“…Puna bliv’t mannennering…”

“…what you are doing there! Good clients do not play with what they cannot understand!”

Then the officer caught sight of the opened niche — and Fiben’s hand stuffing something into a coverall pocket.

“Stop! Show us what…”

Fiben did not wait for the soldier to finish the command. He scrambled up the cairn. The blue globe throbbed as he passed, and in his mind terror was briefly pushed aside by a powerful, dry laughter as he dove over the top and slid down the other side. Laser bolts sizzled over his head, chipping fragments from the stone structure as he landed on the ground with a thump Damn Tymbrimi sense of humor, was his only thought as he scrambled to his feet and dashed in the only possible direction, down the protective shadow of the cairn, straight toward the sheer cliff.

Max dumped a load of disabled Gubru guard disks onto the rooftop near Gailet Jones. “We yanked out their receivers,” he reported. “Still, we’ll have to be damn careful with’em.”

Nearby, Professor Oakes clicked his stopwatch. The elderly chen grunted in satisfaction. “Their air cover has been withdrawn, again. Apparently they’ve decided it was an accident after all.”

Reports kept coming in. Gailet paced nervously, occasionally looking out over the roof parapet at the conflagration and confusion in Sea Bluff Park. We didn’t plan anything like this! she thought. It could be great luck. We’ve learned so much.

Or it could be a disaster. Hard to tell yet.

If only the enemy doesn’t trace it to us.

A young chen, no more than twelve years old, put down his binoculars and turned to Gailet. “Semaphore reports all but one of our forward observers has come back in, ma’am. No word from that one, though.”

“Who is it?” Gailet asked.

“Uh, it’s that militia officer from th’ mountains. Fiben Bolger, ma’am.”

“I might have guessed!” Gailet sighed.

Max looked up from his pile of alien booty, his face a grimace of dismay. “I saw him. When the fence failed, he jumped over it and went running toward the fire. Um, I suppose I should’ve gone along, to keep an eye on him.”

“You should have done no such thing, Max. You were exactly right. Of all the foolish stunts!” She sighed. “I might have known he would do something like this. If he gets captured, and gives us away …” She stopped. There was no point in worrying the others more than necessary.

Anyway, she thought a little guiltily, the arrogant chen might only have been killed.

She bit her lip, though, and went to the parapet to look out in the direction of the afternoon sun.

Behind Fiben came the familiar zip zip of the blue globe firing again. The Gubru squawked less than he might have expected; these were soldiers, after all. Still, they made quite a racket and their attention was diverted. Whether the cache defender was acting to cover his retreat or merely harassing the invaders on general principles, Fiben couldn’t speculate. In moments he was too busy even to think about it.

One look over the edge was enough to make him gulp. The cliff wasn’t a glassy face, but neither was it the sort of route a picnicker would choose to get down to the shining sands below.

The Gubru were shooting back at the blue globe now, but that couldn’t last long. Fiben contemplated the steep dropoff. All told, he would much rather have lived a long, quiet life as country ecologist, donated his sperm samples when required, maybe joined a real fun group family, taken up scrabble.

“Argh!” he commented in man dialect, and stepped off over the grassy verge.

It was a four-handed job, for sure. Gripping a knob with the tingers and tumb of his left foot, he swung way out to grab a second handhold and managed to lower himself to another ledge. A short stretch came easily, then it seemed he needed the grasping power of every extremity. Thank Goodall Uplift had left his people with this ability. If he’d had feet like a human’s, he surely would have fallen by now!

Fiben was sweating, feeling around for a foothold that had to be there, when suddenly the cliff face seemed to lash out, batting away at him. An explosion sent tremors through the rock. Fiben’s face ground into the gritty surface as he clutched for dear life, his feet kicking and dangling in midair.

Of all the damn… He coughed and spat as a plume of dust floated down from the cliff edge. In peripheral vision he glimpsed bright bits of incandescent stone flying out through the sky, spinning down to hissing graves in the sea below.

The root-grubbing, cairn must’ve blown!

Then something whizzed by his head. He ducked but still caught a flash of blueness and heard, within his head, a chuckling of alien laughter. The hilarity reached a crescendo as something seemed to brush the back of his head, then faded as the blue light zipped off again, dropping to skip away southward, just above the waves.

Fiben wheezed and sought frantically for a foothold. At last he found purchase, and he was able to lower himself to the next fairly safe resting place. He wedged himself into a narrow cleft, out of sight from the clifftop. Only then did he spare the extra energy to curse.

Some day, Uthacalthing. Some day.

Fiben wiped dust from his eyes and looked down.

He had made it about halfway to the beach. If he ever reached the bottom safely it should be an easy walk to the closed amusement park at the northwestern corner of Aspinal Bay. From that point it ought to be simple to disappear into back alleys and side streets.

The next few minutes would tell. The survivors of the Gubru patrol might assume he had been killed in the explosion, blown out to sea along with debris from the cache. Or perhaps they’d figure he would have fled by some other route. After all, only an idiot would try to climb down a bluff like this one without equipment.

Fiben hoped he had it thought out right, because if they came down here looking for him his goose was as surely cooked as those birds in the chancery fire.

Just ahead the sun was settling toward the western horizon. Smoke from this afternoon’s conflagration had spread far enough to contribute brilliant umber and crimson hues to the gathering sunset. Out on the water he saw a few boats, here and there. Two cargo barges steamed slowly toward the distant islands — low, brown shapes barely visible on the decks — no doubt carrying food for the hostage human population.

Too bad some of the salts in the seawater on Garth were toxic to dolphins. If the third race of Terragens had been able to establish itself here, it would have been a lot harder for the enemy to isolate the inhabitants of the archipelago so effectively. Besides, ’fins had their own way of thinking. Perhaps they’d have come up with an idea or two Fiben’s people had missed.

The southern headlands blocked Fiben’s view of the port. But he could see traces of gleaming silver, Gubru warships or tenders involved in the construction of space defenses.

Well, Fiben thought, nobody’s come for me yet. No hurry, then. Catch your breath before trying the rest of the trip.

This had been the easy part.

Fiben reached into his pocket and pulled out the shimmering thread he had found in the niche. It might easily be a spider web, or something similarly insignificant. But it was the only thing he had to show for his little adventure. He didn’t know how he would tell Athaclena that his efforts had come only to this. Well, not only this. There was also the destruction of the Tymbrimi Diplomatic Cache. That’d be another thing to have to explain.

He took out his monocular and unscrewed the lens cover. Fiben carefully wrapped the thread into the cap and replaced it. He put the magnifier away.