the bait, to
lure the first detachment into the center of town....

"Well?" Norman Lake asked, his pale eyes restless with his hunger for
violence. "There's our ship--when do we take her?"

"Just as soon as we get them outside it," he said. "We'll use the plan
we first had--wait until they send a full force to rescue the first
detachment and then hit them with everything we have."

His black, white-nosed mocker was standing in the open doorway and
watching the hurrying men and prowlers with worried interest: Tip, the
great-great-great-great grandson of the mocker that had died with Howard
Lake north of the plateau. He reached down to pick him up and set him on
his shoulder, and said:

"Jim?"

"The longbows are ready," Tip's treble imitation of Jim Chiara's voice
answered. "We'll black out their searchlights when the time comes."

"Andy?" he asked.

"The last of us for this section are coming in now," Andy Taylor
answered.

He made his check of all the subleaders, then looked up to the roof to
ask, "All set, Jimmy?"

Jimmy Stevens' grinning face appeared over the edge. "Ten crossbows are
cocked and waiting up here. Bring us our targets."

They waited, while the evening deepened into near-dusk. Then the airlock
of the cruiser slid open and thirteen Gerns emerged, the one leading
them wearing the resplendent uniform of a subcommander.

"There they come," he said to Lake and Craig. "It looks like we'll be
able to trap them in here and force the commander to send out a
full-sized force. We'll all attack at the sound of the horn and if you
can hit their rear flanks hard enough with the unicorns to give us a
chance to split them from this end some of us should make it to the ship
before they realize up in the control room that they should close the
airlocks.

"Now"--he looked at the Gerns who were coming straight toward the
stockade wall, ignoring the gate to their right--"you'd better be on
your way. We'll meet again before long in the ship."

Fenrir and Sigyn looked from the advancing Gerns to him with question in
their eyes after Lake and Craig were gone, Fenrir growling restlessly.

"Pretty soon," he said to them. "Right now it would be better if they
didn't see you. Wait inside, both of you." They went reluctantly inside,
to merge with the darkness of the interior. Only an occasional yellow
gleam of their eyes showed that they were crouched to spring just inside
the doorway.

He called to the nearest