Shortly before dawn they reached the relative safety of the forest, well away from any Wyzhnyny. There the tankers paused to heat and eat field rations. Then they lay down on their fart sacks and slept in the open air. They could hear distant fighting, back in the forest, but it didn't keep them awake.

The woods were thick with the devil's music: the rapid popping of blasters and slammers, the crackling of pulses creating miniature vacuums through the air, the hard sound of pulses striking trees.

Ensign Rrokic spotted a source-humans behind a breastwork of logs. "Up there!" he shouted, then sheltered as well as he could behind a thick trunk. He hated to gesture; it attracted enemy fire. "Don't just lie there!" he snapped into his helmet mike. "Shoot, damn it! And don't bunch up!"

Ensign Rrokic was a nanny-as large as some warriors, almost as strong-and protective. Genetically, protection meant care and guarding of the young, but the master and warrior genders massaged the nanny protective instinct and extended it to cover defense of the species. The purpose being to turn nannies into surrogate warriors when necessary. In fact, the nanny gender provided many reserve unit noncoms.

Gender manipulation and noncom training worked about as well with Rrokic as it did with any nanny. He yelled well, and could manhandle his troops when necessary. But the hard authority of the warrior gender was never really duplicated.

What was compelling was his rank, and the sense his orders made. His platoon took cover as best it could, behind tree trunks, or in the visual cover provided by the tops of trees the humans had felled. From there they fought back.

All day they'd been moving slowly through the damnedest mess Rrokic had ever seen. The humans had felled thousands on thousands of trees, in unpatterned bands through the forest. Usually with the upper parts in your face. The barriers weren't everywhere; that wouldn't have been practical. They'd been located to extend or connect natural terrain features, crowding the advancing Wyzhnyny into whatever situations the humans wanted them. Or simply pinched the advance off, so they had to turn back to find a way around. Typically the barriers led into cleared fields of fire, and there was little anyone could do about it. Little by little we advance, Rrokic told himself, yet it seems we're always on the defensive.

Now as before, when his platoon had taken what cover they could, the fight turned into a grenade exchange, delivered mostly by launchers. And his people were more exposed.

So he called for a flamethrower again.

Near one flank of C Company's position, Captain Freddie Bibesco Singh crouched in his command post, scanning with his small camouflaged periscope. His blastermen, slammermen and grenadiers were reaping well. As before, the Wyzhnyny had moved into the visual cover of the abatis. Now they'd no doubt call in a flamethrower. Meanwhile, the Wyzhnyny grenadiers and mortarmen were using timed fuses to produce airbursts, exploding above his troopers' improvised shelters.

It was time to deliver his new surprise. Setting his mike, he voiced the ignition command. Barely hidden by old leaves, ground vegetation, and the outermost foliage of the abatis, explosions erupted like a string of giant ladyfingers, as camouflaged shot-mines blew along a line of detcord. Debris rose, and cries of pain. Meanwhile, his people kept firing.

From where he crouched, he couldn't see the Wyzhnyny flamethrower being brought up, but from treetops a little distance off, his camouflaged snipers could. They'd already been making things hot for Wyzhnyny mortar crews. Though they paid; the Wyzhnyny had learned that this enemy climbed.

A sniper spotted the flamethrower and felled the Wyzhnyny carrying it, but another picked it up. Then some Wyzhnyny threw smoke grenades, concealing both flamethrower and mortars. "B Company pull out!" Bibesco ordered. His own smoke bombs popped and billowed, his blastermen and grenadiers got to their feet, his snipers lowered themselves on ropes, and they all pulled back. Concealed a short distance to the rear, out of sight of the Wyzhnyny, were their squad-size APCs. These would take them to their next ambush position much more quickly than they could manage on foot, and they needed to set up before the Wyzhnyny arrived.

Not all of C Company would ride with their squad. The medics loaded some of them out to the hospital, or to the "bot shop," or simply to Graves Registration.

It was noon before Major Phayakapong ordered his crews back into their tanks. General Pak had given him his next assignment. Three battalions of Wyzhnyny armored howitzers were on the move, four batteries in each. With tank escorts. It looked as if they planned to establish fire bases-probably three of them. It was unlikely they knew about Lonesome Moses, and Pak didn't want them to, so he hadn't started molesting them yet. Phayakapong was to continue westward, and be ready to hit them after nightfall.

The major decided to pick his way through the forest for a while. It would keep him out of sight. He hadn't mentioned that he now had only twenty-five battle-worthy tanks and two flakwagons. The general would already know that, or close enough, from Lonesome Moses, and anyway there was nothing to be done about it.

Normally, in the evening, Esau heard all the sounds of the forest. Fell asleep listening to the chirping of crickets, the peeping of tree lizards, the occasional grunting basso of a bull owl, or the warbling alto of a mouse owl. Even, barely audible, woodborers chewing tunnels inside a nearby fallen tree. And best of all, from above the trees, the thin piercing whistle of night hawks catching insects.

But this evening none of it registered.

Most of the division had been fighting all day, in the forest off both east and west. Far enough away, he hadn't heard any of it. And it seemed to Esau that tonight the war-their war, on New Jerusalem-would be won or lost. Not over, but won or lost. Weren't hardly any fighting units left on base, except the strategic reserve.

Which included the airborne qualified platoons, and now they were being sent out, trotting northward through the evening forest. There'd been no time to drill the mission-it was that urgent-but their briefing had been thorough, with a demo on the screen.

Probably it would work out all right. They were all veterans, and drilled or not, they had a clear sharp picture of what needed to be done.

He glanced at the man he trotted beside. He'd known Ensign Hawkins for-about a year he guessed. Esau wasn't someone who kept a mental calendar. But he had little idea of what the ensign thought about in the privacy of his mind. Didn't know all that much about him. He'd grown up in a Sikh neighborhood in a Terran town called Padstow, where it rained a lot; had a wife and children; and before the war he'd lived by a lake somewhere in North America. But what counted was, he was honest, and able, and treated people right. His platoon liked him and could depend on him.

Somewhere ahead were APFs: four of them, for four airborne platoons again. Tonight they were being called "A Company Airborne (temporary)," and 2nd Platoon simply "Hawkins' Platoon." But all four had jumped and fought together at the Pecan Orchard, and felt confident about each other.

Esau really didn't want to die yet, because he hadn't seen Jael since before her body had been killed. He needed to go visit her, so she could give him Tophet for lying to the medic, and maybe tell him she never wanted to see him again. He owed her that much, at least. When he'd got back from the Pecan Orchard, he'd gone off alone in the woods and wept hard bitter tears, with choking sobs that like to have torn him apart. But he'd have lied again if need be, because he couldn't just let her die, he loved her so.