The smaller Rex bared his teeth, then, with a huge leap, he crossed the gap between them, grabbing onto the big Rex like a wrestler. They tumbled over the sand and rocks until the smaller one suddenly darted off. The big Rex let him go, shaking out his fur before opening the door to the shuttle. The chirping he was making sounded like he was laughing.

Then he saw the pile of bunk shreds scattered throughout the shuttle. Starsa looked around with him as if she had never seen it before, either. Actually, she hadn’t realized how much damage she had done, and it looked even worse than it was.

The Rex made high‑pitched, sustained noises aimed in her direction. He never stopped scolding her as he gathered up some of the shreds, dismayed by the extent of her work. Starsa had to cover her ears at the incessant, infuriating sounds, and she almost didn’t realize how much the translator was catching.

“Pestering little female! Useless! Get rid of it,” he muttered, giving her a murderous glance.

The other Rex appeared in the doorway, his ears up and alert. Their argument over what to do with her came through loud and clear. After listening to their plaintive whines, she realized how Bobbie Ray came by his fastidiousness.

Starsa didn’t care–at least she wasn’t alone anymore. Even better, while one of the Rex removed her restraint from the bed to his own ankle, Starsa managed to grab the tiny tool kit that was hooked to the flap of her bag. The two Rex were squabbling so hard that they didn’t notice as she slipped the palm‑sized kit into her pocket.

Before she could congratulate herself, she was jerked along with the Rex as they left the shuttle. She hated having to run to keep right by his side as she stumbled over rocks that he treated like smooth pavement. Climbing while restrained was even tougher. It took a great deal of time, but she managed to get up the side of the cliff, slipping more than once in what would have been a deadly fall. Every time, the stasis restraint caught her ankle and held her dangling until the other Rex could lift her up so she could grab hold of the rocks again. She felt like a toy bobbing on a string, and she began to wonder why they were bothering with her at all.

She found out when they staked her to the top of the plateau. She had a clear view of the oasis down below. The two Rex climbed back down, nearly to the floor of the canyon.

She thought they were leaving her there, exposing her to die. Her initial flush of indignation seemed absurd in the light of attempted murder, but she was comforted by her kit resting snugly against her ribs. All she needed was a little time with her tools, and she would be free of the restraint.

But the Rex stayed in sight, and she didn’t want to risk them catching her before she could trip the locking mechanism. As she fidgeted, she saw what they were watching for.

Several cadets came around the bend of the wash, distinctive in their gray coveralls. Even from a height of several hundred meters, Starsa easily recognized Bobbie Ray. They were tightly grouped, and a dark‑haired cadet was being carried. She could recognize Reoh by the way he walked, a hurried rush forward, a pause to check on the hurt cadet, calling forward to the lead cadet who walked in front with a bare knife. Starsa thought she recognized Reeves, one of the guys she grav‑boarded with.

She waved to get their attention, but they saw her almost at the same time. “Starsa!” Nev Reoh shouted, running forward as if a cliff didn’t rise between them.

“Watch out!” Starsa frantically gestured downward, trying to get them to see the Rex. “Bobby Ray! Bobby Ray! Down there!”

They couldn’t hear her because of the wind whistling through the narrow canyon. She could tell because they carefully set down the hurt cadet, while Bobbie Ray loped up the side canyon, heading toward the lowest part of the wall to help her.

She kept shouting, but it was no use. She could feel the wind snatch the words from her throat until it was raw. Her panic only made Bobbie Ray hurry faster, watching her, trying to figure out what her problem was. Nev Reoh was not far behind, calling up some kind of encouragement.

Bobbie Ray was quite close to the Rex when they emerged from the shadows of the rocks. One was on each side of him, moving in slowly.

The other two cadets below jostled in panic, dragging the injured cadet in the opposite direction. Bobbie Ray backed down the slope as fast as he could, catching up to Reoh, who was also trying to get away from the big Rex as they slowly closed the distance between them.

Starsa shielded her eyes against the blazing sunlight that glared off the polished white rocks at the top of the mesa. The Rex had used her as bait to lure the cadets in, making it easy to ambush them. Starsa leaned over the edge, straining against the restraint, trying to see as her teammates disappeared into the bottom of the canyon. They had used her as bait!

Grimly determined to make her escape, she pulled her kit from her coverall. Give her three minutes, and she would be free.

Bobbie Ray ran past Nev Reoh as they reached the canyon floor. It was like one of his childhood nightmares, being chased by a wild animal. Ijen and Reeves had dragged Puller into the niche that contained the water seep. They were standing among the pygmy trees, holding their knives out.

“I’ll draw them off!” Bobbie Ray called out, hoping the Rex wouldn’t stay and make mincemeat out of them.

He needn’t have worried. Glancing back, he saw that the Rex loped past the other cadets as if they didn’t exist. He also noticed that Reoh was right behind him, moving remarkably fast for a guy who couldn’t seem to walk without stumbling over his own feet. Bobbie Ray picked up speed, wishing Reoh had veered off to help Ijen and Reeves.

“No! Stop!” Reoh called out. But he was running as hard as he could, too, with the Rex right behind him.

Bobbie Ray wasn’t sure what Reoh was yelling about until he rounded a curve and came to a dead end in the canyon. He began scrambling up the steep sandstone side, honeycombed by weather. Some of the holes were a couple of feet across, others were a few meters or larger.

Nev Reoh fell further behind as Bobbie Ray reached a large hole. His whiskers quivered, sensing the eddies of the wind hitting the rear wall. The cliff grew steeper so he quickly made a tactical decision to make his stand here.

Nev Reoh was panting as he neared the lip of the shallow cave. Bobbie Ray reached down and grabbed his hand, hauling him inside.

They could hear the low‑pitched growling, a curious, sustained noise. The two Rex were just below, making that sound from the back of their throats. Their tails rhythmically lashed back and forth as they crouched and glared at Bobbie Ray.

His own ears were flattened against his head in a way he’d rarely felt before. He let out a half‑hearted squawk in response, a clear signal of his panic.

“What do we do?” Nev Reoh asked.

“How should I know?” Bobbie Ray countered.

“They’re yourpeople.”

“Humans are my people,” the Rex contradicted.

The two Rex climbed into their shallow cave, poised on the lip as if assessing the cadets.

“Maybe you should try to copy them,” Nev Reoh suggested helpfully. “Use your tail.”

“What do you mean–use it?”

“Swish it back and forth like they’re doing.”

Bobbie Ray glanced doubtfully back at his tail, then gave it a few experimental twitches, moving forward as he did. “That doesn’t feel right, somehow–”

Before he could finish his sentence, the two Rex rushed the cadets, snarling and spitting, their tails furiously lashing back and forth. Bobbie Ray and Nev Reoh scrambled deeper into their cave, brandishing their knives more out of fear than bravado.

Snarling, the two Rex faced them until it was clear they could no longer back up and that they weren’t about to advance. Then the Rex slowly began to retreat, making odd chirping noises as if they were laughing, as if they were leaving simply to prolong the hunt. Bobbie Ray could tell by their upright ears that they knew they could attack the two cadets at that very moment and rip them into shreds with their four‑inch claws.