Nightingale sighed. Straight ahead it was.

Something raced up a tree. At first glimpse he thought it resembled a squirrel, but then he saw it had extra legs. It was their first day on Maleiva III.

A couple of birds circled them and settled onto a branch. Red-birds. They looked like cardinals, except that they had long beaks and turquoise crests. The colors clashed.

"Wait a minute," Sherry said.

"What?" demanded Nightingale.

She raised her hand for quiet. "There's something behind us." They whirled as one and weapons came up. In their rear, a tree limb fell. Nightingale backed into something with spines.

Cookie and Tatia went back and looked. "Nothing here," they reported.

They moved out again.

There was little space for walking. They were constantly pushing through bushes and fighting their way past brambles. He pointed out a couple of broken stalks that suggested something had come this way.

Then he stepped into a glade and saw them.

All three were lying still. Their force-field envelopes were filled with blood. Their faces were frozen in expressions of terror and agony.

Sherry came out behind him, gasped, and started forward.

He stopped her and held her until she calmed down a bit. The others scanned the trees for the attacker. "Whatever it was," said Tatia, "it's not here now."

Sherry freed herself from him, approached the bodies, moving progressively more slowly, and finally dropped to her knees beside them. He watched her whisper something. Watched her rock back on her haunches and stare into the trees.

He joined her, put a hand on her shoulder, and stood wordlessly, looking down at the carnage.

Andi came up beside him. She'd been a close friend of Al White's for years. She sighed and began quietly to sob.

Tatia remained at the edge of the glade, glancing first at the bodies and then hardening her gaze and surveying the ring of trees.