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  Rym pointed to two inferior youths, one male and one female. “You two go to our brothers on the distant sand. Ask them what they know of these newcomers.”

  The two inferiors jumped up, and loped out of the barrio. They paused only long enough to scoop up what meat was cut, their claws scraping coarsely across stone. This would be their proving journey. The distance would force them to exert themselves more than ever before. When they returned, they would no longer be inferior. They would be welcomed as dominant. The female was Rym’s own squab.

  Rym turned to his clan. "Trgyl and Kryn, go where the Ancients walk. Ask for understanding.”

  Trgyl slid Tylg back into his mate’s pouch. Immediately, his son sucked noisily on one of Dymlr’s nipples. Milk flowed strong in her and he swallowed with loud gulps, smacking his lips against her skin. The sweet smelling warmth from her pouch filled Trgyl with sorrow at leaving again so soon.

  After a brief glance at Dymlr, he joined Kryn. He would not take the time to cut more meat. He could forage on the way. It was an honor to speak with the Ancients.

  CHAPTER

  10

  Pala watched Bardef from the center of camp. The nightglow from Colossus’s three moons cast him in an eerie light, as if he were simply a spirit being. His silhouette stood out in silver relief, like the brush behind him. He kicked the foot lever on the tent spinner and stood back to monitor the mechanical arms. A slick chrome-colored bubble slowly began to weave into the size of a three-man pup tent. After a few seconds, he stopped the machine and placed supporting struts at key points of the structure and turned the spinner back on again. He’d turned out to be a decent asset. His shaking had stopped, though his skin was still pale – paler in the moonlight – and his wrist wound, more than hers, was grossly swollen and red.

  Lowering her slow-moving handcart to the ground, Pala rolled a fetid body onto it. One of the rangers left behind to protect the base. After removing the wrist tracer, she pressed the keypad on the cart. It raised four inches and trekked over the contours of the ground to her pre-programmed location, 200 yards downwind of the camp. There it tipped the body into the row of dead.

  Her men should be scouting the units’ last known locations now. It still burned her that she wasn’t with them, but Quade was right. He usually was. She’d best serve her unit by doing exactly what she and Bardef were doing. She’d trained her men well. They’d get rid of the gunnery spheres and then use the visors they found to report back. Until then, she could only wait and occasionally flick on her visor to see if Quade had unjammed the channels yet.

  Men. She barked a laugh. The only adults on the mission were the scientists and the Miners' Union official. And now, with this attack, the military was in charge. That meant the cadets. That meant her.

  The handcart returned, and she moved to the next body, a scientist who’d probably had no idea how to defend himself. After she sent the corpse away, she picked up her cannon and visor to patrol the perimeter of the camp. The nocturnal creatures were strangely silent, and the trees stirred like ghosts in the bright night, scraping and rubbing branch against branch. With the dead lying in a row, it could have been a graveyard. Shivers crept up and down her spine. If they didn’t stop those spheres and whoever was behind the attacks, they’d all be corpses.

  The wind crackled and crunched through the dry underbrush leaves, adding to the eeriness of the night. Everywhere around her, the leaves seemed a more subdued color in the bright moonlight. She’d noticed it when they arrived back at base camp, too. At the time, she thought it had been just her imagination. The only real color had been from the setting sun refracting through the raindrops. In fact, thinking on it, the closer to camp they’d gotten, the more non-vital the vegetation had appeared, though not as drastic as that lichen stuff near the glade where Cabot had been killed. She should have one of the scientists check into it.

  Remembering Cabot’s death suddenly brought waves of shock rolling over her. Unprepared, they ripped through her with fierce dry-eyed tremors. At one time she'd loved Cabot. She thought she knew him, but the Cabot she knew wouldn't have betrayed his unit. It didn’t seem possible. Should she grieve for a boyfriend, or would that be wasted on someone who’d tried to kill her?

  Pala sucked in her breath sharply as a memory lanced to the surface. It had been a few days before she’d learned about the assignment to Colossus. Cabot had countermanded her orders to have a second shuttle fitted into the Hawk. His only excuse had been that they’d always done fine with one shuttle and a second was redundant. It was an exact about-face of a discussion a week before when he’d been a proponent of adding the shuttle. As it turned out, in order to make room for all the spheres, they’d had to leave the second shuttle behind.

  The shock-tremors that had rocked Pala disappeared. She’d bet anything Cabot had known about their mission before her.

  Yes, he’d been party to betray them…her. There was no doubt in her mind now. But why? And why had he, then, taken her pack with the canteen and transmitter chip in an effort to save her? Or had he? Anyone could have planted that transmitter in the canteen either before Cabot got it, which was most likely, or on the trip from Earth.

  Instead of answers, she was gaining more and more questions. She shook her head. Sooner or later, something was going to start making sense. She left the shadows of the gopher trees and low brush. She’d reentered the open camp near Bardef. He was intently studying the shifting iridescent patterns on the forming bubble.

  She leaned over him. “What would cause the plants around here to sicken?”

  The scientist startled from his concentration, stumbling backwards, his face in a twist of pale panic and dread. He stared at her a couple seconds. Then his face flushed. “You scared the life out of me!”

  “So I see.” She asked her question again.

  Bardef looked around at the dark bank of gopher trees, spike flowers and other shrubs and trees surrounding the camp. Weariness etched across his face and his voice was weak. “Everyone spent seven weeks breathing canned air scooped out of Colossus’s atmosphere and transported back to the station. We were isolated and sterilized in it. We couldn’t have carried any contaminants onto the planet. It’s just stress. They’ll snap out of it as soon as they adjust.”

  Pala took a deep breath. No doubt he was right. Still …. “I’d like you to check into it when things settle a little. Make sure there’s no disease or anything else we might pick up here.”

  He nodded and she left him with his tent. As she piloted the handcart to another body on the edge of the camp, she noticed the dead ranger’s visor was missing, his neck was twisted at an odd angle. It had been there when she’d left to patrol the perimeter. She was sure of it. Someone was alive and hiding nearby. Pala made no conspicuous move to investigate. She rolled the body onto the cart. Meanwhile, from the periphery of her vision, she scanned the camp and the shifting shadows under the trees. She saw nothing that could be construed as human. Of all the times to not be able to use her own visor.

  After she sent the cart away, she rejoined Bardef. She squatted, examining one end of the spinning arms as the wet, micro-thin tent formed. Already, the far end of the structure was hardening to an opaque jungle camouflage pattern. After a few seconds, she motioned for the scientist to squat beside her. She spoke softly. “Pay close attention to this arm here while I talk to you.” She pointed to a spot on one of the spinners. “Did you take a visor off one of the dead rangers?”

  He started, but didn’t look up from the machine. Matching the softness of her voice, he said, “No. Why would I need one?”

  “That last ranger I moved is missing his.” She frowned.

  If anything, Bardef grew paler. “He had one when we arrived. I saw it.”

  “So did I. Keep an eye out; we’re not alone.”

  He started to crane his neck to look around, but then brought his gaze back to her with a jerk. Lowering his voice further, he asked, “Why aren’t the spheres attacking?�
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  “I jammed the visors, but our intruder wouldn’t know that. Stay here and be alert. Continue as if nothing is unusual.” Pala went in search of her cart, whistling as she went. It had just reached the row of dead when she caught up to it. She shut it off; it would never do for the intruder to see the cart return to camp and stand waiting for her. Carefully, she glided into the moon shadows, holding her Ellison cannon tightly against her body.

  Weaving through the gopher trees and underbrush and pausing to check her surroundings for watchers, she skirted the camp to near where the ranger’s body had been. Pala waited silently behind a large cluster of rattling vines. It wasn’t long before a pitch-black shadow separated from a dark cluster of spike plants only a few dozen feet away. A male, judging by the silhouette. The shadow of his hand was on his visor. He inched along, but still he rustled ground vines and crinkled dry leaves. This was no ranger.

  Holding her hand over the carbine of her cannon, she charged it to stun. A gentle hum vibrated through her fingers and added to the wind murmuring through the surrounding leaves. Pala held her fire until the intruder was almost hidden behind a short grove of gopher saplings. His fall needed to be masked from any hidden friends – he didn’t have that visor on for looks.

  She fired.

  Electrons vibrated through the air finding the target, shocking the atoms inside the intruder. Even as he fell, Pala snapped on her own visor, searching through the green-static channels. She’d only get one brief chance to catch an accomplice. Not a single channel showed anything but the jammed screen. So, chances were, his friends were either dead or at another base. That meant it was probably a small operation, at least here on Colossus. Finally, she had an answer. It wasn’t a complete answer, but it was something. She’d get more when the intruder woke up.

  She searched the perimeter of the camp for signs of movement. The wind had died and the gopher tree shoots looked like pale rib bones, spiking up from the ground. The insects were silent, as if holding their breath. Pala saw no one as she criss-crossed over her path wider and wider until she again neared the side of the camp where her new prisoner lay.

  The channels on her visor still showed only green static, so she turned it off. She jerked the visor off the prone man. It was Makel, one of the chemists from her base camp. He lay on the ground, unconscious and drooling, his left leg caught oddly under his body, broken. She’d have Bardef examine him in one of the animal holding cages. Pala went to retrieve the handcart.

  Cabot, Riyst, possibly General Grollier, and now a chemist. Chills channeled under her skin and trepidation filled her. What was going on?

  CHAPTER

  11

  Pala dropped the heel of her Ellison to the ground and propped the nose against the side of the metal alloy animal cage. That tracer in Makel’s wrist had to come out right away. It was possible that the chemist hadn’t been written into the sphere’s program for destruction. In fact, she’d bet on it. However, once his friends discovered she had him in her possession, they might program a new sphere just for him. She rummaged through the medical trays full of dissecting and sampling tools. Finally, the sharp edge of a scalpel caught her eye. Rubbing her thumb along Makel’s wrist, she located the buried ID transmitter chip and dug the point of the scalpel under his skin. The chip fell to the table of the handcart with a sharp ‘tink’.

  Bardef came up beside her as she pointed at Makel’s leg. “You better take care of your friend’s injuries.”

  “He’s no friend of mine if he had anything to do with this.” Bardef scowled, swinging his hand in a wide encompassing gesture. The desolate camp surrounded them, haunted with a few last bodies and the memories of the rest who had died. Small eddies of leaves and dust churned up and scutted across the moonlit clearing.

  “He most probably is at least partly responsible, and he is your friend right now because he’s our best source of information. Lock him in the cage when you’re finished. Then go get some rest; I’m going to need you at your best when the injured arrive.”

  While she returned to her work with the hand-cart, she watched Bardef. He doctored Makel’s leg, stretching and manipulating the jagged ends of the bone until they lay back in place. Then he injected it with Set to reform new bone. He was staggering with exhaustion. She’d have to find a way to thank all three scientists. Bardef finished with binding the leg so that the bone was immobile, and then he waved and disappeared into his tent.

  Pala checked her visor. Still nothing from her teams. She removed the chips and disposed of the last two bodies. Then she took Bardef’s place at the tent-spinning machine. Quietly, it churned out the bubble to the midpoint when Pala shut it off to prop two struts opposing each other. She kicked the foot lever of the machine and the transparent bubble grew. She calculated how many tents they might need. With 58 people per base, and the Civilian Chief at Base One, there had been 465 people deployed on Colossus. If her unit was any example, she could expect an approximate one-quarter to be killed.

  One quarter dead. That meant about 116 people. It was a sobering number. If they were lucky, that would be the most. Judging by what Pala had seen on the screen in The Hawk, though, there might be more than that. The idea that a chemist was involved gave her a hideous sense of foreboding.

  Sometime in the morning, she’d have to go get Cabot’s body, as well as those with him. She wouldn’t send anyone else. She had to face him alone, tell him exactly what she thought of him. Even though there was no real physical evidence to point conclusively to him except that canteen.

  Pala snapped on her visor again. This time, more than green static greeted her. Quade had unjammed the visors. Two more of the spheres had been cleared. Relief flooded her.

  The team at Base Two was looking grim. The dead lay strewn everywhere, torn in chunks and bloating – a scene much like what they’d encountered when they’d arrived at their own Base Camp, only covered in shredded vegetation. Pala waited until they finished. Suez shook her head in the visor. “The whole unit.”

  Flaring her nostrils wide, Pala made a vow: she’d find every one of those responsible. Some how, some way, she’d make sure they were brought to justice.

  Quade’s screen view at the top of her visor suddenly tilted, the visor thrown on the ground. Some three hundred yards away, flashes of action showed him, deep in active fire with another sphere. It could have come from Base Two, just on the other side of a large river, about three days march. It was conceivable that a sphere could travel that distance within a few hours, after taking care of its first assignment. She didn’t like the look of this at all.

  One of her cadets spun violently before falling hard to the ground. Beside him, another ranger slowly slumped against his neighbor.

  Pala spoke to Suez and her team. “Quade and his men are pinned down at Base Seven by a sphere. Dump your visors and get there, pronto!”

  Suez gave a sharp nod. The visors shut down as she and her partner launched their shuttle. Physe, as well as the uninjured from Base Four, were already bolting through the jungle on foot in a rapid attempt to assist. All visor screens immediately clicked off except those tossed aside by Quade and his team.

  Pala breathed a silent prayer for Quade and her boys to hang on. She couldn’t lose any more of her men. She snapped off her visor. She couldn’t even watch the firefight because it might draw a sphere. She felt absolutely useless!

  The tent she’d been working on was finished. Pala jerked the spinner loose and moved it to a new location. Somehow though, when she started it up, the machine didn’t want to work on one side. It grumbled loudly and the bubble that came out looked like a lopsided knapsack. Frustrated, Pala slapped the heel of her hand on the machine, shutting it down. Forcing patience on herself, she unsnapped the motor from the chassis. Twisting the head off the motor, she found the film gasket completely disintegrated on one side.

  She went to the ship and returned with the gasket tool. By the time the tent spinner was up and running again, the firefi
ght at Base One was over and the visors were back on. Three cadets were dead. Physe was on his way to fetch The Hawk from where Quade had left it. The two scientists, Denten and Laramie were bent low, working on some of the injured.

  “Quade.” Pala spoke gently to her second, who was standing watch.

  His image glanced up in her visor. His face was grim. Shaking his head, he said, “It’s ugly, Pala. It really is. We lost all of Base Two and at least three rangers each from the other two.”

  Pala walked over to the animal cage, still speaking to Quade. “Keep the visor usage to a minimum. I suspect there are more spheres floating around out there.” Focusing on the waking Makel, she said, “And Quade, I have a present for you. I found it stealing a visor from one of the dead.”

  Immediately, Quade’s jaw hardened. He motioned to one of the remaining uninjured rangers to take his place on sentry. Turning abruptly, he jogged to where Denten was loading a shuttle with the most injured rangers.

  Quade issued the order and Pala’s visor screen went green. He’d be here soon. She shifted her attention to Makel.

  He squirmed away from her gaze. “You broke my ankle!”

  “No. You did that when you fell on it.” She jerked off her visor. “It would be better if you talked to me now, rather than wait for Captain Quade Justiss. He can be somewhat … determined.” She paused to let what that might mean sink in, and then continued. “Is anyone working with you?”

  Makel set his jaw like one of the righteous. She’d seen that look before on Cabot.

  “Okay, then. Consider yourself a prisoner with all the usual accoutrements. We'll wait for Captain Justiss.” She clanged her visor against the animal cage for emphasis as she locked it and returned to her tent machine.