Killeen wondered whether he should believe the disconnected rememberings of the little Aspect. Maybe Grey was just repeating old stories. Humanity had subsisted for a long time now on little more than scavenged food and glorious lies.

He shook his head and started to get up, his joints protesting. Time to look after his duties. Then the singular fact hit him once more—that he was no longer Cap’n. Simultaneously he felt elation at the burden lifted and depression at his reduced role in the Family. In all, he decided, they came out even.

Which meant he could forget Family business for a moment. He got up without waking Shibo and went to see how Toby’s wounded hand was doing.

TEN

Quath lay in wait for the approaching podia. They came up through a long, rumpled valley in which dust haze settled like a dull gray blanket. Stands of the curious spindly trees obscured their approach, but Quath could see them plainly by the pulsing, pale electro-auras they could not help but emit as they communicated.

Here on the lower flanks of the mountain the land was turned and crumpled. All the humans had retreated to higher ground. An ominous quiet prevailed all down the range of tossed rock. The shards of broken hills gave countless hiding places for enemies.

Were there already podia out there, sent by the Illuminate factions? The Tukar’ramin had warned that some were coming. Then her signal had fallen behind the curtain of static.

<Hail and stand!> she called sharply. The party was still at a great distance, but she was cautious.

<What? Who’s that?>

Quath tasted spiked emissions and recognized their familiar signature. <Beq’qdahl! The Tukar’ramin sent you?>

<Yes. She implied that you were in a tangle, monopody.>

<I have pursued a particular Nought, and very nearly have it in my grasp.> Quath brought her high-resolution sensors to bear. <And you?>

<I have come to aid you.>

<And the others?>

<They march under my direction.>

<Your fiery blue ossicles can command such a company?>

<I have risen far, remember. As have you.>

<Far enough to directly carry out the Tukar’ramin’s orders?>

<Indeed. We can bring needed firepower to bear.>

Quath felt sudden tightness as her subminds understood the implications of Beq’qdahl’s seemingly innocuous words. The Tukar’ramin was out of contact. A wall of hot static had descended between Quath and the great Hive to the south.

Quath said joshingly, <Firepower? Ground-groveler, I do not need to kill.>

<You hunt, do you not? Such work is always dangerous.>

<I hunt to capture.>

Beq’qdahl’s shimmering voice-tastes took on a hedged air. <So you do. We can rout the Nought packs and drive them toward you.>

<That is too full of risk,> Quath said stiffly.

Beq’qdahl made a flavor of dry mirth. <For such as we, old burrower?>

<No—for the Noughts. They will stand and die before they retreat much farther. They are already cornered.>

<Noughts flee before us, that is an eternal rule.>

Beq’qdahl was either boasting for the benefit of the podia around her or being crafty beneath her air of idle arrogance.

Quath said, <These will hammer at us.>

<Let them!>

<Recall an earlier battle we had?> Quath said pointedly.

<We were unprepared then.>

<And the Noughts were less desperate,> Quath countered.

Beq’qdahl sent a spike of wry amusement. <Noughts are by definition always desperate. And you only need one, correct? The rest we shall slaughter.>

Quath made her decision. <Come forward, Beq’qdahl. I am losing your signal. There is some static.>

<Yes, I smell it here also. Some difficulty back toward the Hive, I believe.>

The squat outlines of the podia moved quickly. They seemed to flow around the outcroppings and faults that marred the valley floor. Quath had a good vantage to see them. She found Beq’qdabl and sighted in on her old friend and rival.

<Hold there!> Quath cried. Try as she might, she could not keep wavering tones from undercutting her stern carrier wave.

<What?> Did Beq’qdahl’s hormone-tinge carry irritation, or the darker musk of crafty guile?

<You should move westward if you seek Noughts.> Quath hoped this ruse would deflect them.

<We register Noughts at the crest of the mountain, not down here.>

<I have those trapped. Another evening of study and I shall snare my Nought.>

This was only a partial lie. Quath felt her Nought’s faint, strumming flavor atop the mountain even now. In truth, she could not get the heady, enticing scent of it to leave her now—a disturbing fact. But she needed time to locate the Nought precisely. Then she had to devise a way to capture it without provoking a struggle that might kill the Nought instead.

<We are sure it is up there,> Beq’qdahl said mildly.

One of Beq’qdahl’s companions cut in, <Pap-gorger, let us by! We come to forage, not to jabber.>

Quath’s proboscis clacked angrily at this insult, and found the offending one in her target array. <Careful, quad-pod.>

<Let us drive them toward you, venerated and tired one,> the companion added.

Quath gave them back quick, raucous contempt. <I can outrun you all, dung-shapers. And you shall not pass.>

Beq’qdahl suddenly sent a sharp, bile-laced taunt: <Out of the way, cyst-sucker!>

<No.> Quath aimed at Beq’qdahl, began to charge her capacitors… and found a curious reluctance steal over her.

<You have always stolen the fruits of my labor!>

Quath said simply, <Come no further.>

<Or tripped me from behind!>

<No more warnings.>

The podia spread into an attacking fan formation. <Now!> Beq’qdahl called wildly.

Quath tried to fire at Beq’qdahl’s approaching image… and could not.

She swiveled her antennae. The companion who had shouted welled up in her sights. She sent a crisp bolt into the target. Its upper carapace blew to tumbling fragments.

Beq’qdahl did not even cry out in dismay. She ducked into a hollow, as though she had expected conflict all along. Quath lost sight of all the podia as they dodged and ran and threw out conflicting aura-clues.

She resisted the desire to fire at momentarily exposed targets. They could triangulate her that way. If she kept her silence, though, she could hold them off. They could not reach her here, she knew, across so much exposed ground.

Taunts came to her as they realized their predicament: Sphincter-sharer! Orifice for all!

Their insulting warblings dwindled as she relegated them to a submind. If they slipped and said anything revealing, this smaller facet would alert the full Quath-self.

Now she had one great goal. The urgency of it surged through her like the sudden, biting, inexplicable sandstorms of the ancient podia homeworld. Something primordial seized her imagination, a fevered desire that went far beyond her duty to the Tukar’ramin or even to the distant, mysterious Illuminates. Quath had to seek the Nought.

ELEVEN

“Family Bishop will carry out the flank attack,” His Supremacy said dramatically.

The morning sun seemed to press against the tattered walls of the large tent. There would be heat in this day down the slopes of the mountain, but up here the tent still held the cold of the night. The Cap’ns and underofficers of the assembled Tribal Families stood at parade rest before His Supremacy, who paced back and forth.