White hands, black hands with pink palms, yellow hands; blue jackets, orange dresses, gray coats; straight blonde hair, brown hair, fuzzy black hair; languages, languages, languages: all saying, “Hello Jonnie!"

He looked up apprehensively at the bright blue sky. For an instant he was startled by a drone...no, it was a recon drone; they had a lot of them constantly patrolling, watchful for any invader.

The voices were a continuous roar. A woman was pushing something into his hand– a bouquet of wildflowers-and she was shouting, “For Chrissie!" He nodded to thank her and didn't know what to do with them, so he put them in his belt.

The people of Earth, their hopes kindled, could rise and be alive again.

He felt more guilty than ever. They didn't know he might have failed. Aside from not enjoying adulation, he also felt he certainly didn't deserve it, not all this.

Robert the Fox had worked his horse up beside him. He saw that Jonnie was troubled. Robert didn't want the first day out spoiled. “Wave to them a bit, laddie. Just raise your left hand and nod.”

Jonnie did and the crowd went wild.

They had been working their way up the hill toward the old Chinko quarters. There was the morgue over there. There was the dome behind which Terl used to have his quarters and where so often he had stood out the night....

Jonnie stared. There was Terl in a cage with a collar on. Terl was capering and leaping about. A vague unease took Jonnie and he persuaded the Scot boy to lead him over toward it.

There was plenty of time. His business with the Chamco brothers was important but a few minutes would make no difference. He had certainly better see whether he could find out what Terl was up to.

The size of the throng was growing. The bulk of the trainees at the Academy, when they heard Jonnie had appeared at the compound, demanded a few hours off instantly, and the school master, understanding but unable to do anything about it anyway, had let them off and here they were in a swarm. More people were in from New Denver. All work had stopped and machines were now deserted in the underground shops at the compound. Several Council members appeared on the outskirts of the crowd. They included Brown

Limper Staffor, chief of this continent. More than six hundred people were now there. The din was nearly deafening.

Terl saw the animal coming toward the cage and capered more violently.

Jonnie saw the area was not much changed or damaged by the battle. The geysering water had cut a few furrows on the plateau in its runoff; a bar or two of the cage was nicked by bullets; water had tended to wash the cage clean rather than damage it. He looked up to the connector box on the pole and saw it had not been changed: the bars were electrically charged in the same way, by the same cables. Someone had put a barrier of mine fencing so people could not reach the bars. Yes, it was much the same cage except that green grass grew in tufts around the perimeter.

His attention came away from the crowd. How many months had he been inside looking out, and how many nights had he stood outside looking in. A lot of nightmare was mixed up in that.

He wanted to question Terl. He flinched from talking through those bars again. A normal voice volume could not reach anywhere in this hubbub and he was not about to sit here shouting. He caught the eye of a sentry and beckoned him over. But instead of the sentry coming, the Compound Commander pushed through to him.

Jonnie saw that the man was an Argyll by his kilt. He leaned over to him to be heard: “Would you please turn off the electricity up there and have a guard open the door of the cage?”

“What?” exclaimed the Compound Commander in astonishment.

Jonnie thought he might not have heard and repeated his request. Then he saw the man was refusing. There was always a little friction between the Argylls and the Clanfearghus-indeed it had often erupted in clan warfare, and he recalled that only his visit to Scotland had interrupted the last war. Jonnie was not going to argue with the man. And he wasn't going to yell at Terl through bars.

Robert the Fox looked at Terl, the cage, the Argyll, the crowd and the connector box on the pole. He reached out to check Jonnie. But Jonnie had already leaned forward and swung off his horse. Colonel Ivan breasted some people aside and thrust the knobkerrie into Jonnie's hand.

Hobbling, Jonnie made his way to the exterior pole switch and pulled it open, having to balance against the pole to free his hand. It popped an electric spark as the bus bar opened. The crowd parted for him when they saw in which direction he was trying to walk. Suddenly they became very quiet, the silence starting from where Jonnie was and going out like a wave to the very outskirts.

The cage sentry had not left his post in all this hubbub. He carried the door keys in his belt. Jonnie pulled the keys out of the guard's belt.

There was a ripple of excited questioning from people and then tense silence.

Terl took the opportunity to roar ferociously.

The Compound Commander started to rush forward but found himself halted by the huge hand of Colonel Ivan who had simply leaned down from his horse. The colonel wanted no extra bodies in a field of fire. The other Cossacks fanned out abruptly: there was the sharp clatter of assault rifle bolts being cocked, and four rifles were leveled at Terl in the cage. Some

Scots sprinted to the roofs of the old Chinko quarters and the rush of running feet was replaced by the snicks of rifles being cocked and leveled on Terl.

The crowd surged back away from the barriers.

Jonnie heard the rifle bolts. He turned, speaking in a normal voice for it was now quiet except for the roaring of Terl, “A bullet could ricochet off these bars and go into the crowd so please put your guns up.” He loosened the blast pistol in the holster and then as an afterthought checked to see that it was cocked and on “Stun” and “No Flame.” But he was convinced he was in no danger. Terl had a collar on and was chained, and while it wouldn't be wise to get within physical reach of him, the only thing Terl would try would be some antic from the apparent mood he was in.

The door lock worked more easily than it used to. Someone must have oiled it. He opened it. There was an intake of breath from the crowd. Jonnie's attention was not for the crowd.

Terl roared.

“Quit clowning, Terl,” said Jonnie.

Terl promptly did and hunkered down against the back wall, his amber eyes evilly amused. “Well, hello, animal.”

The parson's voice rapped out from somewhere in the crowd: “He is not an animal!” Jonnie hadn't realized the parson spoke Psychlo.

“I see,” said Terl to Jonnie, “that somebody clawed you up. Oh, well, it happens when one is stupid. How'd it happen, rat brain?”

“Be civil, Terl. What do you think you are doing in this cage?”

“Oh, that Chinko accent!” said Terl. “Try as I would, I could never make you into a polished, literate being. Very well, if it's courtesy you want and as you speak Chinko, why, forgive this ignorant intrusion of speech into your lordly earbones-'

He was going to go on with a string of the old Chinko abasements. Then he laughed viciously.

“Answer the questions, Terl."

“Why, I’m ," and he said a Psychlo word Jonnie had never heard before.

Jonnie had had another purpose in coming in here. He wanted to see what Terl may have set up that somebody else had missed. He hobbled around the cage, staying wide of Terl and keeping part of an eye on him. He looked at the inside walls below the bars, looked into the pool. Terl had a small pile of things wrapped in a tarpaulin. Jonnie motioned with his left hand for Terl to back up and went over to the loose package. He knelt and flipped it open.