Hatchet’s face closed more tightly, making shadows cleave from his high cheekbones. “She’s sick. You know that.”

“What from?”

“Aspect problems.”

“Like what?”

“King Family business.”

“Anything she got from the Renegade mech?”

Hatchet barked, “You forgetting I’m a Cap’n?

Ledroff started to apologize for one of his Family talking this way. Killeen cut him off with; “Don’t want know who it is, just what’s wrong. I respect King Family matters.”

Fornax said, “Man’s got a point.”

“I don’t have to answer questions ’bout Family.” Hatchet’s lips compressed into thin bloodless lines. His face became a mask of adamant withdrawal. But his ball chin let a generous bead of sweat drop.

Fornax and Ledroff scowled. They looked at each other. They were both less powerful than Hatchet but on this point Killeen saw that they could hold firm.

“Want help on this job, you’d better,” Ledroff said ominously.

Hatchet didn’t like this. He studied the two Cap’ns. Keeping his face clear and sure, he said grudgingly, “She had some kind overload. Not like yours, though. You look okay. She just stares at the wall.”

“What happened?” Killeen persisted.

“She was on the last contact we had with the Renny. Came back with the others all right. Then she had an Aspect storm and… stayed that way.” He looked away.

The other two Cap’ns stirred. When things got worse there was more Aspect trouble. Nobody knew what to do about it.

“I respect your problems,” Killeen said seriously. “I share them. I’ll go, of course.”

“For your arm?” Ledroff asked. “I know you need it, sure. But chances are you won’t get any help from a Renny. Just you do what you’re told, right? Family can’t let you go if Cap’n Hatchet here can’t trust you. As Cap’n I—”

“Going for Toby,” Killeen said. “With Toby.”

He turned and moved off without waiting to hear what they would say.

There would be no more bargaining now. He had said his piece and it was time to stay silent. Let Hatchet consider. Let Fornax and Ledroff think a bit.

They would come around. Killeen had in his Face, Bud, the crucial thing Hatchet needed: translating ability.

His arm hung slack and dead while the right one took up the pace of his walking.

PART THREE

The Dreaming Vertebrates

ONE

They had to walk a full day to make contact. Hatchet led their column out of Metropolis.

Hatchet had let no one witness his transmission to the Renegade mech. A Cap’n’s private rooms were inviolate, by old Citadel tradition, and Hatchet made much of the things he had there. After he had spent fifteen minutes in the small, rock-lined hut he came out smiling. He had a look of pride and some relief and talked to several of his own Family about how hard it had been to arrange everything with the Rennymech, using a prearranged code.

The Renegade had no way to encode human speech, Hatchet said, and used a system of number-signs. Killeen’s Bud Face reported that this was good. The Renegades Bud had worked with long ago had used a barebone number-code, too.

At close range, though, Renegades could speak to the Aspects in a human’s head, relaying more complex sentences through the host-sensorium. Killeen had no experience with this and took it as more past lore, a tool, and did not waste time trying to figure what in the distant past would have yielded such a thing.

Hatchet loped steadily on the move and with surprising grace. He covered ground quickly and was impatient at Killeen and Shibo, who were carrying Toby in a sling. Shibo had found a way to attach the sling to her exskell and this made the going easier. Hatchet took upon himself the job of patrolling, giving his energy over to long sweeps of both sides of the column.

There were ten in the party. The Cap’ns had agreed that sending members from each Family would help bond the Families together. Hatchet would lead, as he had in all King raids before. Three seasoned Kings came, and three Rooks.

Ledroff sent Cermo-the-Slow, because he was good at carrying loads. Killeen would have preferred Jocelyn. His old closeness with her was gone, but she was sharp and quick. Killeen refused to go unless Ledroff agreed to send Shibo. She had a quiet, sure way of dealing with mechs that he admired. Without his asking, she volunteered to help with Toby.

Ledroff did not like sending her, but Killeen dismissed any other possibility with a single shake of his head. Only later did he realize that Ledroff and Fornax might be quite pleased with an arrangement that took feisty Shibo and Killeen, plus the rival Cap’n Hatchet, on a dangerous raid.

None of the Bishops or Rooks had had dealings with a Renegade in this generation. They were edgy without wanting to seem so and that made the pace a little faster. Killeen and Shibo labored to keep up. They dug hard into the soft loam of the narrow valleys and panted heavily when Hatchet led them up into sloping, sandy arroyos to make shortcuts.

They all carried only lightweight arms. Hatchet wanted minimal marching mass, to give them speed. He argued that if they got into trouble it was far smarter to run than to fight, anyway.

Toby bore up well. He swung in the carrysling without a murmur, though occasional spasms flickered in his face. Killeen checked with him every few minutes and tried to carry on a conversation, but the boy was lethargic. He slept most of the time, which was just as well.

Hatchet was a good leader on the march, as Killeen had expected. The man knew how to keep spirits up. He even got them all into a mild, humorous ranking session. This was hard to do on the move and doubly so among people who didn’t know one another well. Hatchet made it a contest, bringing out the best, most pointed barbs of each Family.

About a fellow Kingsman Hatchet said, “He’s such a tightass, needs a shoehorn just to fart,” and that was the key remark that started them all to laugh and forget their apprehensions. Killeen remembered Fanny doing this, joshing each Family member in turn as they marched. It got so you waited with pleasure, hoping she’d lay into you next, because she had a limitless fund of barbed one-liners.

Hatchet was better than Ledroff or Fornax, but something about the man put Killeen off. Hatchet didn’t have the rock-hard sense of honesty that Fanny had projected without trying.

The land they covered grew drier as they left the center of the Splash. As life ebbed Killeen grew more alert. Machines naturally shied away from moisture, but the factory they had breached before showed that the mech civilizations were encroaching into wetter zones.

“Don’t fret,” Hatchet said while they were taking a break to eat some light provisions. “The Renny told me there’s no Marauders along this route.”

“It can fix that for you?” Killeen was impressed but tried not to let his face show it.

“Sure.” Hatchet’s angular face had seemed more animated out here on the march, more in tune with the curious bobbing afterthought of a chin.

“How? Me, I never heard such.”

“It can reprogram Marauders, I figure. Least the smaller ones.”

“Must be pretty powerful Renegade.”