I listened to the noises. Partying?

The sounds were motorcycles, and men hooting and whooping. I could hear children screaming. And women too.

I peeked cautiously around the corner. Just a quick glance. Bozo started to peek too, I kicked him back.

No one was in sight.

A longer look. A dead bunnyman. Some scattered clothing. A motorcycle roared past, circled and headed back. The rider was laughing.

I pulled back. I took a deep breath. There wasn't time to go back for Falstaff. I was going to have to do something now.

I needed to know more about what was happening.

I edged around the garage and up to the next corner. Bozo followed along behind me, tiptoeing in exaggerated parody. "Keep it up," I muttered. "That's how people get elected president."

Bozo stopped and gave me a hurt, sulky look. I didn't care. Where was Orrie? Where was Orson? They wouldn't have let the camp be overrun.

Were they dead?

I could hear the motorcycles louder now. And the screams were more definite. And the laughter. And the crying.

I peeked around the next corner of the garage. Just the quickest glance, and then pulled back again.

Just enough to catch a fast glimpse of the bikes, roaring and circling around a small huddle of frightened women and children. I kicked Bozo away and took another peek.

I thought so. There were only a few of the Tribe members in that huddle. Where was everybody else?

There were a few dead bodies on the ground, mostly men. I recognized Jinko's body, and Gregory-Ann's as well. Well, that explained how the bikers had found us.

Bikers. Big and ugly and dangerous. The gangs had been roaring up and down the coast for months. The army had ignored them; they weren't worth the trouble. The official position was: Let the worms take care of them.

Now, I saw how stupid that policy had been.

The bikers must have been here a while. Most of the girls had been stripped naked; they were trying to cover themselves with their hands or they stood shamefacedly hanging their heads and made no attempt to cover themselves.

I wondered how many of them had already been raped. Damn me for being so cautious.

All right, I'd make up for it now. I had two advantages.

I had the element of surprise.

And I had an AM-280 and plenty of ammunition. Mr. Mayhem. I didn't have the helmet, but I didn't need it here. This was going to be point and shoot.

But I'd have to be fast; there were at least twenty of them and there was only one of me.

I wasn't going to give myself time to think about it.

I stepped around the garage and started firing toward the oncoming edge of the circling bikes. Bozo ran out behind me and made gobbling noises, pointing his stick. Three of the bikers went down almost immediately, and it was a couple of seconds before any of the others realized what was going on. Two bikers skidded into the toppled ones and went crashing and tumbling. They were dirty, hairy, broad-chested animals.

Two more bikers came around the far edge, saw me, and charged. Their bikes were armed with missile launchers. I didn't wait to give them a target. Bozo was bouncing up and down, but he followed after as I ran back to the first corner of the garage and waited until they came skidding around-knocked one off his bike and took the other's head off; then whirled around to fire at the three who were coming at me from around the other side of the garage. The gun buzzed and burped and the belly of one of them erupted in red. One of the others skidded sideways and crashed; I hadn't shot him, he'd just lost control. The third guy was trying to turn around-I got him in the back.

Dropped and rolled and came up firing; took down the one who had just come around the corner of the garage behind me-whirled again and went after the one who'd skidded out of control. Got him before he could get up. Bozo was already bouncing up and down on one of the fallen bikes.

And then there was silence.

No, not quite. There was the sound of motorcycle engines running unattended. There were six bikes lying on their sides in the dirt.

The thought crossed my mind. Grab a bike. Get the one with the missiles. Counterattack. I started for the bike Bozo was pretending to ride

It blew up.

Knocked me flat on my ass. Skidding backward, I had a quick glimpse of orange flame, a wall of heat, a tower of greasy smoke. It had been booby-trapped.

It flung little pieces of Bozo the bunnydog in all directions. The dirt was still pattering down around me.

That could have been me. My head was still ringing. Never mind. There were still bikers.

No, I didn't know how many there were; but if there were any still alive, I had to take care of them now.

Headed around the other side of the garage at a run--came skidding around the corner ready to fire.

And stopped.

My help wasn't needed.

Valerie was just slicing open the throat of the last biker.

She stood there, naked and grinning and covered with his blood. She looked triumphant.

I sent Loolie up to the gully to bring Falstaff down immediately. We didn't know if there were more of these bikers or if these were all there were. We couldn't take chances.

I sent the other children out looking for everybody else. Apparently, Jason had been posting a lot of people on perimeter patrols to guard against just this kind of attack. It hadn't worked.

But at least most of the younger children had been moved out of the camp. Every day, Jason had moved a few more people into emergency hiding places. I knew where one of them was. There were some overgrown fields on the other side of the swimming pool; at the far end had been three large billboards. We'd knocked them down to make a quick lean-to; it looked like a pile of rubble, but it was actually a fairly well-stocked shelter. I sent children scattering to all of the others as well, to call everybody back.

Valerie took charge then. Yes, Valerie. When I looked at her questioningly, she simply said, "I don't have time for the drama now."

She was amazing.

She put some of the girls to work searching the bodies and gathering up all the weapons; but nobody was to go near the bikes. We didn't know if any of the others had been booby-trapped. After that, she had them start dragging the dead bodies off to one side. The bikers-well, they were food. Ray and Ted and Gregory-Ann and Jinko and Danny and Billy-well, they were food too; but we would honor them first and we would use their bodies to feed the new babies.

Falstaff was back by then and Valerie and I set him circling in a close patrol. He wanted to eat first, but Valerie insisted that he patrol. He went off with a sulky rumble.

With Falstaff's return, most of the bunnydogs and bunnymen also began to come out of hiding. Nobody knew where Jason or Orrie had gone to. Jessie and Jan were absent too. Also Orson and Mr. President and Libby. And Frankenstein and Marcie. Most of the bigger men had gone with them too.

All right. We'd make it work without them. Valerie called a circle.

A Circle of Screamers, she called it.

She said, "We don't have time for a proper grieving, so let's everybody do as much anger and grief and rage and upset as we can. Let's see how much noise we can make. Everybody now. Nobody gets left out!"