He fell into a peaceful state that was interrupted only when his bearers stopped. They tipped the litter up so that he was standing, supported by the wooden frame to which he was tied.

He was on a sizeable spot of solid ground surrounded by dark green water. A number of trees stood about at considerable distance from one another. There were eighteen, which, for some reason, Ardan counted. Bound to all but one tree were skeletons tied with seemingly indestructible cord.

The bones were indubitably of human origin. No Pink had ever grown to such height The skulls were distinctive, the rib-cages ribboned with climbing vines. The foot-bones were hidden in a light growth of thin grass.

"Oh, wonderful!" he groaned. How long had the Pinks waited for the last victim to complete their set?

"Stein? Is that you, old boy?" he asked aloud. The Pinks ignored him.

"Folly is right. I'll just bet you and your boys and girls tramped off into the swamp, bent on exploration and glory, and wound up as...what?" He turned his gaze to the Pinks, who were very busy about some inscrutable business.

Six approached him, cut away the litter with their clawed fingers, and propped him against the single undecorated tree. They flipped ends of cord about him, then wound them round and round the tree trunk and his body.

Without another sound, they were gone, leaving Ardan to contemplate his fate.

16

Hanse Davion stood beside the holotable, staring down at the nervous blinks that represented ships in transit. The fact that each of the distant craft had already reached its destination and that the table was only catching him up on the most recent information didn't comfort him. He knew his men had retaken Stein's Folly, but the struggle was not over yet. The Prince must now make decisions that might or might not aid those commanders whose instincts had pulled victory from the very jaws of defeat

He looked up as Ferral, his personal aide, entered the room. "We were lucky, Fer," he said. "If we didn't have the best commanders in the business, our strike would have gone down the tubes. Has the messenger finished his report?"

The younger man looked down. His jaw tightened, and his entire stance showed his reluctance to say the thing that had brought him.

When he looked up, Hanse was staring at him, worry already beginning to wrinkle his brow.

"The report is that...that Ardan Sortek has been lost in action. Not killed...no body has been found, though his Victorwas pretty well savaged. But there was no trace of him."

"Have searchers scoured the area?" The question was sharper than the Prince's usual even tone.

"No. There has been so much to do, what with the remaining stiff resistance. All available manpower has been occupied in keeping the areas we have taken. Liao troops are pulling off regularly, and we think they are withdrawing to Redfield, but we still have our hands full."

Hanse stared again into the holotable, as if the mechanism might tell him where his friend might be. When he looked up again, he was fully in control.

"Give orders that every effort be made to locate Sortek," he said. "Not only is he an old and dear friend, but he also knows things about me and our methods that the enemy might find most useful. Chemical questioning bypasses the instincts of the most loyal. He must not fall into the hands of the enemy. And if he should, then he must be rescued at any cost."

Davion turned to stare from his arched window into the afternoon sky. "Assign at least one unit to that task. It is of utmost importance, both to me personally and to our security." He did not look around as the aide replied.

Only when the door closed did Hanse turn again to the table. It had been a gamble balanced on a knife-edge of skill and luck. He was the most fortunate of men, lucky to have in his service men of the caliber of Felsner, Hamman...and Ardan Sortek.

He thought of Ardan as a child, riding on Hanse's own strong young back, later learning games and skills from him as they roamed the fields outside the town where they had been reared.

He shook himself and turned to a monitor. He must read the fresh reports. He must make the crucial decisions. He must not think of Ardan again until something concrete could be done about him.

* * * *

The tree was rough against his shoulders. The cooling vest, now much the worse for wear, did nevertheless protect the skin of his back. The Pinks had pulled his arms behind him when they retied him, however, and the ridges of tree bark dug into them.

Ardan, still protected by the fever, giggled softly. This had to be the silliest hallucination ever experienced. The Pinks themselves were ridiculous. This ritual with the skeleton-decorated trees was even worse.

He looked about at the nearest of the bony trophies. Most had turned brown with time, and some were also greenish with fungus. Grungy-Iooking things. How could his mind, even distorted with fever, come up with something so bizarre as this?

He stared at the adjacent tree. Its tenant grinned back at him absendy. The skeleton looked bored, as if the joke had long ago worn thin. A reptile, brilliant yellow striped with mud-green, came into view, crawling up through the rack of bones to coil about the collarbones.

His stomach heaved, and Ardan retched. The motion sent agony through him. The tight bindings had cut off circulation to his extremities, and they throbbed unmercifully.

The pain brought him entirely to his wits for the first time in many hours. This was no delusion. This was real. He was tied to a tree in the middle of a swamp with the remnant of some earlier human expedition. He would rot, as they had done, and snakes would nest in his belly.

He knew mere was nothing to be gained by shouting, but he shouted, anyway. To his surprise, he heard a distant but distinct "Hallooo!" in return.

Friend? Or enemy? At the moment, Ardan didn't much care.

* * * *

Henrik hated the swamp. His uniform, standard Liao-issue, was too thick, too hot, too constricting for moving about in such country. The foul water soaked through pants-legs and into the boots, making his feet swell and steam. He knew that his men were cursing him silendy. He was just as silendy cursing his own commander, though he knew that Ridzik had good reason to order this search.

The muck teemed with reptiles and even more evil-looking creatures. The air was aswarm with insects, most of which either stung or bit. He swatted aside a loop of vine, and found himself holding a long green body that wriggled about with terrible quickness to sink fangs into his sleeve.

For an instant, he blessed the same heavy clothing he had been cursing for so long. The fangs did not penetrate the tough fabric, and twin beads of yellow venom were left to roll off into the water about his boots.

He dropped the thing with a yell, and his men scattered to give it room to escape. Most were from worlds that had no serpents, and so most of them recoiled instinctively. Recoiling himself, Henrik stepped back into a deep hole, and fell backward with a mighty splash. The brown-green mud roiled up where his foot had slipped, and he ended up lying on his back, looking up into the tree that leaned overhead.

Henrik found himself staring into a pair of pink eyes, round and frightened in an almost featureless circle of face. Another oddball animal. Its pale fur clung to its colorless hide, and its short, useless tail was quivering nervously.

He was pulled upright again by a pair of his men, who helped him to scrape the foul muck from his uniform. Henrik dried his weapons carefully. What a place! Full of animals, snakes, insects, but seemingly empty of the one he wanted.