Cain's squarely. Somewhere within him, there was something changing.
"Take it from an ex-has-been, big man! That's how it's going to be!"

* * * * *

The camp was dark and silent as the three men left the tent. They
walked as if from boredom, changing direction often as though at
random; yet they moved with a deceiving swiftness, and each step
brought them closer to the crude dome. The sound of their movements
was as a whisper that lost itself with the quiet murmur of the night
wind through the web of the jungle, and when they were close enough,
they halted, to wait; to watch.

There was the soft clink of metal on metal and the mutter of
dead-toned voices as the guard changed. Four hulking shapes walked at
last in a tired shamble from the structure housing the mentacom. Four
others prepared to take their posts.

And there was little to disturb the silence after that.

A muffled grunt, a choked off curse lost in a brief rustle of
undergrowth as though a sudden breeze had momentarily ruffled its
languid calm. And that was all.

Four breeders lay dead outside the dome.

Mason felt the warm stickiness of blood on his face, and the sting of
a deep cut somewhere upon it. He saw that Cain was straightening over
a mangled form; that Kriijorl had overcome odds of two to one. The
breeder at his own feet had died swiftly of a deftly broken neck, a
reddened dirk still clutched in his stiffening fingers.

Then they were inside the dome, and Kriijorl was placing the head-unit
of the mentacom over his matted yellow hair.

Mason watched in the half-light of the pulsing orange glow, listened
to the heaviness of Cain's breathing.

And he saw Kriijorl's face stiffen suddenly. With a swift movement the
Ihelian had handed him the head-unit, and with slippery fingers he
fumbled the device into place over his own head.

Before he could think he had given Cain all the warning that he had
needed.

"My God, it's Judith! Somehow she's--"

Kriijorl lunged too late. The man whom Judith's mentacom message had
branded as a spy was already through the dome's door, running.

Mason moved more quickly than the Ihelian then. Ahead in the jungle
there was a crashing sound, and Mason tripped suddenly himself as he
ran, fell. Kriijorl leapt past him in the darkness, as though he could
somehow see through it, and then Mason had regained his feet and was
following blindly.

And suddenly he thought of the empty