The smaller animal, still in its netting, seemed to wake. It rolled and mumbled, its voice feeble. Immediately the female reacted, as if she had not realized the little one was here. She leapt toward the infant, reaching.

The sepoys clubbed her at once. She whirled and kicked, but she was battered to the ground.

Ruddy waded into the melee, eyebrows bristling.

“For God’s sake, don’t strike her like that! Can’t you see? She’s a mother. And look in her eyes—look! Won’t that expression haunt you forever? …”

But still the man-ape struggled, still the sepoys threw their clubs at her, still de Morgan yelled, fearful of his treasure escaping—or, worse, being killed.

Josh was the first to hear the clattering noise. He turned to the east, to see clouds of dust thrown into the air. “There it is again—I heard it before …”

Ruddy, distracted by the violence, muttered, “What the devil now?”

4. RPG

Casey called, “We’re nearly on station. Going to low cap.”

The chopper dropped like a high-speed elevator. Despite all her training, Bisesa’s stomach clenched.

They were passing close to a village now. Trees, rusty tin roofs, cars, heaps of tires fled through her field of view. The chopper tilted and began circling counterclockwise. “Low cap” meant a sweeping surveillance circle. But given the way Bisesa was crammed onto her little bench, she could now see nothing but sky. More irony, she thought. She sighed, and checked over the small control panel fixed to the wall beside her. Sensors, from cameras to Geigers, heat sensors, radars and even chemical-sensitive “noses,” were trained on the ground from a pod suspended under the chopper’s body.

The Bird was embedded in the world-spanning communi-cations infrastructure of a modern army.