His second experience with blackcollar drop pods. Eventually, he supposed, one got used to the ride.

Licking his lips briefly, he made a quick scan of the visible sky. Off to his left were two starless blotches that could be other gliders. "Report, Colvin," he said into the short-range mike curving along his cheek.

"I think I can see everyone," Colvin's voice came in his ear. "You're all below and ahead of me."

"UV beacons in turn," Caine ordered. "Pittman... Braune... Alamzad... me."

"Yeah, you're all more or less together," Colvin reported. "Zad, you don't seem very steady, though.

You having trouble?"

"I don't know." Even through the radio Alamzad's tension was clearly audible. "Either I've got a loose connection somewhere or the damn wind direction keeps changing."

"It's the wind," Pittman put in. "I've got some of that, too, and you're closer in to the mountain than I am."

Mountain? Caine peered into the darkness. Sure enough, there was a sharp peak looming off to his right that he hadn't noticed before. Shielding from Security's radar, for sure, but as a sudden eddy current bucked his glider he began to wonder if the protection was going to be worth it. If the winds decreased their flight range badly enough—

"I'm going down!" Alamzad snapped abruptly. "A downdraft of some kind. Trying to pull up—"

"No!" Colvin barked before Caine could respond. "Ride it—pull up and you'll stall."

"Too late," Alamzad said with a hissing sigh of resignation. "I'm going down. Hope I can find a clearing or something."

For a long second Caine's mind seemed to freeze. Down in unknown territory, far from any sort of populace to disappear into....

The moment passed, his Resistance and blackcollar training driving logic and calmness into his mind. "Alamzad, turn on your UV," he ordered. "Colvin, there should be a road somewhere nearby angling southeast into Denver. Can you see it?"

"Got it. Zad, goose your glider a little bit—if you can thread those two humps ahead of you, you'll at least land on a downslope in sight of the road."

"Okay," Alamzad said tightly. "Where do I go after I'm clear?"

"Follow the road southeast," Colvin told him. "It starts to switchback up through the mountains there, I think, and the farther up we get the less climbing we'll have to do. Caine, what should I do?"

"Get as far along the road as you can," Caine said. "Pittman and Braune, go with him. Try and stay together." Below, the faint purple glow of Alamzad's ultraviolet beacon had successfully cleared the mountain peaks and was weaving like a drunken moth as the other searched for a landing site.

"Alamzad, there looks to be a gap in the trees east of you. If we can make it that far, we'll be fairly close to the road."

The significance of the pronoun wasn't lost on the others. "I'll stay with you," Pittman volunteered immediately. "Three men in mountainous territory are safer than two."

"Thanks, but no. You're as likely to end up in an even more inhospitable place. Besides, I want you three to have the supplies repacked for backpacking when we reach you."

A crash of breaking branches in their earphones stifled any further comments. Caine held his breath.... "I'm down," Alamzad said. "Afraid the glider's shot."

Caine let out his breath quietly. "They're of limited use on the ground anyway," he said. The other's UV was still glowing; turning carefully, Caine prepared to join him. "Get going, everyone—we'll meet you up the road. And go easy on radio usage."

"Good luck," Colvin said, and then there was silence. Licking his lips once, Caine set his teeth together and started down. They were definitely off to a great start.

—

Floating along on the strong breeze two kilometers above, Lathe listened long enough to confirm all of Caine's team had landed safely before switching back to the blackcollars' frequency.

"Suggestions?" he asked.

"Not much choice, is there?" Jensen said. "We dump the silent backstop role and go get them out."

"Out of what?" Hawking countered. "About all we can do at this point is hold their hands as we all slog along together."

"Seems to me," Skyler rumbled, "that we need to either help them get to Denver quickly, or else set up a diversion to pull Security off their backs while they find their own way there."

Jensen snorted. "That'd be one double hell of a diversion. Even once they're all together they'll be a good twenty klicks from the edge of town."

"Good point," Lathe agreed. The discussion had given him time to put his own thoughts in order and decide on their best course. "All right—transport it is. Let's make for civilization and see about borrowing a car."

The radio went silent as the five blackcollars settled down to squeezing all the distance possible out of their hang gliders. Caine, Lathe had a sneaking suspicion, wasn't going to like this a bit, but injured pride was low on the priority list at the moment. Eyes scanning the blackness around him for the Security flyers that must surely be on their way, he steered toward the lights just beginning to show through gaps in the mountains. And hoped to hell he didn't fly into anything solid on the way.

Chapter 4

Civilization, in this case, was a small town nestled among the mountains flanking the road, separated from Denver itself by the massive eastern-slope peaks that ran right to the edge of that city. As Lathe had often found with mountain towns, this one had no clearly defined edge, its houses dribbling off into hills and brush in relatively isolated ones and twos.

It was near one of these more secluded residences that they came down, landing along a dirt road and ditching their gliders in the woods flanking it. "Now what?" Skyler asked after the supply packs had been sorted out. "We walk up to the door and ask to borrow an autocab nailer?"

"Something like that." Lights showed in three of the house's windows, Lathe noted, but no driveway guidelights were on. So the family probably wasn't expecting any company. "Mordecai, you're outside backup; Hawking, check for signs of a vehicle; Jensen, go watch the far end of the drive."

With murmured acknowledgments the group split up. Skyler at his side and Mordecai a few paces behind, Lathe headed through the trees toward the lights. Something above to the west caught his eye, and he turned just as two distant blue-violet lights vanished behind some mountain. "A mite slow on the uptake," Skyler murmured. "Collies should've had patrol boats up there half an hour ago."

"Maybe we took them by surprise," Lathe said, knowing full well how unlikely that was. Galway would have sent word of Caine's imminent arrival via a Ryqril Corsair, and the Novak's multiplanet circle had taken nearly three times the four days in which a Corsair could have made the direct flight. "Maybe they want to watch us for a while," he told Skyler. "Try and see what Caine's up to before grabbing him. It wouldn't be the first time they'd tried that game."

"And lost it," Skyler agreed. "Well, lead on."

The house was single-story, reasonably nice but probably no more than lower-middle-class if Plinry standards were at all applicable. The blackcollars could have broken in in any of a dozen ways, but Lathe preferred to try the polite approach first. Stepping up to the door, he knocked.

There was a short wait, during which time an entry light went on and a shadow passed over the inner side of the door's spyhole. Eventually, the door opened a crack and a man peered out. "Yes?"

"Sorry to bother you," Lathe said, "but we're lost and need some information."

The man's eyes dropped briefly to the Plinry-style clothing hiding the blackcollars' flexarmor.

"Sorry," he said, his voice abruptly tight. "I don't think there's anything I can—"