Biggest shook his dusty head. Then he curled and rolled easily up to his feet, full of muscular grace, face a constricted mask. The pan’s eyes widened, showing white and red.

Ipan yearned to run. Only Hari’s rage held him in place.

But it was a static balance of forces. Ipan blinked as Biggest shuffled warily forward, the big pan’s caution a tribute to the damage Ipan had inflicted.

I need some advantage,Hari thought, looking around.

He could call for allies. Hunker paced nervously nearby.

Something told Hari that would be a losing strategy. Hunker was still a lieutenant to Biggest. Sheelah was too small to make a decisive difference. He looked at the other pans, all chattering anxiously-and decided. He picked up a rock.

Biggest grunted in surprise. Pans didn’t use rocks against each other. Rocks were only for repelling invaders. He was violating a social code.

Biggest yelled, waved to the others, pounded the ground, huffed angrily. Then he charged.

Hari threw the rock hard. It hit Biggest in the chest, knocked him down.

Biggest came up fast, madder than before. Ipan scurried back, wanting desperately to run. Hari felt control slipping from him-and saw another rock. Suitable size, two paces back. He let Ipan turn to flee, then stopped him at the stone. Ipan didn’t want to hold it. Panic ran through him.

Hari poured his rage into the pan, forced the long arms down. Hands grabbed at the stone, fumbled, got it. Sheer anger made Ipan turn to face Biggest, who was thundering after him. To Hari, Ipan’s arm came up in achingly slow motion. He leaned heavily into the pitch. The rock smacked Biggest in the face.

Biggest staggered. Blood ran into his eyes. Ipan caught the iron scent of it, riding on a prickly stench of outrage.

Hari made the trembling Ipan stoop down. There were some shaped stones nearby, made by the ferns to trim leaves from branches. He picked up one with a chipped edge.

Biggest shook his head, dizzy.

Ipan glanced at the sober, still faces of his troop. No one had ever used a rock against a troop member, much less Biggest. Rocks were for Strangers.

A long silence stretched. The pans stood rooted; Biggest grunted and peered in disbelief at the blood that spattered into his upturned hand.

Ipan stepped forward and raised the jagged stone, edge held outward. Crude, but a cutting edge.

Biggest flared his nostrils and came at Ipan. Ipan swept the rock through the air, barely missing Biggest’s jaw.

Biggest’s eyes widened. He huffed and puffed, threw dust, howled. Ipan simply stood with the rock and held his ground. Biggest kept up his anger display for a long while, but he did not attack.

The troop watched with intense interest. Sheelah came and stood beside Ipan. It would have been against protocols for a female to take part in male dominance rituals.

Her movement signaled that the confrontation was over. But Hunker was having none of that. He abruptly howled, pounded the ground, and scooted over to Ipan’s side.

Hari was surprised. With Hunker maybe he could hold the line against Biggest. He was not fool enough to think that this one stand-off would put Biggest to rest. There would be other challenges and he would have to fight them. Hunker would be a useful ally.

He realized that he was thinking in the slow, muted logic of Ipan himself. He assumed that the pursuit of pan status-markers was a given, the great goal of his life.

This revelation startled him. He had known that he was diffusing into Ipan’s mind, taking control of some functions from the bottom up, seeping through the deeply buried, walnut-sized gyrus. It had not occurred to him that the pan would diffuse into him. Were they now married to each other in an interlocked web that dispersed mind and self?

Hunker stood beside him, eyes glaring at the other pans, chest heaving. Ipan felt the same way, madly pinned to the moment. Hari realized that he would have to do something, break this cycle of dominance and submission which ruled Ipan at the deep, neurological level.

He turned to Sheelah. Get out? he signed.

No. No.Her pan face wrinkled with anxiety.

Leave.He waved toward the trees, pointed to her, then him.

She spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness.

It was infuriating. He had so much to say to her and he had to funnel it through a few hundred signs. He chippered in a high-pitched voice, trying vainly to force the pan lips and palate to do the work of shaping words.

It was no use. He had tried before, idly, but now he wanted to badly and none of the equipment worked. It couldn’t. Evolution had shaped brain and vocal chords in parallel. Pans groomed, people talked.

He turned back and realized that he had forgotten entirely about the status-setting. Biggest was glowering at him. Hunker stood guard, confused at his new leader’s sudden loss of interest in the confrontation-and to gesture at a mere fern, too.

Hari reared up as tall as he could and waved the stone. This produced the desired effect. Biggest inched back a bit and the rest of the troop edged closer. Hari made Ipan stalk forward boldly. By this time it did not take much effort, for Ipan was enjoying this enormously.

Biggest retreated. Ferns inched around Biggest and approached Ipan.

If only I could leave him to the terns’ delights,Hari thought.

He tried to bailout again. Nothing. The mechanism wasn’t working back at the Excursion Station. And something told him that it wasn’t going to get fixed.

He gave the edged stone to Hunker. The pan seemed surprised, but took it. Hari hoped the symbolism of the gesture would penetrate in some fashion, because he had no time left to spend on pan politics. Hunker hefted the rock and looked at Ipan. Then he cried in a rolling, powerful voice, tones rich in joy and triumph.

Hari was quite happy to let Hunker distract the troop. He took Sheelah by the arm and led her into the trees. No one followed.

He was relieved. If another pan had tagged along, it would have confirmed his suspicions. Vaddo might be keeping track.

Still, he reminded himself, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

The humans came swiftly, with clatters and booms.

He and Sheelah had been in the trees awhile. At Hari’s urging they had worked their way a few klicks away from the troop. Ipan and Sheelah showed rising anxiety at being separated from their troop. His teeth chattered and his eyes jerked anxiously at every suspicious movement. This was natural, for isolated pans were far more vulnerable.

The humans landing did not help.

Danger,Hari signed, cupping an ear to indicate the noise of flyers landing nearby.

Sheelah signed, Where go?

Away.

She shook her head vehemently. Stay here. They get us.

They would, indeed, but not in the sense she meant. Hari cut her off curtly, shaking his head. Danger. They had never intended to convey complicated ideas with their signs and now he felt bottled up, unable to tell her his suspicions.

Hari made a knife-across-throat gesture. Sheelah frowned.

He bent down and made Ipan take a stick. He had not been able to make Ipan write before, but necessity drove him now. Slowly he made the rough hands scratch out the letters. In soft loam he wrote WANT US DEAD.

Sheelah looked dumbfounded. Dors had probably been operating under the assumption that the failure to bailout was a temporary error. It had lasted too long for that.

The noisy, intrusive landing confirmed his hunch. No ordinary team would disturb the animals so much. And nobody would come after them directly. They would fix the immersion apparatus, where the real problem was.

THEY KEEP US HERE, KILL PANS, THAT KILLS US. BLAME ON ANIMALS?