Until Zainal roused her. It had to be the middle of the long Botany night because everyone around her was fast asleep, especially Patti Sue who would have had a ii6

knicker attack if she'd awakened to see the Catteni so close by.

There was just enough light supplied by the ffickering torch in the passageway for her to see Zainal touch his lips for silence.

Groaning involuntarily because she was stiff from yesterday's exertions, she had trouble rising.

Zainal put out a helping hand and - zip - she was on her feet.

She grinned up at him as she followed him out. He didn't release her hand and she was content to let it stay in his strong mitt. She had to entertain the thought that she was definitely attracted to the Catteni, and not just because he was taller than she was. He had conducted himself with such dignity and tact during the past few days that surely even those who violently hated the Catteni couldn't fault him.

Certainly Mitford had made it plain to the motley crew that Zainal was a large and useful entity in their continued survival. Once the euphoria of the past few days settled into boring routine and less exciting uncertainty, she suspected there would be problems.

"Trouble?" she whispered in Barevi once outside the room. "Don't you ever sleep?"

"Not in danger," he murmured back and led her on.

It was third moonset when they got outside. Kris could see faces lit by the campfire in the ravine; one of them was Mitford's.

"Sorry to rouse you, Bjornsen," he said with a grin and gestured for her to hold up her cup. She didn't realize until that moment that she had unconsciously gathered up her accoutrements; her blanket, the cup and her ration bars. "As far as my internal clock is concerned, this is well past dawn."

"And you're a creature of habit?" she grinned at him, accepting the warm liquid. It was some sort of herbal tea which was an improvement on bare, naked hot water.

"Pull up a stone," he added and she sat on the one just to his right. "I want you to go with Zainal, here, and Slav and the Deski Coo, and suss out what other surprises this place has in store for us.

No sense in thinking we're safe in this ravine. One of the egg-heads mentioned that there are indications this," and he waved about the walls of the ravine, "may get flooded in spring. High-water marks and scrapings of trees on the sides, higher up than we can stand, and I ain't that good at treading water." With a start Kris wondered if he was quoting an old Bill Cosby routine.

"I want you to take several days circle around our position here," and he gestured.

"Go straight out as far as you can go in a day's march, making a map of the terrain. Zainal here says he knows how to map. He's picking up English real good. Officer material for sure." This last Mitford said in a lower voice and with a grin meant for Kris alone.

"Seeing as how you know him, and seem to be able to charade things to Slav and Coo, you'd be the human in the team. Unless you got any real objections to the duty."

"Is there going to be trouble for the. . .

ah. . . aliens, Sarge?"

"Ain't there always?" Mitford said in a cynical tone. "I can trust you, Bjornsen," he added in a dark low tone.

"You've proved you can hack it, too."

"Thanks, Sarge," and Kris felt a good deal taller for that unexpected praise.

"And with the Catteni along, he'll see you don't come to harm."

"Thanks, Sarge, she said, this time wryly. Build "em up to knock "em down, but she grinned to show she had ii8

no ill feelings. It was enough that the sergeant wasn't as misogynistic as some career soldiers she'd heard about.

"I want you to draw additional rations from Greene for all of you.

Seems like the Deski can't stomach the red meat and they need somethin' in their diet, though what it is I haven't been able to figure out." He sighed.

"That's another reason I'm sending one along with you And you're to eat!" He shot one thick index finger at her so suddenly that she rocked back. "We've got enough to supply patrols away from camp. That stuff may be less tasty than field rations, even, but it's got all the nutritional crap you need to march on. Get another issue of blankets and an extra coverall. Got it?"

"Got it, Sarge," she said, her hand half way to her brow to salute when she realized that might not be appropriate even if it was an instinctive reaction to his manner.

"Good," and he grinned in the firelight, having caught that abortive gesture. "Zainal, get the rations and supplies and move out at your leisure."

"Leisure' in army parlance meant right smart. So, in next to no time, they were making their way in dawn's early light up the ravine and into undiscovered country.

Zainal led at a spanking pace that didn't seem to alter, whatever the terrain they had to traverse. But, like Mitford, he did call a halt when full daylight lit the skies.

The first thing Zainal did was tie a knot in a thin strip of blanket, of which he had quite a few tucked inside a thigh pocket. A tally rope? Well, they had no writing materials and Zainal, strong as he was, couldn't exactly carry a sheet of rock with him to chalk up the miles.

Or should she say "klicks' since she was on a military operation?

"What are you counting, Zainal?" she asked.

"Steps, so I know distance," he said in Barevi.

"Oh. . ." and that steady pace now made sense. "What's the Catteni word for miles, or kilometres? How do you measure distance?"

"My . . . step . - he said tentatively in English.

"Stride is the better tem," she said.

"Stride is one Catteni pleg."

"Pleg for the leg," she said, using her own brand of aide-rninoire. "Make a stride for me, please?"

"Hnunm,' and he complied.

Stretching her own long legs to their limit, she could lust about make the same length. "Hmmm. Over a metre then. Hmnnn. Well, I could almost spell you on a level surface so you could have a break."

"Hmmm,' he said again, blinking rapidly as he sifted the meaning of her words.

So she "charaded' what she'd said and then he understood with a grin.

"One pleg is almost dead on a metre. One pleg, one metre," she said.

Slav and the Deski were watching, too, their expressions keen enough to show they were interested in the demonstrations. So she pointed to the Rugarian, gestured for him to take a stride. His was the same length as hers, but the Deski's was much longer since he had spider-like, long leg-bones. Although Kris tried to get Slav to tell her what a pleg was in his language, and attempted to extract the same information from the Deski, she had no success.

Both kept saying stolidly "pleg, pleg' A plague on it, she thought but smiled and patted each in turn before she sat down again to get the good of the rest period. She wasn't sure if they didn't care to have a language lesson or if they had some obscure reason for sticking so perversely to the Barevi words. Both Rugarian and Deski had rather flat, inflectionless voices, but then what she knew of Catteni was flat and inflectionless, too.

The lingua Barevi had had more rhythin and tone to it than the languages in which Zainal had spoken to both Slav and Coo.

As they hiked on, they reached another plateau where a second break was called: another knot in the tally string.

When Zainal told her how many pleg each knot represented, she realized they were travelling at slightly better than four miles an hour. . . that is, if Zainal was stopping every hour. So, in the next onward push, she counted the minutes while he counted his paces. She thought she might have lost a few minutes because she got sidetracked watching the Deski check the vegetation on the plateau what there was of it because there were no fields or hedges or much of anything. But just when she felt they had been marching the hour, Zainal called a halt.

"Gee, man, you got a clock in your head?" she asked as he made a third knot.

He raised a querying eyebrow at her. It made his face seem more humanish, less Cattenish.

"Lordee, how do Catteni tell time?" she muttered to herself, trying to remember if he'd had some sort of digital device on his wrist, like good space farers should, when she'd first encountered him.

"Time," he picked up on that word and tapped his skull.

"Time kept here. Good time.

"Now, don't tell me your home world has long days and nights like Botany?" The two of them spent the rest period explaining and understanding that concept.

"Full turn of planet is not as long as here," he said in the best English sentence he had so far made.

"Boy, you sure learn fast."

"Is "boy" a good thing to say of me?" Again that quizzical expression.

"Well, yes," Kris replied, grinning, delighted with his sense of humour: something she hadn't thought Catteni possessed. "But you are a man, I am a woman. Boy is a young man. I'm using it in the context of a slang expression so it doesn't mean the same thing as the word should." He grinned in such aolite way that she wasn't sure if he understood her explanation at all before he gestured them to take up their journey again.

The day grew warm on the plateau, which had no shade at all on its sandy and gritty surface, only the wiry plants with their odd-shaped leaves that didn't look like anything on any Earth. Coo kept tasting plants and even different coloured patches of soil as they went, usually spitting the samples out, so that Kris wasn't sure what verdict was being rendered. She was becoming so thirsty that her tongue felt swollen so on what was the midday rest stop she didn't have the desire to banter with Zainal. The others took out "lunch', gnawing off good hunks from their bars, but she didn't think she had enough saliva in her mouth to chew much less swallow.

"You bite, you chew, be better," Zainal said kindly and rolled his mouthful about to show that he wasn't swallowing either.

She tried a small piece and discovered that something in the bar helped generate some moisture. She didn't eat as much as the other three but felt better for what she did put in her stomach They travelled on then, the plateau gradually sloping down to a lusher sort of terrain. And a stream. She had to summon up all her self-restraint not to prostrate herself in the stream but carefully to re-educate her mouth and throat to wetness.

"God, what I'd give for a canteen.

"What is this "god" so many call on?" Zainal asked.

"Another "boy"?" Coming as the question did in Zainal's rich guttural voice, it sent Kris into a fit of the giggles. She'd often been told that she had an infectious laugh - and had proved it from time to time by setting a whole classroom off - but it pleased her no end that the effect extended to another species. The Catteni's chuckle sounded very human. Slav cocked his head at her and frowned while Coo merely looked at her in consternation, as if the Deski thought Kris was having a fit or convulsion.

"I won't answer that question now, Zainal," she said when she had reduced giggle to grin. ""God" was never a boy! I will explain another time when we have several years at our disposal." Zainal frowned, not having understood all she said.

Which was about par for the course, she thought. And just as well.

Having drunk sufficient water to revive herself, Kris now pulled out the rest of her lunch-time bar and finished it. She was ready to go then but Zainal did not urge them away from this pleasant spot, as much because there were new varieties of plants along the stream bank which Coo was sampling with great eagerness. He came back with something which he showed to Kris, the first time he had done that.

"Looks like a kind of watercress to me, she said, testing one of the stems and a leaf. "Can you eat it?" she asked, gesturing to her mouth with the sample.

The Deski nodded, popped a stalk into his mouth and chewed with every indication of pleasure. Kris nibbled carefully and, feeling her lips and gums go slightly numb, buried her face in the water and gargled vigorously. She felt Zainal's hands on her shoulders supporting her. She rinsed and gargled, being careful not to swallow, and rinsed and rinsed until the sensation was washed away.

"Thanks, Zainal," she said and then saw how concerned all three of her companions were. "Oh, I'm fine. I didn't swallow any of it. All yours, Coo, all yours." The Deski nodded vigorously and made a show of clutching the rest of the sample plant to his chest.

"No more try," Zainal told her sternly.

"You bet!" His concern altered to a glare of frustration. "More "boy" words?"

"Well," and Kris rocked one hand back and forth to indicate neither one nor another. Lord, but she'd never appreciated how complex English is. Or did she mean idiomatic American?

They went on then, until Kris wondered how much longer she could ignore the swelling of her feet which the wrap-around boots were not compensating for. And she'd thought she was fit! Ha! She had dropped behind the two aliens - two of her companions, she amended quickly and found herself watching the rippling of the hairs on the Rugarian's legs. His feet did look funny in the wrap-around Catteni footwear and he didn't seem to have "muscles' where humans did: but depressions came and went with each stride sort of laterally instead of up and down the way calf muscles did. And in front of him, Coo seemed only to have leg bones, no muscular movement at all, only the tendons - or what passed for tendons on a Deski - on either side of the one leg bone, lifting and lowering it, like the shaft of a crane. She tried to imagine the anatomy of her companions, sans skin, and failed utterly. Biology had not been one of her stronger subjects. Oh, the gaps in her education.

Well, there's nothing like on-the-job training, she thought, or whateve? it was they were now doing.

Some place and time later, she was able to stop moving her legs and was sat down on a rock. There was a small fire enclosed in a circle of rocks and around a cairn of rocks. Odd formation, she thought bemusedly. Then, as the buzz of fatigue allowed it, Kris could hear the babbling of a brook near by. Water! She half rose and then was pushed back onto the rock and presented with a big leaf.

"Drink!" She grasped the leaf, feeling the thickness of it, and found a "lip' from which to drink. The water was ever so cold and tasted ambrosial. Real Adam's ale!

"More?" asked Zainal, looming over her.

She struggled to rise. "I can get my own water - Ohhh, no," and her voice came out just this side of a wail. Zainal's big hand pushed her back onto the stone just as she realized how weak she was.

She sipped this time and was able to take in more of her surroundings. Someone was chipping rocks?

She looked around and saw Slav and Coo hammering a hole out of the slab of rock not far from the fire. They were on an outcropping that edged yet another of the fields, a metre above ground level.

Large-leaved plants formed a bit of a canopy over the portion of the cliff, affording them some shade. Beyond this small campsite she saw the spray from a little cataract that spilled off the rock and down into a pool, then on down across the field. A crop field, she noticed.

Looking back, she realized with a start of amazement, they were making a rock cauldron. On the far side of the campfire were the limp carcasses of rock-squatters and some other smallish beasties she hadn't seen before - six-legged - which, she thought idly, would make skinning them tedious. Then Zainal knelt to perform that task. Rather deliberately, she thought, he gathered up the entrails and threw them off, onto the field below.

"Zainal," said Slav and pointed to the now sizeable hole they had chipped into the rock.

"Water," Zainal said, and Slav and Coo, reaching up to pluck more big leaves from the trees shading them, made several trips each.

When the hole had been filled to within a handspan of the top, Zainal threw in the dissected joints of the animals and Coo added some roots, similar to the ones already in use at the cave. Then Zainal, deftly using a forked stick, started transferring hot rocks into the improvised stew pot.

Kris was delighted and clapped her hands that someone was making use of her suggestion. She reached about her and gathered up more stones which she piled in the centre of the fire. They'd probably need a lot to get the stew cooked enough.

Full dark and first moonrise had occurred before they were able to eat, using twigs like chopsticks to get the pieces from pot to leaf. A little salt would have made it even more palatable but hot food in the stomach was enough of an improvement in itself over dry, hard rations no matter how nutritious.

When they had eaten as much as they could, Coo covered the "pot' with a flat rock, wiping his hands as any human would for the finish of a good job.

"Slav, first moonset," Zainal said. "Then Kris, to second moonset. I third, Coo, final.

No-one argued but Kris was glad to have a long enough sleep to restore her energy. She visited the waterfall, drank and then, unfastening the boots, presented her swollen, tired feet to the cascade. She had to set her teeth against the pain but soon enough the abused flesh was too cold to send any other messages to her brain. She stood the cold as long as she could before she hobbled her way back to the fire. She thought her feet flesh had been reduced but she couldn't be sure, they were so numb. Coo and Slav had been off on a necessary absence, too, but they all arrived back to settle down for the night.

She unrolled her blankets, spread them and settled herself on the rocky surface, her freezing feet towards the fire. A good pile of dead material had been piled near at hand to feed the fire through the night. What primeval hold-over made her feel better for having a fire?

It also didn't matter that there was no way to cushion her hips and shoulders on the hard rock: she was too tired to care. Briefly her mind dwelt on the distance they would have travelled that day but she hadn't really noticed how many tally knots were on Zainal's string.

Well, a good night's sleep mended many aches.

Slav woke her and the first thing she noticed was that the first moon was still visible in the sky. But it gave enough light for her to see that Slav was agitated - all the fur on his head was standing up.

He had also roused Zainal. He pointed down to the field and gestured for them to come. Whatever it was did not require either stealth or quiet.

Slav just pointed and looked at them for their reaction.

Kris wanted to throw up. Zainal simply watched the - . things: things with long tentacles and writhing hairs, and seemingly no body unless the body was still underground: the things were crawling over the intestines that he had discarded onto the field. There wasn't that much left of the entrails, for whatever was feeding on them absorbed the matter quickly and, before many minutes had passed, there was only the grassy covering left, no trace of the refuse. Maybe she had lust imagined the squirmy, wriggling roundnesses that had feasted.

Zainal was nodding his head as if this was what he had expected.

Kris swallowed. Was that what had happened to those who had bled on the other field? And the bodies that had been left on the one she had awakened on?

"Neat," she said softly. "An internal garbage collection!

Sure keeps the neighbourhood clean. And those are not "boy" words." In the moonlight his teeth showed whitely "You knew?" she asked him.

"A thinking."

"Thought, you mean.

"Think, thought?"

"Right."

"Sleep now. Show's over." Now where had Zainal picked up that one? Kris wondered as she returned to the warmth of her blankets.

She sighed, maybe she should stay awake and give Slav lust that much more uninterrupted rest. But she was asleep again so quickly and without a single dream - until Slav roused her, to a moonless sky.

She stood her watch, walking the perimeters of their rocky outcropping. Was that why Zainal had picked this camp? Or was it because they could make a stew pot in rock? Not that she didn't put it past this planet to have rockdwellers of horrific abilities, too.

There was no sign of any further activity on the ground, however. And she was a little tempted to throw another piece of garbage down there to see what happened: the sort of compulsion one has to be sure that what one saw was just as horrible the second time as the first.

Night time and silence were great aids to imagination and she had to keep her mind firmiy on the positive things: she was alive, her stomach was full, she was as safe as anyone else in the camp, even if this planet had too many anomalies and mysteries to give anyone peace of mind. So, to keep from thinking of the wrong things, she reviewed all the camping trips she'd ever made the stone pot was a good notion to see if she could remember any other "do-ables'. A knife, a hatchet, a cup and a blanket were not much to survive on, with, by. Not that they hadn't been doing pretty well with just that basic equipment. But there were so many things they lacked. A pail to carry water in, a frying pan to cook food in, a fork or two would be right handy. Why, when she needed it the most, did she not have her Swiss Army knife?

Boy, that item would be worth its weight in platinum!

Of course, there were spare blades back at the main caves. Wasn't there someone at the camp who thought he could manipulate blades into other useful tools? Her stomach began to rumble. Damn this planet!

Even meal times were skewed. She slowly ate half a ration bar.

Nowhere near as tasty as that stew.

Despite such a positive bout of thinking, she was glad enough to rouse Zainal to take over sentinel duty The next morning Zainal had already heated up the remainder of last night's stew for breakfast and a hearty one it was - to fill night-empty stomachs. They cleaned up the leftovers, sopping up the last of the juices with another ration bar. Kris was stuffed but she'd work it off soon enough.

She asked Zainal how far they had travelled the day before and he showed her the tally string. She whistled appreciatively: they'd made forty klicks, no mean feat when you considered the ups and downs they'd had to negotiate. Her feet, which she had bathed again in cold water, certainly knew they'd walked that far. Maybe she shouldn't have asked.

It made her feel tired to think she'd trekked that far.

Zainal kicked out the fire and used the stew pot rocks to make a cairn before he signalled them all to move out.

"Where are we heading for today?"

"Circle," he said, gesturing a wide arc, and ending with his finger pointing to the cairn. "Find what is find."

"What we can discover, find, see, know." Kris had never thought of herself as a pedagogue but she had this intense itch to correct Zainal and improve his language skills.

Thank goodness he was amenable to learn-as-you-go.

They jumped down off the outcroppmg and made their way across the field. Zainal moderated his pace from yesterday's stride but not by much. Maybe his feet hurt, too? How much walking did a space trooper get to do?

Coo found some green globes in one of the hedges, which he gobbled juicily, humming happily to himself but Slav curled his upper lip in distaste - a process which fascinated Kris, as Slav really did curl his lip up and into a fold above his uneven set of teeth. She wondered again how Rugarians kept from seriously biting the insides of their lips with such dental equipment.

Everyone kept their eyes open, surveying behind them and above them, especially when they were out in the open. A rear-view mirror would have been right handy, Kris thought. Dead things got sucked into the ground at night but clearly the avian critters patrolled by day for their sustenance on things that moved.

"3' The fields were endless on this gently rolling terrain.

Streams were laid on at such intervals that Kris's earlier wish for a canteen was redundant. There were no roads, no bridgs, no fly-overs, nothing more serious than rather abrupt little hillocks of stone that seemed to rise straight up out of the ground. She'd seen something similar somewhere on Earth but it took her some time to dredge up Ethiopia from her memory. Most of the hillocks were bare but a few seemed to have caught enough soil to support bushes, and one or two were crowned with the almost-trees that baby bushes became if they had a chance to live long enough.

Then they came to a whole series of fields that had recently been harvested. No track to tell them what direction the harvesters had come from or gone to.

Although the direction would take them out of the circular loop Zainal had proposed they make, they followed the harvesting signs.

They heard it before they saw it and only had time to take cover before the mechanical gadget floated over the intervening hedge in the very next field.

"Do we stand or run?" Kris whispered hoarsely to Zainal. He shrugged but he was stuck as far into the hedge as he could get, and stock still. She imitated him, wincing as branches dug into the softer parts of her.

They could smell hot metal, combined with odder smells that must have been fuel - only that begged the question in Kris's mind, Who manufactured the fuel, not to mention the machiny? They waited in this position until she got a knotting cramp in one side and grimaced, trying without moving much, to relieve the spasm.

When was that mechanical going to move on? Or, and the thought pierced her with a good deal of fright, was it waiting for reinforcements? Did the machiney on this planet learn? Very carefully craning her neck up, she could see through the funny-shaped foliage of the hedge material that the Dalek hadn't moved a smidgeon: it lust hovered there, on the other side of the hedge.

She poked Zainal who was also watching for movement, and when he carefully turned his head to her, she raised her eyebrows in query.

Just then Coo came alert - not that the Deski hadn't been tense with the waiting. He turned his glance down the field and very carefully pointed out a direction. Something was coming for them? The fliers always seemed to come out of the sun at them. What would be coming up the hill? And should they leave? If they could, with the mechanical monster an arm's length away. And if they did make a run for it, where would they go? There wasn't even a hillock close enough that they could scramble up.

Kris didn't like this at all.

She liked it even less when Coo let out a whimper and pointed with more agitation down the hill.

The things moved so fast that Kris barely saw the glint of them in the sun when they were upon them - and -shooting their little darts.

She felt the prick and she lost consciousness from one moment to the next.

She just avoided tripping over a sleeping beastie of some

Chapter Six

A hand rocking her shoulder roused her from the stupor caused by the drugged dart.

"Kris, wake up." Zainal's voice.

"Lemme sleep." She ached and she was so-o-o-o tired.

"No, we go now or not.

That brought recent events back and she shot up so fast she nearly cracked her head on Zainal's as he knelt beside her.

It was dark all around, but she could make out both Slav and Coo, and then the odd stamping and heavy breathing, as well as animal smells, gave her another clue. They'd been dumped in a barn?

Classified as animals by the mechanical? She didn't know whether she was amused or indignant.

"Water?" And Zainal handed her a full cup which she sipped to revive her parched mouth and throat.

"Thanks." She got up as she finished and, when she would have handed him back the cup, he pointed to the empty loop on her belt.

"Oh! Yes. Thanks again." Then she felt for the important parcel of ration bars and her blankets. All in place and accounted for. She breathed a sigh of relief. "So how do we get out of here?" she asked, sensorially aware of the size, as well as the darkness, of the building.

"This way," and Zainal cupped one big hand under her right elbow and turned her in the right direction.

"Care kind: one of the creatures that made a liquid looing sound.

She blinked furiously to accustom her eyes to the gloom and took a couple of quick and careful steps to catch up with Zainal, Coo and Slav.

"The main door, of course," she murmured when she realized that that was their destination. A very large set of doors. And how they were to open them, when there was no apparent handle or lock or knob - She heard a little snick, a click and a pleased mutter from Zainal and heard the rumble of a door moving on a track as he replaced his boot knife.

"Come," Zainal said, and she and the others wasted no time in slipping out. Zainal carefully closed the door behind him and it snicked once more when shut.

They were by no means clear yet, for their temporary prison seemed to be only one of many such buildings set in a long line, visible as a greater darkness against the lesser one of the sky. For she could see stars above but none of the moons.

"Hold," and Zainal took her hand in his and then she felt Coo's dry fingers closing around her left hand.

Slav, with better night vision, was their leader.

They must have completed a full circuit of the immense yard before they halted again.

"Place to hide?" Zainal asked Slav. The Rugarian shook his head.

Coo said softly. "Up?" and pointed in the direction of the stack of crates that had been halfway round their exploratory circuit.

"Maybe we can see more when a moon comes up," Kris suggested.

Zainal nodded and they made their way back to the tall crates.

Once again, Zainal's height and heft made the difference as he boosted each of his team up onto the first level of the container stack. It took the three of them to haul him to their level. The process was repeated until Zainal decided they were high enough up not to be immediately visible from the ground.

Visible to what? was Kris's question but she didn't voice it.

They had at least reached enough space for all of them to lie down, which seemed the best idea although Zainal just sat, propped against the crate, obviously intending to stand the watch.

"Wake me to spell y,) Kris told Zainal and made to lie down on the hard surface. How odd, she thought, that a simple convenience like a mattress was a distant memo,y.

Then she felt hands pulling at her and, quelling her immediate resistance because the only hands that were that strong were Zainal's, she allowed herself to be pulled around, her head resting on his thigh.

Not quite as hard as the crate, and warm, so she made herself comfortable.

He shifted her briefly and gave her a sort of a pat before he crossed his arms. She was obscurely glad that there were only Slav and Coo to witness this cosiness. Well, hell, she didn't care. She rubbed her head into his leg, wishing the muscles were not quite so firmly packed.

There was rather a lot of Zainal that was commendable.

Slow down, girl, she warned herself. Why, then, do I frel more comfortable with him than with anyone else, even Jay Greene?

The sun suddenly blazing right in her eyes woke her more speedily than any alarm. She was facing into it unlike Coo and Slav who had carefully put their feet in that direction.

Zainal's head had dropped to his crossed arms and he was breathing heavily enough for it to be called snoring.

She was about to wake him when sudden activity below startled her.

Machines were whirring, grinding, revving and there were all kinds of noises, except those of intelligible speech of any kind. She eased away from Zainal - had he moved at all since he had volunteered himself as her pillow? - and crept to the edge and looked down: shuddered and then took a grip on herself. They had climbed considerably higher than she'd realized last night: there was only one more tier of crates above them.

And the crates looked fairly well used, scraped along the sides and dented in places: the usual result of careless packing and unpacking. Only what packed and unpacked them? Where did they get emptied? With what were they now filled?

One building now gushed forth smoke, and another a stench that was unmistakable. Kris had only encountered it once before when she passed a meat-packing company on a detour through a grotty area of Denver.

The abattoir?

And it was opposite buildings that resembled the barn they'd been in that night. To confirm her hideous surmise, the double doors of one of the barns now opened and its inhabitants, comprised of the six-legged grazers and some other smaller and different types, were being herded to the abattoir by a curious mechanical which had long extendable "arms' and which spat electrical sparks at laggard beasts.

All unconscious of their imminent demise, the beasts jogged into the building. Kris steeled herself but heard nothing and saw only the animals entering the building. The doors slid closed and noises she didn't want to describe issued forth, making her clamp her hands to her ears.

"They gather meat, too," Zainal said right beside her.

Instinctively and desperately wanting some comfort for the harrowing sound so near by, she burrowed against him. He was warm, alive and nearly human. To her surprise, he embraced her, soothing her with his hands and thus restoring her courage. It struck her as very odd that a Catteni could be comforting.

It was when the doors of the next barn opened and its occupants were driven out that matters changed abruptly.

For there were recognizable humans staggering out into the light, shielding their eyes from the bright sun that poured, almost obscenely, down the passage between the buildings. They, too, were being herded by a long-armed, spark spitting machine. They were not, as the beasts had been, amenable to such herding.

Even as Zainal reacted, rousing Slav and Coo, some humans were trying to evade the machine's extensions, which was obviously unaccustomed to any sort of protest.

In fact, all the humans seemed to be trying to escape, as if they had figured out the fate which awaited them.

"THIS WAY! HERE!" Zainal yelled, waving furiously and glancing towards Kris to shout directions.

One human spotted them, pointing upwards and calling to the others. Although Kris couldn't imagine how they could manage to help others escape when they didn't even know how to themselves, that was not as important as getting humans out of the clutches of the mechanicals.

The four scrambled down the big crates they had so laboriously climbed the night before. At least, down was easier than up. But it was up they'd need to do again.

The humans pelted down the alleyway to be met by Zainal who had halted his three companions on top of the ground tier with an imperious hand. He gave Kris the unmistakable order to stay where she was. But, as she saw him link his hands, she realized what he was going to do: throw the people up on to the first crate. Kris, Coo and Slav then pushed them to the next level, urging them to get higher up, out of any possible range of the mechanical's extendibles. So they formed a human "lift' system for the escapees: humans, Deskis and Rugarians, three green Morphins and two Turs, the goblins who were so short that Zainal was slinging them up.

In the panic of the effort to get everybody off the ground and started up the crates, Kris got bruised, cut, and had her right wrist wrenched so badly that she had to rely on her left hand. Then there was Zainal to get up to safety because the mechanos were now aware that something was distinctly out of order. Kris wondered if they had counted bodies coming out of the barn and had now discovered the appropriate number were not being processed. A shame to put their production figures out.

But they'd rescued more than twenty from slaughter.

Zainal had to jump to reach the helping hands that would take him off the ground. A funny little clicking machine was now quartering the passageway.

"Climb!" Zainal said to those on his level. "Seek heat.

We go to cold." They climbed and climbed until they reached the top with the others and then they all stopped in awe. As far as they could see there were crates stacked to the same height. Acres of them to the horizon.

"Now this is one mother of a stockpile," a human muttered with an understandably hysterical edge to his voice.

"And we damned near joined it, someone else said.

"More down there?" Zainal asked and Kris noted him breathing heavily for the first time since they'd started this reconnaissance.

"Hell, all we saw was that one stinking barn after those flying turrets darted us. Are we going to hang about to see?" Clearly that was not his preference.

"Hey, you're a Cat!" the first speaker said accusingly.

"Cat or not, he just saved our lives. Thanks, pal," the second man said to Zainal, holding out his hand.

He was filthy and the slight breeze on the top of this incredible'- stockpile wafted a stench off him that nearly gagged Kris.

Most of the escapees now sank to their butts to rest after their scrambling retreat.

"Zainal is my name. These three and I explore. You are?"

"Speaks good English for a Cat," the first man said "Kris Bjornsen, Slav and Coo are us," Zainal continued the introductions. Then he paused for the others to identify themselves.

Their stories were similar to the experiences of Kris's group except that they hadn't had the benefit of a Sergeant Chuck Mitford to marshal them out of danger. The field they had been dumped on had been attacked by the fliers in spite of Deskis' attempts to warn of incoming danger.

Everyone had scattered in twos and threes and small groups, only to be rounded up when they were spotted the second morning by a harvester unit. They'd been in the barn for several days but had survived on their food parcels which were now almost gone. Several of their number had been trampled to death in the barn when the animals had, for some reason, panicked the second night of their incarceration.

"That's why we all smell like this," said Lenny Doyle, a medium-built, dark-haired man with a pleasant, open face and a nice smile. Dick Aarens had been the first speaker and still regarded Zainal with frowning suspicion. He was taller than Kris, but he had a dreadful slouch and a mean slant to his mouth as well as deep scowl lines.

"Zainal got dumped down here along with the rest of us," Kris said with an indifferent shrug to relieve the sudden tension among the newcomers, "and I don't know why he's here, but he is and he was ready to risk his neck to get you out, so cool it, Mac." Dick Aarens reluctantly subsided but Kris caught him more than once glaring at either her or Zainal.

"So, do we go back and see if anyone else's stuck in those barns?" Lenny asked Zainal.

"Why should he risk his neck for more humans?" a stocky man of apparent Italian origin demanded in a surly voice.

Zainal had his head down in what Kris was beginning to know as his thinking pose. He looked up at the sun and then did a slow circle, squinting against the glare of the sun. He said a few brief words to Slav who nodded.

"Slav leads to camp," Zainal said. "The machines learn "Yeah, but do they have something that climbs crates like a spider?" Aarens demanded.

"You have food?" Zainal asked.

"What's it to ya?" Aarens wanted to know.

"Oh, cool it, Aarens," Lenny said. "The machines didn't search us. We got cups, knives and bars."

"No water," and again Zainal glanced sunward.

"I take the point," Lenny said. "Look, I'll volunteer to go back to the edge and see what's up with the mechanicals - -" He grinned at Kris for his description of their captors. "They must've. . .

processed. . . another group yesterday. We heard screaming a coupla times." He shook himself convulsively. "So we figured we might have to make a break for it."

"There're a lot of barns down there," Aarens said, shaking his head.

"We go back," Zainal said. "See."

"Now, wait a minute - - Aarens said, holding up one hand in protest.

To the idea as well as the spokesman, Kris thought, marking Aarens as troublesome.

"Then go with Slav," Zainal said, shrugging his indifference.

"There is much to see and know." This time his gesture meant learning as much as possible about the machines and their operation.

"Can you open barn doors from outside?" Kris asked.

Zainal nodded. "Easy," and now he grinned. "Animals do not unlock doors. Humans, and Cats, do." Lenny laughed out loud at that and nudged the hostile Aarens. "Sense of humour, too. Shall I go back for a look-see? I had a long drink just before we got ejected from our happy home.

Zainal nodded and Lenny trotted back the way he had come.

"Hey, bro, I'm coming, too, and a second man followed.

"The Doyle brothers stick together. I'm Joe Lattore," the stocky Italian said with a grin, nodding at both Kris and Zainal. "So what do we do if there are a lot of other humans, and aliens, stuck in with the cattle?"

"We get them out," Zainal said and, hunkering down, unrolled one of his spare blankets and, taking out his knife, began to rend it into strips. To make ropes, Kris immediately realized "Yeah, a rope would be real handy," Lattore said and took a blanket as Zainal handed them around.

It wasn't easy to do, given the sort of indestructible fabric it was. Kris had to stop: her wrist ached and was next to useless.

Hauling folks to the top of the crates would be a lot easier. That is, if the mechanicals hadn't figured out where the escapees had gone which was possible. By the time they had acquired several lengths of sturdy rope, the Doyles returned. They had seen no more except smoke from the processing plant.

"Yeah, machines operate on logic and our escape since they classified us as "meat animals" - would be inconsistent," Kris said, as she worked. "Somehow I don't think their programming would extend to coping with inconsistencies. We came up as heat sources where heat sources shouldn't be - in there messing up their crop fields. That was easy for them. So they dumped us in with the other animals they were collecting."

"I don't think I like that," Joe said, shuddering. "Bad enough to be mistaken as food. How come they don't recognize people?" "Does sort of beg the question, doesn't it?" Lenny said.

"I dunno how they figure it all out. We were there four, five days without anyone taking a blind bit of notice of us, or even opening the main door. When they did, we couldn't get out for those six-legged things being crammed in. And suddenly there was only standing space.

Then - whammy!

we're scheduled for the chop. They must have started.

well, processing . . . yesterday if what we heard were human cries - . -" Lenny gave another shiver.

Kris watched Zainal thinking over this information.

She wondered how in heaven's name the Catteni scouts hadn't noticed such installations on their exploratory pass of this planet.

Surely they would have spotted such a vast number of crates? Unless, and she thought of the evidence, the scrapes and bad handling, these were new, and the last lot had been collected? By what? For whom?

"We see if there are . . . more people," Zainal said, having reached a decision. "You help?" He looked around at the recently rescued.

Ten decided to remain and help, including the two Doyle brothers and, oddly enough in Kris's estimation, Aarens. The others were led off by Slav, who once again assured Zainal that he could find the cave campsite. He kept pointing to the north and east. The two Deskis went with him, to keep a listen-out for the flyers and any roving mechanicals that would need to be avoided at all costs. If nothing else, this recon had taught Kris, and the others, the sorts of hazards that had to be avoided: sleeping on bare ground, avoiding the harvesters, and freezing when flyers were spotted.

Simple, homely, rules, Kris told herself facetiously. She was glad she'd had a good drink of water before they'd set out. Still, maybe they could sneak back down to the vacant barns.

Which is what they did when Zainal and his stalwans reached the yard. The fact that no-one had been searched, much less stripped, was discussed.

"They didn't search the six-legged critters," Lenny said.

"Why would they search us?"

"But we're. . . we're humans," Aarens said and Lenny's brother, Ninety, snorted.

"Did you introduce yourself? Well, then, how would the machine know we're different?"

"You mean, they thought we were animals?" Aarens was outraged.

"Not very flattering, is it?" Lenny said drolly.

"Just another warm body, bro," his brother, Ninety, quipped back with a grin. "Any warm body'll do. If it registers."

"That is how the machines know," Zainal said. "Heat."

"I'll buy that," Lenny said.

"And movement.

"There are no people . . on this planet," Zainal added.

"Yeah," Lenny said thoughtfully. "Think you're right.

I thought robots were supposed to protect humans." He glanced slyly at Kris.

"Not if they're not programmed to."

"So who, or what, programmed "em?" Lenny wanted to know. Kris could only shrug her ignorance.

Having made their way across the crates and to the nearest barn, they had climbed onto the roof and now looked down through one of the ventilator slats into the barn. It was empty. Empty and smelling of some kind of a disinfectant which had its own unmistakable stink.

"What a pong," Lenny said, wrinkling his nose.

"Could there be such a thing as a totally mechanized farm planet?" Kris said, wondering out loud. Then she turned to Zainal, who was lying on the roof beside her, still looking round the empty space below. "How many continents are there on this world, Zainal?"

"Four.

Two large, one not so large, one small."

"Which are we on?" Zainal shrugged.

"How come he knows so much?" Ninety asked, jerking his thumb at Zainal and addressing Kris "He once saw a report on the place. He lust didn't look hard enough to remember everything we're dying to know," she said, grimacing. "What he has recalled has already saved us a couple of times.

"Who's us?" Kris told them, and Lenny grinned at his brother when she described Chuck Mitford.

"They never quit, those old soldiers, do they?"

"Mitford's not old," she said defensively, "and we were very lucky indeed he was there, because we stayed free." Lenny gave her an odd look. "Can you be sure of that?" "No surer than I am of anything else on this planet." Zainal rose. "We look at all." As soon as a quick peek proved that there was nothing moving in the yard below them and the smoke was no longer coming out of the abattoir building, they checked the other barns: twenty in all, half of which reeked of the disinfectant. Three of the other ten they examined held nothing but animals. They would call down the vent, tentatively at first, but then with more vigour until they were sure there was no-one there to answer. The grazers kept making their stupid looooing sound in response to all questions.

"All the same," said Lenny in disgust. "Never did like cows.

"These aren't cows, Aarens said. "Nothing like cows.

"So? They're loo-cows instead of moo-cows," Kris said, a comment which brought chortles from Lenny and Ninety.

"They're still not cows," Lenny said. "Cows give milk.

Those things don't have any equipment beyond two extra legs." The next barn produced astonished and glad cries and a jumping about of obvious people shapes in among the loo-cow forms.

"Keep it down, will you?" Aarens called urgently, glancing nervously around.

Lenny Doyle crept to the edge of the barn, looking up and down the quiet avenue and gestured an "OK' "What do we tell "em?" Aarens asked, not looking at Zainal.

"We come at night. They keep quiet now," Zainal said, ignoring being ignored.

"Night's a long way away," Aarens said.

"We watch."

"We could let down those ropes we made and haul "em up?" Aarens suggested.

"It's much easier to open the door at night and let them out," Kris said firmly, knowing that she wasn't up to hoisting who knew how many heavy bodies. "Like we did."

"Night best," Zainal said, nodding.

"Why? Machines don't care if it's night or day. Machines don't need to sleep." Aarens was persistent.

Zainal muttered something under his breath. "Do not run at night.

Can't-' "Why not?" Aarens was getting belligerent, deliberately, Kris thought, trying to find fault with Zainal.

"I think the machines are solar-powered," Kris said, grasping at an explanation that fitted. "Sun power?" she asked Zainal who nodded, smiling that she had grasped the correct explanation.

"Yeah," and Ninety's eyes widened. "Yeah, they got those funny panels. At least the harvester did. Makes sense. There hasn't been any rain yet." Zainal grinned. "Rain very bad here. In places. We see who is where," and he gestured towards the other barns waiting to be searched.

Four more confining humans were found and the message of imminent release was repeated, caution urged and the prisoners were told to get as much rest as they could because the escape route was a rough one.

There was some protest but Kris, speaking for Zainal - as that seemed diplomatic - assured them there were reasons for the delay.

They returned then to the roof of one of the empty barns. Prying open one ventilator slot, Lenny Doyle, as the slimmest of the men, crawled through. He was going to check to be sure there were no interior sensors. They let him down far enough so that he could peer around, swinging on the end of the rope.

"Looks clean to me. Sensor eyes can't be all that different," he said in a loud whisper to those waiting on the roof. "Lemme down. I need a bath as bad as I need a pee. Begging your pardon, Kris." She chuckled and watched as he was lowered to the floor. She went down next and heard them ripping away enough of the slot to permit the heavy frame of Zainal to pass. The thin blanket rope was rough on the hands and she slipped a couple of times because her wrist wasn't functioning, but all of them made it safely to the floor.

There were a dozen or more watering troughs to service the animals the barn usually held, so a few on one side were designated as baths.

Piles of some sort of dried fodder had been placed in wall mangers and Kris looked forward to sleeping a tad more comfortably on a hay bed until moonrise.

Zainal, with Aarens and the Doyles, did a circuit of the empty building, checking for any other sort of sensor that might tell the mechanicals one of the barns was inhabited again.

While most of the men decided to bathe, Kris was more interested in piling up enough fodder to make a decent sleeping surface. She hadn't liked the leer on Aarens' face when he looked at her. He struck her as the sort of devious personality who'd peep if given the chance.

She wasn't going to give him one.

At that, he sought her out, his longish hair still dripping.

She couldn't really hold that against him but she disliked the proprietary way he made as if to join her on her pile of hay.

"You find your own, buddy," she said, as discouragingly as she could.

"Hey, lady, just thought you'd like some quality company. Can't say I approve of a nice girl like you having to be paired with a Cat.

Or is it voluntary?"

"I volunteered for the patrol, if that's what you mean and her tone implied that had better be "Are there more like you back at this camp of yours?"

"Aarens, get lost. I'm tired and I want to sleep by - - myself," she said, emphasizing her wish for solitude.

"Git!"

"The fresh stuff is over there, Aarens," Lenny said, pointing to the manger, his expression pleasant but there was no doubt that he wouldn't move until Aarens had.

When she was left alone she lay down on her pile, so comfortable that she fell asleep despite the muted voices ofthemen.

Mitford surveyed the camp, well pleased with the improvements of the last two days. They had plenty of game and some of the women had thought of sun-drying the leftovers into a sort of jerky.

"Waste not, want not," was the theme for the day.

Scouting parties kept coming in with little treasures throughout the long day. There was even fine sand that could be used for a timer.

"Like you use to time your boiled egg.

"No glass."

"Well, there're these nut husks. Cut a teeny tiny hole in one, let the sands run through. Turn it over. Couldn't be simpler." "You lose a couple seconds turning the damned thing over - .

"Complaints, complaints."

"Hey, what about a sundial. There's that flat place at the top of the rock just below the sentry post.

"Yeah, and how do we time it?"

"Hell, you're the mechanical engineer. You figure it out.

One one-hundred, two one-hundred, three one-hundred is still a second even here." A commotion midafternoon brought fifteen angry women and one bloody-nosed Arnie to Mitford's office.

Noticing that all the women had wet hair, it didn't take him more than a minute to figure out that Arnie had been peeping again.

"He didn't stay warned off, Mitford," an irate Sandy Areson said, pinching the man again. "He's a dirty pervert, is what he is. And with him doing latrine duty only makes it easier for him to know when we're going to bathe.

Chain him to a rock or by God, I'll sharpen my knife and Mitford had begun to chuckle as he'd had a sudden inspiration. "I think we can provide restraints for our little Arnold Sherman. And provide an object lesson at the same time. Jack Lemass, front and centre," the sergeant added in a bellow.

"Yo!" and a man who had been carving various types of woods available in the nearby copse loped over.

"You rang?" Most people were in good spirits, Mitford decided, and proving ingenious in what they could contrive. They didn't have nails but Jack Lemass, who'd been out ear!y in the morning on a hunting party, was sure they could fashion chairs and tables and other useful items from the larger trees.

"Yeah, d'you think you could construct me a pair of stocks?"

"Stocks?" Jack poked his head forward on his neck in surprise.

"Stocks?" Sandy exclaimed and then burst out laughing.

"Hey, that'd be great and we could belt him with rotten eggs - if we could find any rotten eggs. She gave the cowering Arnie another swat but she, and the other women, began to grin in happy anticipation of his future discomfort. "Make "em as uncomfortable as possible, will ya, Jack?" Jack went through a little routine of pretending to measure the quivering Arnie so that he moaned in apprehension.

"OK, ladies, as you were, Mitford said. "Sorry you've been pestered." "Thanks, Sarge," Sandy said and took his hint, shooing the women out of the "office'. "We've got work to do, too, ladies "Better yet, Jack,' Mitford said, "take him with you to cut the wood and make him help you build it. To fit him because I think he'll be in the stocks a lot. Won't you, Arnie?"

"I was only looking," Arnie whined in self-defence. "I wasn't doing more than that."

"That's enough. Shut your face and be damned glad I don't get Jack to put a stake and whip you at it."

"You wouldn't whip me?" His voice cracked in terror and his whole body trembled. "You're human, you re American. You can't," and Arnie ended on a note of pure panic "Be grateful then, because the next step for someone like you, Arnie," Mitford said, raising his voice loud enough for everyone working the area to hear, "is being staked out on a field for the scavengers. And don't think it can't happen. It can!' Jack's eyebrows were raised almost to his non-existent hairline and he whistled softly.

"OK, Arnie, we go walkies now "5'

Old-fashioned stocks wouldn't really hurt a man, or a woman, Mitford thought as he picked up another slate to record their construction as a deterrent. But it would prove his administration had teeth and wasn't afraid to bite. So far, people were far more interested in how they could turn their skills to improving their living quarters.

And that was what settling was all about. Living off the land you were on and getting the best you could.

Late that evening, long after the second serving of the evening meal, two more patrols reported in: one had found rock salt which could only improve the taste of food, and the other, geology and mining types, had located deposits of iron and copper and had brought back samples. Murph had bent his ear about all they could do with iron and copper. So Mitford said that he'd organize a squad to help Murph mine and refine. Murph went off, muttering happily to himself.

"Every day in every way, we are getting better and better," Mitford muttered to himself, able to see one more step in their adaptation. Another few months and no-one would recognize themselves as the dispirited dregs they'd been less than a week ago.

When night came Kris was roused with the others who had rested.

Zainal showed the Doyles and Aarens how he had manipulated the lock with his knife blade.

"The ol' credit card trick, huh?" Lenny remarked, then added when he saw the confusion on Zainal's face, "I'll explain later."

"More boy?" Zainal asked Kris, his teeth white in the dark as he grinned.

"More what?" Lenny asked.

"I'll explain later," Kris replied, chuckling. She wondered what Aarens would say if he knew she'd prefer the Catteni to his company any day of the week.

Or any night, come to think of it. Down girl, she told her self but having said that, the notion came back often enough to tease her.

They slipped out of the barn, Zainal closing the door carefully until they heard the lock snick. Then they went to the first of the inhabited barns and Zainal opened it, too.

"Oh, my God, I thought you'd gone and left us," cried the man, his voice sounding loud in the quiet night. He was only one of many crowded close to the door.

"Sssssh," said the relief team as a chorus.

"Damn mechanicals might hear ya," Aarens said.

"Follow me and fer Gawssake, be quiet." While Kris was asleep, the rescue had been organized.

Two men would lead each rescued group down the road to the crates and start them up the ropes hanging in readiness. Zainal and Kris took the last group since Zainal was the only one who knew the exact trick to open the doors.

In the group she and Zainal released there were two women, one of them heavily pregnant and awkward in movement, and the other one older and limping badly.

The pregnant woman was also slightly hysterical with the relief of being rescued.

"It's bad enough my Jack got killed on Barevi, but I thought I'd at least have my baby to cherish," she said weepingly. Not that Kris blamed her but this was neither the time nor place for true confessions. "Then that awful discipline meeting and I wasn't doing a thing but standing where I was told to stand and then I get gassed. I prayed that, somehow, God was with us still and we'd be rescued.

And we are, and I simply can't believe it. Oh, you're so good to risk your lives to save ours." Kris couldn't seem to stem her flow of talk. At least Patti Sue would shut up when told to.

"How're we going to get her up the crates?" she asked Zainal in a tense whisper as they started the people down the road.

"I carry. Not heavy. Big."

"Just don't let her see you're Catteni,' Kris said, glad that the poor light hid the tell-tale grey of his skin tone.

The pregnant woman, Anna Bollinger, presented less of a difficulty getting up on the crates than some of the others. Fumble-footed and fingered, some of them, and four, besides Anna, had to be hauled up because their shoulder muscles gave out on the third "lift' Eventually, all thirty-five were on the top and moving off north by east as Slav had. Not moving very quickly either, as if the release and climb had about taken all the physical energy they had left in them.

Sometimes, Kris thought as she trudged along beside Zainal, you can do the right thing for the wrong reason.

Her hands were stinging, her wrist ached despite the strip of blanket she had wrapped about it as a brace, her shins were scraped and raw, her toes hurt and she was sure her arm and shoulder muscles would never recover. She would have loved to have had a trough to wallow in.

By the time the first moon came up, they had not yet made it to the end of the crates. Again she wondered what was in them, if it wasn't halves of loo-cows, and for whom the machines gathered the supplies.

They had to call a break then, to rest the less able of their number. Anna, in particular, and Janet, the older woman, were totally unequal to a steady march. When it was discovered that most of them had eaten the last of their ration bars in preparation for escape, Zainal immediately gestured for the patrol to share out the extras they had brought along. Chewing the dry bars without water to soften them made eating a chore. One of the Turs gobbled his down as if he hadn't eaten in days "He didn't know the Cats had packed us rations," Lenny said. "Ninety and I have been sharing with him."

"That was damned good of you," Kris said, "considering you wouldn't have known where your next meals were coming from.

"Oh, I figured something would turn up," and Lenny grinned impishly at her.

"Why, may I ask, is your brother Ninety?"

"Aw, now, we're Irish, you see "I had noticed .

Another grin. "And we've this saying in Ireland - that the crack, the fun, is ninety "And we don't mean the cost of the stuff," Ninety said in an irritated voice. "I like the crack . . . pubs and all God, wouldn't a Guinness taste good about now.

"I told ya, don't, Ninety. I can stand anything but your mentioning Guinness," Lenny said, an edge to his usually cheerful voice for the first time in a very trying night.

"Sorry, Kris."

"So I'm Ninety because I look for a good crack," Ninety finished up and gave the final bite of his ration bar a wistful look.

"Damned micks," Aarens muttered. He had positioned himself near Kris, she noticed, on her other side, away from the Doyle brothers.

"Let me straighten you out on one detail, Aarens," Kris said, not that she cared if she saved him some knocks for his attitude, but his comments grated against her sense of rightness. "We're ALL in this together: humans, Deskis, Rugarians, Morphins and Turs. And especially the lone representative of our former captors. He got dumped on this godforsaken place just like the rest of us and he's in command of the patrol that just saved your skin, bones and meat. So cut the bigotry out. Understand?"

"You know him well?" and the man's tone was lewd and his suggestion unmistakable.

Lenny and Ninety both reacted but Lenny was nearer.

He leaned forward until his face was right up to Aarens' "If Kris here says the Cat's a good guy, we'll take her word for it, Aarens.

Now cut your belly achin'. He got you free and, if you want to slope off now and do your own thing, we'll never mention we ever met ya." Aarens subsided as Kris inched closer to the Doyle brothers.

"Where's the Cat? . - Ninety began, looking about him.

"His name is Zainal," Kris said, as ready to insist on that point with Ninety as everyone else.

"OK, where's this Zainal leading us?"

"To the camp our clever Sergeant Mitford established.

A series of good-sized caves with an underground lake.

It's a pretty good place. Hunting's great. How good are you with slingshots?" Lenny chuckled. "You see before you one of the great rabbit hunters of the Blasket Islands." Ninety snorted. "You used a two-two, and then he leaned toward Kris, grinning from ear to ear, "with a telescopic lens and a silencer."

"That was so I could get in a second shot without the little scuts hearing me on the odd time or two I missed my first shot. Once I got my eye in, I didn't need either silencer or "scope."

"We've also found a huge grain store," Kris went on, "so we should even have bread when we get back."

"How far is it?" and Lenny glanced over at Anna and Janet.

"I don't know Wait a mmute - - - Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Zainal suddenly rise to his feet, looking pointedly in one direction. Peering in that area, she made out several figures moving in the moonlight down the slope above the crates. "That's Slav come back. He either made damned good time or our camp's not far away." Slav had brought two other Rugarians and four humans with him - and cold roast rock-squat, some unleavened bread and earthern water bottles that were leaking slowly but still contained enough for everyone to have a drink.

They also carried ropes and more blankets "Sarge says go. We come,' Slav said in Barevi, grinning his jagged toothy smile which included Coo and Kris.

They had to split the meat portions further to give everyone a piece but Lenny and Ninety were definitely impressed.

Anna had to be coaxed to eat - mainly because she was exhausted, Kris decided - but Janet said she would have eaten anything on six legs. They were both given two cups of water as a special concession.

That was when Zainal noticed Kris's bandaged wrist.

"You hurt?"

"Just a sprain. Nothing to worry about," she said, feeling a little foolish at having strapped her wrist.

"You go with Pess. Lead walkers. Report to Sarge."

"I'll bet he's full of questions," Kris said, glad that Slav had arrived with humans to give Mitford a verbal report.

"But I should stay to help the women."

"No." Zainal said firmly.

"Much help. YOU," and he cocked his finger at her, "better to report.

"All right," and she conceded as gracefully as possible. There were more than enough men to assist the two women, and Deskis and Rugarians to help with portages.

Although Lenny and Ninety protested that they were more than willing to help, Zainal ticked them off to go with Kris. She wasn't surprised that he sent Aarens back with her as well as Joe Lattore and some of the other men, who were all too eager to see this great camp that had been contrived.

Revitalized by the meat and the water, Kris went to reassure Anna and Janet that they weren't all that far from the safety of the caves.

"We've got medical personnel, too," she reassured Anna.

"Medicines?" Anna asked hopefully.

"If they've found bread, they've got the start of penicillin, now don't they?" Kris said jokingly but she had the feeling Anna was hoping for analgesics to take the edge off her imminent delivery. She left quickly then, not wanting to have to face any further unanswerable questions.

As there wasn't a damned thing wrong with her feet and ankles, Kris set the pace, right behind Pess. Aarens started out beside her but she didn't fancy him for company and she gave him grunts for answers to his conversational gambits until he got her message.

Muttering curses about ungrateful bitches and butch women, he dropped back to the rear of the group.

Kris wondered if she had been wise in discouraging him.

But he was the sort who'd need a lot of discouragement and his attitudes irritated her. Better discouragement than an all-out brawl.

A couple of good long climbs were successfully negotiated in the light of the second moon, Aarens bitching about night manoeuvres. By third moonset, even Pess was slowing up. But when the Rugarian hit the beginning of the ravine he brightened and so did Kris, surprised to recognize the terrain she had first walked in a semi-stupor, carrying Patti Sue. But a landmark that led you home - to any home - was always heartening "We're nearly there, guys. Home stretch now," she called over her shoulder and worked her shoulders out of a tired slump.

By sunrise, they were back in a camp amazingly altered in the four days of her absence. As she turned the final curve, she stopped short, noting all the improvements.

And the sight of Sergeant Chuck Mitford more or less where she had last seen him, at his "command' post.

That, too, had improved. The hearth had been enlarged, obviously to be used as a barbecue site, and a fire burned cheerfully in the centre. Blocks of stone had been moved to form a semi-circle around Mitford's central "desk' which had also been enlarged. On one side he had a pile of thin slates, bearing chalk marks, but he was working on something thin, like paper, with a sturdy wooden affair that near as never-mind looked like a pencil.

Sentries topped the higher points around the camp ravine: the stairs to the main cavern now boasted wider risers and a handrail. On the opposite side of the ravine, she couldn't fail to notice what looked like medieval stocks. Two of them, one occupied though she couldn't see the face of the stockee since his head was hanging.

The thin frame looked like Arnie's. She wondered what he'd done to rate that sort of incarceration. And what a novel idea for discipline!

The ravine floor had been swept clean and she really couldn't take in all the other improvements because Mitford had seen her. He grinned as he beckoned her to join him.

As she did, she saw him lean to one side and lift a creditable pottery pitcher. It seemed to be clad in some sort of odd matting and a little steam escaped its lid.

"Pull up a rock, Kris, and tell me what you and that Catteni have been up to," he said, gesturing for her to present her cup so he could fill it. "It's hot, at least, and doesn't taste too bad. I've been in places with worse coffee."

"Didn't the first group tell you?" Kris asked, blowing on her drink.

"I'm debriefing everyone, Bjornsen," was his reply, emphasized by a slight frown at her objection.

She covered her embarrassment at questioning his methods by taking a sip from her cup.

The heat of the beverage was not its only recommendation, for it had an oddly minty flavour that knocked the dryness out of her mouth.

If she hadn't had the cup in her hand, though, Kris would have been tempted to salute Mitford.

Ignoring the fatigue that made it difficult to find the words she needed, she gave what she felt was a concise report of the patrol. She emphasized the dangers of night-time scavengers, of crop-filled fields, and the notion that the mechanicals were solar-powered.

Mitford nodded at that, making a short notation on the thin stuff "You've a source of paper, Sarge?" she asked, interrupting herself.

"Bark, don't know how long it'll hold the lead. . . even got a pencil - "and, grinning, he held up the thick shaft.

"One of the geologist types found some carbon lead The bark's a lot easier to handle than those slates. Doesn't break and flake. Tell me more about this solar power notion?"

"You've heard it before?"

"Patrols at the granary mentioned "em on the machines garaged there.

Nothing moves at night so it's safe to haul in supplies then. Go on.

Tell me more about the rescue.

That first contingent were too damned wiped out to do more than say they got rescued." He poured her more of the hot drink.

"Remind me to tell you how glad I am to be in the same outfit with you, Sarge," Kris said with a grateful smile.

"Ah!" and he dismissed her remark with a flick of his hand, turning his head briefly away in modesty. Then he grinned at her.

"Wait'll you hear what I got in mind for you tomorrow.

"So long as it's tomorrow, Sarge," she said, managing to produce a cocky grin despite her present fatigue. The drink was helping but the stimulation it provided wouldn't last very long.

"We got thirty-five more refugees." She looked about the camp.

"Can we handle them?"

"Handle as many as we can find. Picked up a few more coming south from another drop-off. They either picked the right sort of fields or were plain lucky. They were right glad to find our camp. We'll need all the reinforcements we can get to start our offensive."

"Our what?" She peered numbly at Mitford.

"You don't think I intend spending the rest of my life on this mudball,' Mitford said with a growl.

Kris shook her head. Mitford seemed so sane. And he was planning to get off this world?

"But that's for later. Any new useful recruits?" he asked, bringing her back to her report.

Well, I suppose so but I didn't think to quiz "em.

We've got one very pregnant woman and an older one who's not too spry. Zainal made me come on ahead." Mitford nodded and Kris looked back over her shoulder to see the rest of her group straggling in.

"The two guys in front are good people, Irish, the Doyle brothers.

Right behind them is Joe Lattore and he's OK." She paused, seeing Aarens stumping in behind the Italian.

"And the tall individual?" Kris hesitated long enough for Mitford to raise his eyebrows. "Name's Dick Aarens," she said as noncommittally as she could.

"I'll debrief him myself," Mitford said with a grin for her reluctance. "You go get yourself some rest, gal. You're off duty for the next twenty-eight." He pointed above his head at what she then recognized as a sundial. "Took the team three days! All the way from counting sand particles by the second to hourly divisions. Rough still, they say, and Greenwich Mean Time it ain't but it's an improvement." His tone was proud.

"All the comforts of home and time, too," she said, grinning at such a clever device.

"Not that a twenty-eight hour planetary revolution is an improvement on what we're used to."

"And the stocks? Your idea?" Mitford chuckled, without even looking up from the notes he was jotting down. "We got too many individuals," and by separating the word into syllables he made it sound like an epithet, "to deal with, who won't make life easier by disappearing when they don't like the way this outfit is run. Get some rest, gal." He gave her a good-natured buffet to her arm and jerked his head towards the cave.

She was halfway to the steps when he called the newcomers over, the Doyles startled to hear their names and Aarens giving her an accusatory glare.

At the top of the steps, she noted other signs of organization work stations along the ledge and the legend "Home Sweet Cavehome' scrawled in chalk across the entrance. On the space where people had written their choice of name for the planet, "Botany' was underscored and all the others erased. She grinned. Home now had a name.

Inside, the early morning crew were busy stoking fires, putting earthenware pots on trivets to heat, setting out slightly misshapen bowls for cereal. She noticed bowls of what looked like coarse salt by the hearths. On the ledges were other pots and pitchers: Sandy Areson had been very busy.

"Kris!" a voice shrieked and she was enveloped in Patti Sue's arms before she had a chance to evade the girl, who proceeded to weep all over her "I told you she'd be back safe, Patti," said Sandy, coming over and prying the girl off. "Now she's tired, and dirty, and you don't go moaning all over her. She's been just fine, Kris," Sandy added. "She was certain Mitford had put you in danger' "No, we got people out of danger, Patti," Kris said, "and there's a woman who's going to need your help especially: Anna Bollinger. She's very pregnant. Sandy, who's the medic to see to her when she gets in?

They're a couple of hours behind us."

"I'll see to that. You hungry, Kris?"

"Had a bar not long ago but I'd sure love a bath."

"I'll get a clean coverall, and do yours while you're sleeping," Patti said, gushing with her efforts to be helpful.

"Now, Patti, you're on breakfast detail."

"I know, I know," the girl said on her way to a pile of material stacked on one side of the cavern. "I'll just be sure she knows the latest improvements.

Sandy raised both hands, grinned reassuringly at Kris and went back to stirring the pot. Leakage sizzled into the fire but even that primitive attempt at a pot was an improvement over no cooking vessels at all.

"No chance at building a kiln for you, is there?" Kris said, realizing that the pottery must only be sun-dried.

Sandy's grin was beatific. "Mitford knows his priorities Got the "specialists" -" and she grinned, "working on a beehive type. Murph made bellows for me, as well as for his own forge. Jack the Nail found a nice hard wood that ought to burn hot. So we're cooking. And I am until I get that kiln up and firing." She gave Kris a humorous grin as she waved smoke away from her face. "Go bathe." Patti danced about Kris all the way down to the lake, telling about finding the clay and that she'd managed a cup or two that had been fired, and they needed a proper kiln for best results, and they had discovered a nearby crop field of some very tasty root vegetables that were almost like potatoes only the Deskis couldn't eat them at all without getting violently ill.

Kris grimaced as she hadn't remembered to tell Mitford that Coo had found a plant that was Deski-edible. The tunnel to the lake was now well lit. When she and Patti reached it, there were also wooden steps down, a well-lit area and a rack of pegs to hang clothing on, and a rough reed basket of cat-tail-like seed pods.

"Where'd you find reeds?" Kris asked, noting the construction of the basket.

"Oh, Bob the Herb did. He finds all sorts of good stuff Has two patrols under his command."

"And what're these?" Kris picked up one of the pods.

"You'll see," and Patti Sue giggled with anticipation of her surprise.

Then Kris saw that a raft had been anchored securely for safer bathing and there were even steps fastened to the side of the lake. So Kris stripped off the smelly, grimy coverall and slipped into the water.

"Here," and Patty handed her an oval pod. "It's not exactly soap and it'll ruin your complexion but it gets the dirt and . . . smells .

. . off your skin." Kris would have welcomed a Brillo pad, which was what the pod felt like. There was an odd herbal - almost astringent smell off it and that was quite welcome after what she had been smelling like. She rinsed well and then clambered out of the water.

Patti, with an air of great accomplishment, then broke open one of the cat-tails which puffed up into a white fibre.

"Your towel, madam?" She grinned at Kris's surprise.

"It works, too, soaks up all the water. Then we put the used ones over there, in the other basket, and once they're dry, they're good fire-starting material. Clever, aren't we?" And she giggled as she handed Kris the fresh coverall.

"I think we need the twenty-eight hour day to get everything done," Kris murmured.

Considerably refreshed and cleaner, Kris was quite ready now to get the rest her body urgently desired. She yawned all the way to the cave. That had improved, too.

With beds made of mounds of branches and, she thought, filled in with more of the cat-tails.

She stretched herself out, turned to her right side, sighed with relief to have her sore hips cushioned, and never even felt the blanket which Patti lovingly spread over her.

Chapter Seven

The aroma of roasting meat roused Kris, although her stomach was probably sending the message - it was empty. She could hear muted voices, pleasant voices, and feeling encouraged, she angled herself up out of the flattened bed. One other sleeping accommodation in her cave room was occupied by a sleeper and she slipped into her footwear as quietly as possible and left.

Neither Sandy nor Patti Sue were in the main cave but she spotted Bart and approached to see if she could scrounge a meal off him.

"Hey, Kris," the man said, smiling a welcome, "you did great!" and he dished up some of the food he was cooking onto a nearly round clay plate.

"Me? At what?" she asked with a cautious grin. When he also handed her a wooden fork, she exclaimed in surprise, "All the comforts of home." "We're improving. And I mean the rescue of all those folks trapped by the mechanicals.

"Oh, that. That was Zainal. He knew how to open the doors."

"Yeah, but I ask myself, how did he know how to open them?"

"Aw, c'mon now . Bart!" And Kris quickly donned her public relations hat. "He knew how, so what? Maybe I could have opened it, given a hair pin or a credit card which I didn't have. Door catches are door catches: there are only so many ways to lock one. He figured out the mechanism and opened it. The important thing is that he did know how and we could get all the others out before they got slaughtered."

"I heard . . ." Bart began uncertainly "What you heard and what happened could be two different things entirely. Who did you hear from?" Bart shifted uneasily. "One of the guys that came in with you."

"Wouldn't be named "Aarens", would he?" Kris asked, letting her tone drip with scorn.

"Next thing you hear, he'll be saying we oughtn't to listen to Mitford "cos he's a slave driver, a martinet, endangering us, who does he think he is, when he was only a sergeant at that, and what does he know?" Kris waved her arm around, at the well-organized kitchen area, the pots and pottery, the water crates, people moving about at assigned tasks.

"Well, Mitford knows enough to organize us to an amazing degree of self-sufficiency, I'd say. Aarens is a trouble-maker and he started almost the moment we hauled him out of that barn." Bart glared at Kris, resenting her tirade, so she smiled at him.

"You're too smart to fall for that kind of drivel, Bart, and this smells too good for me to let it get cold." She sat herself down on a convenient rock and started to eat.

"Now, can I give you the facts, nothing but the facts, about the great slaughterhouse rescue? I'd hate for you to have a bad opinion of me because I stuck up for the guy responsible for saving forty-five people, forty-six if Anna has her baby." The expression on his face told her it wasn't her he had a bad opinion of, which meant she really needed to put the record straight.

"Well, maybe what I heard was a bit garbled - "Scariest moment in my life was waking up in that barn " she said, giving a shudder, and was still answering his questions when Jay Greene spotted her.

"Sarge needs you, Kris," he said.

"Great meal, Bart," Kris said, standing up and then looking about her for the proper place to dispose of her plate and fork.

Bart grinned as he pointed. "Outside, to your left.

Aarens himself is on KP."

"No better man," she said and left the hearth with Jay.

"I'll take that," Jay said, removing the plate from her hands.

"You don't need to meet Aarens."

"Why? Is he poor-mouthing me? Or Zainal?" Jay snorted. "Don't worry. Mitford has his measure."

"Does everyone else?" Kris asked urgently. "Hell, he'd've been better off we'd be better off - with him as sausage meat after all," she added callously "He'll spend some time in the stocks if he keeps up "Which will only confirm his opinion of this chickenshit outfit."

"Who cares?" "Speaking of caring," and they were now outside in the bright sunlight.

Mitford was precisely where she had left him a good - she checked the sundial - nine hours ago. "Does he never rest?" Her question was hypothetical for she went on, How's Anna Bollinger, our pregnant lady?" "Doc says she'll be fine - Although she's grieving for her husband." He paused to click his tongue over that tragedy. "Janet's making her her special assignment - Janet and Patti Sue. Was that girl raped?"

"I suspect so."

"She never said anything?"

"It'll take a long while before she's able to talk about whatever it was happened to her."

"Oh?"

"You like her?"

"She's a sweet kid," Jay said, shaking his head, with a "gone" smile on his face.

"Go as slow as slow."

"I figured that. Kris went down the steps while Jay turned left towards the crates where Aarens was clumsily drying cups with cat-tail fibres. They must have found a humongous supply of the things for them to be used in so many different ways.

The man in the stocks was gone and Kris wished she'd thought to ask Jay what his offence had been. Was that why he'd asked had Patti Sue been raped? Mitford had meant what he said about punishing harassers.

Kris heard steps on the stone behind her and, looking over her shoulder, saw Zainal with Slav and Coo right behind him. She wondered if they shared a cave. All of them looked clean and rested "What are you guys doing up so early?" she demanded.

"I slept much," Zainal said, grinning back at her, his marvellously weird yellow eyes echoing his good humour.

"Slav and Coo well rested. Lot to do."

"Lots to do," she corrected him absently, then hastily added, "but you're real quick to learn."

"Need to learn," he replied, his smile broadened.

"Ve all learn," Slav said in his liquid voice. "Hi, Kn.ssss, he added, emphasizing the sibilant.

Just then the Deskis on the heights let out the whistling alarm and slid, as suddenly, down out of sight.

"Flyers?" someone cried anxiously.

All activity in the camp was suspended. A beat later, everyone out in the open made for caves. Kris looked skyward, pivoting, as Zainal, Coo and Slav were, to scan the horizon. So was Mitford in his exposed position on the floor of the ravine.

Coo gave an odd and ear-splitting cry, which was echoed from above.

"Large thing," the Deski said, spreading his arms to their furthest extension, indicating great size. He rolled his eyes.

"Baaaaaaad. Bad, bad, bad, bad," he repeated, shaking his head and then covering his ears tightly.

But that was as much to mask the noise which was becoming very, very loud - like half a dozen subway trains converging on you and every one of them clanking anff grinding and needing full servicing - as to stress the approaching danger. Kris thought the intensity of the sound was comparable to standing in a continuous sonic boom. Her bones began to vibrate right up to her teeth.

Even the stone under her feet reverberated.

She wanted to ask where the noise was coming from and what made it but she wouldn't be heard above that racket.

The shadow of it came first - longer and wider by far than the ravine, even the hill the ravine dissected. The shadow came on and on, and then they saw the blunt prow of the leviathan that growled and rumbled and still made the very stones shake.

It was coming in, prow definitely aiming downwards, on a descending slant: several thousand feet above them, Kris estimated, blotting out the sun like an island-sized umbrella. A big island, with all kinds of protuberances, long and thin, squat, rounded discs, with all kinds of stick-like rods planted here and there, even on the massive belly doors that were acres long and wide. It seemed to take hours to pass overhead. By then, inured to the noise it made, people were outside again, peering up at the monstrosity. Their curiosity was stronger than their initial panic.

By then Kris had followed others to the nearest height - Mitford, Zainal, Jay Greene, Slav, Coo, the Doyles led the way, joined by half a dozen other men and women who wanted to get a good long look at this vessel.

"It's heading in the direction of the slaughterhouse," Kris yelled above a slightly diminished noise.

"Yeah," Mitford said thoughtfully, rubbing his hand over his mouth, his expression very thoughtful indeed.

"Recognize it, Zainal?" Zainal shook his head slowly, never once dropping his eyes to look at Mitford.

"Catteni have no ship that big." He seemed as impressed by the size of it as everyone else. "Strange - - -" he rolled his hand, trying to find the appropriate word "Configuration?" Jay asked.

Zainal shook his head, made shapes with his hands that looked like the protuberances and spokes jutting out of the ship.

"Oh, those things. Yeah, the ships you took Earth with weren't anything like that one."

"No," and Zainal grinned down at Jay. "Too big, no good "Well, there's that aspect of big, I suppose, Jay replied amiably They watched until it was out of sight but not out of earshot.

On the noon air, they could hear it changing gears or whatever it did, causing the sound to alter.

"Hovering?" Mitford said, disbelieving what his ears reported.

Then he shook his head. "I sure wouldn't want to have to lzft that dead mass from the ground." He sighed.

"7' "How can they?" He looked enquiringly at Zainal who only shrugged again and shook his head. Kris saw anxiety for the first time in Zainal's expression.

Kris swallowed. "If we hadn't got those folks out yesterday Mitford nodded. "You did great, Bjornsen. "Zainal did all the work, Sarge,' she said quickly.

Mitford's chuckle was audible to her and he patted her shoulder in approval.

No-one moved from the uncomfortable height, human or alien. Then, to their listening ears, came a second change of engine sounds. They also heard the powerful blast of rockets, or whatever powered the great ship, as it headed skywards again. It burst into view, nose angled up now. Kris was awed by the technology that could produce such power.

It wasn't a beautiful craft, the way the Discoverer and Challenger had been, delta winged and shingle clad. But it did have a triangular shape to it, blunt nosed as it was.

"You guys willing to take a quick run back down there?" Mitford asked. He was looking at Zainal, Coo and Slav.

"We sure are," Kris said, and then gulped because she hadn't intended to volunteer.

"Not you, Kris, you're off duty."

"If I am, they are. Only I'm going. I got just as much curiosity as the next one. I can't believe that ship just gulped up all that was there and then calmly took off again." Mitford put his hands around his mouth to shout down to those on the ground. "Dowdall, send a team out to the granary. See if that got emptied."

"Oh lordee," Kris said in a groan. She felt vulnerable again. And she'd brought in more mouths to be fed, too.

"Don't worry," Mitford said, "we're stocked up, all things considered." So the two teams set off. Kris thought their return to the abattoir didn't take. half as long going back as it had coming in.

When they got there, the acres of crates were all gone. In their place were stacks of what looked like collapsed units. That would account for some of the dents and scratches, she thought, still rather numb at the sheer volume that ship had lifted.

Did they have matter transporters? Beam it up, Scotty, was the facetious thought that bounced in Kris's mind until she gave a slightly hysterical laugh to stop it.

"It's all right, Kris," said Zainal, his accent improving all the time. He must have a terrific ear for language.

Somehow that reassured her more than his words or the arm he laid briefly across her shoulders. "We check the barns "How?" And Kris gestured broadly at the empty space that had once been conveniently bridged by a pyramid of crates. There was a drop of six or seven metres to the first of the piles of collapsed crates. She suddenly felt oddly disorientated by the alteration.

Zainal pointed to the rocky terrain. That was when Kris first realized that the mechanicals had sliced the crate storage out of the cliff side: the barns as well. From what she'd been told, the granary was also stored in natural rock. No arable land was taken up by even such essential facilities. If this was the condition of the entire planet, it was a remarkable achievement in its own right. And here come humans, she thought dourly, to mess it up.

The barns were empty, disinfected and ready for the next batch of occupants. Had the prisoners been dumped down on this planet at harvest and culling time? How often did that monster arrive to collect? Monthly, bi-monthly?

Semi-annually? What season of this planet were they currently in?

The weather was mild enough to be spring, but the crops in the fields were more mature than springtime growth. And she'd heard that grain had kept pouring into the storage caves, which suggested fall harvests.

The other salient fact was that the machines' masters were probably as omnivorous as humanoids. And needed so much food that they went to the expense of developing highly specialized machinery to nurture and cultivate food crops and meat animals: and had sufficient planets available for their use so that they could devote all? most?

- of this one to food production? The collection vehicle as well as the mechanicals meant an extremely high technological level. And yet Zainal, for all the Catteni were well travelled and doing a lot of exploration on their own, did not recognize the type of craft used, and his exploratory service had registered the planet as uninhabited. Of course, if there was nothing but machines on the planet, that figured.

Only why hadn't the Catteni seen the machines on their appointed rounds? The Catteni hadn't surveyed the planet in the night only, had they?

Or maybe during an infrequent down time during the "winter' months. Kris's knowledge of farming suggested there were few down times on a farm: something or other had to be tended all year round.

And what would winter on Botany be like?

Then Zainal blithely insisted that they have a look at the "garages' where curious vehicles with a variety of strange attachments awaited recall to duty.

"They do not recognize humans. No problem!" he told Kris and she was so flabbergasted that he had acquired the "no problem' slang that he was in the garage before she could protest.

One machine, standing inside, was hooked up to a framework which blinked and blipped. A servicing mechanism? Kris wished that they had someone with engineering training along. But then, who'd've thought they'd have a chance to inspect so thoroughly. Oh, for some of that bark and a pencil so she could make diagrams of the various types of mechanicals parked in the several garages. The last of the big barns contained sacks and sacks of what? Logic told her seeds or possibly fertilizers, more than likely. Had they been brought by the leviathan that had collected the meat? She used her knife to get into some of the bags and got samples of everything. Seeds, definitely, over half the shipment and, by the smell of it, fertilizer in the others.

The patrol got back to the camp by first moonrise. She didn't feel quite so wimpy when Coo and Slav showed signs of wanting to rest but she and Zainal first had to report to Mitford "They didn't take the grain, Bjornsen," was Mitford's first comment but she thought he seemed depressed.

"What did you find?" While Kris told him, including her surmises as she passed over the samples she had secured, Zainal had taken several large sheets of the papery bark and was quickly sketching on them. A couple of times Kris lost the thread of her report when she saw his accurate depictions of the various types of machinery they had seen in the garages. Mitford stole the odd glance, his eyes switching to Zainal's face as the Catteni's pencil flew over the surface, but his sketches looked remarkably accurate to Kris's eyes. Zainal regarded his handiwork and then calmly made necessary amendments, correcting occasional lines. They'd had an engineer along all the time, hadn't they, thought Kris. Zainal had rather more talents than anyone had realized.

"These," Zainal said, handing over the sheaf to Mitford.

"Hey, Bob the Herb, Mack Su, Capstan, Macy, front and centre and bring those granary sketches," Mitford roared in his parade ground voice, then grinned approvingly at both Zainal and Kris. "There's quite a range of these things. Now we got to figure how to disable them."

"Why?" Kris blurted out the question.

"Like you, Bjornsen, I think there are humanoids bound to be involved in this kind of food production, seeing as how they seem to need the same sort of foods we do. It's the pits that the Deskis aren't doing too well on what they can scrounge that doesn't rot their guts and we can't find enough of those greens that Coo thought would help. However," and he went on briskly, "we're obviously dealing with a very high-tech race." Kris nodded her head vehemently. "That ship confirms some sort of periodic check. So there's got to be some sort of ongoing monitoring, even if we haven't found a central control point.

Kris wondered just how much of this Zainal understood, but he was listening with every ounce of his big frame. She could feel the tension in the thigh next to hers on the wide rock they were sitting on. Odd, that she didn't mind tactile contact with Zainal but he was so subtle about it, unlike some guys with impudent, wandering paws she'd encountered.

"So, if we start lousing up the machines, someone will come look,' Mitford concluded.

"And we just overpower them?" Kris asked, aghast at the mere thought of invading a ship the size of the collector.

Especially since the only weapons they had were knives, hatchets, spears, and bows and arrows. She let out a burst of laughter.

"Don't laugh, Bjornsen. There's more than one way of infiltrating a spacecraft. And I'm more or less counting on the fact that the investigatory ship would be smaller and have a live, not a mechanical crew. Machines are good enough for routine jobs but evaluation requires brains."

"Then what?"

"First things first. Get the investigator here." Those Mitford had called for arrived and then he roared for a cook to bring two plates of food. He must have heard Kris's stomach rumbling.

"We've been tossing ideas around while you guys were investigating, so I'll bring you up to speed, Zainal, Bjornsen," he said and nodded at them both before turning to the other patrol members. "Coo, Slav, get some grub. Go eat." He pointed to the main cave. "And thanks. Oh, Coo, Bob the Herb harvested more of that green stuff you like.

Coo nodded and, with the Rugarian, made a beeline for the main cave. Mitford's eyes followed him.

"Ration bars are now reserved for Deskis, Morphins and Turs, folks. The rest of us can live off the land.

They can't. "Really?"

"Not until we find something their stomachs don't reject." Mitford gave the sort of resigned sigh that meant he was worried about the problem. He was leader enough to want to preserve all his troops, especially those with abilities like the Deskis. "The cooks are busy whipping up a sort of pemmican for patrols to eat so you don't upset the mechanicals by reducing their herds." He grinned.

"What did you call those critters, Kris? Loo-cows." He chuckled.

"Sarge, I thought you wanted us to upset the mechanicals," Kris said, wanting clarification on that point.

"We plan the upsetting - " he grinned again, "but I don't want any of our guys to get darted out in the fields. So we disable the mechanism. OK, fellas," he said to the newcomers. Capstan and Macy were new faces and names for Kris but they seemed to know who she and Zainal were. Mitford passed Zainal's sketches around.

"Zainal's drawn the sort of mechanicals that are housed at the slaughterhouse. Seem to me to be different from the ones at the granary.

"Highly specialized equipment," Su said, leafing through the drawings, pausing briefly to scowl at several before he switched his lot with Capstan. Kris found out later that the older man had been a designer of highly specialized production-line equipment.

"Look, all of "em are solar-powered!" Su said, flicking his fingers at various flat surfaces on the individual machines. "Like I said they had to be. Ecologically sound, using renewable energy.

Small wonder the Catteni scouts thought the planet was unoccupied.

They'd probably been scanning, or whatever they do, for life-forms and those mechanicals aren't alive. Now, they have to have collectors and storage batteries, too, and where'd they . ah, yes, possibly these units. Hmmm."

"And if there's no sun? Do they all just go down when it's overcast or rainy?" Kris asked, making a mental note of the solar panels on each variety of machine.

"Hasn't rained yet and we've been here ten days," Mitford said with a sigh, his glance going up and down the ravine that had experienced floods which had left visible high-water traces on the walls.

Zainal also looked around the camp and smiled. "Much done in ten days." "Good for morale," was Mitford's terse reply but he added a brief smile at the compliment. "Now, we got individuals who've got real expert with slingshots. Can take out a rock-squat at twenty-five metres. Stones'd take out those solar panels, wouldn't they?" Su thought about that but Capstan shook his head.

"We'd have to know what sort of material they use in the mechanicals' panels. But it would follow that if enough of the surface was marred, it might not collect sufficient solar energy to perform efficiently." "Perhaps," and Kris adopted an ingenuous look and tone to her voice, "we should practise some creative mudslinging? I didn't see a car-wash in that Dalek barn." Zainal flicked her a quick glance because he didn't understand her allusion, so she charaded it and then he smiled, nodding. Su seemed to like the idea and even Capstan gave a droll little smile.

"There're sure enough brooks where we'd need "em to make mud," Su went on with enthusiasm. "And if we got enough on the panels, the sun would dry it hard in place."

"Mud at night. No machine runs in day," Zainal suggested with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Good idea, Zainal," Mitford said, grinning. "Decommission them at source.

"Well, now, hold on a moment," Capstan said. "There would have to be storage batteries, to keep them ticking over and start them off in the morning. Or there should be something like that. We'd have to disable those as well, you know."

"So we do," Mitford said cheerfully.

"I wonder how many we would have to knock out for someone to come check the situation?" That question was tossed around but they all agreed that they would first have to locate more installations for the plan to be effective. Kris, Zainal and the two aliens had not been the only patrol which Mitford had sent out and one, Mitford told them, was still missing. He wasn't worried about them - yet - because they'd gone north, away from the slaughterhouse. He admitted that there would need to be a lot more such facilities to service all the land they could see cultivated and grazed. Enough hills could be seen from the sentry posts: each range could hide more mechanicals, farming nearby arable land.

"Zainal," Kris said after a brief pause in the exchange of ideas, "how many would the prison ship have dropped in one journey?" Zainal's shrug was almost apologetic. "Don't know. No need for me to know."

"Well, they landed more than us and those you just freed up," Mitford said in sudden anger. The others nodded solemnly. With a sigh, the sergeant went on.

"One of the recon patrols tangled with a savage bunch of individuals: only two of our guys got away and one was badly sliced up.

Estimated there were close to thirty in the lot that jumped them. So it'll be more important than ever for any patrols to post sentries at night. Esker was smart enough to hide himself and Barrett, who was injured, until they could be sure they weren't followed back here. And that," Mitford's thick index finger pointed at each one in the circle to emphasize his warning, "is what no-one does! I'll tell you one thing: they really hopped to it next time I called a Red Alert. And Murph made us a triangle out of metal that would wake the dead."

"But we could hold off hundreds here, Sarge," Kris said, startled. The mere thought that the camp was vulnerable, and to renegade humans, depressed her. As it must have depressed Mitford.

"You better believe it," Mitford said so resolutely and with such a knowing grin on his face that Kris relaxed.

Mitford had obviously been busy placing safeguards as well as amenities. "Do they ever check up on the job lots they drop down?" he asked Zainal who nodded.

"Not soon," he said. "In half a year, he added, dropping into Barevi to express the time.

"Half year," Kris murmured in English and he nodded again as he accepted that new word.

"Would they bring in more prisoners?" Mitford asked Zaina!, who nodded.

"Drop people many places, and he made a spreading gesture with his hands. "Many times to seed planet." Kris wasn't the only one who received that information with a sinking heart. How many did the Catteni expect would survive? And if none did, was the planet written off? What a way to colonize! While she hadn't even thought to estimate how many prisoners had been in that holding area prior to being forced aboard the transport, there had been a lot more than the few hundreds ending up in this camp. They knew of at least four other deposits now. How many had there been in the initial load? At that, they might be better off making first contact with the Mecano Makers.

"Well, we deal with what we can, Mitford said staunchly. "And we'll explore as thoroughly as possible under the circumstances.

Zainal, any more information on how they seed the planet?"

"I was in space more," he said, spreading his hands wide open to express his ignorance.

"Huh, so the Catteni operate just like any other army?" Mitford said in a droll tone. "Left hand doesn't know what the right hand does." Kris had a time explaining that remark to the puzzled Zainal who grinned when he did understand.

i8o When Mitford finally dismissed them, Kris made her way down the ravine and over to the stairs. The kitchen cavern walls were now decorated with outlines of vegetations. These were divided into several sections: one marked human with those plants to avoid and those to gather; another had "Deski' in elaborate Gothic lettering as a caption and the subheading "potassium? calcium?".

"Hi there," a cheerful voice said, and Dick Aarens moved to intercept her.

"Not now, Aarens," she said, altering her direction to avoid him.

"Hey, gal, I'm only trying to be friendly." He stepped in front of her.

"So am I, but right now all I want is my bed.

His eyes, a pleasing shade of blue for all she didn't like the man who wore them, widened. "Why so do I!" And he attempted to put his arm around her as if to lead her off.

She ducked out from under. "By myself, Aarens."

"Kris She was both relieved and concerned to hear Zainal's voice behind her. She turned, took a step towards the Catteni.

"Yes?" She hoped her response conveyed her relief at his timely arrival.

"We talk tomorrow's patrol now?" he asked.

Behind her, she heard Aarens mutter something and then the crunch of his feet on the sandy floor as he moved away "Thanks, Zainal. You saved my life." Zainal regarded her with a thoughtful expression. "You do not like him?"

"No," she said, shaking her head for emphasis.

"I think so.

"Watch him, though, Zainal. He's dangerous.

"How?" Zainal was amused at her response.

"He doesn't like you "Because you do?" She shook her head.

"Because first you're Catteni and second he fancies himself better than you. And irresistible to me." Zainal shook his head, lightly gripping her on the arms, a tacit request for explanation.

"I'm not sure I can explain the nuances," she said, grinning up at him. Yellow eyes were much nicer than plain old blue. And she liked Zainal's hands on her whereas Dick Aarens' touch made her skin crawl.

"Nu-an-ces?" She put her hand on his chest, felt the faint pulse of his heartbeat - Catteni had hearts after all. "I'll explain later, Zainal. Right now, I'm so tired I can't."

"Go," and he turned her towards the corridor but when he gave her a little push, she grabbed his hand.

"You come, too. I don't mean to have Aarens jump out at me."

"I like to come," Zainal said and there was a decided glint in his eyes that made Kris wonder how she was going to dismiss this courtier. And, if she hadn't been so tired, she might - just now - have considered She shook her head. The timing was wrong. She was so tired.

So, her hand tucked into his large one, they walked to her cave.

"Sleep well, Kris." F"Don't you just know I will," she said fervently.

To her utter surprise, he cupped her head briefly, tousling her hair before he let go. But he was off down the corridor before she could react.

"Too damned tired even for a goodnight kiss," she said ruefully and gratefully sank onto her bed of boughs.

The next day, her patrol consisted of Zainal, Coo, Slav and the Doyle brothers. Their main objective: to find and disable as many mechanicals as they could, starting with those at the abattoir. The optimum, according to Capstan, would be to dismantle the solar panels, if they could do so. Either smashing the panels or smearing them with mud was equally viable, so long as the mechanicals were disabled. The secondary aim was to continue the interrupted reconnaissance of their immediate vicinity. They started out better equipped than ever, with ropes braided of vines which didn't burn the skin as the tough synthetic material of the blankets did. They each had slingshots, a pouch of suitable small rocks - that was one of the duties for the few youngsters in the camp - a flint-tipped lance, and bags of the new trail food. Kris had sampled it when Jay handed over the ration and it was definitely an improvement over the dry compressed Catteni bar as far as taste was concerned. Coo and Slav were given ration bars, Patti Sue doling them out with thoughtful care. The girl evidently had no trouble serving the alien males, though she never once looked at Zainal.

"We don't know if the pemmican supplies all your daily nutritional needs," Jay said, "but you can hunt to augment protein." The Doyle brothers made cheerful companions, asking questions of both Kris and Zainal. Kris wondered if they had been chosen because, being Irish, they seemed to get along with anyone including aliens.

They made good time, Zainal setting a course diagonally west of the patrol's earlier trek, the one which had resulted in their capture.

They found a hillock and made their evening camp on its crest until the rain came. It wasn't a soft rain: Kris figured that it was comparable to standing under the waterfall in her Barevi refuge. They huddled under an improvised tent made from their blankets which gave them some protection from the driving force of the torrent. It rained hard for what Kris and the Doyles decided was probably an hour, though battered as they were, it seemed an endless period. Then, as abruptly as it started, it stopped.

"Like someone turned the shower off, Lenny said, peering out of the damp shelter. "And hey, not a cloud in the sky and it's only the first moon. I'd recognize her anytime by her craters." They shook the blankets out: the synthetic seemed to shed the water - the outside a trifle damp to the hand but the underside dry "Amazing fabric," Ninety said, crushing the edge of his blanket in his hand. "Give credit where it's due. Those Catteni make good survival gear."

"Durable," Kris agreed and looked over at Zainal who was staring about the land below their retreat. "What d'you see?"

"Nothing." -"That bothers you?"

"Yes," the Catteni said and then lowered himself to the ground. "You take this watch, Kris. Wake Slav. Slav, you wake Coo. Coo, wake Doyles. You wake me." Feeling for the dry side of his blanket, he then pulled it around him and pillowed his head on his arm. "I sleep, then think better.

Whatever he had feared at least kept them all alert on their separate watches. Maybe, Kris thought as she woke Slav to take his turn, that was what Zainal had had in mind, the sneaky so-and-so.

They were all awake before the sun came up, not being adjusted yet to the longer days and nights. They had saved enough dry droppings to make a fire to heat water from a nearby stream in their cups, adding the dried herbs that became a fragant tea to sip while eating their pemmican.

There were worse ways to break a fast.

When they came to the next ridge, Zainal climbed to the highest point and surveyed the distances, before pointing to their right "Hills," he said crypucally "Can the mechanicals have built into every hillside?" Kris asked, half-running to keep up with his long stride as he marched downhill again.

"We see," Zainal said, grinning at her, his yellow eyes twinkling.

They made the new destination by noontime, striding along the crest of that hill complex until they came to the bare rock and another silent, but full, garage.

"D'you think they take a lunch break and oil and grease themselves?" Lenny asked, as they all looked down at the closed doors of the anonymous facility. "Another granary?" He gestured to nearby fields, straw brown and shorn of whatever crops they might have sprouted.

"We look."

"And smear?" Ninety asked, mopping his perspiring forehead, for the last several klicks had included considerable climbing. "I could moisten a hill or two with the sweat I've raised." The storage barns were empty, not so much as a grain of whatever they had held.

"That was one busy mother of a ship," Lenny said, "if it cleared this, too."

"Long time,- Zainal said, showing dust on the finger he had drawn across the floor.

"Oh? Cutting back the farmers' subsidies here, too, huh?" Ninety asked facetiouslyZainal gestured for the patrol to check out each building of the fifteen in this complex. The last one was the garage where the mechanicals were standing in motionless lines.

They didn't look dusty, but just as Ninety started to enter the building, Zainal held up his arm and then pointed to the long rectangles on the eastern overhang of the garage.

"Sun power.

"Yeah," Ninety said, gulping. "D'you think they've registered us as thieves?"

"Doubt it," Lenny said. "What've they got to guard Fagainst on this planet? They don't even know we're here.

And dangerous!" Zainal chuckled. "We are. To them." Then he gestured to Ninety, made a cup of his two hands and waited.

Ninety, shrugging at the thought of his not inconsiderable bulk being hoisted by the Catteni, put his foot in the hand and climbed to Zainal's shoulders where he was now high enough to examine the panels.

"Hey," he said after a moment 5 scrutiny, "I think they come off - He grabbed one, rocking a bit on Zainal's Fshoulders, but the Catteni compensated easily and Ninety unclipped the panel from its brackets.

"Easy to install, replacements in stock, no waiting, no problem!" He handed each of the four panels down, then examined the links to wherever the power was collected. "Wish I'd seen the specs of the solar power stuff they were bringing into Dublin before we left."

"You weren't taken in Ireland?" Kris asked, somehow having assumed that they were.

"Naw, we were working on a construction site in Detroit. Pay wasn't great but better'n getting only fifty quid a week on the dole." Then he jumped neatly down from Zainal's shoulders and joined his brother, Slav and Coo, who were peering suspiciously at the units.

Zainal seemed to be waiting, his attention on the unmoving machines.

"How much power would these things store up?" Ninety asked him.

"Do we have to wait until dark? We wouldn't be able to see then." "Maybe they're on standby anyhow," Lenny suggested.

"They're not armed er anything.

"Darts," Zainal said and peered into the garage to see if he could locate the little aerial menaces.

"I don't see anything set in the frame," Lenny said, running a hand down the side of the opening. "No sign of security devices. Not as if I'd recognize any if I saw "em. There has to be some - Coo broke his thoughtful silence by walking right in and straight to the back of the dim garage. Turning around, he raised his long, spider-fingered hands in a "so there' gesture.

"OK," said Ninety, brushing his hands together. "Let's see if we can't disable these fecking mechanicals." He jumped to the flange of the nearest big farm machine and, finding toe holds, climbed high enough to reach the canted solar panel surfaces. "And these come off with a twist of the wrist, too," he said, after yanking first one, then the next panel out of their brackets. There were seven in all. Having done that, he looked down at Zainal.

"OK, boss man, whaddawe do next?" Zainal stepped up on the flange and then on tiptoe to look into the opening left by the removal of the panels.

Kris held her breath, hoping nothing would turn on and knock him out, or off. She couldn't remember, from her brief glimpses of them, what sections of the machinery lit up when in use.

Zainal began tugging at a section which came away in his hands.

He grunted, handed this down to Kris and he and Ninety began dismantling the exterior sheets. Even Slav looked pleased as he, Coo, and Lenny handled the pieces.

"Simple," Zainal remarked after a good look at the innards. "This . . ." and he touched a cube the length of his spread hand, "is the power collector." He pulled it loose.

"Hrnmm, a regular pop-tool," Ninety said, grinning.

"Handy dandy Meccano set."

"Well, if other machines had to service it, might as well be easy to disassemble," Lenny said, changing his voice on the last word to sound more like Short Circuit Number Five.

—The wires and connectors that were plugged into the -power cube also came away easily, and Zainal, with yet another grunt, removed the cube.

"Could we use that back at the camp?" Kris asked.

"For what?" Ninety said with a snort. "We haven't anything to power up."

"We could if we had power and maybe some of the engineer types could rearrange all those parts into something useful for us.

"For what?" Ninety asked.

"What's the matter with you? Don't you like technology?" Lenny wanted to know, dismissing his brother's attitude.

"Mitford will want," Zainal said. "We bring on later back to camp." He looked around again, his eyes narrowed.

"What's wrong?"

"No dart thing."

Coo suddenly pointed up, chattering in the way of Deski laughter.

Craning their necks, they finally saw the aerial unit, high up in the ceiling.

"No wonder we didn't see one in the slaughterhouse garage. We never looked up," Kris said. "Well, now we know where it hangs out, we can get that one, too.

"Already half-launched like that, isn't it?" Lenny said.

"That thing has to be programmed by a machine, doesn't it? I mean, it can't go off in here, can it?"

"I hope not," Ninety said.

They had to do a circus act: Ninety on Zainal's shoulders, with Coo on Ninety's to get enough height to reach the thing. In trying to remove it from the brackets that held it in place, the human ladder swayed alarmingly back and forth, with Lenny and Kris doing a dance around Zainal, ready to cushion any faller with their own bodies.

Coo ended up swinging on the thing, to break it loose from its mooring. So it and he fell, Coo uttering amazing cackles as he plummeted, clutching the mechanism to his thin chest. Lenny and Kris smacked into each other as they reached out to catch his spider body.

But they did break his fall even though Kris got clouted across the nose by one wing extension of the flying device. She saw stars but managed to hang on to the frail Deski body until they could ease him to the ground.

When they separated Kris gasped, for the wicked points of the anaesthetic darts were visible along the leading edge of both wings, pointing right at frer. She could so easily have been pricked. She sat down, tipping her head back trying to stem the nosebleed.

The men were all for breaking up the evil device.

"No way, she said with muffled urgency because she only had her sleeve to use to staunch the blood on her face. "Let's find out if there's a reservoir or well of that anaesthetic they use," she said.

"Why?" Lenny demanded. "I'm not a vindictive sort but when I think about what happened to some bodies who got darted -, "I'm thinking of a medical use for the anaesthetic, Lenny. It put us to sleep. And that could be useful."

"Oh, yeah.

So they were even more careful as they disassembled the unit.

Then they disabled all the other machines in the garage, making neat piles of the various components.

"Don't fancy lugging all this back," Lenny said, eyeing the lot thoughtfully.

"We get more people to carry. Aarens is strong," Zainal said, grinning maliciously in Kris's direction.

"He'll love you for that," she said with a snort and a laugh.

"Lugging's about all that gobshite's good for, Ninety said as he regarded the piles dubiously. "But, hey, is it safe to just leave the stuff lying here?" Zainal shrugged. "No machine has power!"

"That's true enough," Ninety said, still worried.

"No power in the garage either," Kris reminded him.

F "Suppose they have got some sort of security patrol that comes around checking to be sure they're on duty or something?" Ninety wanted to know.

After a moment, Zainal grinned. "That is what is wanted."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," and Ninety scratched his head. "So, shouldn't we break all this up so it can't put them all back together?"

"9' "We hide, Zainal said decisively after a moment's thought.

They had to haul the panels and cubes quite a distance to find some place that would be secure from an aerial or surface inspection, and that task took the rest of the day.

That night they camped inside the inoperative garage, safe from the torrential rains that once again pummelled the ground. The rock-squats they'd hunted - Kris had surprised herself by stunning one in her first attempt to hunt with a slingshot - were roasted over the fire they made. The patrol ate, watching the rain sheeting down.

In the course of their seven-day patrol, for that was the time given them by Mitford for this tour, they found and rendered useless four more installations, including another empty abattoir. They camped there that night, more comfortably on fodder bedding while outside the hour-long rain pelted down. It rained every evening, hard, for approximately an hour and they preferred to be undercover during such onslaughts.

"This sort of rain can't be natural," Kris said the fourth night.

"Not rain at night, when all the machines would be safely back in their garages.

"They got the farming so well organized here, I wouldn't put it past "em to organize the weather, too," Ninety said, then added thoughtfully, "Sure would be nice not to have the soccer games rained off.

"You would think of soccer," his brother said with amiable asperity.

"Then there'd have to be a central control facility somewhere on this planet," Kris said, turning to Zainal. He nodded. "Only where?

We aren't going to be able to cover a great deal of distance on foot and we don't even know which continent we're on. Do we?" she asked Zainal.

He shook his head, sighing again and indicating his own frustration over insufficient data.

"Well, if we keep on the way we're going, disabling garages, we may meet our landlord soon. Maybe sooner than we'd like," and unconsciously her hand went to the knife at her belt. "Comforting a knife may be, but it's not really sufficient to combat the kind of technology we've seen." "No intelligence on this planet, Zainal said with a shrug.

"D'you mean anything that comes after us would be a machine?" Kris wasn't at all happy with that notion. "Or more flying darts?"

"We were trapped in that place," Zainal said but he was obviously turning over the possibilities in his head and then gave a convulsive shrug. "We are careful. We keep watch." He delivered a short series of guttural barks to the Deski, who was chewing a mouthful. Coo nodded and pointed to his ear-flaps. Then, to Kris's surprise, he held up one of his two opposite digits in the "gotcha' gesture.

"They catch on quick, don't they?" Lenny murmured as he beamed at the Deski and made the thumbs-up with both of his hands. Coo nodded enthusiastically but kept right on chewing.

Kris, watching the Catteni's face during this exchange decided that he had also noted the alteration in the Deski.

Though the alien kept up with the patrol, climbing was no longer as effortless for him and, to Kris, he seemed even more spidery and insubstantial than ever. And he was constantly trying out some new greenery, root, or the nut-like objects he found in the forested areas.

Some of the vegetation sprouted sort of nuts, or fungi, on the trunks.

Coo tried everything and, when the others chowed down on rock-squat, he ate slowly of his ration bars. Twice Zainal had evidently told him not to save the bars: there would be more back at the camp. At least that's what Kris thought Zainal was telling him.

On the morning of the sixth day, Slav pointed out their homeward direction. Kris was suitably awed by the confidence he displayed, since they'd done so much up- and downhill travel, so many detours around impassable rock faces that she had no idea where the home camp was.

Chapter Eight

At fourth moonrise three days after Mitford had sent out five teams to search and disable, the sergeant was reviewing plans: renovations made by the three architects among them for the abattoir barns. He'd sent a group of engineer types to bring back some of the most interesting junk. The processing equipment in the slaughterhouse had been completely dismantled although they'd have to have serious overcrowding before anyone who knew what had happened in that plant would live in it. However, there'd be more folks who hadn't a clue.

He heard one of the sentries hiss at him.

"Sarge, something's coming."

"Well, don't tell me. Challenge them, but Mitford reached for his spear with one hand and eased the knife out of its sheath with the other F"Who goes there?" the sentry yelled.

Yells answered him but not the passwords. He ducked.

"Shit, Sarge, they ain't ours," and he ducked behind the prominence on his height. "RED ALERT!" He clanged fiercely on the metal alarm triangle set on the height.

I"WHICH WAY ARE THEY COMING, GODDAMMIT, RAINEY!" Mitford roared.

"ATTACK!

ATTACK! TAKE YOUR STATIONS!" It was fortunate that, even with many out on exploratory patrols, there was usually a handful of people awake at any hour of the twenty-eight.

"COMING DOWN THE RAVINE, SARGE! Omigod , and Rainey ducked as a spear clattered on the rock beyond him. "They're shooting at ME!" More spears came spinning out of the darkness, aimed at the source of light which was the "office' fire. Crouching to make a smaller target, Mitford dashed forward. In the stocks, Aarens was shouting to be released as two spent arrows and another spear fell close to him.

"C' MON," Mitford roared at the men and women rushing out of the main caves, spears and knives ready, just as they'd been drilled. With grim satisfaction, Mitford knew there'd be no complaints about his drilling them after this. Only how many were attacking? he wondered, as he pounded up the ravine and grinned as he saw the first attackers appear on the edge of the lighted areas. A good fight, that's what he'd been missing. Seeing a target, he paused long enough to launch his spear at an oncoming body. It pierced the chest of the leader who dropped like a stone. Now the sentries on the heights were using their weapons, firing arrows and launching their spears into the crowd. Then the next of the attackers was howling as he charged at Mitford.

The sergeant met the frenzied attack: the man had a knife in each hand but he hadn't the first clue about effective fighting, slashing the air in the hope that one knife would connect. Mitford ducked, sidestepped and then plunged his knife into the attacker's ribs. The man screamed, an awful wailing desperate sound, knives falling from strengthless hands as he fell back. Mitford remained in the crouching position as he quickly jerked his knife free and then tackled the next attacker. He was peripherally aware that his force was pressing in behind him. Then a stone, thrown from the heights, bounced off his shoulder and he staggered against the wall of the ravine.

"HEY, WATCH WHERE YOU'RE AIMING," he roared as he saw Bart, Taglione, and quite likely Sandy Areson swarming past him.

It was over quickly: the attackers had obviously had no real plan in mind. They'd seen lights and smelt cooking, then attacked at a time when they thought everyone would be asleep.

There were fourteen bodies to be buried and three whose wounds could be sewn up. They were starving and even their Catteni-issue clothing was torn and incredibly filthy. When the sun came up three women crept in begging for help. They were in a dreadful condition, not only starved but beaten and repeatedly abused. Mitford approvingly watched Patti Sue gently leading one of them, little more than a child, into the kitchen for probably the first real food she'd eaten since being dropped.

Only five of the defenders had been wounded: two of those by "friendly fire' from stones thrown down into the ravine. Mitford's shoulder was sore but he didn't mention it to Matt Dargle who was busy sewing up knife cuts.

Another man had tripped in the dark and broken his leg and was cursing his clumsiness while the bone was set.

"Sorry about that, Sarge," he said when Mitford walked round the infirmary to check the damages.

"Weren't you right behind me up that ravine, Bart?" Mitford asked as he watched Matt Dargle sewing up the nasty slice on the black man's arm. "Teach you to keep your guard up.

"Naw, they was aiming at you," Bart said, grinning.

"Saving my skin, were you? Good man!" Mitford gave his uninjured shoulder a quick squeeze of appreciation The battle had roused the entire camp, so the cooks made an early breakfast for everyone.

Mitford took advantage of the meal to drive home the lesson that they had to maintain vigilance.

"Good reaction, quick response time, folks, but they never should have got as far as the ravine at all. I think we'll move the guard perimeter out a bit."

"What about traps, Sarge? Maybe we could rig some on the approaches?"

"Draw me a plan," Mitford said, nodding approval.

"You know, with so many out on patrol, didn't we leave ourselves a bit thin of fighting men here?" Sandy asked.

"Not when you were right in vanguard yourself," Mitford said in blunt approval.

"It's my home, too," Sandy said with a shrug. "Besides, you drilled all of us!"

"Didn't I just?" Mitford said with a grin.

"All right, all right, we bitched," she said, flapping her hand at his inference. "You knew what you were doing.

I guess we've got a bit cocky-' "We all know better now, don't we?" Mitford said, glancing around him. "Hell, they didn't even get as far as my office, did they? Now I need a disposal patrol."

"You mean burial party?" Dowdall asked, looking up from honing his blade.

"No, disposal. I want those bodies dumped four fields over at least, Dowdall."

"Aw, Sarge," Dowdall groaned in protest at being tacitly assigned the duty "Don't want that carrion stinking up our camp, do we?

You, you, you, you and you," and he ended up with a full squad.

"Take care of it before the sun warms "em too much." As soon as he got back to his office to write up the incident, Aarens began his complaint.

"You'd've let me die here, unable to defend myself!

And you call yourself civilized! Think you're such a big leader." Mitford walked straight up to Aarens, jerking him by the hair of his head so Aarens couldn't evade his eyes.

"Look, you sorry piece of shit. You keep on this way and I'll stake your living body out right beside the others." Aarens gasped.

"You wouldn't dare?"

"Oh, wouldn't I? Just give me an excuse. Just give me one!" Mitford knew that his rage was fuelled more by a reaction to the stress of the surprise attack and the run-off of adrenalin in his system. He oughtn't to lose control by taking it out on Aarens, but better him than anyone else.

"Hey, Sarge, take it easy. Take it easy," and though there was a quaver in the man's voice, his conciliatory manner caused Mitford to let his hair go. "You don't want to waste me, Sarge. Not now. Not when you're going to need me."

"Need -- - YOU?"

"Yeah, me, Sarge," and Aarens actually grinned. "Like I told you when I got here, I'm a mechanical genius. I can make machinery work when no-one else can. I don't even need manuals to tell me how things work. It's a knack I've got. I used to make big money back in the States, just telling executives how to improve the efficiency of their production lines.

Look, I heard what you were discussing with Mack Su, Capstan and the others. They're all desk jockeys. Me, I'm the guy on the floor who carries out their notions. And makes "em work. You don't want to waste the one real talent you've got who can give you lights for the caves? Hot water! Distant early warning devices."

"DEWs? How could you do that?" Mitford was suspicious but certainly willing to use Aarens - if the waste-of-space could produce the goods.

"You could mount solar panels - and their collectors, of course all around the camp," and Aarens gestured with his stocked hands, "with a circuit, say, of a lighter wire. Anything breaking that wire and the alarm sounds Simple."

"At night?" Aarens shook his head, denying that qualification.

"Collectors should save enough of a charge to be functional all night long. Or how do those mechanicals start up? I mean, it's simple enough." Mitford thought there was no harm in running the idea past Mack and Spiller "Yeah, simple enough. Now shut up for a while."

"Yeah, but I'm supposed to be out of this contraption today," Aarens complained.

Mitford gave him a long look and then pointed to the sundial.

"Not until the sun's on the first division.

That makes it exactly a day since you got sentenced for harassing the little Chinese kid." Mitford gave the man one more long stare before he turned to pick up a sheet and his pencil.

He almost regretted the fact that Mack, Spiller and Jack the Nail thought Aarens' idea had enough merit to make a prototype from materials that had been brought back to camp from the abattoir buildings.

Zainal's team made it back to camp just before the evening rains by jogging whenever the terrain permitted, and were met with a stern demand from the sentries for the password.

"Password?" Kris yelled back. "What password? You know who we are! Hell, it's Kris Bjornsen, Zainal, the Doyle brothers, Coo and Slav. Damn it all, Tesco, don't be so hostile.

"Well, it's my duty, Kris. We got attacked while you was all gone." His grin gave her the immediate good news F that the attack had failed and no-one in the camp had evidently been killed or badly hurt.

They passed by Tesco's post and hurried down to the caves, eager for more details about the incident.

When Kris saw that the sergeant wasn't in his office, she grabbed the first person by the arm, a youngster she remembered rescuing from the barns.

"Pete, where's Mitford?"

"Inside," the boy said. "Didja hear about us being attacked?"

"Yes, but we could do with some details."

"Who? What?" Lenny demanded.

"Aw, just some starving renegades. Sarge led the counterattack, he was something else . . ." and the boy's eyes shone with admiration.

"Bart and Sandy Areson right behind "im. I missed most of it," and Pete's face fell in disappointment. "The sentries rained down arrows and stones and clipped a few of our guys. Pete grinned irrepressibly.

"Friendly fire, the sarge called it. And they had fourteen bodies to dump - over that way," and Pete made a wild gesture that indicated a considerable distance "to keep the scavengers happy." He gave an expressive shudder. "So you see, you missed a lot!

"Were any of our guys hurt?" Kris asked urgently, glancing at the empty office.

"Aw, a broken leg and a couple of cuts is all. And the sarge took in the ladies the bad guys had messed up bad." Inadvertently, Kris's glance went to the stocks. They were empty. Could both Aarens and Arnie be on good behaviour? Had the attack scared manners into them?

"Death to all invaders of our Camp Ayers Rock!" And Pete shot his arm up in a clenched fist salute.

"Camp Ayres Rock?" Kris repeated, stunned.

"Sure, why not? The rock that protects us."

"Well, you are named Peter,"

"Huh?" The kid screwed his face up.

"Peter means rock, honey' "Oh, I never knew that."

"D'you know where the sergeant is right now, Peter?" Kris asked.

"Sure. Follow me," and he gestured them after him.

"He's rigging distant early warning devices."

"He is?"

"Yeah, that Aarens guy did "em. Not bad. And they work."

"Aarens?" and Kris turned n amazement to Zainal.

"Wonders will never cease," Lenny said, grinning at her, appreciating her surprise. "So he isn't a total waste."

"Takes all kinds to make a world," was all Mitford said when they met up with him on his way back from the perimeter.

"But Aarens?"

"Surprised me, too," Mitford said, leading them to a small cave that was his "inside office" - since the rains came, he said. "Did Pete there tell you all about the raid?"

"Can we debrief you, Sarge?" Kris asked, laughing.

"Later, give me the report on your findings first. You do all right?" He glanced around at the others.

"Fine, Sarge, we did great," Lenny answered him.

"Coo's gotten much weaker though, Sarge," Kris said quietly, not glancing in the Deski's direction. Mitford grimaced. "Has anybody else found something to help?"

"Matt Dargle has narrowed it down to the lack of potassium, Vitamin C or calcium and we're looking for sources of those," and Mitford looked dour. "Right now, there're only three Deskis strong enough to go out with foragers to search. He turned to Zainal. "You got any good ideas?"