Deeth forced a weak smile. His father was brilliant, disguising the most valuable secret of the day as a field hand's serial.

The Norbon hugged him again. "You'd better go. And hurry. They'll come down fast once they're into their run."

A raggedy string of roars sounded out front. Deeth smiled. Someone had activated the station defenses. Missiles were launching.

Answering explosions killed his pleasure. He hurried after his mother and Rhafu. White glare poured through the windows. The atmosphere above the station protested its torment. Guests kept shrieking.

The preparatory barrages had begun. The station's defenders were trying to fend them off.

The slave pens were utter chaos. Deeth heard the fighting and screaming long before he and Rhafu arrived on the observation balcony.

Household troops were helping the slave handlers, and still the animals were not under control. Corpses littered the breeding dome. Most were field hands, but a sickening number wore Norbon blue. The troops and handlers were handicapped. They had to avoid damaging valuable property.

"I don't see any wild ones, Rhafu."

"That is curious. Why provide weapons without support?"

"Tell them not to worry about saving the stock. They won't matter if the human ships break through."

"Of course." After an introspective moment, Rhafu said, "It's time you went." He gave Deeth a hug as powerful as his father's had been. "Be careful, Deeth. Always think before you do anything. Always take the long view. Don't ever forget that you're the Family now." He ran the back of a wrist across his eyes. "Now, then. I've enjoyed having you here, young master. Don't forget old Rhafu. Kill one for me when you get back to Homeworld."

Deeth saw death in Rhafu's watery eyes. The old adventurer did not expect to survive the night. "I will, Rhafu. I promise."

Deeth gripped one leathery old hand. Rhafu was still a fighter. He would not run. He would die rather than let animals shatter his courage and the confidence of his own superiority.

Deeth started to ask why he had to run away when everyone else was going to stand. Rhafu forestalled him.

"Listen closely, Deeth. Go down the stairs at the end of the balcony. All the way down. There'll be two doors at the bottom. Use the one on your right. It opens into the corridor that passes the training area. There shouldn't be anyone in it. Go to the end of the hall. You'll find two more doors. Use the one marked Exit. It'll put you outside in one of the vegetable fields. Go to the sithlac dome and follow its long side. Keep going in a straight line out from its end. You should reach the forest in an hour. Keep on going and you'll run into an animal village. Stay with them till you find a way off planet. And for Sant's sake make sure you pretend you're one of them and they're equals. If you don't, you're dead. Never trust one of them, and never get close to any of them. Understand?"

Deeth nodded. He knew what had to be done. But he did not want to go.

"Go on. Scoot," Rhafu said, swatting him on the behind and pushing him toward the stair. "And be careful."

Deeth walked to the stairwell slowly. He glanced back several times. Rhafu waved a last farewell, then turned away, hiding tears.

"He'll die well," Deeth whispered.

He reached the emergency exit. Cautiously, he peeped outside. The fields were not as dark as he had expected. Someone had left the lights on in the sithlac dome. And the slave barracks were burning. Had the animals fired them? Or had the bombardment done it?

Little short-lived suns kept flaring between the stars overhead. A long, rolling thunder of chemical explosions came from the far side of the station. The launch pits had been hit. The shriek of rising missiles was replaced by secondary explosions.

The humans were getting close. Deeth looked up into the heart of the constellation Rhafu had dubbed the Krath, after a rapacious bird of Homeworld. The human birthstar lay there somewhere.

He could not distinguish the constellation. There were scores of new stars up there, all of them too bright, and visibly brightening.

The humans were on the downward leg of their penetration run. He would have to hurry to clear the perimeter they would establish with their assault craft.

He sprinted for the side of the sithlac dome.

By the time he reached the dome's far end the new stars had swollen into small, bright suns. Missile exhausts rayed from them in angry swarms. He could hear the craft rumbling over the explosions stalking through the station.

They were just a few thousand feet up now, and braking in. His escape would be close. If he made it at all.

A flight of missiles darted toward the bright target of the dome. Deeth ran again, sprinting straight out into the darkness. Explosions tattooed behind him. Blasts hurled him forward, tumbled him over and over. The dome lights died. He rose, stumbled ahead, fell, rose, and went on. His nose was bleeding. He could not hear.

He could not see where he was going. The flashing of explosions kept his eyes from adapting as quickly as they should.

The assault craft touched down.

The nearest landed so close Deeth was singed by the hot wash spreading beneath it. He kept shambling toward the forest, ignoring the treacherous ground. When he was safe he paused to watch the humans tumble off their boat and link up with the craft that had landed to either side. The burning station splashed them with eerie light.

Deeth recognized them. They were Force Recon, the cream of the Confederation Marines, the humans' best and meanest. Nothing would escape their circle.

He cried for his parents, and Rhafu, then wiped the tears away with the backs of his fists. He trudged toward the forest, indifferent to the fact that the humans might spot him on anti-personnel radar. Each hundred steps he paused to look back.

Dawn was near when he passed the first trees. They rose like a sudden palisade, crowding a straight line decreed by the station's planners. He felt as though he had stepped behind a bulwark against doom.

Once his ears had recovered he had heard stealthy movements around him. He was not alone in his flight. He avoided contact. He was too shaken, and had too poor a command of the slave tongue, to handle questions from animals. The wild ones used a different language. He expected to have less trouble passing with them. If he could find them.

One found him.

He was a quarter-mile into the forest when a raggedy, smelly old man with a crippled leg pounced on him. The attack was so sudden and unexpected that Deeth had no chance. His struggles earned him nothing but a fist in the face. The blow calmed him. He bit down on a tongue that had been damning the old man in High Sangaree.

"What are you doing, please?" he ventured in the animal language.

The old man hit him again. Before he could do more than groan, a sack had been flung over his head, skinned down to his ankles, and tied shut. A moment later, head downward and miserable, he was hoisted onto a bony shoulder.

He had become booty.