"Just how smart do you think those things are?" Chris asked, watching the lone buzz bomb bank to the left for another high circling pass.

Gaby looked at it and scowled.

"It never pays to underestimate the intelligence of anything you meet in Gaea. A good rule of thumb is to assume it's at least as smart as you and twice as mean."

"Then what's it doing up there?"

Gaby patted the barrel of her borrowed weapon. "Maybe it heard about the one Robin shot down." She looked at the sky once more and shook her head. "But I don't think that's the whole reason. I don't like it. I don't like it at all." She looked at Cirocco.

"Well, you've convinced me. I don't like it either."

Chris looked from one to the other, but neither had anything more to say.

Above, the buzz bomb continued to circle. It seemed to be waiting for something, but for what? Periodically the arrows of the wraiths rained down in flights of three or four dozen. Fired almost straight into the air, the arrows had lost their lethal speed by the time they reached the ground. One had hit Hornpipe in the hind leg. It penetrated five or six centimeters into the muscle: painful, but easily plucked out since the point was not barbed. The barrages seemed designed to keep them pinned down more than anything else. Chris had read somewhere that in a war, millions of rounds were expended for just that purpose. But if the wraiths wanted them to stay put, there must be a reason for it. They were preparing some surprise, or a larger force was on the way. In either case Chris thought the logical move was to make a dash for the cable. They surely would have done so if not for the presence of the buzz bomb.

"Do you think the wraiths and the bombs are working together?" he asked.

Gaby looked at him and did not answer immediately.

"I certainly doubt it," she said finally. "So far as I know, the wraiths have never worked with anybody but other wraiths, and not very well then." But when she looked back at the sky, she seemed thoughtful. She caressed the butt of Robin's gun and trained it on the distant target, keeping it in her sights, coaxing it down with soft, cajoling whispers.

"The arrows have stopped," Valiha said.

Chris had been aware of it for several minutes but had not mentioned it in the illogical fear that the barrage would begin again out of pure spite. But it was true; for the half hour since they had dug their community foxhole the arrows had come in at one- or two-minute intervals, and now they were not.

"Maybe I'm a pessimist," Gaby said, "but I don't think I like that either."

"They could be gone," Hornpipe ventured.

"And I could be a half-assed Titanide."

Chris could contain himself no longer. There was no point anymore in reminding himself that Gaby and Cirocco were much older, wiser, and more experienced in this sort of thing than he was.

"I think we should make a run for it," he said. "Hornpipe is already hurt. If we wait for them to start shooting again, it could get much worse." He waited, but though everyone was looking at him, no one said anything. He plunged ahead. "This is just a feeling, but I'm worried that the buzz bomb is waiting for something. Possibly reinforcements."

He might have expected the Wizard to call him on that one. He had nothing to base it on except the fact that the buzz bombs had acted in concert once, in the attack that had killed Psaltery.

To his surprise, Cirocco and Gaby were looking at each other, and they both looked troubled. He realized that beyond a certain base of knowledge, it was impossible for even the Wizard to know just what Gaea might throw at them next. So many things were possible, and even the things you thought you knew could change overnight as Gaea created new creatures, changed the rules that governed the old ones.

"That's a very lucky man saying that, Rocky," Gaby said.

"I know, I know. I'm not discounting his feelings at this point. I don't have much more to go on, myself. But it could be that's just what that bastard up there is waiting for. No matter how fast we go, he'll have time for at least one shot at us, and the ground out there is flat as a pancake."

"I don't think I'll be slowed down," Hornpipe said.

"I can take care of Robin," Hautbois said.

"Damn it, it's you Titanides who have the most to lose out there," Cirocco shouted. "I think I could dig into that sand in a few seconds, but when you people lie down flat, your butts stick up a meter and a half."

"I'd still rather make a run for it," Hornpipe said. "I don't fancy lying here and becoming a pincushion."

Chris was beginning to think no decision would be reached. Cirocco, faced with two unreasonable choices, had suddenly lost the assurance she had gained during the trip. He did not really think that leadership, in any sense but that of fostering morale, was her strong point. Gaby needed time to gear herself up to assume a role that was basically distasteful to her. Robin was paralyzed, and the Titanides had never shown a tendency to dispute the commands of first Gaby, then Cirocco. As for Chris, he had never been the captain of his childhood sports teams or the one who decided where he and his friends would go or what they would do when they got there. In his troubled adulthood no one had ever asked him to be the leader of anything. But an urge to take control was growing in him. He began to think that if something were not resolved very quickly, this might be his hour at last.

And then, in an instant, everything was changed. There was a deafening explosion, as if lightning had struck no more than ten meters away, followed by the hollow, receding rumble of a buzz bomb.

Everyone flattened reflexively. When Chris dared look up, he saw the silent approach of three more, skimming the tops of the dunes, shimmering and unreal in the heat-distorted air. He pressed his cheek to the sand but kept his eyes on them as they blossomed from points bisected by lines into voracious mouths with enormous wingspans. The wings had a slight camber, so that viewed head-on, they looked like frozen black bats.

They passed overhead at an altitude of fifty meters. Chris saw something fall from one of them. It was a cylindrical object that wobbled through the air to land behind a dune to his left. When the fountain of flame appeared, Chris could feel its heat on his skin.

"We're being bombed!" Cirocco cried out. She had half risen. Gaby tried to pull her down, but she was pointing to a third flight of buzz bombs coming from the northeast. They were far too high for the ramming tactic, and just before they were directly overhead, they lifted slightly, exposing ebony underbellies with landing legs drawn up tight. More of the deadly eggs were released. Hornpipe combined with Gaby to pull Cirocco down just as the bombs exploded, sending a shower of sand over the prone bodies.

"You were right!" Gaby shouted over her shoulder as she leaped to her feet. Chris took little comfort from it. He got up, turned to find Valiha, and was lifted bodily before he quite knew what was happening.

"To the cable!" Valiha called. Chris almost dropped his water gun as she sprang forward. He looked over his shoulder and saw a river of flame running down from the dune behind them, and out of it emerged all the denizens of hell.

There were hundreds of them, and most were on fire. The wraiths were disorganized clusters of tentacles, tangled snarls that bore no resemblance to anything Chris had seen. They were the size of large dogs. They scuttled like crabs, and just as rapidly, all at once with no wind-up. They were translucent, and so were the flames, so that, burning, they became writhing areas of violent light that cast no shadows. Chris's ears were tortured with an almost supersonic screeching and metallic pings like red-hot metal cooling.