As he shouted, a small black ellipsoid came curving up in a smooth arc from the dark depths of the tunnel.

Nenda shot a glance at the others. He cursed. Kallik and J’merlia had at once obeyed his shouted command and tucked their heads down toward the protection of their multiple legs. But Julius Graves and Birdie Kelly were doing the worst thing possible: they were staring straight at the ovoid as it passed over their heads.

He could do nothing about Graves, but Birdie Kelly was within reach. Nenda thrust his arm out, a fraction of an inch from Birdie’s face, so that the other man reflexively blinked. Nenda held his arm there and at the same moment squeezed his own eyes tight shut. He threw his other arm up to shield his face. The last thing he saw before his eyes closed was a Zardalu tentacle, reaching up toward the oval shape to smash it back where it had come.

The Zardalu was a split second too late. With his eyes closed and one forearm jammed hard across them, Louis Nenda saw the world turn bright red.

He felt his skin tingling in the flood of radiation. He stood and waited, for what felt like forever and could have been no more than half a second. The light level in the tunnel had to be just incredible if so much could bleed its way in past his arm and through his eyelids.

When everything went black he uncovered his eyes. He grabbed Birdie Kelly in both arms and pushed him over to drop to the floor of the tunnel. He landed on top of Birdie, curling into a ball as he did so.

His precautions were unnecessary. The Starburst must have triggered just a meter or two in front of the assembled Zardalu. When the brightness of a supernova flashed into being, they had all been staring at it. Now every Zardalu eye was covered by tentacles, and fluid was beginning to seep past the fine tendrils at the ends. Disorganized whistles, clicks, and moans filled the tunnel.

Nenda’s own world was a maze of flickering images, with the red network of veins in his eyelids superimposed on them. But he could see. Well enough to know that their problems were just beginning.

Sightless Zardalu blocked the way out of the tunnel. They were thrashing around with their tentacles, grabbing blindly at anything above waist height. The way back along the tunnel was closed by a mass of writhing, muscular snakes.

For the moment Nenda was far enough away to be safe. Birdie Kelly had pulled free and was crawling toward a niche where the wall met the floor. Nenda was tempted to follow, but there was barely room for one person. If Birdie could remain tucked into the narrow space and survive the groping tentacles, fine. If not…

Nenda turned to the others. J’merlia and Kallik had dropped instinctively to the ground in a splay of thin limbs. The big problem was Julius Graves. The Councilor had been blinded. He was groping his way farther along the tunnel, to the place where it steepened rapidly. A couple more steps and he would fall forward, pulled by the increasing gravity field past the point of no return and into the vortex.

Nenda dared not shout a warning. The Zardalu would home in on his call. He launched himself toward the councilor, grabbed him around the knees, and heaved backward.

Graves was caught with one leg in the air, ready to take another blind step. He fell sideways and to the left, crying out with pain as he landed on his injured arm.

That was all the clue that the Zardalu needed. Half a dozen long tentacles converged at once on the place. They reached for Graves. But they found Louis Nenda.

Before he saw them he felt their touch on his leg, like oiled silk over solid rubber. He tried to escape by crawling farther down the tunnel, toward the vortex. He was too late. One sinewy arm circled his legs; another coiled around his waist. They tightened and lifted him high in the air. His head hit the tunnel roof. Then he was being dragged toward the Zardalu. Even before the pain began, he knew what was going to happen. The tentacles around his body and his legs belonged to two different aliens. One of Holder’s long arms had him at the waist, but another Zardalu at the front of the group held his knees. They were both blinded, unaware of what the other was doing. And each was intent on pulling Louis Nenda within reach of its own beak.

Held high above the heads of the Zardalu, Nenda saw Darya Lang, Hans Rebka, and E. C. Tally appear in the tunnel behind them. They each held a flashburn unit. They began using them to sting and burn the Zardalu from the rear, forcing them to spin around so that they would lose their sense of direction, then driving them forward along the corridor in reflexive jerks.

But that would not help Nenda. The two holding him were in the front of the group, shielded from the humans by the Zardalu behind them.

The tentacles began to tighten on his body, pulling in opposite directions. He could not breathe. His lower back felt as if it were breaking. He was stretched, pulled apart by terrible forces. He knew what was going to happen. In another second he would be torn in two. He could do nothing to prevent it.

In his agony Nenda could not see clearly. When something black flashed past him, flying through the air toward the Zardalu, he did not know what it was. He made a great effort and turned his head.

As he did so, the tearing forces on him slackened for a moment. He realized that the flying object he had seen was Kallik.

The Hymenopt had leapt straight out of a crouched position with all the power of her wiry legs. Her spring carried her high in the air, to the top of the head of one of Zardalu holding Nenda. Kallik’s clawed paws dug into the Zardalu’s tough hide and held there. She clutched the rounded head above the blinded eyes and the wicked beak.

The Zardalu was reaching up with two of its tentacles, but Kallik did not flinch. The yellow sting appeared from its sheath at the bottom of her stubby abdomen. The furred Hymenopt body moved sideways an inch or two, seeking an exact position. The abdomen tilted. The sting sank with surgical precision into the Zardalu’s head, at a point exactly between the great lidded eyes. The abdomen pulsed with a full poison discharge. The sting withdrew. A moment later Kallik dropped free and scuttled back, away from the forest of threshing arms.

The stung Zardalu made no noise, but the killing pressure around Nenda’s legs slackened at once. The uplifted tentacles wilted. the great body shuddered, then froze into position. A moment later, the paralyzed Zardalu convulsed and toppled forward. It narrowly missed J’merlia and Julius Graves and lay motionless, poised on the very brink of the steep tunnel that led to the vortex.

And crawling above it, clinging upside down to the ceiling of the tunnel, came the great winged form of Atvar H’sial.

The Cecropian remained hanging on the ceiling until she was past the recumbent body of the Zardalu. Then she dropped down, clear of the still-motionless tentacles, and pushed with all her strength at the hulking body. The Zardalu hung poised for a moment at the edge, then started away down the slope. Nenda heard it rolling and slithering toward the vortex at the bottom. It made no sound.

He was glad to see it go, but that did not solve his own problem. Although he was no longer being pulled apart, Holder’s tentacle still crushed his midsection and he was being drawn steadily toward the gaping sharp-edged beak.

He lacked the breath to cry out for help. Kallik, her sting sac temporarily emptied, had leapt at the second Zardalu, but she found herself gripped by a pair of tentacles. Then she and Nenda were being pulled together toward Holder’s beak.

Atvar H’sial had turned from the vanished Zardalu and was watching the wild confusion in the tunnel. The yellow trumpet horns on each side of her head pointed toward Louis Nenda and Kallik as the two were pulled closer and closer to the Zardalu beak.