Good, she thought. It is good to know he lived through all that killing.

Now if only he follows the plan and stays out of sight from now on!

Chims were emerging from the toppled trees, some hurrying to help Dr. Soo with the injured. Others took up positions around the disabled machines.

Benjamin was looking to the northwest, where a few stars faded before the dawn. Faint, warlike rumblings could be heard coming from that direction. “I wonder how Fiben and the city boys are doin’ at their end,” he said.

For the first time Athaclena set her corona free. Released at last, it crafted kuhunnagarra … the essence of indeterminacy postponed. “It is beyond our grasp,” she told him. “Here, in this place, is where We act.”

With a raised hand she signaled her hillside units forward.

Smoke rose from the Valley of the Sind. Scattered fires had broken out in wheat fields and among the orchards, injecting soot into a morning fast growing pale and dim.

A hundred meters high in the air, perched on the rough wooden frame of a handmade kite, Fiben used field glasses to scan the scattered conflagrations. The fighting had not gone at all well here in the Sind. The operation had been intended as a quick hit-and-run uprising — a way to hurt the invader. But it had turned into a rout.

And now the cloud deck was dropping, as if overladen with dark smoke and the sinking of their hopes. Soon he wouldn’t be able to see beyond a kilometer or so.

“Fiben!”

Below and to the left, not far from the kite’s blocky shadow, Gailet Jones waved up at him. “Fiben, do you see anything of C group? Did they get the Gubru guard post?”

He shook his head, exaggeratedly.

“No sign of them!” he called. “But there’s dust from ” enemy armor!”

“Where? How much? We’ll give you more slack so you can get a better—”

“No way!” he shouted. “I’m comin’ down now.”

“But we need data—”

He shook his head emphatically. “There are patrols all over the place! We’ve got to get out of here!” Fiben motioned to the chims controlling his tether rope.

Gailet bit her lip and nodded. They started reeling him in.

As the attack collapsed and their communications unraveled, Gailet had only become more frantic for information. Frankly, he couldn’t blame her. He, too, wanted to know what was happening. He had friends out there! But right now it might be better to think of their own skins.

And it all started so well, he thought as his craft slowly descended. The uprising had begun when chim workers employed at Gubru construction sites set off explosives carefully emplaced over the last week. At five of the eight target sites, satisfying fiery plumes had risen to meet the dawn sky.

But then the advantages of technology began to be seen. It -had been mind-numbing, witnessing how quickly the automated defense systems of the enemy responded, scything through advancing teams of irregular fighters before their assaults could barely begin. To his knowledge not a single of the more important objectives had been taken, let alone held.

All told, things did not look good at all.

Fiben was forced to luff the kite, spilling air as the crude glider dropped. The ground rushed up, and he gathered his legs for the impact. It came with a jarring thud. He heard one of the wooden spars break as the wing took up most of the shock.

Well, better a spar than a bone. Fiben grunted as he undid his harness and wrestled free of the heavy homespun fabric. A real parasail, with composite struts and duracloth wings, would have been an awful lot better. But they still didn’t know what it was about some manufactured goods that the invader was able to home in on. So he had insisted on homemade — and clumsy — substitutes.

The big, scarred chim named Max stood watch nearby, a captured Gubru laser rifle in one hand. He offered a hand. “You okay, Fiben?”

“Yeah, Max, fine. Let’s get this thing broken down.”

His crew hurried to disassemble the kite and get it under the cover of the nearby trees. Gubru floaters and fighters had been whistling overhead ever since the ill-fated foray had begun before dawn. The kite was almost insignificant, virtually invisible to radar or infrared. Still, they had surely been pushing their luck using it in daylight like this.

Gailet met them at the edge of the orchard. She had been reluctant to believe in the Gubru secret weapon — the enemy’s ability to detect manufactured goods. But she had gone along partway at his insistence. The chimmie wore a half-length brown robe over shorts and a homespun tunic. She clutched a notebook and stylus to her breast.

Getting her to leave behind her portable data screen had taken a major effort of persuasion.

If Fiben had imagined for a moment that he saw relief on her face when he picked himself out of the wreckage, he stood corrected. She was all business now.

“What did you see? How heavy were the enemy reinforcements from Port Helenia? How close did Yossy’s team get to the skynet battery?”

Good chens and chimmies have died this morning, but all she seems to care about is her damned data!

The space-defense strongpoint had been one of several targets of opportunity. Until now the few piddling ambushes in the mountains had hardly been enough to raise the enemy’s notice. Fiben had insisted that the first raid would have to count big. They would never find the enemy so unprepared again.

And yet Gailet had planned the operation in the Vale of Sind around her observers, not the fighting units. To her, information was more important than any harm they might do to the enemy. And to Fiben’s surprise the general had agreed.

He shook his head. “There’s a lot of smoke over in that direction, so I guess maybe Yossy accomplished something.” Fiben dusted himself off. There was a tear in his homespun overalls. “I saw plenty of enemy reinforcements moving about. It’s all up here.” He tapped his head.

Gailet grimaced, obviously wishing she could hear it all right now. But the plan had been to be away well before this. It was getting awfully late. “Okay, we’ll debrief you later. By now this rendezvous must be compromised.”

You gotta be kidding, Fiben thought, sarcastically. He turned. “You guys got that thing buried yet?”

The three chims in the kite team were kicking leaves over a low mound under the bulging roots of a fook sap tree. “All done, Fiben.” They began collecting their hunting rifles stacked beneath another tree.

Fiben frowned. “I think we’d better get rid of those. They’re Terran-make.”

Gailet shook her head emphatically. “And replace them with what? If we’re stuck with just our six or ten captured Gubru lasers, what can we accomplish? I’m willing to attack the enemy stark naked if I have to, but not unarmed!” Her brown eyes were hot.

Fiben felt his own anger. “You’re willing to attack. Why not go after the damn birds with a sharpened pencil then! That’s your favorite weapon.”

“That’s not fair! I’m taking all these notes because—”

She never finished the remark. Max interrupted, shouting, “Take cover!”

The sudden whistle of split air became a rocking boom as something white flashed past nearly at treetop level. Fallen leaves whirled and floated out upon the meadow in its wake. Fiben did not remember diving behind a knotted tree root, but he peered over it in time to see the alien craft rise and come about at the crest of the far hill, then begin its return run.

He felt Gailet nearby. Max was to the left, already high in the branches of another tree. The others had flattened themselves over to the right, closer to the verge of the orchard.

Fiben saw one of them raise his weapon as the scoutcraft approached again.

“No!” he shouted, realizing he was already too late.

The edge of the meadow erupted. Gobbets of earth were thrown skyward, as if by angry demons. In the blink of an eye the maelstrom ripped through the nearest trees, propelling fragments of leaves, branches, dirt, flesh, and bone through the air in all directions.