Irma said slowly, carefully, “We are happy you have learned our languages. Very good. We all speak Anglish.”

“I have compressor knowledge. Now can adjust.”

Cliff said, “Where did you get such data on our languages?”

“Astronomers. They sent all to hunters.”

“You are a hunter?”

“We Sils, true. Also others.”

“What kind of others?”

“Others of Adopted.”

“Who are—?”

“Those brought here. Not species made in Bowl.”

“From other planets?”

“True.” The big yellow eyes studied them all in turn. “Like you.”

“We haven’t been—”

“Now to be Adopted. That is goal Astronomers.”

Irma asked, “Adopted … how?”

“Genes. Social rules. Status adjustment.” This came out as hard, firm statements from the narrow mouth. Cliff wondered about inferring emotions from facial signatures in aliens, but this case at least seemed clear. The constricted face oozed resentment.

“What next?” Terry asked, puzzled.

“Large sharing comes soon,” the catlike alien said. “Onto here I-we came to speak and share help. Have time now little.”

“Why?” Aybe asked. They were having trouble understanding the slippery slide of Quert’s words and the odd context.

“Stop soon, will. Others come.”

“So we—?”

“Leave next stop. Must.”

Quert flexed its hands. They had six fingers ending in sharp nails. The palm was broad and covered by fine hairs. Now that Cliff studied the creature, he saw it was clothed in a subtle woven fabric that mimicked the tan-colored fine hairs. Perhaps that helped camouflage it?

“How long do we have until the next stop?” Aybe asked, looking edgy.

“Short.” Then Quert stopped prowling and looked at each of them in turn. “The Sky Rule will come.”

“Those who are after us?” Aybe asked.

“I have fellows there. We may share violence.”

“We all?” Irma asked.

“Must quick,” Quert said with slippery vowels, and fished from its clothes an oddly sloped cylinder with a transparent lens at one end. “You carry force?”

“You mean weapons?” Terry asked.

“Wea—yes. My vocabulary adjusting. Do I need of your tongues other?”

“Those languages?” Irma thought. “No. But—the Astronomers gave you all those?”

“They had from other primates, or so said.”

“You can un-learn a language?”

Quert’s eyes then did something startling. They elongated up and down, an expression with no human parallel. Cliff realized it must mean surprise or puzzlement. Quert said, “Must do. Am crowded and slow now.”

Then the graceful creature sat at last and closed its eyes. Its eyelids vibrated as if shaken from behind and it did not move. Cliff noted the slowing of the snick-snick-snicks.

The electromagnetic handoffs now turned to braking. “Should we hide?” Howard asked. “If we’re to get out—”

Quert abruptly sat up, shook its head. “Gone. Better.” It looked around at them quizzically, as if coming out of a deep sleep. “Yes. Get down so they not see. Then leave we.”

They went back into rooms and crouched below windows. A pale light rose in the walls outside, and they all brought out their lasers. These were nearly fully charged, since they had followed strict recharging rules in the magcar.

Quert crouched as the train slowed. Cliff sprang up as it stopped with a solid jolt and there were robots everywhere outside.

“Go time,” Quert said, and they went.

Out onto the platform, identical to the one at which they’d boarded. Robots of gray and green worked steadily on the freight cars and ignored them as they passed. They ran.

After some dim corridors they came out into a broad high-arched plaza under the relentless sunlight. Cliff slowed, stunned.

Hundreds of howling creatures like Quert sent up a warbling, sonorous call. They carried tubes and packs and looked well organized, formed up into ranks. They greeted Quert with high-pitched shouts and words that came over more as shrieks to Cliff. In the eyes of these aliens he saw jittery vigor, anxious turns of heads, a fearful energy. They seemed oddly human, but made small dances that broke out among them, knots of spinning joy within rectangular ranks. This stirred and confused him. The smell was like a crisp, fragrant corral. The humans ran through a corridor of celebration.

They nearly made it. Outside in the raw sunlight, the surging bodies made an impressive display, but halfway across a big canyon floor some zipping pulses came down abruptly from the ramparts above.

Screams, loud hollow thumps, panic. Cliff stuck close to Quert and ran for the canyon walls.

They got into a cleft in an orange conglomerate rock and were working back through it, led by Quert, when a heavy rolling blast caught them and slammed them to the ground.

Quert got up unsteadily. “Come … they.”

Strange whistling sounds came from the plain outside. Cliff glanced back as they jogged down the cleft. He could see a lancing green light surge down, a hard fizzing spark like a lightning flash you could see in full daylight. Answering deep explosions rocked the air. Pebbles and sand streaked by them with a whoosh. They ran harder.

They came out into a side canyon where more of Quert’s kind clustered. They grouped around black angular snouts that thrust up into the air. Guns, Cliff thought. No matter how alien this place was, form followed function. They stopped and Quert said, “We show now.”

The guns erupted in short, spatting flashes. Cliff ducked at the noise and tried to see what they were firing at. The narrow barrels recoiled like howitzers, but no spent shells ejected from their base. The barrels tracked slowly and the alien teams cheered.

“Get we over!” Quert yelled in a high, rasping voice.

“Where?” Irma shouted over the banging salvos.

Quert gestured to a rock bluff hundreds of meters away. There were at least a dozen of the long-barreled guns firing and aliens ran everywhere, shouting orders. We’re in a war, Cliff thought. And I thought we were getting away from trouble on the nice train.…

“Better do what they say!” Aybe yelled. “We dunno what’s up.”

Understatement, Cliff thought, and nodded. They started running, weaving away from the gun crews.

They got about halfway across, led by the swift Quert, when suddenly horrible screeches rose from all sides. Quert barked out a congested howl and fell to the ground. But Cliff felt nothing.

The guns stopped. Screams of agony came from all around.

“It’s some kind of pain gun!” Aybe yelled. “Gets them, not us.”

They hesitated. He had once been the kid who stood at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it. Finally he had learned to do, not think, and navigate the chute as it came at you. A big moment, back when he was six years old. Now here it was again. Same answer: down the chute.

“Go!” He picked up Quert—surprisingly light, as if it had no bones—and sprinted forward. Where? With no guide, he just ran across the canyon. There was a tunnel in the canyon wall and the humans fled to it. Shrieks of terrifying pain came all around them. It was a long run through chaos, three hundred meters as fast as they could go. They made it, to the tunnel, leaping over writhing alien bodies, driven to hammer forward by barely controlled panic. He put the alien down.

Panting in the shadows, Irma gasped, “I couldn’t see who was shooting.”

“Up in the sky,” Aybe said in a hoarse voice, winded. “A smaller version. Of that living blimp. We saw before.”

Cliff looked down at Quert, who was sprawling, dazed. He edged out and looked up. A scaly brown football with fins was waltzing lazily across the sky. Big flat antennas hung down from it, probably the source of the pain ray. It moved like a fat, preying insect. The green beams cast down their burning lances.

He remembered feeling a pain flash once. His flesh had cried out, I’m on fire! He had looked down at his arm where the invisible beam was landing, and tried to say, This is just my nerves getting jangled, I can take this, but that didn’t work. The body ignored his mind, which knew the 95-gigahertz radiation was stimulating the nerves in his skin. His skin just kept screaming, I’m on fire!