I considered tackling him. Or shooting him. But the edge of the bluffs really wasn't far for him to wander. If our goal was to use him as bait for whatever danger lurked on Melaquin, I had to give him his lead.

It took real effort to watch him walk away from me. Explorers don't let go easily.

The Worm

The first soil sample I took contained an earthworm. Technically speaking, I suppose it was a Melaquinworm, but it looked like an earthworm to me: brown, annelid, roughly ten centimeters long, with the familiar thick clitellum band partway along its body.

"Greetings," I said to it, feeling ridiculous. "I am a sentient citizen of the League of Peoples. I beg your Hospitality."

"Find something?" Yarrun called.

"A worm," I told him.

"You're talking to a worm?" Chee cackled over the com-set.

"I am talking to an alien lifeform that may prove to be sentient. Don't be so narrow-minded!"

"I bet it's just a worm."

Almost certainly, Chee was right. On the other hand, you never know when you might be scoring goodwill points with the League. They supposedly keep constant watch on all human activities.

I let the worm crawl for a moment, then nudged a stone into its path. It bumped its nose into the stone and seemed confused.

Proof enough for me. It was stupid; it was just a worm.

I shot it with my stunner and put it in a plastic bag.

The Bird

As Chee walked toward the cliff, a bird suddenly dashed out of the grass near his feet with a great panicked chirping. Yarrun and I both drew stunners and aimed. But the bird simply scuttled several meters away and made no gestures we could interpret as a threat.

In fact, it ran clumsily, one wing drooping.

"I didn't touch it!" Chee said with aggrieved innocence.

"I'm sure you didn't," I told him. "Stay where you are, please."

Carefully, I walked toward Chee. The bird flopped about, squawking loudly.

"What's wrong with it?" Chee asks.

"It's a… it displays the appearance and behavior of a mother killdeer. She's pretending she has a broken wing. She wants us to chase her rather than snoop around her territory." I searched the grass near Chee's feet. Autumn seemed late in the year for what I expected to find, but every species has individuals who are out of step with the times.

Two paces away, I found the nest the killdeer was protecting. There were three eggs in the nest, their shells dirty white with brown speckles.

Three beautiful eggs.

Eggs

I took the Bumbler from Yarrun and crouched beside the nest. Melaquin's atmosphere blocked most of the X-rays emitted by the local sun, Uffree; but the Bumbler was extremely good at amplifying what little there was.

Inside each egg was a tiny bird. (Their mother squawked frantically at me from a distance.) The Bumbler showed only their skeletons, curled into positions that seemed impossibly cramped. The little birds filled the eggs completely; within hours, they would hatch.

"Greetings," I whispered softly to them. "I am a sentient citizen of the League of Peoples. I beg your Hospitality."

The mother squawked in anguish, dashing back and forth with her feigned broken wing.

Gone

"Where's Chee?" Yarrun asked suddenly.

My head snapped up. Yarrun and I were alone in the meadow.

"Admiral Chee, come in, admiral," I called over the radio, keeping my voice calm.

No response.

"Maybe he fell off the bluffs," Yarrun suggested.

"You check." And while Yarrun hurried toward the edge of the bluffs, I switched the Bumbler to IR, and did a fast circle. Nothing showed up anywhere near Chee's size. He wasn't hiding in the grass. "Admiral Chee, please respond. Admiral Ch—"

A force closed on my windpipe like a strangling hand. I stopped talking mid-syllable. I could not breathe, I could not speak.

Oh shit.

Oh Shit

My throat transceiver. Was that it? Was that all?

Oh shit.

It was something in my throat implant. It was killing me. How stupid. How mindlessly stupid. Shit.

No monsters. No sentients. No deadly physical phenomena. Just crude treachery.

And I was fool enough to feel disappointed. I had a little Prope inside me who thought death should come glamorously. How juvenile. How stupid.

Shit.

Where had Chee gone? Over the bluffs? Did it matter?

A few paces in front of me, Yarrun was ripping off his helmet. He hadn't figured it out yet; he must have thought his suit had a malfunction.

I turned the Bumbler on him, its sensors still keyed to read X-rays. Yes, his transceiver had twisted itself around his windpipe. And now he understood — he turned to me with a look of bitter sorrow.

Shit.

They must have built the implants to kill us. Did the choking mechanism activate in response to some natural transmission generated on planet? Or did someone somewhere turn a dial? Had Harque pushed some button, just following orders? Did he know what he'd done?

Shit.

Yarrun's hands reached for his throat. I wondered if he would try to pull off the transceiver assembly. No good, I could see that on the X-rays — the mechanism was wrapped so tightly in place, he'd just rip out his larynx.

Shit. Oh shit. Yarrun was tapping out SOS in Morse code. Tapping on the transceiver itself. Gazing hopefully at the sky. And he couldn't know if the transceiver was still broadcasting, and he couldn't know if any of those goddamned Vacuum assholes on the bridge had even heard of Morse code, and he was still trying the only thing he could think of to save our lives.

Shit.

I blasted him with my stunner and he went down in a spiraling slump, as if he was turning to look at me one last time.

Forget it, forget it. I dropped to my knees beside him, upturning my whole backpack in search of the scalpel from the medical kit.

Maybe I could stay conscious long enough to perform an emergency tracheotomy. Cut through Yarrun's throat into his windpipe, below the point where the transceiver was strangling him. Open a new breathing passage.

I had done a tracheotomy once before. At the Academy. On a cadaver. I couldn't remember what grade I'd received.

The first cut had to be vertical — less chance of hitting a major vein or artery. Blood spurted as I worked the knife, but after that it slowed. I hoped that was a good sign.

My vision was clouding. Didn't matter. If I screwed this up, what was the difference?

No. There was a difference.

The medical kit contained no tracheotomy tube, but it did have an esophageal airway. The airway was so wide. Who had the nerve to cut a hole that big in someone's throat?

I did. I had the nerve.

My head was spinning. My eyes wouldn't focus. I pulled what I hoped was an ampoule of blood coagulant from the medical kit and sprayed it around the incision. I didn't know if I'd killed my friend. I'd die without knowing.

I thought, Yarrun, don't hate me. I don't want to be hated.

Then I thought, Shit, here I go.

Oh Shit.