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detects and his killer-machs.
There. Look there, cutting across the Platz_ Did you see it?
A ferret.
Uh-huh. And where there s one you see....
There s fifty you don t. P rlash! There was a soft brushing sound as Gyorsly
rubbed her headfur the wrong way. Someone sold us? Who? Xuyalix?
No. He owes Digby one huge favor and Voalits is paying him a fee that gives
your Toerfeles a pain in the budget. Besides, he s been a trader from the egg
and his word is his biggest asset.
Hmm. What about this? Seyirshi sent a warning to his prime clients:
Watch out for trouble from
Voallts.
As a guess, I like it. As something we have to deal with, I think it stinks.
Na Kalos ever come out of there?
You read the report. Not even to Board Meetings. Holo and fax.
We can t use your plan if we can t get to the Schloss. How do we do it?
Well, the one thing he can t do is shut down produc-tion. They d yank him
home so fast, he d peel out of his skin. Unless things have changed radically,
the supply barges will start coming in before sunup and the early morning
shift will be on the way to work. He s got to pull the ferrets before then.
Which gives us a half-hour of semi-dark to make it through the city. We can do
it, it s not that big a place. If we can get to the blowhole on the east end
of the Rock, we can lay up there till it s dark and take it as read after
that. All right? Good. Let s get back. I could do with some tea, then a nap
till it s time to go.
They climbed down to the melding level and ran like ghosts along
the broad oval limbs of the wuerzzaur trees. Gyorsly went first; like all
Dyslaera her sense of direction/duration was close to infallible.
There was a faint light ahead, shining on the under-sides of the topleaves.
Gyorsly slowed cautiously, sig-naled Autumn Rose she was going to stop. She
stood straddling a node, leaning forward tensely, her head turn-ing, her ears
shifting as she strained to hear....
Nothing.
No random twitter of birds, no insect hum.
Just the rustle of leaves as the wind rose, then sub-sided.
She dropped into a crouch and tasted the wind. A faint bitter smell, no, a
blend. Strangers, more than one, she couldn t tell how many.
Autumn Rose knelt behind her. Hear anything? she murmured.
Hear, no. Smell. Strangers. More than one. Look, go on, but stop before you
hit the last tree, I m going to circle round, she paused, collected
herself, produced a brief coughing hoot, then another, when you hear
that, I m in place and ready to shoot.
3
Gyorsly stopped three trees away from the thicket, groped to the trunk, and
climbed until she found a perch where she could look down into the camp.
The doorflap of the domeshelter was strapped open, the pressurelamp was just
inside, enough light escaping to turn the darkness in the clear space to a
pallid twilight. The light flickered occasionally as someone inside moved past
it.
It was all quiet, peaceful. Normal.
She didn t believe it. Not for a minute. There was no way Mac would stay
inside that shelter, not when she was hyper-hyper like she was an hour ago.
More impor-tant, the air was thick with the musky, bitter scent of the
strangers.
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She dialed up the polarization of the nightglasses, re-focused them, and
pulled them on.
Whoever it was in there playing games was being by-gar careful not to
show hide or hair. She increased magnification and inspected the ground
about the dome. A few scuffs, otherwise neat as if someone d swept it. Eyes
slitted to minimize vertigo, she lifted her head and focused on the limb
crossing the hollow, but waited a moment to gather herself before she
inspected it, remem-bering all too clearly the reports she d seen of the
mas-sacre on Kemarin 4, the cobben slaughter at Pillacarioda Pit. Rose might
be used to this kind of thing, she wasn t.
She scanned slowly along the limb.
Nothing there. Blatantly nothing there.
Welcome home, little lambs. Damn, I can t see....
She lowered, herself onto her limb, straddling it, pressing her body into its
gentle up-arc so she get could a better look at the higher levels of the
wuerzzaurs on the far side of the thicket without exposing herself.
Smell could give her clues, but it wouldn t locate the intruders, not with
this light and variable a wind.
Intervening trees were another problem, they limited how much she could see,
but she wasn t about to move closer.
Nothing ... nothing ... ahhhh....
Moonlight fil-tering through the canopy touched something that was marginally
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