'A clade on Earth,' Mei answers. 'My understanding is they branched into people with an emotional craving for a certain mathematics-'
'Right, here it is,' the reporter indicates with an abstracted expression, calling up a file on his corneal display. 'They branched a hundred and
fifty-eight terrene years ago-enjambed limbic and cortical plexes-blah blah blah-ah, here's what we want: They abide no authority at all, not even reservation strictures, and are general troublemakers for the Commonality. I don't see any record of violence, though. They seem to be more mischievous and
insubordinate than destructive.'
'They would have the know-how to trigger wetware,' Mei accedes, 'but I can't believe that those number- dreamers would do that to an archaic brain. Maybe-'
'Hold up!' Shau shouts. His frantic face glares down between his knees from his sling in the bubble. 'Stop the rover! The local office is hearing an ultrahigh pitch over my comlink. The androne dispatcher says it's a pressure whistle. It's coming from under us, in the drive-train. The rover's going to blow!'
Instantly, Mei Nili shuts down the engine, stops the third rover by cutting off the autopilot, throws open all the hatches, and exits through the port companionway, all with the fluid ease of her long training. Buddy barges out the starboard side, and Shau lifts himself through the popped-open bubble, leaps
from the top of the rover, and lands in a dust-splash among the cauterized rocks.
Running is swift and easy over the gravelly desert, and Mei and Buddy bound toward the shelter of talus rocks that have spilled from the scorched slopes of a crumbling crater rim. Awkward in his cumbersome desert gear, Shau trails behind. In a twinkling gust of static sparks and a thump of thunder, the second rover explodes. Chunks of white hull roll flashing into the sky, and a spray of flйchettes cut iridescent tracks in the pink atmosphere. One fragment strikes the back of the reporter's mantle as he bolts over the cold ancient ash, and he flops forward, his neck cleanly broken.
Mei rushes toward his fallen body but stops when she sees the queer angle of his head and the lifeless gape of his face.
Buddy passes Mei, kneels over Shau, and rips open the reporter's statskin cowl. 'The cold will preserve him,' he explains, gasping with exertion. 'He's intact. If we get him to Solis soon, he can be revived.'
'Mr. Charlie,' Mei rasps, looking back at the twisted debris of the rover. She jogs to the wreck and finds the plasteel capsule nestled among tangles of shredded metal. Its surface is spalled and cloudy with scratches, but the case itself is whole. She picks it up and scrutinizes it, trying to see if the shock of the blast damaged the interior.
Buddy strides past, carrying Shau in his arms. The corpse's face is
powder-blue, the lips silvery white. 'We'd better check Munk's rover carefully.' Mei lifts her angry face to the pale rose sky and screams, 'Raza!'
Nude sandstone walls and maroon monument rocks crown the cliff crest where the dune climber and the first desert rover have stopped. These are the ruins of
Sama Neve, a famous center of passage centuries ago, during the Exodus of Light, and Grielle believes Rey stopped to offer her this fabulous view. She speaks reverently, ''At last, I see the last.' That was first said here, Rey. Think on the freedom of-'
'Did you see that?' Rey asks, pointing down the long escarpment to the alkali basin where he spotted the sparkle of the exploding rover, 'That flash?'
Grielle's dreamy gaze surveys the golden desert below and selects a glimmer from among the strewn boulders on the nearby slope. 'Yes, what is it?'
Rey widens his eyes in mock surprise. 'I think that was one of the rovers! It exploded!'
Grielle presses against the viewport, frowning to see what looks like a white blossom on the desert floor, it's a blast cloud of sand. 'Those fools!'
'That damn jumper must have flooded the compression tanks,' Rey says, doing
the same, reaching across the burned gash of the console and stroking the sensor pads that will flood the compression tanks. In the next few minutes the tanks will explode and Grielle will make her passage sooner than she expected. He's pleased with himself that he has at least arranged for her to do so in the presence of Sarna Neve. 'I better take the dune climber down there and see if anyone can be saved. Stay here, and I'll call you if it's safe.'
Grielle makes a feeble attempt to detain him, but he exits quickly and closes the wing-hatch after him. She is moved by his humane urgency and stands to watch him sprint up the salmon-colored rise of sandstone to the dune climber. He
bounds into the cab and starts rolling downslope, the big blue wheels scattering
gravel in fins behind him.
Less than halfway down the escarpment, the dune climber fishtails to an abrupt halt. The glimmer among the strewn boulders that Grielle had glimpsed earlier flickerflashes toward Rey. In the red dust kicked up by his hard stop, the disclike bodies, whirling fins, and raving mouth parts of the shreeks materialize.
The white tarpaulin, now peach-red with sand, pulls away under their biting frenzy, exposing the cumbrous crates in the carry bay. More rocks spit skyward as Rey swings the dune climber around and starts churning up the boulder-waned slope. The shreeks thrash among the crates with shuddering might and bang their
.pugnacious bodies against the spinning wheels. Splats of squashed shreek spin away in widening vectors, and Grielle, who is watching appalled, thinks Rey is going to elude them. She looks for the comlink to encourage him.
Then one of the shreeks slams into the cab of the dune climber, and the canopy roof wings into the air. Grielle's heart thumps, and she steadies herself with a bracing gust of degage. Only the olfact enables her to stand still and watch the dune climber weasel among the scarp boulders, scrambling back toward the ridge. She scans the burnt console before her, trying to recall how Rey drove this thing. She wants to go to him, to drive the shreeks off if she
