There was no sign of the other flatbed and its crew so they were still following the convoy up ahead.

Toward morning Jonnie woke to find the truck stopped. The lights were on. The rain was still coming down. The driver was tapping Jonnie's shoulder and pointing to the road ahead. Jonnie sat up.

Somebody had hacked some vines and made a sign on the road. It was an arrow. From the clean cuts it appeared to have been done with a claymore or a bayonet. Psychlos would have shot the vines in two. So it was their own people. They'd left them a sign.

It was pointing to a roadside rest hut.

There was a clatter of weapons in the back as his crew made ready in case they dismounted. Jonnie pulled the rain cape around him, checked his belt gun, and picked up a mine lamp and his cane.

The rain drizzled down his neck as he got out.

The only thing different about the mine hut was evidence of recent foot traffic in front of it and a door slightly ajar. Jonnie pushed it open with his cane. The smell of human blood hit him!

There was a scurry of something in there. Jonnie drew his belt gun. But it was only a large rat that came charging out.

The Scot was behind him with an assault rifle. Two Russians were coming up.

Jonnie flooded the mine-lamp light into the place. There was something lying against the far wall. He could not make it out for a moment and stepped forward to find he was walking in blood.

He turned the mine lamp fully on the object. He went closer. It was hard to tell what it was beyond a mangle of shredded flesh. Then he saw a piece of cloth. Part of a...kilt!

It was Allison.

The Scot and the Russians stood petrified.

A closer examination showed that every artery and major vein had been left unsevered. Careful Psychlo claws had ripped away the flesh around them, slice by slice. The whole body had been shredded in such a fashion.

It must have taken hours for him to die.

They had left the throat and jaws until last and much of them still remained. Interrogation, Psychlo-style!

There was something in the remains of the hand. A sharp-edged tool Psychlos often carried in their pockets to clean motor points. A major artery on the inside of the leg was parted.

Allison had effected his own death. He must have seized the tool from an unguarded pocket and finished himself.

Could they have rescued him? Not in this forest and on this road, Jonnie thought sadly. The Psychlos must have started his torture at the compound and finished it here when they feared he might be dying. And they would have learned nothing of any help for their own convoy.

Allison had not even known of their own expedition. Ah, but Allison possibly could have told them the numbers and disposition of bases the humans now had. And Allison had probably talked, for there are limits to human endurance.

No, the remaining teeth were chipped with grinding, the jaws seemed to be frozen shut. Possibly Allison had not talked.

But it didn't matter whether he had talked or not. The convoy was doomed. It was doomed in the narrowed eyes of the Russians. It was doomed in the angry clench of the Scot's fist on a claymore.

After a little, the Scot went out and got a tarp and laid it gently over the mess that had been Allison. The Scot said, “We'll be back for ye, laddie. With blood on our blades, never fear!”

Jonnie walked back out into the rain. It came to him suddenly that the Brigantes now had a blood feud with Scotland.

The Psychlos? He was not too sure he wanted them alive now, and he had to make himself be very rational about it.

In the midmorning twilight of the forest, they caught up with the other flatbed. It was the small beginning of the string of mishaps that were to dog them that day.

Running in the dark, the other flatbed had come to a river, one of the many that wandered through this forest on a more or less westerly course. Their own direction of travel had been to the east of south. The driver, possibly overly tired, had not slacked speed. These ground drives could run on water, if it were reasonably smooth, as the sensors under them could sense water as well as ground. A teleportation drive didn't rest the weight of a vehicle on the surface but held it suspended. But the driver must have hit a bump on the bank and had an unlevel vehicle when he reached the water, and there it sat, nose submerged in the water, disabled.

The crew was sitting there now on the flying mine platform, back in under the trees. They had flown it and the mortar off and put themselves in a posture of defense. They were very happy to see Jonnie. Crocodiles were all over the river bank in front of them and a ring of the beasts were circling around the flying platform-nobody had dared shoot for fear of pulling the convoy back on them.

Jonnie made room for the second platform on his own flatbed and they flew theirs the short distance. The roar of the motors and the bellow and roar of the crocs were deafening, and Jonnie was afraid they might be close enough to the convoy tail to attract attention.

They left the half-submerged flatbed where it lay, and double-loaded with two platforms and two mortars, they crossed the river and continued their pursuit.

Shortly after, the road got better, due possibly to a change of soil. They picked up speed. They had had about a twelve– to fifteen-hour travel gap between the tail and themselves. But a convoy tends to be slower than a single vehicle, particularly in such rough terrain.

They were traveling so fast by early afternoon that they did not see that it was getting lighter ahead. Abruptly they burst out of the forest and onto a wide savannah.

Three miles ahead, there was the convoy tail!

With a prayer they had not been seen, they did a U-turn and got back in the trees.

Jonnie directed them eastward within the thin border of the forest over very rough going. Then they stopped.

The savannah before them was covered with grass and some shrub. Here and there cactus-like plants dotted the wide expanse.

Jonnie got up on the cab to get a better look. Aha! The defile of the ambush was just ahead of the convoy. The lead tank was entering it now. That ravine seemed to be a cut through the southern shoulder of a range of mountains.

Mountains! Up to the northeast, their crowns above the clouds, reared two peaks, enormously tall. Was that ice and snow?

There was something else strange. Then Jonnie had it. It wasn't raining! There was cloud, it was very hot and humid, there was not much sun, but it wasn't raining!

The Russians were buzzing, looking at the convoy. It was impressive. Over fifty vehicles, most of them flatbeds loaded to the last pound with ammunition, fuel, and breathe-gas, were crawling along like some enormous black snake. Three, no five, tanks! The one in the lead was a Basher “Bash Our Way to Glory.” A nearly impregnable armored vehicle. There was another tank in the middle and three tanks at the end. Now that their own motor was off, the roar of that convoy even at this distance was like thunder.

If the ambush were in place, the ball would open when that whole convoy was in the defile and the mortar up front closed the road in front of them.

Jonnie turned to the Russian officer he had brought. The man spoke hardly any English at all, but with signs and a little relief map drawn in the dirt, Jonnie got across what he wanted him to do. The southern side of the defile ended in a knoll. The right side of the defile was a steep hill, a cliff in

fact. If one of the flying platforms could just get behind that knoll and wait until all those vehicles were in the ravine, it could lob mortar shells into this end of the cliff and start an avalanche that would close the back door.