On a whim she walked in a circle, then checked her own trail. It was just as strong, but smelled subtly different.

So. I leave the same scent trail. The other Konuan can follow me easily, too.

Telisa followed the trail through two more rooms, when it abruptly ended. She looked around with her washed-out vision. She didn"t see anything except another cubical room.

Oh, of course. It leaped from here. To...where?

Finally her poor vision noticed a circular well in the floor instead of a grille.

An entrance to the Trilisk tunnels.

Telisa crawled all about until she found a spot where the Konuan before her had landed. It had been a jump that broke the trail. She followed the line. It had jumped here, and then...? Probably into the tunnel below. Telisa crawled down to check. She put half her body down the well and walked around the rim. She could smell it. This is where it had gone, into the Trilisk tunnels.

With a shrug that could only be imagined, Telisa crawled over the edge of the well and downward. Despite the smooth surface of the well, her legs stuck to the sides. She moved over the metal without fear of falling.

The tunnel below smelled very different to her Konuan feet. Clean and metallic.

Of course. I smell through my feet. Sigh.

Her gill flaps rustled.

I try to sigh, and it causes this new body to breathe. I try to move forward and my hundreds of legs just do it. It has all been connected in a way to minimize the alien-ness of the transfer. Yet a change this radical remains profound. One can"t be perfectly mapped from Terran to Konuan. It all just feels right. Masterful.

The bottom of the well smoothly joined into a horizontal tunnel. Telisa followed the trail onto the ceiling of the tunnel and crawled on. She slowed. A new sensation had started to build. Some of her legs were not working. She felt them clutching onto something instead. Many somethings. She held many tiny orbs to her body with at least a dozen legs.

What are those? Eggs? I don"t understand. This is less than masterful.

Telisa tried to release one. She couldn"t quite force herself to let it go. She didn"t want to let them go. Somehow the deposits had become so very important.

Unbelievable. I don"t understand my own physiology enough to even get by. It could be dangerous. This could be a symptom of not breathing right, not eating, drinking, even standing upside down too long.

Telisa could not bring herself to drop anything so she simply walked on. A few more of her legs became distracted by the tiny spheres.

They have to be coming from me. This ceiling is utterly clean.

She came to a three-way intersection of the tunnels. Staying on the ceiling, she entered a triangular shaped s.p.a.ce that joined the tunnels. There was a niche in the three corners of the ceiling. Telisa was drawn to one of the tiny protected s.p.a.ces. She flowed over it, covering the depression with her body.

She shook. Her legs spasmed. Telisa couldn"t think about anything; she just was for a moment. Then she focused on the smell of the spheres. Several of her legs ticked out to tap the walls of the niche. Then she put one of the orbs there. Somehow, it stuck to the wall.

Then she placed another, and another.

Well, at least I know what to do with them now. Less to carry...Five Ent.i.ties.

Her legs started to work rapidly. More and more of the tiny modules became affixed to the surfaces of the niche as she worked. Time became meaningless. Finally she seemed to come back into focus.

I can move away now.

She flowed forward from the niche, then turned about to take a look. Her eyesight was poor, but it looked like she had deposited at least a hundred little black nodules, maybe more.

If this is what my life has become, I"m not going to be sane much longer.

She attempted to dispel the negative thoughts.

I"m going to get help. Shiny could help. Or I can figure out that Trilisk platform and get back to my regular self.

Telisa found the trail again and continued. She had to be following a chemical trail like an ant following a predecessor. The trails would help her to find another Konuan. But now she wondered: Did she really want to find the one that hunted them? Wouldn"t it be deadly? Or did it only kill Terrans?

If I can follow it, then it can follow me. If it finds those egg-things, it might fertilize them. Or maybe they are clones of me. Or maybe they are just chunks of excrement. This is miserable.

Telisa left the intersection on the trail and left by another corridor. It was long and straight like the last one. The trail started out in parallel with the tunnel on the ceiling, but after some distance, which was hard for Telisa to estimate, it veered left.

Telisa noticed something. A tiny crack. She would have missed it as a Terran. To a Konuan, it was like a canyon. As soon as she started to crawl across it, she could feel it there.

Why did the tunnel have a seam? An artifact of modular construction?

No. Trilisk stuff is made perfectly, designed down to the molecular level. No such thing as an accidental or incidental seam in their work. It"s a doorway.

She searched the large square panel that curved with the surface of the cylindrical tunnel. There were no b.u.t.tons or levers. Only the perfect seam around the entire perimeter.

Open?

The panel started to slide open. Telisa hopped off it instantly in a startled reaction.

Wow. I"m fast.

She felt elation that the panel had opened to her mere mental command. Either that, or something else had opened it...Telisa listened. The sound of the mechanism sliding the door was like thunder to her fine hearing. She looked through the doorway. She saw a small pa.s.sageway leading into a hidden room. Telisa hopped through and landed on the wall as naturally as a Terran would have strode through on the smooth black floor.

The room beyond looked like a s.p.a.ce force armory. A dozen rifles leaned against the wall. Bins of grenades. Five battle suits. Pieces of military robots. Explosives.

This is an incredible pile of tech. If this was gathered by the Konuan, it"s no primitive.

Backdropped against it all, a large column extended from floor to ceiling. It looked out of place in the cubical room with grilles on each wall.

Trilisk. Jackpot!

Telisa scurried right up to it, then onto its surface almost without thinking. She felt the smooth surface with her surface-clinging legs. Her claw legs tapped it gently, feeling everything under the two square meters of her body surface.

This is creepy how fast I"m getting used to crawling all over everything.

Telisa crawled around it full circle in the s.p.a.ce of a second.

I want to be myself again, Telisa thought. Nothing happened. Is anything there? I want to switch back.

Her desires were ignored. But she felt another crack in the surface under her feet.

Open.

The casing of the column started to drop. Telisa hopped aside effortlessly and watched from a nearby wall. Her dim vision showed her the column opened to reveal a works.p.a.ce within. She immediately found a small screwdriver-shaped tool sitting on a flat surface in one of her arm lights. She hopped into the column and took a closer look.

The craftsmanship was perfect. It was shiny. It looked to be made of plastic and metal. It was very flat. Tiny loops of metal decorated its sides.

Wait a moment. It"s so very flat. And those loops...

Telisa walked over it. She slid six legs through the loops and pulled it flush with her belly.

Fits like a glove! This is a Konuan tool. But it"s so much more advanced than a sword or a simple mechanical device. It could even be beyond Terran technology.

She carefully moved the wand to one corner of her body so both ends pointed off away from her. Then half a dozen of her legs moved over its surface.

It has no manual controls. It must use a link of some kind. But I have no link.

Telisa felt immense frustration. Why would I be put into this body without my link? Wouldn"t inter-body travelers need their cybernetic enhancements to come with them? Yet here she was, helpless in so many ways. Trapped in body she couldn"t understand yet had some almost instinctual ability to operate, but without any means of interfacing electronically with anything advanced. She crawled about the s.p.a.ce again, looking for more tools or hints as to what the owner did inside the column.

I want a link. I need to be able to interface with these things, she thought. Nothing happened. If a prayer device was active, it had been set to ignore her pleas.

The other Konuan has a link or something like it. It makes no sense. Has that creature actually advanced itself from early industrial age to this all by itself? Or was it a servant or slave of the Trilisks? How is it still alive? What does it want? And if it finds me here, is it going to kill me?

Chapter 15.

Cilreth had the last load of cases loaded onto the four scout robots she had gathered. The tiny convoy headed back to the ship at her command as Chigran"s star lightened the eastern horizon.

"Magnus? Telisa? Shiny?" she transmitted. No answer. "What the h.e.l.l am I gonna do if no one shows up? Take off in the Clacker by myself?"

She sighed. Then the opposite thought struck her: What would she do if a lot of people showed up? Magnus had said the UED might be coming for the Clacker. There had been yesterday"s huge cloud in the distance and the sound of thunder like a bomb. Should she lock herself inside? The Vovokan vessel was so advanced; maybe they would not be able to get in.

Right about now she wished she had grabbed those pills at the criminal"s compound. With a thousand or so of those, she might be able to forget about everything for a while.

Cilreth wondered how long she had before the UED showed up. But she did not want to leave. She wanted to get her friends out of trouble. How could she help Magnus and Telisa?

Well, the bad guys already know we"re here, she thought. Telisa had gone down into one of the Trilisk tunnels. They hadn"t taken time to map them yet. Yet. The Clacker could probably perform the scan...or she might be able to accomplish it right here. She asked the cases for inventory. One of them had a seismic a.n.a.lyzer.

Cilreth dug out the a.n.a.lyzer and pulled it from its case. It was a tall, hourgla.s.s-shaped metal cylinder with a flat black top and bottom. The curved parts in the middle were silver. Her link found its activation service. She turned it on with a thought and placed it on the ground. It didn"t sit very well on the ragged rocks. She went to the nearest plant and shined a light down into its fissure. There among the roots she saw soft black soil. A few scuttling creatures ran from her light.

"Wonderful," she said to herself. She dropped to the ground and put the device into the fissure. She had to put her entire arm deep into the hole to place it. She closed her eyes and pushed it into the soft dirt. Then it was over. She s.n.a.t.c.hed her arm back up and rolled away from the rocky opening.

I hope no one is listening.

The machine sent out impulses into the ground from the plant well. The resulting scan was fuzzy but good enough to take a peek. Tunnels crisscrossed the area about eight meters under the surface. Cilreth focused on the building where she and Telisa had gotten separated.

The tunnel below branched in three directions. Cilreth decided she had no way to know which way Telisa went, not with the jamming going on. But a.s.suming Telisa had the presence of mind to run towards the Clacker, she might have taken the tunnel leading...almost below her current camp. Cilreth followed the tunnel further. The next intersection was a building not far from the camp.

And it"s toward the Clacker.

Cilreth ordered the scout robots to resume carrying the load back toward the ship. She walked alongside them, carrying two cases herself. Then she set the cases down to check her weapons. She thought of the thing again: fast, deadly.

"I"m no match for that thing. Next mission we need fighting machines," she vowed. But she knew she still had her stealth suit. And it had worked to get her away alive once.

"What now?" she asked herself aloud.

Hmm. Maybe Telisa didn"t go far. I could look for her down there. Or her blood. Oh, by the Ent.i.ties, I don"t want to find her body.

Cilreth fidgeted with her stunner. Then she drew her machete.

"I"ll never hit the b.a.s.t.a.r.d with this," she said. What other weapons did they have? Pistols, stunners, lasers, grenades, and swords. The thing was fast, so light, handheld weapons were the only thing she might hit with...unless....

Cilreth looked at the Trilisk corridors. Long and straight. Sometimes as long as half a kilometer.

Cilreth found another case. She took out a sniper"s weapon: a powerful three-shot laser with a tripod and a scope. The weapon wasn"t a rifle since it had no need for a long barrel, but it could deliver a lot of energy accurately at great distances.

Maybe I could kill it from a long ways away.

Cilreth tossed her machete to shed some weight and slid the three-shot over her shoulder. She left the case on the ground and gave the scout that had carried the rifle case one of her own containers. She told the scouts to carry the last load to the Clacker, then headed off toward the other building. She recalled her favorite danger mantra.

The twitch is already killing me anyway.

She left the tiny train of scouts and headed for the building. When she got there, she realized her oversight immediately. She faced an ancient wall with two of the grilles built into it. And she hadn"t brought anything to dig them out with.

"You are the most miserable planner that ever existed," Cilreth said to herself. Telisa had been carrying Shiny"s digging device at the time they separated. Cilreth considered her rifle. It was a high-powered weapon, but shooting each grille out would eat through her ammo quickly. The weapon was at least much quieter than Magnus"s incredibly loud rifle.

"Okay, just check the perimeter first," she said, still angry at herself for forgetting about the grilles. She turned and looked all around for a moment. Without any scout machines nearby, it rested upon her to be more alert than ever.

Movement caught her eye. Another of the tree clumps was dropping green worms. In all the action, she had forgotten completely about the tiny things. She saw a small clear creature pluck up a worm and pull it back toward the fissure where the stalks emerged. Then she saw another do the same.

"Ah, when the worms move, it"s feasting time-"

A huge creature registered on Cilreth"s mind. It had been standing there the whole time, next to the shedding plant, though its coloration made it look like a stand of plants itself. It was a horror of k.n.o.bby legs and green tufts, a lobster-like monster. Cilreth saw a terrifyingly wide trap of a mouth with a hundred tendrils along the top and bottom edges. She knew instantly, utterly, her life was in danger.

She raised her rifle, but the thing attacked first. Four long spikes shot out toward her as fast as arrows. She felt an impact on the front of her suit and another on the top of her right leg. She shot the laser but missed as something yanked her forward. The weapon had no seeking projectiles, and it was not configured to lock onto something that looked like a stand of plants.

Cilreth realized the spines it had shot toward her were still attached to the monster. A wail rose from her throat as the tendrils began to take up more slack.

The d.a.m.n thing is reeling me in; then I go into that Venus flytrap mouth- Terror turned into a cold need that set aside her emotions. The laser lined up for another shot. A powerful yank of the tendrils sent her hopping forward a meter. The thing was closer now, easier to hit...

She activated the fire command. This time she hit her mark. A third of the pack"s charge went into cooking the creature from the inside out. It burst into flame and made a squeal grotesquely similar to that of a real lobster dropped into boiling water.

The tendrils" pull subsided as the thing died. Cilreth dropped onto her backside.

Shouldn"t I feel pain? Have I been poisoned? Paralyzed?

Cilreth drew a deep breath. She heard a sound like a frightened schoolgirl. She looked down at herself. Two of the spikes were embedded in her, one in her chest and one in her leg. She looked away and closed her eyes. She couldn"t feel the pain. It must be blocked out like the initial stage of a gunshot wound.

Oh no.