She'd know exactly what kind of weaponry I could call down on them. She wouldn't dare meet it head on. Her only hope was to find some weak point.

Where would we be vulnerable? And then suddenly, I knew.

This was a decoy. We were supposed to spend half the night searching this place, then give up and go home.

I turned to Colonel Wright. "I'm taking six of the Jeeps. I know where the renegades are." I pointed to my driver. "Call the choppers. Tell them to stand by to return to the landing site. But whatever they do, don't approach it."

I rounded up four squads and we scrambled.

The trip back down the mountain was faster than the trip upexcept for the last half mile, when we crept again.

"All right," I said to the radio. "Everybody hold your positions until the sky lights up, then come across the landing fields fast and drop a wide spray of concussion grenades!"

"Got it!"

"Stand by," I whispered to my driver. "When the lights come on, I want everybody ready to head on down. Fire on sight. Take no prisoners!"

I signaled Colonel Wright. "Any time, ma'am."

"Check."

I dialed my night goggles up to maximum. I couldn't be sure, but it looked like there was something moving around down there on our landing site. I'd guessed right. They were going to booby-trap our pickup.

Well, we'd handle that.

Suddenly, the sky lit up with sunlight. The west coast solar mirror, fifty kilometers across and 1,600 kilometers above the surface of the planet, had just been turned to create an artificial spot of daylight on the west coast of California.

Our landing site was nearly as bright as day.

There were four worms there. And nearly every adult member of the renegade band. And two truckloads of Claymore mines. They had enough of them to knock down a fleet of choppers.

Almost immediately, the choppers were zooming in overhead. The renegades were already running for the ditch at the south end of the field and diving into it. Most of them wouldn't make it.

As the choppers passed overhead, they began dropping sprays of concussion grenades. They popped in the air like fireworks. They went off like popcorn, scattering bright flashes in all directions.

The ground began to explode--

The Claymores had been triggered. Each one triggered the ones around it. It was a chain reaction. The bombs spewed fragments. Two of the worms were shredded where they stood. A third was writhing in pain. The fourth was racing up the hill toward the lead Jeep. I nudged my driver. We started moving down to meet it. I grabbed the controls of the torch.

But the girl in the lead Jeep was already working. She brought the torch around and aimed it at the beast. The flames licked out and it exploded and died.

We went down to the field and torched the worms there. Most of the renegades were dead. Their own bombs had killed them. Some were injured. I invoked Paragraph Twelve again. We caught the last few survivors at the bottom of the ditch. They were too stunned to put up any resistance.

I was almost disappointed. This was too easy.

I walked down the hill. I had the survivors lined up. There were five of them. I gave each one a choice. Live or die. "Where's Delandro?" They chose to die. I wasn't surprised. Paragraph Twelve.

Neither Jessie nor Marcie was among them. Too bad. The last one tried to tell me that it was his choice to die.

"Uh-huh," I said. "Dead is still dead." I pulled the trigger. God help me. It was getting easier every time.

I drove back by myself. I needed to think. Halfway back to the Tribe's camp, I made a decision. I counted to ten. It still felt right. I picked up the phone and made a call. "Birdie, Jim. Don't ask questions. Just listen-" I hoped that for once, she would believe me.

Colonel Wright was already waiting for me in front of the barn. She hadn't burned it yet.

Most of the other units had moved out. The children had been loaded onto one of the buses and also moved out. We had passed it on the road.

Colonel Wright was standing in front of the huge open doors. "I think you ought to see what's inside here."

I strode inside.

There was a corral made up of hay bales. The walls of it were eight feet high. I had to climb up a stairway of bundles to look into it.

There were five little worms in the corral, the smallest worms I'd ever seen, small enough to hold in your arms like a baby. And something else.

The floor of the corral was dark and wet with blood.

There were some fragments of clothing scattered about, but it was impossible to identify it as anything more than scraps of cloth. Here were the missing children.

The baby worms looked up at me and trilled. "Prrt?" they asked. One of them made as if to climb up the hay, but it was still too unsure of itself. I realized I was smiling. Baby creatures-of any species-are adorable. Even worms.

How old were these? A week at the most.

This was what Delandro was willing to abandon here. His liabilities. He could always raise more worms, he didn't need these. And he could always find food for them. No, they'd abandoned this place by the time we got here.

But he-or Marcie-had known what I would think; that the renegades considered the worms too valuable to abandon. Except they were wrong.

I knew one thing. If a fanatic is willing to give his own life for a cause, he sure as hell isn't going to have much regard for anybody else's.

I unshouldered my torch. "Everybody out. Once this barn goes, you'll have less than thirty seconds."

Colonel Wright looked at me. "We could take these specimens back with us . . . ?"

I shook my head. "They've already been imprinted. We'd get nowhere with them."

"Imprinted?"

"Uh-huh. You'd better get out of here now." I waited until she was gone. I looked at the baby worms one more time. I said, "I could almost learn to like you little sonsabitches-if only you didn't have such lousy eating habits."

And then I burned them.

They died quickly. I was glad of that.

The fire leapt up the walls and exploded. The roof of the barn was just erupting into flame as I came dashing out the door. I turned around just as it hit the flashover point. A moment later, the top fell in.

I turned to Colonel Wright. "Thanks. You done good, lady. Let's go."

"Will you be wanting anything else, Major?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact. Can you have a mobile reconnaissance van waiting for me?"

"Any particular reason?"

"There's still one worm unaccounted for. I want him."

She nodded. "Find him fast. Burn him." After what she'd seen here, she didn't need a lot of convincing.

"And the Tribe leaders," I added.

She frowned. "I thought we got them."

"There's at least four of them that weren't among the dead or missing. I don't think they got back here. I don't think they were planning on coming back." I climbed into the Jeep beside her. She eyed me sideways. She knew that there was a lot more going on here than I had told her, but she wasn't going to ask. She turned forward again and put the Jeep into gear.

As we pulled away from the burning buildings, she said quietly, "I want to say something."

"Go ahead. You can't hurt my feelings. I don't have any, anymore."