Nigel switched off his personal transmitter. “Sounds earnest.”

“Damn right he is,” Carlos said. “Let’s go. There’s no way out.”

Nigel said hurriedly, “Course there is. Take us down.”

“Into the vent?”

“Right. You’re set to do a bit of snagging soon anyway—the Task Schedule says so.”

“My, my copilot’s not on board.”

“We won’t be down long,” Nikka said reasonably. “Those ones outside will back off fast when you rev up.”

“But I …” Carlos looked from one to the other.

Nigel waited, knowing this was the crucial moment. The plan he’d worked out on the way down hung on what Carlos would do. Nigel was not above using the man’s devotion to Nikka, either. Carlotta had worked her way into this strange triangle and then changed the vectors abruptly. So be it; each coin had two faces.

“I need time to think. Nikka, do you really want this?” The man bent down, earnestly peering into her eyes.

“There isn’t time for that,” Nigel said rapidly.

“Look, this is a pretty serious violation of regs. You might—”

“Decide,” Nikka said. “We’ve had troubles, but we three are still together. Or are we?” Nigel’s heart swelled at the clear, even-tempered way she said it. Perhaps her perception of Carlos was coming around to his. A bit late, but …

Carlos straightened. “Okay. Look, I can say I had good personal reasons. And I do. We have things between us, things I haven’t been able to …” His words trickled away. Then he said grimly, “Damned if I’m going to let Ted muscle me around, either.”

Nikka embraced Carlos. Nigel put a hand on his shoulder. Carlos said gruffly, “Prob’ly get us killed, I bet”

PART NINE

2081 Earth

One

The guard took Warren down the center of the island, along a path worn smooth in the last few days by the troops. They passed a dozen technicians working on acoustic equipment and playing back the high-pitched squeals of Skimmer song. The troops were making entries on computer screens and chattering to each other, breaking down the problem into bits that could be cross-referenced and reassembled to make patterns that people could understand. It would have to be good because they wanted to eavesdrop. But the way the Skimmers talked to the Swarmers might not be anything like the songs the Skimmers sung among themselves.

It made no sense that the Skimmers had much control over the Swarmers, Warren thought to himself as he marched down the dirt path. No sense at all. Something had brought them all to Earth and given the Swarmers some disease and the answer lay in thinking about that fact, not playing stupid games with machines in the water.

The troops were spread out more now, he saw. There were nests of high-caliber cannon strung out along the ridge and down near the beaches men were digging in where they could set up a cross fire over the natural clearings.

The men and women he passed were talking among themselves now, not silent and efficient the way they had been at first. They looked at him with suspicion. He guessed the missile attack in the night had made them nervous and even the hot work of clearing fields of fire in the heavy humidity did not take it out of them.

Coming down the rocky ridgeline Warren slipped on a stone and fell. The guard laughed in a kind of high, fast way and kicked him to get him to hurry. Warren went on and saw ahead one of the bushes with leaves he knew he could eat and when he went by it he pulled some off and started to stuff them into his pockets for later. The guard shouted and hit him in the back with the butt of his rifle and Warren went down suddenly, banging his knee on a big tree root. The guard kicked him in the ribs and Warren saw the man was jumpy and bored at the same time. That was dangerous. He carefully got up and moved along the path, limping from the dull pain spreading in his knee. The guard pushed him into his cell and kicked him again. Warren fell and laid there, not moving, waiting, and the guard finally grunted and slammed the door.

Noon came and went and he got no food. He ate the leaves. They were a poor trade for the stiffness in his knee. He listened to the shouted orders and sounds of work and it seemed to him the camp was restless, the sounds moving one way and then the other. He did not blame the Chinese for the way they treated him. The great powers all acted the same, independent of what they said their politics was, and it was easier to think of them as big machines that do what they were designed to do rather than as bunches of people.

Night came. Warren had gotten used to not thinking about food when he was on the raft and he was just as glad the guard did not bring any. Eventually the squat chinless soldier would come all the way into the cell and look behind the table which was overturned and would see the dirt mounds. Warren lay on the rocky ground that was the floor and listened to the snarling surf on the reef. He wondered if he would dream of his wife again. It was a good dream because it took away all the pain they both had caused and left only her smells and taste. But when he dozed off he was in the deep place where clanking came from above, a metallic sound that blended with the dull buzzing he had heard all that afternoon from the motorboat in the lagoon, the sounds washing together until he realized they were the same, but the loud clanking one was the way the Skimmers heard it. It was hard to think with the ringing hammering sound in his head and he tried to swim up and break water to get away from it. The clanking went on and then was a roar, louder, and he woke up suddenly and felt the sides of the cell tremble with the sound. Two quick crashes came down out of the sky and then sudden blue light.

Warren looked out through the mesh on the windows and saw men running. There was no moon but in the starlight he could see they were carrying rifles. A sudden rattling came from the north and west. More crashes and then answering fire from up on the ridge.

He listened as it got louder and then used the flickering light from the windows to find the map Tseng had given him. He pulled back the sleeping pad to expose the hole he had dug and without hesitation crawled in. He knew the feel of it well and in the complete dark found the stone at the end he used. He had estimated that there was only a foot of dirt left above. Using the pan to scrape away the last few feet of dirt had left him with a feel for how strong the earth was above, but when he hit it with the stone it did not give. There was not much room to swing and three more solid hits did not even shake loose clods of it. Warren was sweating in the closeness of the tunnel and the dirt stuck to his face as he chipped away at the hard soil over him. It was hard-packed and filled with rocks that struck him in the face and rolled onto his chest. His arm started to ache and then tire out but he did not stop. He switched the stone to his left hand and felt a softness give above and then was hitting nothing. The stone broke the crust and he could see stars.

He studied the area carefully. A soldier ran by carrying a tripod for an automatic rifle. The sharp crackling fire still came from north and west.

There was a spark of light high up and Warren snapped his head away to keep his night vision. Then the glare was gone and a hollow roar rolled over the camp. Mortars, not far away. He struggled up out of the tunnel and ran for the trees nearby. Halfway there his knee folded under him and he cursed it silently as he went down. It was worse than he had thought and lying on the hard cell floor had made it go stiff. He got up and limped to the trees, each moment feeling a spot between his shoulder blades where the slug would come if any of the running men in the camp behind him saw the shadow making its painful way. The slug did not come but a flare went up as he reached the clump of bushes. He threw himself into them and rolled over so he could see the clearing. The flare had taken away most of his night vision. He waited for it to come back and smelled the wind. There was something heavy and musky in it. It was the easterly trade, blowing steady, which meant the tide was getting ready to shift and it was past midnight. Coming from the east the wind should not have picked up the smell of the firefight, so the musky smell was something else. Warren knew the taste but could not remember what it was and what it might mean about the tide. He squinted, moving back into the bush, and saw a man in the camp coming straight toward him.