The loss was intense and personal, and quite ancient at the heart of the race. True, the feathers sprouting under its white down were now red. But there were names for Gubru queens who achieved their femaleness without the joyous consent and aid of two others, two who share with her the pleasure, the honor, the glory.

Her greatest ambition had come true, and it was a barren prospect, a lonely and bitter one.

The Suzerain of Propriety tucked her beak under her arm, and in the way of her own people, softly wept.

“Vampire plants,” was how Lydia McCue summed it up. She stood watch with two of her Terragens Marines, their skins glistening under painted layers of monolayer camouflage. The stuff supposedly protected them from infrared detection and, one could hope, the enemy’s new resonance detector as well.

Vampire plants? Athaclena thought. Indeed. It is a good metaphor.

She poured about a liter of a bright red fluid into the dark waters of a forest pool, where hundreds of small vines came together in one of the ubiquitous nutrient trading stations.

Elsewhere, far away, other groups were performing similar rituals in little glades. It reminded Athaclena of wolfling fairy tales, of magical rites in enchanted forests and mystical incantations. She would have to remember to tell her father of the analogy, if she ever got the chance.

“Indeed,” she said to Lieutenant McCue. “My chims drained themselves nearly white to donate enough blood for our purposes. There are certainly more subtle ways to do this, but none possible in the time available.”

Lydia answered with a grunt and a nod. The Earth woman was still in conflict with herself. Logically, she probably agreed that the results would have been catastrophic had Major Prathachulthorn been left in charge, weeks ago. Subsequent events had proven Athaclena and Robert right.

But Lieutenant McCue could not disassociate herself so easily from her oath. Until recently the two women had begun to become friends, talking for hours and sharing their different longings for Robert Oneagle. But now that the truth about the mutiny and kidnapping of Major Prathachulthorn was out, a gulf lay between them.

The red liquid swirled among the tiny rootlets. Clearly, the semi-mobile vines were already reacting, drawing in the new substances.

There had been no time for subtlety, only a brute force approach to the idea that had struck her suddenly, soon after hearing Sylvie’s report. Hemoglobin. The Gubru had detectors that can trace resonance against the primary constituent of Earthling blood. At such sensitivity, the devices must be frightfully expensive!

A way had to be found to counteract the new weapon or she might be left the only sapient being in the mountains. The one possible approach had been drastic, and symbolic of the demands a nation made of its people. Her own unit of guerrillas now tottered around, so depleted by her demands for raw blood that some of the chims had changed her nickname. Instead of ‘the general’ they had taken to referring to Athaclena as ‘the countess,’ and then grimacing with outthrust canines.

Fortunately, there were still a few chim technicians — mostly those who had helped Robert devise little microbes to plague enemy machinery — who could help her with this slapdash experiment.

Bind hemoglobin molecules to trace substances sought by certain vines. Hope the new combination still meets their approval. And pray the vines transfer it along fast enough.

A chim messenger arrived and whispered to Lieutenant McCue. She, in turn, approached Athaclena.

“The major is nearly ready,” the dark human woman told her. Casually, she added, “And our scouts say they detect aircraft heading this way.”

Athaclena nodded.

“We are finished here. Let us depart. The next few hours will tell.”

“There! We note a concentration, gathering, accumulation of the impudent enemy. The wolflings flee in a predictable direction. And now we may strike, pounce, swoop to conquer!”

Their special detectors made plain the quarry’s converging trails through the forest. The Suzerain of Beam and Talon spoke a command, and an elite brigade of Gubru soldiery stooped upon the little valley where their fleeing prey was trapped, at bay.

“Captives, hostages, new prisoners to question… these I want!”

The bait was invisible. Their lure consisted of little more than a barely traceable flow of complex molecules, coursing through the intricate, lacy network of jungle vegetation. In fact, Major Prathachulthorn had no way of knowing for certain that it was there at all. He felt awkward laying enfilade and ambush on the slopes overlooking a series of small ponds in an otherwise unoccupied forest vale.

And yet, there was something symmetrical, almost poetic about the situation. If this trick by some chance actually worked, there would be the joy of battle on this morn.

And if it did not, then he intended to have the satisfaction of throttling a certain slender alien neck, whatever the effects on his career and his life.

“Feng!” he snapped at one of his Marines. “Don’t scratch.” The Marine corporal quickly checked to make sure he had not rubbed off any of the monolayer coating that gave his skin a sickly greenish cast. The new material had been mixed quickly, in hopes of blocking the hemoglobin resonance the enemy were using to track Terrans under the forest canopy. Of course, their intelligence on that matter might be completely wrong. Prathachulthorn had only the word of chims, and that damned Tym -

“Major!” someone whispered. It was a neo-chimpanzee trooper, looking even more uncomfortable in green-tinted fur. He motioned quickly from midway up a tall tree. Prathachulthorn acknowledged and sent a hand gesture rippling in both directions.

Well, he thought, some of these local chims are turning into pretty fair irregulars, I’ll admit.

A series of sonic booms rocked the foliage on all sides, followed by the shriek of approaching aircraft. They swept up the narrow valley at treetop level, following the hilly terrain with computer-piloted precision. At just the right moment, Talon Soldiers and their accompanying drones spilled out of long troop carriers to fall serenely toward a certain jungle grove.

The trees there were unique in only one way, in their hunger for a certain trace chemical brought to them by far-reaching, far-trading vines. Only now those vines had delivered something else as well. Something drawn from Earthly veins.

“Wait,” Prathachulthorn whispered. “Wait for the big boys.”

Sure enough, soon they all felt the effects of approaching gravities, and on a major scale. Over the horizon appeared a Gubru battleship, cruising serenely several hundred meters above.

Here was a target well worth anything they had to sacrifice. Up until now, though, the problem had been how to know in advance where one would come. Flicker-swivvers were wonderful weapons, but not very portable. One had to set them up well in advance. And surprise was essential.

“Wait,” he murmured as the great vessel drew nearer. “Don’t spook “em.”

Down below, the Talon Soldiers were already chirping in dismay, for no enemy awaited them, not even any chim civilians to capture and send above for questioning. At any moment, one of the troopers would surely guess the truth. Still, Major Prathachulthorn urged, “Wait just a minute more, until—”

One of the chim gunners must have lost patience. Suddenly, lightning lanced upward from the heights on the opposite side of the valley. In an instant, three more streaks converged. Prathachulthorn ducked and covered his head.