Martin bit his fingernail.

"We've gotten ourselves into something," he said softly.

"What?" Hakim asked.

They waited, the crew in the cafeteria silent, or whispering softly. Harpal approached the star sphere, examining the planet closely. "We've failed, haven't we? The seeds from the outer cloud will have to do the Job now."

"That will take years," Martin said. He turned to the War Mother. "We can't get volatiles from Nebuchadnezzar. We'll have to move on to Ramses and try again. Do you know what happened?"

"There is deception here," the War Mother said.

"No shit," Harpal said.

"Bombships are returning. Something's wrong," Hakim said.

In the sphere, Martin could see them outlined by tiny sparkles of white light.

"What's the discharge?" Martin asked the War Mother.

"Not known," the War Mother said. "The effect produces intense gamma rays, much like anti-matter reactions."

"Do we keep the bombships out?" Hakim asked.

Martin masked his face with intense concentration, eyebrows knit, lips tightened and pushed out, breath harsh in his nostrils. "That doesn't make sense," he said.

The six bombships drew closer to Tortoise, came into position for pickup, signaling their status on noach. All were intact, all weapons dispersed. The first ship in line-up for retrieval was William and Fred Falcon's.

William's voice came over the noach. "Mines discharged. I've got sparkles all around me. I think I picked something up in the upper atmosphere. Why would my mines discharge? Tortoise!"

Martin asked, "Is it possible the mines were defective?"

Hakim shook his head. "I think not."

"We've never been in combat. Could something on the planet deactivate the mines?" He turned to the War Mother.

"No conclusions are possible. Deactivation of the mines is not inconceivable, but simple deactivation would not cause an explosion. The atmosphere may contain seeker and doer systems designed to attack incoming weapons, but we have detected nothing of that nature. Shielded anti-matter dust does not seem a likely possibility."

"The weapons could be disguised, or hidden, like our own ships," Hakim suggested.

"That is possible," the War Mother said.

"Then they dohave defenses," Harpal said. "Maybe the defenses are trying to break through to the bombships—maybe they're carrying some back with them."

"Are they carrying anything?" Martin asked.

Hakim examined the bombships again. "There is no atmospheric residue around them. We are trailing a residue ourselves—a very faint cloud of discharged ions and molecules… That is all I detect. I do not know what the sparkles are. The craft look clean otherwise."

Martin gritted his teeth, relaxed his face, opened and closed his eyes slowly, found his chest bound with tense muscle, relaxed the muscle and exhaled.

"Bring them in, one at a time," he said. "Fred and William first. Keep them isolated in a one way field—nothing gets out."

"Martin, I don't feel very good," Fred said over the noach. "My skin's changing color, or my vision is going bad. William's sick, too."

Something was very wrong. Don't let them in.

Hakim and Jennifer floated nearby. "Bring Fred and William in," he instructed the War Mother. "Isolated, like I said."

The bombships took formation behind the Tortoise'saft home-ball, awaiting instructions. Fred and William's craft was first in line.

Hakim inquired on the other bombships: "Theresa, Stephanie, any reactions? Problems?"

Their ships also sparkled as if surrounded by fireworks. The other four did not sparkle. Martin thought: The mines from these ships did not explode in the atmosphere.

Stephanie Wing Feather responded: "I feel a little ill. We might have been swept by radiation. The fields should have kept it out, but there was such a burst from our mines…"

"Theresa?"

"I'm okay. I'm a little dizzy but I'm not sick."

The first bombship entered the hatch. The arresting boom, glowing with a bubble isolation field, reached out to attach to the craft.

Hakim switched the star sphere to a view of the weapons store. Martin's eyes narrowed.

The War Mother said: "There is danger of—"

Time ran out.

The arresting boom touched William's bombship. The star sphere filled with light and winked out, leaving dark dazzles swimming in their eyes. Hakim cursed loudly in Arabic.

A violent shudder slammed the crew against the walls. Fields rose instantly between them, suspending them from further harm, but already there were screams of pain and smears of blood.

Anti em, Martin's inner voice said, too late. The bombships and mines were changed into anti-matter.

The star sphere flickered back for a fraction of a second, showing a lump of twisted, torch-bright wreckage careening through the weapons store, setting off violent blasts and shrapnel wherever it touched. The bombship disintegrated into hissing, sizzling shards; ambiplasma filled the weapons store, and again the sphere disappeared.

Martin's wand sang with warnings and messages, too many to be projected at once. The ship will do something without consulting us.

"Weapons store and the whole hemisphere is going," Theresa said from outside. "What happened?"

The other bombships contributed to the chatter.

Stephanie Wing Feather was the last to be heard: " Tortoise, the aft hemisphere is cracking—"

Tortoisespun violently like a whirled dumb-bell, accelerating out of control. Messages from the bombships ceased.

The noise that sang through Tortoisenow was more than he could bear. Screaming, Martin shut his eyes and waited for death.

The protective fields around them abruptly vanished and they were shoved into an agonized mass in one corner of the cafeteria, arms and knees and heads and torsos interlocking with the force as if manipulated by a giant puzzlemaker. Bones cracked and blood misted.

The fields came on again, but jammed the crew against one another, unable to pick them apart and suspend them separately. All was failing; control was gone, they could see nothing and feel nothing but their crush and pain.

The ship twisted like a snake. Martin opened his eyes and tried to move but could not. He lay meshed with Andrew Jaguar, Hakim pressed behind him. Martin's face threw globules of blood against a bulkhead in the flashing twilight. Barely three or four seconds had passed; he still clutched his wand, and Hakim's fist and wand ground into his calf. He could not move or think.

All had returned to the animal, to protoplasm.

Fear and the smell of blood and pressure like an enormous hand grinding them into the cafeteria wall

I'm sorry

Theresa

William

Relief. Blessed nothing.

I suppose it picked us apart and put us here, was his first thought on awakening and finding himself surrounded by a green net and a gently throbbing field. Suspended in the field, all his body a huge bruise, medical doers like tiny golden worms criss-crossing, touching his bruised flesh, nothing touching him but the golden worms, mouth dry but not parched, top of head burning.

They all hung in darkness. A cool breeze pricked the hairs on his head and chest. For a moment Martin thought of being dead, corpses laid out for ejection into space. But all the green fields pulsed gently and doers wove around them all. He could not see to identify the faces and he could not count all the bodies so suspended.