"Figured as much," Bronski grunted. "Let's hope they didn't see us—"

He broke off, his hand raised suddenly for silence. Cavanagh froze, listening.

They could hear the sound of heavy, clumping footsteps echoing up through the stairway. The footsteps stopped; then, abruptly, came the splintering crash of a breaking door. Someone screamed, someone else shouted, the verbal uproar mixing in with the sounds of running feet and more of the clumping footsteps. The footsteps came to a halt, and there was a second crash.

Bronski swore. "So much for that hope," he muttered. "They're checking all the apartments. Means they know we're here."

Cavanagh felt his stomach tighten. Trapped here on the top floor. Might as well have been gift wrapped. "What do we do?"

Bronski nodded toward the corner of the landing and a rusty ladder leading to an equally rusty ceiling trapdoor. "We keep going."

It was obvious at first glance that the trapdoor hadn't been opened in years; equally obvious that it wasn't going to be opened now without creating considerable noise in the process. But Bronski was ahead of the problem, waiting until the Bhurtala two floors below were in the process of breaking down the next door before forcing the trap up against its protesting hinges. A minute later both men were on the roof.

"Now what?" Cavanagh asked, shivering in the cool night air as he looked around them. The entire block of buildings had been constructed under a single roof, and aside from a couple dozen vent pipes poking up like defoliated shrubs, the rooftop stretched flat and open. No cover, no place to hide, and on all sides a sheer four-story drop to the streets below.

"We find another stairway and get the hell out of here," Bronski said, peering across the roof. "Looks like another trapdoor over there." He started off in that direction—

And suddenly, from behind them, came the high-pitched screech of tearing metal.

Cavanagh spun around. The trapdoor they'd just come through had vanished, along with about half the metal framing that had attached it to the tarred-wood roofing material. Even as he watched, a huge Bhurtist hand came up through the opening and began ripping away at the rest of the framing.

"Damn!" Bronski bit out, jamming his gun back under his jacket. "Come on."

He headed off, but not in the direction of the trapdoor he'd pointed out. "What about the other stairs?" Cavanagh called, running after him.

"We'll never get it open in time," Bronski called back over his shoulder.

Cavanagh frowned. Near as he could tell, they were headed at a dead run straight toward one edge of the roof. "So what are we doing?"

"This," Bronski said. Still running, he dropped into a half crouch and jumped—

And caught hold of a tendril loop that hung a meter down from the main mesh of the Parra vine spanning the sky overhead.

"Don't just stand there," the brigadier grunted, hauling himself up with some effort onto the tendril. "Come on."

Grimacing, Cavanagh backed up a few steps, eyeing the vertical distance dubiously. But a quick survey showed that this was the only tendril over their roof that came even marginally within reach. If the alternative was to wait here for the Bhurtala... Taking a deep breath, he ran forward and jumped.

He made it, just barely, getting his left hand and about half of his right on the tendril. "Use your momentum," Bronski instructed, catching his right wrist and pulling the hand into a more secure grip. "Swing your legs, arch your back, and pull. Come on, you must have seen gymnasts do this a hundred times."

"I'm not a gymnast," Cavanagh gritted, swinging his legs as instructed and trying to remember exactly how the professionals did this. It always looked so smooth and quick and graceful that he'd never really noticed the technique.

"No, you're going to be lunch," Bronski shot back. "Come on."

Swallowing a curse, Cavanagh swung his knees up, arching his back and tugging with his arms—

And suddenly he was there, teetering precariously on his chest on top of the vine, pumping his legs hard to try to maintain his balance. Bronski caught him under the right armpit and hauled, and a few seconds later he was up. "About time," the brigadier grunted. "Here they come."

Cavanagh looked behind him. The entire metal framing of the trapdoor was gone, along with sizable chunks of the wood around it, and one of the Bhurtala was fighting to squeeze his massive shoulders through the freshly enlarged opening. "Can we get rid of this tendril somehow?" he asked as he and Bronski pulled themselves up onto the main Parra mesh.

"Take too long to cut it," Bronski said, pulling out his flechette pistol and aiming at the tendril. "Let's try this instead."

He fired three times. But the steel darts merely embedded themselves in the vine's tough outer surface without cutting it. "That should do it," Bronski said, putting the gun away again and carefully pulling himself to his feet. "Let's go."

Cavanagh followed suit, wondering what all that had been about. Was Bronski hoping the embedded darts would cut into the hands of the Bhurtala when they tried to grab hold of it? "Where to?" he asked.

"Let's start by getting away from here," Bronski said. "After that we'll figure out how to get down."

They set off. From the ground the tendrils of the Parra vine's intertwined mesh looked fairly thin, even delicate. In fact they were reasonably thick and not delicate at all, most of them measuring a good six to ten centimeters in diameter, with the main supports twice that thick. Slightly flattened on top, they were quite adequate for a human being to walk along. And on a clear, sunny day, at ground level, Cavanagh wouldn't have thought twice about doing so.

At night, five stories above the streets of Puerto Simone Island, it was terrifying.

And they hadn't even gotten yet to where they were five stories over the streets.

"Don't look down," Bronski kept saying as Cavanagh inched with painstaking care along the mesh. "Stick to the main support vines—they're thicker, and they have those outrigger branches coming off the sides you can use if you start losing your balance. And don't look down."

It was stupid advice. Cavanagh had to look down if he wanted to see where he was going. Too tense even to swear, he kept going, fixing his eyes on the vine and trying hard to keep the rooftop below in hazy unfocus where he could almost forget how far down it was.

They were nearly to the edge of the roof, with the deep chasm of the street gaping ahead and below, when a triumphant roar came from behind them.

"Keep moving," Bronski ordered, pausing and turning carefully around to look.

"They're on the roof?" Cavanagh demanded, too shaky to risk his balance by turning himself.

"The first one is," Bronski said grimly, pulling out his flechette pistol. "Here he comes toward the tendril." The brigadier looked around them— "Hold it, Cavanagh—sit down right where you are. Sit down now,"

There was an urgency in his voice that demanded instant obedience. Carefully, Cavanagh lowered himself into a squat; then, clenching his teeth, he let his legs slip off both sides of the vine, dropping down to land on his rear and stiffly outstretched hands. The jolt of the landing ran straight up his spine as his hands scrabbled for handholds on the short outrigger branches—

And without warning he was suddenly enveloped by a screaming swarm of small brown grooma.

"Bronski!" he shouted, ducking his head to his chest as the grooma darted across and past him, their claws tearing through his jacket into his arms and shoulders. One of the creatures slammed with exquisite pain into his right biceps, all but paralyzing that arm. Cavanagh squeezed his legs tightly around the vine, locking his ankles beneath it, hoping desperately he wouldn't roll over and wind up hanging upside down.