For one instant, the two of them were surrounded by a blurred bubble of privacy. Laneff was transfixed, duoconscious, remembering how, at Digen's funeral, she had been willing to fight for a transfer from this channel. Now what she zlinned reminded her achingly of Yuan's selyn flow. And the expression on the Sime's face, together with the singing in the man's nager, made her wish she hadn't taken that transfer from Jarmi.

As Azevedo dismantled his grip, the Sime looked down in astonishment at the channel's tentacles, as if he hadn't known he hadn't killed.

Then they were both coughing at a new, blacker smoke. Azevedo, showing no signs of being in recovery after giving that transfer, pulled the defending Sime with him as he called, "We've all got to get out of here!" Their Gens had joined them, Shanlun's field brightening the scene for all the Simes. "How long will Yuan keep the hangar doors open?"

"They're broken. Never close again," answered a defender.

Meanwhile, the two gypsy Simes had each hefted a Gen body. Azevedo chose another, saying, "Come on."

Laneff picked one of the smallest, a woman, and slid the limp body onto her shoulder. Still, the hands dragged as she made for the open doors. Shanlun came up behind her and picked up the woman's hands.

There were no more machines left on the hangar floor. Overhead, the doors which had been camouflaged as a hedgerow sagged inward, spilling dirt and thorned plants onto the floor. They found a side exit stair that led up and began to climb. Laneff struggled, aware that the others behind her could not get out if she fell and blocked the narrow stair.

And then they were out in the moist winds, chill with oncoming storm. Clouds darkened the night, but Gen nager hazed the whole farmstead like city lights.

And that haze was lurid with battle lust. Shanlun helped Laneff set her burden down and placed himself next to the gypsy Sime who was too near turnover. "Laneff, can you zlin any sign of Yuan?"

She scanned. The farmhouse was in flames. Craters pocked the once neat rows of crops. A stand of trees near a brook masked another emergency exit, and many Simes and Gens were gathering there. A wrecked chopper lay burning with no one alive inside. Other aircraft circled, some with Sime pilots—and some Gens. Laneff couldn't tell Diet from Distect and said so.

Azevedo observed, "He could be anywhere by now. Even dead. But he said he might have to blow the whole warren up. So I think we'd best get off the tunnels."

Jarmi said, "The nearest safe ground is that grove there."

Agreed, they moved in that direction. Before they'd covered half the distance, a fast plane swooped in from above the clouds and dropped something into the stand of trees they were headed for. In the split instant between the delivery of the object and the explosion, Laneff had time to yell, "Selyn bomb!" and to slide her burden to the ground, throwing her own body on top of Shanlun.

She nearly cracked heads with Azevedo, who'd also thought to protect Shanlun. And then the world exploded. To the Gens, it was a loud bright wall of power that swept over them. But to the Simes, it was also a flash of selyn movement so powerful it lit up their nerves even if they were staunchly hypoconscious. The blast turned everything transparent and died off so quickly it stunned like transfer abort backlash.

"Shenshay!" spat one Sime, naming it not swearing.

Bits of tree and rock, wet sand, splintered fence, and bloody shreds of flesh rained down. As it stopped, one of the gypsy Simes said, "This Gen is dead. A rock hit him."

"This one, too," said one of the defenders. "He'd taken three or four darts, and it only now got to him."

Three of the Gens survived. Hurting with shock, Laneff gathered her feet, holding to Shanlun. "We've got to move," she said. "When Yuan says he'll do something, he does."

"Yuan may be dead," said Azevedo.

"Where can we go?" asked someone.

"Into the bomb crater," said Laneff. "They won't hit there again!"

They staggered over the shock ripples in the ground around the explosion, then climbed and slipped in a mixture of soil, blood, and water, and scraped themselves on stones and splintered wood, until they scrambled down into the center of the bomb crater.

Mercifully, much of the gory mess was buried. And at the center, there was enough clear space to sit down. The war around them was

undiminished, though, and Laneff followed Azevedo back up to the rim of the crater.

"Laneff, do you know the other emergency exits?"

"No." She turned and called, "Jarmi! Come here!"

The Gen scrambled up the loose slope, swearing at the splintered branches that caught at her. "What?"

"Point out to me the locations of the other emergency exits," commanded Azevedo.

Orienting herself, she pointed out six more locations. And with each one, Azevedo shook his head. "Bombed also. No one living."

"They've shut us up down there!" said Jarmi, horrified.

"Next will be the hangar bay. I don't know why they—"

At that, another sere explosion lit the night, from the direction of the hangar, but muffled underground. When rubble ceased falling, Azevedo said, "Defective bomb? Where has the Diet gotten these monsters?"

"The Tecton makes them," said Jarmi bitterly. "And only the Tecton. Ostensibly to excavate unpopulated rain forest, and to control concentrations of killer tribes in the South Continent mountains. Actually, they were developed for use against us."

"Let's not argue politics," said Laneff, and stopped, suddenly aware of a wisp of nageric static. Jarmi was between Azevedo and Laneff, with nothing but night blackness to Laneff’s right. She turned now toward that blackness, scrambling along the branch-matted, blood-and-flesh-strewn ridge, zlinning intently. Azevedo followed, and Laneff said, "It's Yuan!"

"I don't– Yes! You do have remarkable sensitivity!" He turned to Jarmi. "Go tell everyone to stay there!"

He led the way toward the Gen, who was obviously unconscious and injured. On the level, they fought through rows of old grapevines. The darkness was nearly absolute, but the two Simes went unerringly to the lone Gen.

Azevedo turned the body over gently. "If I hadn't just taken transfer from him, his nager would have been strong enough for us to find him sooner!"

"If you hadn't taken that transfer," countered Laneff, "you'd be in no shape to help us now."

Azevedo ignored that. "He's going to live, Laneff. It's only some internal bleeding." A heavy section of fencing had fallen across Yuan's midsection as he lay supine, and a shower of large stones had followed. As they lifted off the last section offence, they found a small box clutched in Yuan's hands. His grip tightened as he began to moan.

"Take his ankles, Laneff," ordered Azevedo. "We'll get him back to the others, and Desha will work with me to heal him."

As they reached the upslope into the crater, willing Sime hands helped them. Before long, they had Yuan stretched out on the bit of level ground at the bottom of the crater. False dawn had begun to pale the horizon. The sounds of fighting were dying away, and fewer aircraft roared overhead. The three Gen prisoners were conscious now, guarded by two Simes.

Enough burning wreckage had fallen that Laneff wondered if any of the Distect fliers had escaped loaded with refugees.

Azevedo and Desha had barely begun to work over the Gen when Yuan fought to consciousness, mumbling, and then asking clearly, "Is everyone out yet?"

But it was obvious he didn't know what he was saying. A moment later, he glanced about, "What's this? What happened?"

Azevedo was concentrating, wrapped around in some channel's working mode that warped the selyn fields. Desha was kneeling behind the channel, her hands on his shoulders, her eyes closed, assisting him with all she had. Shanlun moved to kneel beside Yuan. In terse sentences, he explained how they'd come here.