But the declaration of empire would make a big difference to us. Our parents and Piet talked a lot about politics in front of us and to us; it was part of our continuing education. And they'd agreed that if it was now formally calling itself an empire, then the Party must feel about ready to start taking over the outlying independent planets. It would be just a matter of time before they got to us.

Evdash had been colonized by refugees the last time the central worlds had been an empire, four centuries ago. Most of the so-called colony worlds had been settled by refugees at one time or another. The central worlds have a tendency to go imperial now and then, and an empire usually became a dictatorship after a while, if it wasn't one to start with.

Our way out of the wilderness was mostly downhill- about four thousand feet downhill-but that didn't mean it was fast or easy. We hiked through old forest with lots of blown-down timber to pick your way over or around, arid down ravines littered with boulders and fallen trees. Toward noon a thunderstorm came through, booming and banging, and we stopped to wait it out in a thick dense glaru grove that would keep us dry if it didn't rain too long.

As we crouched there, Deneen looked at Piet. "The Empire didn't wait long, did it?" she asked.

It was a statement more than a question. A few evenings earlier, around the cook fire, Jenoor had asked Piet how long he thought it would be before the Empire took over Evdash, He'd said probably within two or three years.

"You don't suppose there's been much fighting, do you?" Jenoor asked, looking at me.

I looked at Piet. He was leaving it to me. "I doubt it," I told her. "A few skirmishes, maybe. Fly a million-ton monster like that over the largest cities on Evdash, and ideas about defending the planet evaporate in a hurry. That battleship has got more firepower all by itself than the whole Evdashian navy. I'm just glad it's down here in the atmosphere and not out a few hundred miles bombarding the surface."

The rain had begun-fat drops in myriads assaulting the leaves above, overlaying the swish of wind-ruffled treetops with sibilant rustling; intermittent rolls of thunder drowned them all. Occasional shattered droplets touched my face with mist, and the air smelled of ozone.

"Tell us what you're thinking about, Deneen," Piet said.

I turned to look at her. She was frowning, more grim than thoughtful.

"I wonder how long they've been here. They could have taken over two weeks ago, or longer, and where we've been, we wouldn't have known it." She turned to me. "And if it's been that long, we won't find mom and dad at home. They'll have taken off somewhere to avoid the political police."

That was obvious. I just hadn't looked at it yet. It was also food for thought. Whether we found our parents or not, the question was where we'd go. There was probably an Imperial flotilla guarding the planet to keep people from leaving. And the Empire would be developing an informer network, of course; they'd already had a spy network. So if we tried to lie low, we'd probably be uncovered sooner or later.

Of course, the Imperials might have just arrived, and our parents might still be safe at home. Dad knew the ropes on this world better than just about anyone- probably better than Piet. He'd operated as a business consultant here on two continents, and had a lot of underground contacts, too. He had resources I didn't know existed.

The rain lasted just long enough for Tarel to get out the burrow pig and pass it around for a few bites each. Then, not even wet, I led off again. By mid-afternoon, landmarks told me we weren't too far from Piet's floater. Bubba assured us there was no one near it-that was just one advantage of having an espwolf-and in a quarter hour we were there.

Six of us, with our gear, didn't leave a lot of room in the floater's boxy body. Piet raised her above the trees and started for home. The first thing Deneen did was turn the radio on. The programming was not the usual. For a few minutes, all we got was Federation, now Imperial, patriotic music, no matter what station we tuned to. Then some guy speaking Standard came on and gave a brief news rundown-mostly stuff on changes in laws and regulations.

That told us how the Empire figured to run things- they weren't even broadcasting in Evdashian. The languages were enough alike that people on Evdash could pretty much understand Standard, and I would have bet that the Empire had declared a law against speaking our own language.

When Deneen and Bubba and I, and our parents, had gotten back from Fanglith more than two years earlier, we'd resettled on the northern continent. Federation spies had found our previous home. Dad fixed up an old farmhouse, and about a year later Tarel and Jenoor had come to live with us. Their parents had joined the resistance on a Federation planet named Tris Gebleu, and had them smuggled to Evdash, where they'd been placed with us. They were twins Deneen's age-sixteen. Soon after, Piet came to live with us. Add Lady and the two pups, and you get a pretty full house.

Half an hour in the floater brought us close to home, but Piet didn't simply land in the yard and punch the hooter. He flew past about half a mile north at 3,000 feet, while Bubba scanned the place telepathically. Someone was home all right, he said-two someones-but they weren't our parents. They were two human males, playing cards while they waited for their detector to buzz.

My gut knotted. Had mom and dad escaped or been hauled away? If they had been arrested, chances were that Lady and the pups would be hanging around nearby, living in the forest. But if they'd escaped, they'd probably all have left together. Telepathically, Bubba found no sign of Lady or the pups around, so my guts relaxed a little.

Where we lived, the country was three-quarters woods. Our house was near the edge of the farm clearing, with a sod road going by it. Piet put down in the woods about a mile away. Leaving the others with the floater, Bubba and I took off at a trot, his esper senses alert. When we got near the clearing, Bubba, in his rough grunting version of human speech, suggested I stay back. I knew it was good advice, but I didn't like to leave everything to him, so we continued together to the clearing's edge, creeping on our bellies the last hundred feet, keeping to cover, until I could see the house and our big shed. The shed doors were open and the cutter was gone, but the floater was still there.

That could mean that my parents had gotten away, or it could mean that the police had impounded the cutter. My guess was that they'd gotten away. Otherwise the police, if they were smart, would have left the cutter in the shed to fool us, maybe after taking out the fuel slugs. They probably wouldn't know our canid was an espwolf. There are lots of different kinds of canids from the known worlds, and espwolves are rare. As far as we knew, ours were the only ones on the continent. Our friends thought Bubba was just another big exotic canid with ordinary abilities.

In a family like ours, you learn very young to keep certain kinds of things a secret.

Bubba started crawling backward, and I did the same. When we were out of sight of the house, he got up and trotted off without saying anything. I knew where he had to be going, and followed him. When we'd moved here, dad had put a waterproof box in a huge old hollow tree, where messages could be left in emergencies like this.

It paid off: there was a package in the message box and a medkit on top of it. I took them out, and Bubba and I headed back to the others.

We opened the package at the floater. There wasn't a lot in it-several data cubes and a message cube. One by one we checked the cubes in the floater's computer, the message cube first. It was dated seven days earlier. An Imperial flotilla, standing off Evdash, had demanded surrender, and a force of fifth-column commandos, with the collusion of traitors in the national police, had taken over national police headquarters. With us not due back for eight days, our parents had no choice but to leave without us. "Well try to meet you later on Lizard Island," mom had said, "and leave Evdash from there." Try. Later. All in all not very reassuring. And it didn't say where they were going or for how long-probably for good reason.