It was broad and still and lazy in the fading light. Had it been frozen, Chiang estimated they would have needed ten minutes to walk across.

"Marcel," said Hutch, "does this thing by any chance go in our direction?"

"Negative. Sorry. You don't get to travel by boat."

"How do we get across?" asked MacAllister.

It had a steady current. "We don't swim," said Hutch.

Nightingale nodded. "That's a good decision for several reasons." He pointed, and Chiang saw a pair of eyes rise out of the water and look their way.

"Alligator?" Kellie asked.

"Don't know," said Hutch.

Nightingale repeated Hutch's test and threw a small piece of meat well out into the stream. A fin broke the surface momentarily, and then there was a brief commotion in the water.

Something in the foliage across the river screeched. A loud racket followed, more screeching, flapping of wings. A large vulpine creature with black wings flew off, and the general stillness returned.

Chiang examined the trees. "Anybody good at raft-building?"

"Just tie some logs together, right?" said Kellie.

"This," said MacAllister, "should be a constructive experience for us all."

The pun provided some mock laughter.

"Let's get to it," Hutch said. "We'll cut the trees now, stay here tonight, and put the raft together first thing tomorrow."

"How'd we do today?" asked MacAlIister.

"Pretty well," said Hutch. "Twenty kilometers."

"Twenty?"

"Well, nineteen. But that's not bad."

Chiang spent the evening working up his courage. After the logs were set aside and the vines collected, Kellie sat quietly eating. When she'd finished and buttoned up her e-suit, he saw his chance. Get on her private channel and do the deed.

"Kellie." His voice didn't sound right.

She turned toward him, and her features were limned in the firelight. He watched shadows move across her face, and she seemed more beautiful than any woman he had ever known. "Yes, Chiang?" she said.

He started to move toward her but caught himself and decided it was best to stay where he was. "I-wanted you to know I'm in love with you."

A long silence. The shadows moved some more.

"I've been looking for an opportunity to tell you."

She nodded. "I know," she said.

That threw him off-balance. "You know?" He had never said anything.

"Sure."

He got to his feet, driven to some form of action, but he settled for stirring the fire. "May I ask how you feel about me?" He blurted it out, and immediately knew it sounded clumsy. But there was no way to recall it.

"I like you," she said quietly.

He waited.

She seemed lost in thought. He wondered whether she was searching her feelings, or looking for a way to let him down gently. "I don't know," she said. "The circumstances we're under… It's hard to see clearly."

"I understand," he said.

"I'm not sure you do, Chiang. Everything's compressed now. I don't trust my feelings. Or yours. Everything's very emotional. Let's wait till we're back on Wendy. When it's not life-and-death anymore. Then if you want to take another plunge at this, I'll be happy to listen."

Nightingale assumed guard duty. He surveyed the campsite, saw right away there were too many places where something could come up on them unseen, and decided to position himself near the river-bank, where the ground was clear. Chiang picked up the water container and went to the river's edge. MacAlIister gathered some branches and started a fire. The women began trying to work out what the raft should look like.

Nightingale studied the water. It was shallow inshore, but muddy and dark. He watched Chiang make a face at it and venture out a few steps. Nightingale asked what he was doing, and Chiang explained he was after clear water. He scooped up some and it must still not have looked very good because he got rid of it and went out a bit farther.

"That's a mistake," said Nightingale. "Forget it. We'll figure out something else."

"It's not a-" Chiang's expression changed, and he cried out. Something yanked his feet from under him. He went down and disappeared into the current.

Nightingale whipped out the cutter, ignited it, and charged after him. He couldn't see why Chiang had fallen, but he caught a glimpse of blue-gray tendrils.

Something caught him, whipped around his ankles, and tried to drag him down. Then it had his arm. Nightingale sliced at the water. Mud-colored fluid spurted from somewhere.

He almost dropped the laser.

MacAlIister arrived, cutter in hand, at the height of the battle. He lashed around like a wild man. The water hissed and tendrils exploded. Nightingale came loose, and then Chiang. By the time the women got there, only seconds after it had begun, it was over.

"It's okay, ladies," said MacAllister, blowing on his cutter as if it were an old-style six-gun. "The shooting's over."

That night they could see Morgan's disk quite clearly. It resembled a tiny half-moon.

They assembled the raft in the morning. They lined up the logs and cut them to specification. Hutch, unsure of her engineering, required crosspieces to hold the craft together. They fashioned paddles and poles, and there was some talk about a sail, but Hutch dismissed it as time-consuming on the ground that they didn't know what they were doing.

It appeared that they were at a drinking hole. A few animals wandered close from time to time, looked curiously at the newcomers, kept their distance, dipped their snouts in the current when they could, and retreated into the forest.

The sun was overhead by the time the raft was ready. Relieved to be under way again, they climbed aboard and set off across the river.

The day was unseasonably warm. In fact, it was almost warm enough to turn off the suits. MacAllister sat down in front, made himself comfortable, and prepared to enjoy the ride.

They'd scouted out a landing spot earlier. It had a beach and no rocks that they could see and was a half kilometer downstream.

Chiang and Hutch used the poles, Kellie and Nightingale paddled, and MacAllister allowed as how he would direct. They moved easily out into the current.

Nightingale watched the banks pass by. He turned at last to Hutch. "It was criminal of them," he said, "simply to abandon this world."

"The Academy claimed limited resources," she said.

"That was the official story. The reality is that there was a third-floor power struggle going on. The operations decision became part of a tug-of-war. The wrong side won, so we never came back." He gazed up at the treetops. "It never had anything to do with me, but I took the blame."

MacAllister shielded his eyes from the sun. "Dreary wilderness," he said.

"You didn't know that, did you, MacAllister?" said Nightingale.

"Didn't know what?"

"That there were internal politics involved in the decision. That I was a scapegoat."

MacAllister heaved a long sigh. "Randall," he said, "there are always internal politics. I don't think anyone ever really thought you prevented further exploration. You simply made it easy for those who had other priorities." He looked downriver. "Pity we can't get all the way to the lander on this."

Kellie was watching something behind them. Nightingale turned to look and saw a flock of birds hovering slowly in their rear, keeping pace. Not birds, he corrected himself. More like bats.

They were formed up in a V, pointed in their direction.

And they weren't bats, either. He'd been misled by the size, but they actually looked more like big dragonflies.

Dragonflies? The bodies were segmented, and as long as his forearm. They had the wingspread of pelicans. But what especially alarmed him was that they were equipped with proboscises that looked like daggers.

"Heads up," he said.