So. We"re curious about them, and of course, they"re curious about us. Or they"re just cautious.

Magnus examined the scan patterns more closely. The sources must be Terran, he decided. There was something familiar about them. He became apprehensive.

Military.

Magnus realized he was already in a lot of danger just being within the scan arc of the sensor he"d noticed. There was a good chance he hadn"t been picked up, being a lone man in a Veer suit with a couple of small robots. His Veer suit masked his signature to some degree, at least at long distance. Of course, military sensors would be designed to defeat such obfuscation, since soldiers so typically wore them.

Magnus immediately moved to the side of the old building away from the source of the scans. He thought for a moment, then decided to continue. He sent a scout ahead to find a route with some cover from the hill. The next structure was not far. Magnus dropped low and moved slowly to get behind the next building. And the next. He stayed calm and alert. His link had the stealth device ready, but he didn"t want to use it unless he had to, since he didn"t know what its lifespan was.

If something bad happens, hopefully I"ll have enough warning to activate it.

His lead scout had come to the edge of a shallow escarpment. Its video feed showed a small valley below its position.

Magnus kept low. He decided to stay away from the open area and rely on the scout"s vision. The open valley would mean danger of being spotted. He dropped to the ground. The rocks were rugged and sharp, but the Veer suit was more than enough protection.

Magnus accessed a binocular feed from the scout in his PV, so he could get a three-dimensional view from the machine. When he closed his eyes and concentrated, it was as good as being there himself. He watched for a couple minutes before he decided something looked wrong down below. He activated an optic enhancement suite on the scout to get the best possible look.

Magnus"s breath caught in his throat. In one moment it hit him hard: that was a camo net system. A Terran active camo net.

Down below, he saw them. Men dressed in dark gray fatigues. One of them wore a battle suit very much like his own Veer skinsuit. The suit had adapted itself to the terrain, taking on a light rust coloration.

Oh no.

Magnus shook his head as if to clear it. UED soldiers? Have I finally gone nuts?

He took another look. They were still there. Magnus refused to believe for another moment. Maybe I breathed in some hallucinogenic toxin. I"m just seeing things.

He tried to contact Shiny.

There was no answer.

Magnus took one last look at the men below. They were grabbing gear. Preparing to move out. Have they detected me?

Magnus got up onto all fours to crawl away. His trailing scout became the lead, and he told them to slowly move back toward the Clacker.

The crack of a large projectile weapon thundered across the landscape. The scout at the edge of the escarpment behind him exploded into a thousand tiny fragments. A dozen of the bite-size pieces landed all around him.

Magnus dropped p.r.o.ne again. Time for some serious cloaking!

He activated the alien stealth field through his link. A moment later his other scout was vaporized.

Boooom.

Magnus decided to trust his cloaking. He stood and sprinted back the way he had come. From an open spot in the vegetation, he glanced southward. An a.s.sault machine walked toward him from a half kilometer away. It stood three meters tall, with four arms and four legs. It moved with a clumsier gait than that of his smaller scouts, though it was more intimidating. Each arm of the machine held weapons trained in his direction.

Magnus ran. He took long strides over the red rock, hopping here and there to cross sharp spots. Though he had activated the cloaking sphere, he could still see himself normally.

After half a minute he slowed down. The cloak seemed to be working, since he didn"t detect any more fire incoming. He retraced his steps by the various buildings along the north side of the ruins. After he had traveled over a kilometer from the encounter, he slowed further.

Magnus returned to careful thought. His situation was like a virtual nightmare scenario. Yet it had to be real.

It"s not as crazy as it feels. Parts of the UED had to have escaped. I guess I just thought they would have disbanded by now. But this is the frontier: rife with gangs and rogue corporations. It would be better to stay in a big, heavily armed group and find new means of sustenance.

Magnus had never had a flashback, but now he thought he must know what one felt like. Seeing those uniforms again after all this time brought it back. Most of the men in those dark gray uniforms and military skinsuits he had seen in the war had been dead, killed by s.p.a.ce force a.s.sault robots. They had taken a few survivors prisoner here and there for mind probe specialists to interrogate. Magnus had done his part, though now he thought maybe he had been young and stupid to follow the orders. Maybe the men and women of United Earth Defiance had been on the better side. If he had it to do over again...

Magnus chafed at the lack of communications. The UED force was jamming them. It had to be it: they wouldn"t want anyone reporting their presence to the s.p.a.ce force. The Clacker must have scared the s.h.i.t out of them. But now they were moving out, which meant they were coming to silence the explorers.

We have to cut our losses and get the h.e.l.l off this planet.

He retreated quickly back the way he had come. The battle machine must not have been able to follow him, since he heard no more loud retorts from projectile launches. He knew such a machine had to be able to outpace a man, at least on clear terrain. The question was, would they rapidly reacquire him if the cloak ran out of power?

After an hour of moving through the ruins, Magnus realized something had gone wrong. Nothing looked familiar. At first he had thought he was only a bit off his previous course, and the many buildings did start to look the same after a while. But his intuition told him he had not come this way before.

I"m off course. I don"t...ah. The cloak.

Somehow the cloaking device must have confused his link"s mapper. The device was supposed to work through a combination of compa.s.s, accelerometer, and even incorporate the things Magnus saw. Normally it could even ping base camp or a ship in orbit for verification. But the first two, at least, must have interacted poorly with the alien cloaker. And the last one would be impossible due to the jamming. He had heard of stranger things happening. But the key now was what to do about it. Presumably he could deactivate the cloak, at least long enough to let his link get its bearings.

Magnus hid in a caved-in Konuan ruin and deactivated the cloak. He tried to contact Shiny again, but there was no response. His compa.s.s reading showed he had been moving north. He made a note of the correct direction, which now would be southeast instead of just east. Taking a rough guess at where he really was, Magnus told his link where he wanted to go. If he left the cloak off, maybe it could get him there.

d.a.m.n! A huge waste of time when we can"t afford it.

The shadows within the hovel deepened. Night was coming.

Decision time. Can I make it in the dark? Do I want to try?

When Magnus remembered that the UED soldiers were moving out, it helped him make up his mind. If they were after the Clacker, then he had to get back first.

Though if they had swift means of transport, then they"ve already arrived while I was wandering around the ruins like an idiot.

Magnus left the old Konuan building as the star"s light failed, and decided to find out what Chigran Callnir Four was like after dark.

Chapter 10.

"What?" Telisa sent to Cilreth. The tone of her last message had been alarming. There was no reply.

Telisa grabbed the rope ascender in one hand and held her pistol in the other. The smart rope wrapped around her foot to lift her back up. Telisa heard something clack and sc.r.a.pe up above.

"Cilreth!" Telisa transmitted. There was no answer.

Sounds of a fight came from above. Telisa heard the thwump of a glue grenade launching.

Dammit! And we sent one of the scouts back!

Telisa crested the lip of the tunnel. She braced her elbows on the floor with the rest of her body dangling in the hole. Half her weight still rested on the smart rope though her foot.

The room was empty. The smoldering remains of a scout lay in the corner. Telisa remembered to look up. A tan shape darted above. She yanked the trigger of the smart pistol. The shot echoed in the tiny room. As soon as she did it, some part of her mind told her to use the link command next time to increase her accuracy.

There were sc.r.a.ps of wood and fabric obscuring parts of the ceiling, almost like hammocks, and the wide flower of a glue grenade covered one full quarter of the ceiling. There were lumps under it, but they looked just like more of the surviving Konuan structures. Telisa lowered her head slightly and raised the pistol, ready to fire again. A soft sc.r.a.ping noise echoed through the room.

Why can I always hear it and never see it?

"Cilreth, is that you?" she sent through her link.

The other scout robot emerged from the tunnel beside Telisa. She heard the high-pitched whine of a stunner as the scout shot toward the ceiling. Telisa heard a scratching noise again.

Did Cilreth go back? Why isn"t she answering me?

A long spear shape descended from the ceiling, then opened into an umbrella over the scout almost before it could register on Telisa"s eyes. The speed was startling, scary.

Telisa released a shot at the creature as she told the ascender to free-fall. She didn"t stay to see if the smart round struck the thing. It had a target profile specifying any non-human as a legal target, so it probably wouldn"t fly through a grille and hit Cilreth, wherever she was.

If she"s still alive.

"Cilreth?" Telisa transmitted.

Of course. Cilreth activated her stealth suit. She might still have been in the room! But she would have answered.

A noise behind her dispelled all thoughts of going back to find Cilreth.

That thing is coming, and it"s fast. Is it a Konuan, or is it...what the grilles were supposed to keep out?

She thought about the spear shape that had opened, umbrella-like, over the scout. It looked like it could have fit through the grille, from her instant impression of it.

Telisa sprinted down the tunnel. She had no idea where she was going, but she slid the lightning gun off her back and grasped its two odd, vaselike handles. The heavy device took both her hands to aim and activate. Then she turned.

Let"s see it deal with this!

She didn"t see a target. Nevertheless, she almost pulled the trigger, figuring the guided missiles would find their own targets, likely to include the Konuan or Konuan predator. Then she thought of Cilreth again. The gun could easily kill both Cilreth and the alien creature, even if they were still back in the room. Telisa and Shiny hadn"t yet figured out how to keep the alien weapon from harming friends.

Open the range.

"Come on!" she yelled out. "Come get me. I"m down here!"

Then she ran farther down the dark tunnel. Her light dangled at her belt. She turned it on with her link, but the rays scattered across the floor around her rather than illuminating what was directly ahead.

"Cilreth, I don"t know if you can hear me, but if you can, run back the way we came. I"m going to kill the thing."

She activated a night vision suite, but an infrared view wasn"t very useful either. The tunnel"s temperature was too uniform. She turned to look back. A huge manta ray of a creature opened right next to her like a giant flower opening for the sun.

Three Ent.i.ties-!

She felt air move by her head. Then the creature fell away. Telisa ran again. She held onto the weapon in one hand and grabbed her flashlight in the other.

It must have been a Vovokan sphere that saved me.

The tunnel was smooth, slightly blue, but Telisa was only paying attention to where it led. She saw another source of light ahead. She let the flashlight dangle again and grabbed the weapon in both hands. She looked back. A single Vovokan guardian sphere trailed her, but there was no sign of the other.

Telisa slowed as she neared the end of the tunnel. A wide room opened ahead. She took another step forward. The room beyond the tunnel looked circular. She saw two banks of equipment or large machines on the far side.

Trilisk. They looked just like the dead hulks they had seen on Thespera. But this time, she saw blinking lights on the surfaces ahead. Cool air moved across the skin of her face.

She stepped through the tunnel and into the room. Four smooth blue columns obscured the corners. The looked very similar to the columns they had found around the trap on Thespera. Trilisk machines.

The air felt different. Electric. Telisa reached for something in her pack, then decided against it.

I"m being hunted by a Konuan so I stop to a.n.a.lyze the air? Then I get eaten.

She checked behind her. No signs of pursuit. The tunnel she had entered by was utterly dark. She tried her flashlight, but it didn"t travel far down the tunnel. She still didn"t see anything. The light had a weak laser option, but she didn"t want to attract anything.

Of course it knows which way I went. There weren"t any other turns. Or were there?

She wondered if the Vovokan sphere was back there blocking it, or if the sphere was destroyed, the creature cowed...no way of knowing. They hadn"t worked out the attendant-link integration far enough for Telisa to ask her current attendant what had happened to the other one.

Telisa accessed her Vovokan sphere. She had a few canned commands available to use. She told it to sweep the room. Telisa remained in place, holding the weapon. If the sphere flushed anything out, she would be ready. The sphere took off, slipping behind the column to her left. She watched the feed through her link. The column had a few more cables or tubes on the far side, a couple of dim lights, but nothing else. There wasn"t a place for anything to hide.

The sphere continued. Telisa just stood by. She turned with her back to the pillar the sphere had checked, sideways to the tunnel. The Vovokan sphere revealed another smooth blue tunnel, also dark, leaving from behind the second pillar. Then another from behind the third pillar.

So the room is roughly square, but I"m at the intersection of three tunnels.

"I wish I still had two guardian spheres," she said aloud. She thought of prayer machines again, but she dismissed it. She had already tried that just above.

Ah, but the Trilisks might have wanted it for themselves and screened it from above, just as Shiny kept the AI he found from working in his enemies" houses.

"I want a knife," Telisa said. She knelt down and placed her pack on the ground. She imagined a solid, shiny metal blade and a soft rubber handle. "I really need a knife in my pack."

She glanced down the tunnel again, saw nothing, then opened her pack. She found only her supplies inside.

Dammit. I"ve been forever spoiled. I"m going to travel all over the galaxy and every now and then try a prayer and see if it works! I can see how humans got hooked on this stuff.

She replaced the alien weapon on her back. Then she clutched the breaker claw in one hand and her smart pistol in the other. Her imagination brought up an image of the Trilisk machine they had discovered...the trilateral symmetry and its dark sapphire coloration.

If those machines are running, then what if robots are, too?

Telisa froze and just listened for a moment.

What if I accidentally kill a Trilisk robot with the breaker and cause an interspecies incident? Or at least a species to robots-of-extinct-species incident...

Telisa pushed down the negative thoughts and simply examined the room as the Vovokan satellite lazily floated around her. The columns had no manual controls. Typical of Trilisk machines. The center of the room was raised in a circular shape, a kind of low dais only a small step above the rest of the floor. The floor was clean, too clean. Some kind of system had to be in operation to prevent the acc.u.mulation of dirt or dust.

Always they have these columns. And almost nothing else. No bedrooms, bathrooms, meeting chambers, nothing to really tell me more. The robot we found is an exception. I wonder if the s.p.a.ce force ever found one. I wonder if it"s actually a dead Trilisk cyborg.

Telisa felt a stab of guilt. She had no idea if Cilreth was still alive, if the monster was still coming, but here she stood, wondering about the Trilisks. She decided she had to choose a tunnel and try to get back.