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  Connery still held the youth in a tight grip. His thumb had stopped bleeding from the bite, but he was not risking another one. He looked at his captive's angry profile and skin-and-bone rib cage. "I don't know. Could be he's playing dumb and looking for another chance to run for it. Or he could be a true wild boy, somebody who's never been exposed to language before; but if he is, then where the devil did he learn to launch that missile? Here now—" Connery tightened his grip further, but his voice took on its first trace of sympathy. At the sight of the aircar as they breasted the slope, the youth had groaned in dismay and was struggling to free himself. "Take it easy, young fellow, we won't eat you."

  He had to drag the boy the rest of the way to the ship, and began to lift him bodily into the cabin. He grimaced as his face came close to the lad's dark head. It was alive with lice, crawling through the mud-spattered and matted hair.

  "Lucia, give me a hand here. We can't question him in this condition. He needs cleaning, and he needs clothes—and I'd guess he's long overdue for a decent meal. I'm going to dump him into the cleanser and let it wash him, but he'll probably be scared of it and fight like a demon. I think we ought to put him right out."

  "Agreed. And as soon as he wakes up, maybe we'll find out a bit more about him." Lucia climbed into the vehicle ahead of Connery. She administered the painless spray injection while the boy was being lifted in. He had no time to struggle. Within a few seconds he was lying unconscious on the cabin floor. While Connery strapped their find into the automatic cleansing unit, she prepared the on-board interrogation system.

  The cleansing unit opened two minutes later to show the boy soaped, rinsed, and disinfected from head to toe. His stick-thin limbs showed the sores and ulcers of severe malnutrition.

  Lucia was ready for him. She picked up the unconscious body, wrapped a warm towel around him, and laid him gently on a bunk. While she strapped him down and attached the terminals and headset that put them into three-way communication with Daddy-O, Lyle Connery sat frowning on the other bunk.

  "We're ready to go home," he said, "but what are we going to do with him? We can't put him back in the valley, living like that. You saw the food supply—he must have been scraping along close to starvation. Can we drop him off at one of the Hives?"-

  "If we can find out where he came from originally. Maybe he was abandoned, or maybe others will be coming back to the valley any time now. He'll be awake in a minute or two. I'll see what I can find. Why don't you get some food ready while I'm doing it? I think he's more scared of you."

  She remained quietly by the boy's side. He was alert and struggling as soon as his dark eyes opened. Lucia Asparian smiled at him, kept her voice soft, and said in Hiver local dialect, "Don't be afraid, we are not going to hurt you. What is your name?"

  He looked terrified, rolled his eyes sideways to try to follow the line of the terminals attached to his temples and throat, and clenched his teeth tight.

  Daddy-O's interrogation circuits back in the Azores caught the prisoner's brain patterns and the subvocalized word, and provided the local inputs to Lucia Asparian. "His name is Mikal," said the voice in her headset. There was a fraction of a second delay while the information passed through the Chipponese satellite relays, then Daddy-O added, "A high level of fear beyond what can be explained by his surroundings. I think he is disturbed by direct input. He understands Hiver, and it will be better if we restrict ourselves to that as his signal from you. But I will tap his visual and emotional codes, so that you can see his responses. He will be unaware of that operation."

  Lucia nodded. "Mikal," she said, and the boy's eyes bulged. "Mikal, do you have another name?"

  The jaw clenched tighter for a moment, then there was an imperceptible shake of his head.

  "He does not think of himself as having any other name," Daddy-O said. "If he ever lived in the Hives, he left there before puberty. That is their time for caste naming. There is no strong associated visual signal for your question."

  Lucia again tried to guess the age of the youth on the bunk. Certainly no less than ten, and probably no more than fifteen. "You live down there in the valley," she said. "Do other people live with you?"

  There was another imperceptible shake of the head.

  "They no longer live there," Daddy-O said. "One moment. We have visuals."

  A clear image of two people's faces appeared to Lucia, apparently hovering above the bunk. Daddy-O had a direct feed through her optic nerve. Both the people she was looking at were male. One of them was perhaps a couple of years older than Mikal, the other seemed to be in his late twenties.

  "Your two friends in the valley," Lucia asked. "What happened to them, Mikal? Where are they now? Are they hiding from us?"

  This time there was a gabble of Hiver words. "Why do you pretend you don't know? You took them, you destroyed them." And within a second came a sharp sequence of images: the side of the valley . . . six bulky figures with grotesquely enlarged and boxlike heads rushing down the steep slope . . . hand weapons at the ready. As they came closer Lucia saw that they wore protective Hive-armor. The "heads" were ribbed and padded helmets, with holes for eyes and mouth. As the scene ended, Mikal's two companions were seized and thrown to the ground.

  "Destroyed them." Mikal shivered, and closed his eyes.

  "Possible, but unlikely." Daddy-O's electronic voice in her ears was as calm as ever. "You know the customs of the larger Hives."

  Lucia reached forward and took her captive by the hand. "Mikal, we are not Hivers. Open your eyes, and take a good look at me, and see for yourself. Did you ever see a Hive warrior who looked anything like us?"

  The dark eyes opened. He stared hard at Lucia, and some of the fear drained from his expression. "No." His voice was perplexed. "Warriors cannot be women, and the man with you does not look right. But you have a machine that flies in the air—just like the one that took away Gregor and Pallast."

  "There are many machines like ours, Mikal, in many places. We came from far away, beyond all the Hives." She was pleased at the change in him. At least he sounded rational now. "But how did you escape capture?"

  "They didn't see me at first. I was up at the far end of the valley. I dropped down and hid in the corn until they were all gone." His voice was bitter with self-reproach. "I was afraid—too afraid to help."

  Daddy-O provided another image: two struggling figures beaten to the ground, dragged back up the slope. The view of the scene was not clear, screened by tall stalks of ripe wheat.

  "One full year, and they never came back," Mikal continued. "I am ashamed." He turned his head to one side, and would not look at her. There was a long silence while Lucia waited for visual signals from Daddy-O that never came.

  "They never came back," she prompted at last. "But why do you say your friends were destroyed? The people who came here were warriors from a southern Hive—and they do not kill prisoners."

  "Not killed dead. I did not mean that. We were not supposed to be killed dead. Destroyed. It was already planned for Gregor and me, if we had stayed one more month. To serve as Royal Suppliers to the Hive-Lord, and ensure his immortality. They were going to . . ."

  This time the images from Daddy-O formed a long, kaleidoscopic thought sequence, a progression that flickered on through time and space but returned again and again to a single intolerable moment.

  Lucia saw the inside of a Hive.

  . . . narrow chambers and corridors, scarcely tall enough to stand in, burrowed deep into red sandstone . . .the central chamber, lit by the green glow of fluorescents, a group of women wearing the full cowl of Hive-Lord servants. Along one wall stood the rusting rows of ancient weapons, the anti-tank guns, radar units, power lasers, and flamethrowers. Opposite them sat the Royal Suppliers, huge, soft-skinned, smiling.

  ". . . a great honor, Gregor. You and Mikal have been called to the service of the King . . ."

  . . . glowing red lamps, flickering red torches, the long wooden table in the central chamber, th
e ritual gold knife held ready . . .

  . . . his two companions at his side, laden with as much food and water as they dared carry, creeping out of the least-used entrance to the Hive and heading north beneath the open night sky, running and running, covering themselves at dawn with red-gray gravel, crouching all day at the bottom of the dry gulch . . .

  . . . the knife had been sharpened against a grinding stone. It must never touch base metal.

  The chief of the warriors, bending low over the boy strapped to the table until the eyes were visible, glittering through the eye slits, red reflections of the torchlights . . .

  ". . . a life wholly dedicated to the service of the Great King, the body of the new Supplier must be prepared . . ."

  The line of Royal Suppliers sat nodding in their endless dreams, pale and motionless. They were fed constantly, Strine synthetics spooned into soft, red-lipped mouths dwarfed by vast cheeks and bloated jowls. The mouths smiled, on and on.

  . . . the knife coming slowly down, the serving women standing by.

  . . . the three were staggering along, water supply close to gone, food running low, longing looks at the precious seedcorn. They passed a hundred old settlements, derelict buildings, rubble of houses long since plundered for glass, wood, and metal, rank grass growing along old streets, missile defenses all crumbled and useless. Onward . . . seeking the hidden place, the legendary land of plenty that lay beyond the farthest Hive, location and distance known not even to the Hive-Lord . . . peering again and again through dust-blurred eyes, scanning hopelessly the northern horizon . . .

  A shower of rain, unexpected and life-saving, sent flash floods rushing dangerously through the gravel-bottomed arroyos. Drinking to capacity, filling every water bottle, walking on to meet the Pole Star . . .

  ". . . drink deep, and repeat these words . . ."

  The service of dedication was almost over; the final cup was being held to the boy's lips as he lay silent on the table. His place among the Suppliers had already been prepared, a new padded dais designed to accommodate endlessly increasing bulk, tap lines ready to be inserted at spleen and pancreas and running to the fungal growth vats.

  . . . the first sight of the valley, its springing wild greenery, the astonishing sight of the ancient rocket launcher, rusted and menacing on the south end of the valley floor . . .

  The knife was sweeping down with a ceremonial flourish, down to the naked belly of the youth, closing with the flesh. The drink had been drugged, but not enough. The cry when the knife sliced into his scrotum and removed his testicles was weak and high pitched, quivering through the quiet chamber. The woman bent to cauterize the wound with smoking pitch . . . the scream became full throated and agonized. The boy was carried fainting to his place in the line of Suppliers . . .

  This was to be Gregor, to be me . . .

  Mikal was writhing on the table, and Lucia Asparian was shaking. She jerked the terminals from her head and walked blindly through to the rear cabin of the Trader craft.

  * * *

  The woman had gone, leaving him alone and still strapped to the bunk. For a few moments Mikal lay shivering. The old memories were so strong; a year had done nothing to dim them, and the woman's questions had brought them again into full focus. Now, suddenly, he knew that Gregor and Pallast would never be coming back.

  Ever since his two friends were taken he had kept things going in their valley home in makeshift fashion, marking time, hoping, doing little more than surviving, waiting for some new event. Now that was over. Talking to the big woman had finally taught him the truth: they were gone, gone forever. He had to act on his own.

  Mikal craned his head up, peering toward the rear cabin. He could hear voices, but could not see anyone through the narrow doorway.

  What were they going to do with him? Surely they would return him to the Hive. The chief of the warriors had told him that was his destiny, to be a Supplier to the Hive-Lord. He imagined again the placid line of Royal Suppliers, and the whole room seemed to shake and shiver around him. He began to struggle with the bonds that held him down.

  This time he was more systematic. The straps had been designed to restrain a semiconscious man, not to imprison a thin-limbed and determined boy. In a few seconds he had worked one wrist free. At once he reached up and yanked off the thin snakes of wire that led to terminals and headset. He wriggled free of the other straps, working in total silence. His own breath sounded loud enough to alert his capturers in the next room.

  Mikal eased off the bunk and stood for a moment on the room's swaying floor. He sniffed at his hand and forearm. It made him uneasy. Instead of his own comforting and familiar smell, he was covered with a flowery, musky scent, like the perfume of a Hive-Lord serving maiden. Now he realized that the man who had caught him and the big woman who talked to him had smelled the same.

  He stole across to the cabin door. If he could open it quietly enough and find a hiding-place before they knew he had gone . . .

  With his hand touching the door, he stopped. He could see out of the window, and now he understood why the room had seemed to be shaking around him. The whole cabin had risen high into the air. Looking down, he could see the whole valley stretched out below, as though he sat at the top of an incredibly high and steep hill. There was nothing but air beneath them, nothing for hundreds and hundreds of yards.

  Mikal pulled back from the chasm, aware of an endless drop just beneath his bare feet. He grabbed for the support of a bunk. At the edge of panic, he remembered Pallast's lesson, drilled into him as they struggled across the Lostlands. When you are in trouble, blind fear will never get you out. You have to think, use whatever tools you have.

  Logic imposed itself. The man and the woman were still there; he could hear voices. They would not expose themselves to great danger. This was a flying machine, fully controlled, rising or falling as they wanted it to. He was not in immediate danger.

  But how could he possibly escape when they flew high in the air?

  Again, logic told him the answer: he could not escape, not until they returned to the ground. What could he do?

  Mikal sat down on the bunk. The woman had said they were not Hivers. He believed her. They did not look like Hivers, and he had never seen a Hiver woman so tall. But that did not mean that he was not in terrible trouble. He covered his eyes with hands that felt oddly soft and smooth. What could he do?

  Listen; watch; wait. He could do that, and until they landed, that was all he could do. Very well. Mikal fought the butterflies in his stomach, stood up, and stole quietly back toward the rear cabin.

  They were still talking. There might be one thing more that he could do. It was hard to explain, but he did not feel frightened of the big woman. She spoke Hiver, and her voice had been warm and gentle. He would do what she asked and try to make her a friend. If only he had not bitten the man! But it was too late to do anything about that.

  Mikal crouched down by the door and peeped past it to the other cabin.

  * * *

  Lyle Connery was busy preparing food, but he stood up at once when he saw her face. "Lucia! What happened in there—you look terrible."

  "I feel terrible." She sat down abruptly. "Lyle, go back in there and untie him. And let's get out of here."

  "But what about him?"

  "He's going with us. I'm not leaving him behind. Poor little devil, he's survived in this place for a full year, all alone. Now he's friendless and hopeless—he's even nameless. We have to take him with us."

  "But we—"

  "No arguments."

  "Did you discuss it with Daddy-O?" Connery could see her intensity, but not the reason for it. "For Shannon's sake, Lucia, he might be dangerous—we still don't know how he was able to throw that missile at us, single-handed. And we're supposed to go on to Orklan and discuss Hiver secretions with the Strines! You know the rules. We can't do that with a passenger present—a complete stranger who doesn't know the first thing about being a Trader."

  "I d
on't care. We're taking him." Lucia Asparian stood up again. "You stay here and carry on with the meal. I'll go back and untie him myself. And damn what Daddy-O says. If I have to, I'll invoke Prime Rule. We're human beings first, and Traders second."

  "The invoking of Prime Rule will be unnecessary." Daddy-O had been monitoring with interest the activities in both cabins, especially the actions of the captive. "A low-probability event has occurred. You have found exactly what I hoped might be there. Proceed to Orklan. A Trader vehicle will be on hand to transport your captive to the Azores."

  "What are you going to do with him?" Lucia Asparian was still defiant and defensive. "He's not to be harmed, or turned back to the Hivers."

  "We will do to him no worse than was done to you, Lucia Asparian." There was simulated amusement in the electronic voice. "First he will be given a name—and plenty of food. He is twenty kilos below optimum weight. Then he will begin to learn to speak standard Trader."

  "And then?"

  "Can you not guess for yourself?" Daddy-O was diverting resources to other areas, ready to close off the connection. "Once he is fully healthy, he will be tested for his potential—as a Trader trainee."

  The computer's voice circuits could not in principle synthesize a pleased tone, nor could Daddy-O feel such an emotion as pleasure, but something in those final words had an undeniable ring of self-satisfaction.

  Nothing in the universe offered more promise of interesting complexity than a low-probability event.

  CHAPTER 3

  During the night the wind had veered to the southwest, bringing with it moister and milder weather. Hard showers of rain were mixed with bright, gusty spells.

  The classrooms were a good way up the hilly slopes of Pico Mountain, a few hundred meters higher than the sea-level dormitories and dining rooms. The trainees had watched the squalls whipping in from the sea and tried to time their run from the dining room to coincide with one of the sunny patches. As class time came closer the weather worsened. By five minutes to eight a mixed crowd of damp and dry trainees stood looking out of the classroom windows, jeering and cheering a last group running desperately uphill in a squall of warm, driving rain.