“Hm.” Robert bent to examine the Nearest. “Summer’s on its way out, soon. All this heat is already drying the uppermost plates. By mid-autumn, when the east winds come blowing down the Mulun range, the caps will be as thin and light as wafers. Did I ever tell you they were seed pod carriers? The wind will catch them, and they’ll blow away into the sky like a cloud of butterflies.”

“Oh, yes. I remember you did mention it.” Athaclena nodded thoughtfully. “But did not you also say that—”

She was interrupted by a sharp call.

“General! Captain Oneagle!”

A group of chims hurried into view, puffing along the narrow forest trail. Two were members of their escort squad, but the third was Benjamin! He looked exhausted. Obviously he had run all the way from the caves to meet them.

Athaclena felt Robert grow tense with sudden worry. But with the advantage of her corona, she already knew that Ben was not bringing dire news. There was no emergency, no enemy attack.

And yet, her chim aide clearly was confused and distraught. “What is it, Benjamin?” she asked.

He mopped his brow with a homespun handkerchief. Then he reached into another pocket and drew out a small black cube. “Sers, our courier, young Petri, has finally returned.”

Robert stepped forward. “Did he reach the refuge?”

Benjamin nodded. “He got there, all right, and he’s brought a message from th’ Council. This is it here.” He held out the cube.

, “A message from Megan?” Robert sounded breathless ashe looked down at the recording.

“Yesser. Petri says she’s well, and sends her best.”

“But — but that’s great!” Robert whooped. “We’re in contact again! We aren’t alone anymore!”

“Yesser. That’s true enough. In fact…” Athaclena watched Benjamin struggle to find the right words. “In fact, Petri brought more than a message. There are five people waitingfor you, back at the caves.”

Both Robert and Athaclena blinked. “Five humans?”

Benjamin nodded, but with a look that implied he wasn’t exactly sure that term was the most applicable. “Terragens Marines, ser.”

“Oh,” Robert said. Athaclena merely maintained her silence, kenning more closely than she was listening.

Benjamin nodded. “Professionals, ser. Five humans. I swear, it’s incredible how it feels after all this time without — I mean, with only th’ two of you until now. It’s made the chims pretty hyper right at the moment. I think it might be best if you both came on back as quick as possible.”

Robert and Athaclena spoke almost at once.

“Of course.”

“Yes, let’s go at once.”

Almost imperceptibly, the closeness between Athaclena and Robert altered. They had been holding hands when Benjamin ran up. Now they did not renew that grasp. It seemed inappropriate as they marched along the narrow trail. A new unknown factor had slipped in between them. They did not have to look at each other to know what the other was thinking.

For better or for worse, things had changed.

Major Prathachulthorn pored over the readouts that lay like blown leaves spread across the plotting table. The chaos was only apparent, Robert realized as he watched the small, dark man work, for Prathachulthorn never needed to search for anything. Whatever it was he wanted, somehow he found it with barely a flick of his shadowed eyes and a quick grasp of his callused hands.

At intervals the Marine officer glanced over to a holo-tank and muttered subvocally into his throat microphone. Data whirled in the tank, shifting and turning in subtle rearrangements at his command.

Robert waited, standing at ease in front of the table of rough-cut logs. It was the fourth time Prathachulthorn had summoned him to answer tersely phrased questions. Each time Robert grew more awed by the man’s obvious precision and skill.

Clearly, Major Prathachulthorn was a professional. In only a day he and his small staff had started to bring order to the partisans’ makeshift tactical programs, rearranging data, sifting out patterns and insights the amateur insurgents had never even imagined.

Prathachulthorn was everything their movement had needed. He was exactly what they had been praying for.

No question about it. Robert hated the man’s guts. Now he was trying to figure out exactly why.

I mean, besides the fact that he’s making, me stand here in silence until he’s good and ready. Robert recognized that for a simple way of reinforcing the message of who was boss. Knowing that helped him take it with good grace, mostly.

The major looked every inch the compleat Terragens commando, even though his sole military adornment was an insignia of rank at his left shoulder. Not even in full dress uniform would Robert ever look as much a soldier as Prathachulthorn did right now, draped in ill-fitting cloth woven by gorillas under a sulfrous volcano.

The Earthman spent some time drumming his fingers on the table. The repetitious thumping reminded Robert of the headache he’d been trying to fight off with biofeedback for an hour or more. For some reason the technique wasn’t working this time. He felt closed in, claustrophobic, short of breath. And seemed to be getting worse.

At last Prathachulthorn looked up. To Robert’s surprise the man’s first remark could be taken as something distantly akin to a compliment.

“Well, Captain Oneagle,” Prathachulthorn said. “I confess to having feared things would be much, much worse than I find them here.’

“I’m relieved to hear it, sir.”

Prathachulthorn’s eyes narrowed, as if he suspected an ever-so-thin veneer of sarcasm in Robert’s voice. “To be precise,” he went on, “I feared I would discover that you had lied in your report to the Council in Exile, and that I would have to shoot you.”

Robert suppressed an impulse to swallow and managed to maintain an impassive expression. “I’m glad that did not turn out to be necessary, sir.”

“So am I. I’m sure your mother would have been irritated, for one thing. As it is, and bearing in mind that yours was a strictly amateur enterprise, I’m willing to credit you with a good effort here.”

Major Prathachulthorn shook his head. “No, that’s unfairly restrained. Let me put it this way. There is much I’d have done otherwise, had I been here. But in light of how poorly the official forces have fared, you and your chims have performed very well indeed.”

Robert felt a hollowness in his chest begin to relax. “I’m sure the chims will be glad to hear it, sir. I’d like to point out, though, that I was not sole leader here. The Tymbrimi Athaclena carried a good part of that burden.”

Major Prathachulthorn’s expression turned sour. Robert wasn’t sure if it was because Athaclena was a Galactic, or because Robert, as a militia officer, should have retained all authority himself.

“Ah, yes. The ‘General.’ ” His indulgent smile was patronizing, at the very least. He nodded. “I will mention her assistance in my report. Ambassador Uthacalthing’s daughter is clearly a resourceful young alien. I hope she is willing to continue helping us, in some capacity.”

“The chims worship her, sir,” Robert pointed out.

Major Prathachulthorn nodded. As he looked over toward the wall, his voice took on a thoughtful tone. “The Tymbrimi mystique, I know. Sometimes I wonder if the media knows what the hell it’s doing, creating such ideas. Allies or no allies, our people have got to understand that Earthclan will always be fundamentally alone. We’ll never be able to fully trust anything Galactic. “-

Then, as if he felt he might have said too much, Prathachulthorn shook his head and changed the subject. “Now about future operations against the enemy—”

“We’ve been thinking about that, sir. Their mysterious surge of activity in the mountains seems to have ended, though for how long we don’t know. Still, there are some ideas we’ve been batting around. Things we might use against them when and if they come back.”