Or, he thought dryly, if the poor luckless bastards happen to be the only two Voices available out here at the arse-end of nowhere and they're spending all their time transmitting diplomatic notes up and down the chain.

"Erthek Vardan's the next Voice in the chain," Baulwan went on. "He's got pretty good transmission range, but his reception range is a lot shorter, and he's young—younger than I am, I mean, Sir," the youthful Voice said, flushing slightly, despite his Arpathian rearing, as Halifu smothered a chuckle.

"I know, I know," the company-captain said after a moment. He patted the Voice on the shoulder apologetically. "I didn't mean to laugh at you, Shansair. It's just that I'm afraid that from where I stand, neither of you is what I'd call particularly ancient."

"I suppose not, Sir." Baulwan grinned a bit sheepishly. That was a good sign, Halifu thought. Maybe he was making some progress with the boy, after all.

"But what I was going to say, Sir," the Voice continued, "is that Erthek's sensitivity is a bit on the low side, and he tires quickly. Traygan and I are only about fifteen miles apart, and he's sensitive enough that he can usually Hear me if I 'shout' loud enough, even if he isn't actively Listening for me. Erthek's almost three hundred miles from here, and he has to settle into at least an upper-stage trance to receive from me, so I can only contact him at times when he's already expecting me to. And, like I said, he tires quickly, too. Early last week, when we had that long transmission from Platoon-Captain chan Baskay, he had to break it into two separate transmissions. So we usually try to conserve his strength. He mounts a Listening watch for me for ten minutes either side of the hour every two hours, and unless an incoming message for us is urgent, he holds it until the next time I contact him instead of his trying to initiate contact with me. Of course, the fact that I spend so much time on the other side of the portal maintaining contact with Traygan is another reason for him to wait for me to make contact. And since this entire leg of the Voicenet's been reserved solely for military traffic—well, military and diplomatic, I suppose—

there isn't really all that much traffic, even if the amount we do have tends to cluster in fairly intensive bursts."

"But he's not going to be Listening for you right this minute?"

"No, Sir. Not for another—" Baulwan checked his watch "—ninety minutes or so."

"I see."

Halifu rubbed his chin, gazing thoughtfully through Hell's Gate at the autumn-struck trees on the other side. It was just like the gods, he thought sourly, to dump endless buckets of rain here in New Uromath while the universe on the other side of the portal hadn't seen a drop of rain in almost three weeks.

He really would have preferred for Vardan to be expecting a message from Baulwan at any moment.

Unless a Voice's Talent was particularly strong, it was very difficult to attract his attention with an incoming Voice message he wasn't anticipating. It sounded as if it would have been even harder than usual in Vardan's case, and under the circumstances, Grafin Halifu really, really wished he could report Rokam Traygan's missed transmission to Baulwan to his superiors up the chain. There was almost certainly a completely innocent explanation for the Voice's silence, but Halifu would have felt much more comfortable if someone else knew about it.

We don't have enough redundancy in the Voicenet, he told himself sourly. On the other hand, we never designed it for a crisis like this one. And, of course, it doesn't help any that the gods were inconsiderate enough to let this happen clear out at the end of the multiverse, where all Talents are in such short supply.

He'd never truly realized just how fragile the Voicenet was until all hell had broken loose. Now, after Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr's murder and Darcel Kinlafia's departure for Sharona, he was acutely conscious of just how overstretched their communications capability truly was.

"All right, Shansair," he said finally. "We may both be worrying ourselves over nothing, but I'd rather do that than not worry about something I should've worried about. So, as soon as your friend Vardan is likely to be listening for you, I want you to send the word up-chain that we're having trouble contacting Traygan. Unless, of course, we hear from him in the meantime, that is."

"Yes, Sir. I'll see to it."

"Good, Shansair." Halifu patted the youngster on the shoulder again, then turned and started down the steep stairway to the parade ground—and his waiting paperwork—once again.

Thousand Toralk had discovered something else to worry about.

It was barely thirty air miles from the swamp portal to the huge portal which had been christened Hell's Gate and lent its name to this entire universe. Of course, that was thirty miles of solid, impenetrable treetops, and like most dragon pilots, Toralk was always at least a little uncomfortable about flying over terrain where he and his beast couldn't put down in a hurry, if they had to.

That wasn't what was bothering him at the moment, however. No, what was bothering him was the fact that he'd just spent the better part of fifteen minutes with his entire force circling directly above Fallen Timbers without getting a single response from Narshu or Skirvon.

And I've got better things to do than hang around up here all day admiring the scenery ... however damned spectacular it may be, he thought sourly, looking north towards Hell's Gate.

That portal was so huge that it was clearly visible at his present altitude, even from here. In fact, it dominated the entire northern horizon. Nor was it alone. KlayrmanToralk and his pilots had a ringside seat for something no human being had ever seen before, for Hell's Gate was a cluster.

The portal detector Magister Halythan had invented had already told them precisely where each of the associated portals was, but at this moment, Toralk scarcely needed it. He could actually see no less than four of them simultaneously—four semi-circular windows, of widely differeing sizes, but all of them at least several miles across and high, opening into four totally separate universes. He saw a midnightblack night sky through one, a dark-green, fecund jungle through another, and an icy snowscape through yet a third. The incredible vistas dominated the horizons, making the incalculable value of this universe starkly plain, yet their very visibility only made the heavy tree cover even more frustrating. He could see all of them, even get dragons tghrough any of them he chose, but he couldn't get the beasts on the ground anywhere in this massively forested wilderness ... just as he couldn't even see the ground directly below him here!

Still, the visibility looking up ought to be considerably better, and despite the tree cover, Skirvon and Narshu had to know there were dragons overhead. Or they should have, anyway. Even if the canopy was getting in their way, the tangled scar of wind-downed trees where the original clash with the Sharonians had occurred was right next to them. It would never do to land a dragon, and even if Toralk had been able to get one down, he'd never have gotten it back into the air again. But Narshu should have been bright enough to post a lookout out in the middle of it, where the hole torn through the canopy would have allowed him to make visual contact.

We should have brought the gryphons, Toralk told himself irritably. He knew why they hadn't, of course.

In fact, it had been his own idea. After all, the total distance to be covered on this leg was only thirty damned miles. How the hells' much reconnaissance capability were they likely to need? And gryphons were ... problematical, at best, as a strike weapon without very exact pre-attack planning and programming from their handlers. They certainly weren't something anyone wanted to interject into the middle of a possibly confused infantry action!

But if he'd thought about it, he would've realized that he could at least have put a recon gryphon down through the Fallen Timbers opening to confirm what was happening there.

Oh, stop, Klayrman! he told himself. You figured from the get-go that if anything went seriously wrong out here, the entire operation would turn into an utter fiasco. So, either you were going to find Narshu sitting here in control of the position, or else the shit was going to be so deep it really wasn't going to matter. So there actually wasn't much point worrying about sending gryphons in on recon missions, was there?

He glowered down at the treetops for a few more seconds, then shook his head. He couldn't afford to hang around here any longer. Carthos' unicorns would be here within another hour or so, max, and he had his own mission to complete.

"Take us on!" he ordered his pilot.

"Yes, Sir!"

The command dragon broke out of its holding pattern and headed due north, and hundreds of steadily beating dragon wings followed in its wake.