Mitford put a hasty hand on Kris's shoulder. 'Don't . . . use that particular word, will you?" 'Ooops, but you are first to cross this channel, or strait, or whatever it is. Can we name it after you?" 'Huh?" The sergeant regarded her with startled eyes; then he realized she was trying to divert him and managed a grin. 'I'll be all right.

There's still some view left . . ." But the waves washed up over the windscreen and he hastily looked away from their activity.

The crossing was completed in just under two Catteni-style hours as marked by the timepiece set in the control panel. The Tub trundled out onto a sandy beach, dotted with the same sort of shrubs that grew on its neighbour.

"Clams, too,' said Astrid, pointing to the air holes as they all emerged from the Tub, once again flushing out the 'newness' smells.

"We get some?" she asked Mitford.

"There's plenty of time,' he said, shading his eyes to glance up the slope that led inland. Then he glanced down at the map he had taken from his pocket and unfolded it. 'We're about here,' he said, pointing and then cocking his finger due west. 'Should be higher ground this way. Zainal, Kris, Astrid, Bjorn, Whitby - let's have a bit of a recon." And he strode forward. 'Joe, you're in charge of the Tub,' he added.

When they reached the first height and had an overview, there were green-covered stretches in either direction and right back to the distant hills.

"Like loo-cow pastures,' Bjorn said, pausing to dig a toe through the vegetation to the soil beneath. Little many-legged things burrowed deeper, away from the air. 'Good dirt,' he added, pinching some between his fingers and letting it sift back down. Neatly, he stepped on the divot he had made.

"Think the Farmers'd notice if we rustled some of their steers?" Kris asked, wondering what else was hidden in the soil here.

"No such insects in loo-cow pastures,' Bjorn added. 'May be no night-crawls, too." Kris looked around her. 'We should be so lucky." She tried to remember what she'd learned in geography about terrain.

"This looks exactly like the landscape over there,' and she pointed over her shoulder at the distant mainland. 'Could there have been some sort of subsidence to separate the two . . . or maybe the gap just hasn't closed as it did on Earth in prehistoric days.

Continents used not to be the way they are now, you know.

Maybe this is a young land . . ." 'No, this is an old planet,' said Whitby. 'No volcanoes on those space maps at all, and a lot of the hills are worn down. But this place does look like the same sort of terrain that we just left." 'Then why is it not farmed?" Astrid asked, her usually serene expression marred by a frown.

Mitford shrugged his shoulders and cleared his throat. 'Who knows, but we'll keep in mind that, if it looks alike, it could be alike and we might have night-crawlers here, too. We'll bunk in the Tub tonight." Then he swung his arm in a wide arc. 'Let's move out and see if we can find a good place to park." In the four hours they searched, they caught only a glimpse or two of small aerial life forms but no rocksquats.

"They wouldn't be down here where there's no rocks, for starters,' Mitford said when Astrid grew worried about their absence.

"Not even any trees for the avians either; just bushes.

Let's split up into two groups. You head north, Zainal with Kris, Coo and Bjorn. You, Slav, and the rest, we'll go south." Several times, Bjorn stopped to check the soil again. It was good, black and moist, but not too moist, full of small creatures to keep it loose.

"Plenty good for farms." 'Then why aren't there farms here?" Kris asked, almost aggrieved.

"We will find the reason,' Zainal reassured her, touching her elbow briefly.

"They farm well enough on the main continent. Don't need this one,' Bjorn said but he didn't sound all that convinced.

"And the closed valleys?" Kris asked. 'They're even more enigmatic." 'Perhaps,' and Bjorn considered his words, 'they used them to keep animals in. Safe from the night crawlers."

"Where are the animals now, then?" Kris demanded.

"Eaten?" Bjorn asked, his eyes twinkling.

"We will ask that questtion also,' Zainal said.

They had gone north and now swung wide on their return to the Tub. Zainal had seen low foothills at a good day's travel to the north, but otherwise this coastal plain was covered in low vegetation and bush. Good smells wafted on the evening breeze as they neared the Tub's position.

Joe had wasted no time in digging for clams; Leila and Oskar had caught several varieties of fish and, having tested them in the Tub's small but efficient laboratory unit, found them safe for humans to eat.

Sarah contributed some familiar edible roots and greens found near a stream. Among the Tub's supplies were small cooking units which were occupied by boiling pots of clams. A grill had been laid across stones for the fish, and there was bread from Narrow among their supplies, so when Mitford broke out the beer everyone was in an expansive mood.

***

The report of the unusual orbiting device was forwarded to the Eosi Mentat Ix, who had registered an interest in every thino to do with the colony planet.

Ix snarled each time it replayed the record of the object, for the speed alone suggested a technology worryingly more advanced than the Eosi had. Ix demanded all records, especially those made by its new entity, for within the entity's fading mind was a memory of a visit to the planet. Ix drew forth all the relevant facts, including the presence of the Catteni it had chosen from the bloodline of its present, but not selected, entity. It examined what the entity had dismissed, the gadget that had been presented for inspection as proof that the planet perhaps had been or was occupied by another species.

Ix worried over all the little memories, having them repeated and repeated until every nuance was dragged out for inspection.

The Mentat was pleased that Catteni had set up a second, more flexible satellite around the subject planet. Unfortunately this satellite only emphasized the incredibly fast global search that had been conducted by the alien orb, and the anger of Ix increased at the implications of technical superiority over the Bosh Logic suggested that the original discoverers of that planet were re-evaluating the world. What had it been programmed to discover? And why had this object, too, disappeared just beyond the heliopause of this solar system?

Ix summoned a meeting of those of its fellow Mentats who were sufficiently cognisant of their responsibilities to be useful in formulating a course of action. In lightning exchanges of information as unlike the torturous communications with their subject Catteni as the orbiting object of the Unknown was unlike their own satellite units - it was decided the matter must be investigated in greater detail.

All further shipments to the colony planet were suspended, and the great number of recalcitrant Earth people would be sent to the secondary colomal venture.

Since it was the Ix Mentat's idea that the matter must be investigated, its peers decided that it must undertake the onerous journey, forgoing its usual pleasures and routines. Fortunately it could pass the tedium of the voyage in a suspended state, but that amenity required some alterations to the newest and fastest Catteni warship. The delay annoyed the Ix still further and it amused itselfthinking of ways to punish those beings which had been instrumental in causing this discommodation.

The Ix Mentat had just been awakened by the high-ranking naval commander of this jewel of the Catteni fleet when proximity alarms jangled fiercely all over the ship, which went into attack alert. The mass approaching the Catteni vessel was so large, it was too large to be contained on the detection screen.

Suddenly waves of force rocked the AAI as if it were a pod in a pond. The Ix, in a manner inconsonant with its dignity and size, grabbed for support until the buffeting subsided.

"Report!" it said in its cold and vicious verbal communication form.

"Most High Eosi, an unknown vessel has appeared . . ."

"You keep no watch?"

"It appeared on screen just as we passed the heliopause,' the commander said, not daring to raise his eyes to the towering Eosi, 'where other such devices have been seen to disappear." The commander had been well briefed on the problems of and connected with this colony planet, not to mention the extraordinary fact that the Mentat had not received its chosen of record but another in the bloodline.

"What is it?" the Ix demanded. Can you not show it?"

The commander hastily called up on the nearest screen what had stunned his entire bridge crew. The monstrous ship was ten times the size of the AA1, which itself was three times the size of the next largest spaceship in the Catteni navy. The immense ship was obviously headed inward and at a rate of speed which would bring it to its destination thirty time units before the AA 1, for all its vaunted improved propulsion system and cruising speed.

"Can you not attach a tracer to its hull before it gets out of range?" Even as it spoke, Ix realized that the ship was probably out of range.

"It is already out of range for such an attachment, Great Eosi." Ix fumed that the commander would waste its time stating the obvious.

How could another species have developed such technology without the Eosi being aware of their existence? The Eosi had not bothered lately with anything more complicated than the Improvement in propulsion and cruising range, its present navy having been deemed sufficient for all practical purposes.

Such an attitude of complacency was no longer permissible.

"Watch it and record it. Do not fail for an instant."

"NO, Most High Eosi, not for an instant,' and the commander, reheved to have escaped with his life, strode as quickly as courtesy permitted away from the Eosi and back to the relative safety of his own bridge.

No-one commented on his arrival, or moved an eye muscle from whatever panel their duties bound them to.

Several hours later, the captain was awakened from an inadvertent doze by a stir of excitement, palpable on the bridge

"Sir, the ship is . . ."

Wide awake, and staring at the view screen, the commander watched, awed, as the strange ship - magnified many times to keep it on the slower warship's view screens - dipped briefly into the atmosphere of the subject planet, then bobbed up again and continued on its way to the other side of the solar system. Where, upon reaching the heliopause, it disappeared from even the most sensitive Instrumentation.

The commander reported to the Eosi, who was ensconced on a huge chair in the cargo compartment which had been altered to provide it with the maximum comfort. The chair faced a large screen which had already shown the Ix evrvthin the I: would have to report.

"The planet is of no importance in the face of this,' and the Lost paused. 'Return to Catten. At all possible speed,' and its tone was contemptuous of such a torpid rate now that it had seen a velocity that transcended the best of Eosi capabilities.

"This must be reported - and countered." If, as the AA I passed through the heliopause of the system, a famt shock, like a low voltage of electricity, was felt by those awake, only a nano-second blip registered the shock on the bridge and it was dismissed as an anomaly.

Deski ears felt the noise in the air long before the huge vessel was visible. But, while frightened people ran for the nearest cover in the caves they still occupied and the valleys they were presently making homely, the noise did not increase. To those with binoculars, it was visible more as a scintillating lozenge very high overhead. On the view-screens of the bridges, the monster seemed to do no more than skim the very top of the stratosphere, skipping like a flat stone across a calm lake, before altering its course and flying off into space, taking its skull-shattering noise with it.

Scott blinked, cleared his throat and managed to unclench his fists. He had been in the KDL's bridge, his eyes glued to the incredible astronautic event delineated on the detection screen.

No-one cared to break the silence, for no-one quite believed what they had just seen until a comunit beeped, an almost impudent noise considering the enormity of the recent event.

"That's about the size of the first one, Admiral,' said Su. 'I think we're lucky it was so high up . . . What's that?" Scuse me, sir . . ." and the connection was broken.

Dick Aarens came running full clip down the passageway to the bridge, catching himself on the door frame to stop, his face ashen and the expression in his eyes as close to awe as he was ever likely to come.

"They did it, Scott. They did it. They've replaced every last fri . . ." 'Watch your language on my bridge, Aarens." Scott recovered enough to reprimand him. 'What has been replaced?" 'All the Mech Makers' stuff, the farm machinery we disassembled. It's all back.

Back in the abattoir and everywhere . . ." Peter Easley, who had been just as flabbergasted as everyone else on the bridge, absorbed that news before Ray Scott or John Beverly did. 'Good thing we got the main garage cleaned out then, isn't it?"

"It would have been very messy if we hadn't,' John Beverly

remarked, then he and Peter burst out laughing.

"Yes, but did they take the parts back?" Scott demanded.

"The parts?" Aarens was confused.

"I don't think so, Ray,' Beverly said, holding up the comunit usually attached to his belt.

Aarens ran to the hatch but sauntered back to the bridge, a smug grin on his face. 'The air cushion's still there. Maybe the Farmers didn't recognize what I'd done to their material." The newly devised com board of the KDL lit up with other incoming calls from Shutdown, Bella Vista and the other three garage sites that had so recently been cleared of human occupation; then the caves and the valleys that were now human habitations.

"They don't know we're here, then,' was Worrell's reaction.

"And couldn't care less,' added Jay Greene. 'Hope the satellite caught that visitation!" 'You do?" and Worry began to fret over what trouble that could cause back in Barevi or Catten or wherever the Eosi hung out.

The machinery was back, replicas of every single model that had been disassembled by the colonists, in pristine condition and arranged in the appropriate order in each garage, barn or building. The solar panels that had been taken down and installed elsewhere for the camps' needs were also replaced and seemingly operational.

"Why aren't the machines moving?"

"It isn't spring here yet. Not the time to farm."

"Weren't we lucky to have moved out in time?"

"No messages with the unpacking?"

"As if we could have read them?"

"Was Kilroy here, or his E.T. counterpart?"

"WHAT do we do now?"

Chuck Mitford, having seen the huge spaceship on the Tub's screen as they made their way back to the Headquarters at New Narrow Valley to report, had one answer to that when John Beverly informed him of the arrival of complete replacements.

"Get into those garages and remove the anaesthetic darts from the launchers before those machines are fully charged."

"Won't such interference be noticed?" Beverly asked.

"I sure hope not. We took the first ones out when they were "down", but you'd want to do it before they get fully operational.

Fill the reservoirs with water - that anaesthesia damned near put paid to a lot of us on the First Drop. Lenny Doyle or Pess'll show you how; they've done it before." 'Any other suggestions, sergeant?" Beverly asked at his most respectful.

"Watch out for avian predators. Those machines can call them down on anything that moves where it shouldn't."

"Anything else?"

"If I think of something, I'll let you know. But check with Cumber, Esker, the Doyle brothers, Matt Su, any of the First Drop who scouted for me." Mitford had been sending back daily reports on their explorations. Now he turned back to his team.

"I thought for sure we'd have more than three weeks before anything happened,' he said, scratching his head in a measure of anxiety. 'Can we make a bit more speed on this thing, Sarah?" he asked, since she was the driver.

"Sure, but it's about to get bumpy again."

"We are not far now,' said Zainal, peering out of the front windows.

"How long would it take the Eosi to do something, Zainal?" Mitford asked, now drumming restless fingers on his knee with his free hand as he clung to a safety strap with the other.

Zainal shrugged. 'I do not think they can move as fast as Farmers. Eosi are not automated. Nor do they have matter transmission." He chuckled.

"I sure hope it galls their souls to hell'n'back,' Mitford said, grinning. 'I sure hope it makes 'em squirm with envy and dismay." "Just so long as they keep out of our hair,' Kris added. She knew that, despite Zainal's assurances, she wasn't the only one fretting over the possibility of Eosi reprisals on the colony. He

would know better than she, of course, but it didn't keep her from worrying. She daren't even think how the Farmers might react in a direct confrontation with their uninvited tenants, though Zainal's point about the valleys' protection barriers was comforting - as far as it went with an unknown species.

New Camp Narrow was located in one of the closed valleys, south and east of the original cliff installation and itself suitably narrow but longer than most. It had been opened up by the simple expedient of blowing the barrier down with ingredients taken from Baby's arsenal.

Zainal had instructed several miners and an ax-ordnance officer on the explosive capability of the different substances in her lockers. The original notion had been to use such combustibles for mining operations. The Farmers had ignored the mineral and metal resources of the planet.

Inside the appropriately long, narrow valley, Baby and the KDL were parked one beside the other; despite Baby's size in comparison to the larger, oblong transport vessel, she looked sleek, powerful and far more dangerous. Parts of the wrecked transport had been utilized to make a fair-sized shelter nearby, and the returning explorers had no trouble identifying it as 'headquarters' from the flow of people in and out.

Small tents of loo-cow skins dotted the other side of the usual valley stream, and the carcass of a loo-cow was turning on a spit over a firepit. The rubble from the opening had been lugged across the stream for use in constructing homes; several were as high as window height, with masons busy around them. A much larger building was already in use, its heavy stone pillars supporting a roof of slate that overhung to provide shelter from rains, while half-built sides of rough timber gave the edifice the look of a forestry preserve facility.

Tables, benches, stools, a few chairs and a neat pile of blanket rolls suggested it was providing several functions, unfinished as it was.

As the explorers swung round to park and dismount from their vehicle, they were hailed by many but no-one stopped working for more than a few moments.

"I wonder where they stashed the airplanes and all the aircushions,' Kris wondered, noting their absence.

"This wouldn't be the only valley in use,' said Mitford, stretching his legs. 'Okay, Kris, Zainal, Bjorn, Whitby, Coo, we'll make the initial report. You got all the maps, Whitby?

Yeah . . ." 'I have pictures,' Zainal volunteered, showing the mass in one big hand.

"I have soil samples,' and Bjorn showed the little case he had made for them.

"And I have the log print-out,' Kris added, wondering why Mitford was so antsy suddenly.

"Sarah,' the-sergeant said, turning towards her and Joe, 'go see what the drill is here. Astrid, see if we can get some food.

Slav, put water in the tank. Oskar, Jan, Leila, air the Tub out good, and maybe even give it a good wash." He waved towards the stream.

% If the refinements of headquarters left a lot to be desired as they entered and looked around it, the essentials - including the yet again reconstructed bridge of the wrecked transport showed it to be in good working order and array. There svere even 'offices', cubicles with woven reed walls to afford some privacy. Old mech parts still doubled for stools, cupboards, shelving and benches.

"D'you suppose the Farmers didn't recognize their own stuff?" Kris murmured to Zainal.

"Bring your group over this way, sergeant,' called Scott, standing in the opening of one of the larger reed-walled compartments on the far side of the bridge.

"Even has a ready room,' Kris murmured, this time to Mitford.

"You're getting far too impudent, ma'am,' Mitford replied, though he was also peering at the equipment. The wreck which had once been operated from this bridge had never kept it in such good order.

"Mitford, Kris, Zainal, Bjorn, Whitby,' and Scott was solemnly shaking hands as he ushered them in. 'Saw you coming,' he added, 'so John, Bill and Jim asked to be in on the debriefing." i 1He sat at a desk that was really no more than several planks fitted together, rubbed smooth with some sort of polish to prevent splinters: two woven baskets sat on the surface. For'in' and 'out', Kris though irreverently but their presence was oddly comforting. 'Business as usual." The other brass-heads sat on Scott's side of the desk.

"It'd be a super place to settle a lot, if not all, of our people General,' Mitford said, pulling the stool closer to his legs before he settled on it. Whitby was unfolding the map, indicating the scope of their explorations as Zainal arranged the photos of the sites that looked suitable for habitation. 'Though you look like you've settled in here well." 'Thanks, sergeant. It is indeed a pleasant place, and there've been no indications of undesirable elements in any of the valleys we're utilizing." Scott had taken up one photo, and Kris nudged Zainal because she'd had a bet on with him that it'd be the one that took his eyes. 'Now this is a magnificent setting,' he said, and passed the picture to John Beverly on his right.

"Thought you'd like the view of the harbour,' Kris said. 'It's deep enough for an aircraft carrier." 'What would you know about draught, Kris?" Scott asked, but he was clearly in a good mood.

"The water's real dark down there,' she said, grinning. 'Too bad we don't have any big ships. Yet." Mitford nodded to Bjorn to report now. 'The ground is fertile, though it has not been tilled in many years." 'You mean it was? Once?" Scott sat forward, dropping the second picture he had taken up.

Mitford pulled the telltale picture away from those overlapping it. 'The Farmers always put their facilities on unusable real estate, rocky or sandy, or plain non-arable. Look at the way this cliff has been hollowed out. We could damned near hide the KDL in here. For sure, it'd take Baby and all our converted equipment. This whole area shows signs of previous usage. And we found another section further along that ridge that reminds me of the way the abattoir was set up."

The four bent their heads to examine the suspect photos,

and it was obvious they agreed with him.

"We found two more garage-type installations further up here,' and Mitford indicated the positions on the map. 'We didn't concentrate on finding any more because they had so obviously been vacant a very long time." 'We think we saw some likely spots on the other side of the bay,' Whitby said, 'but the terrain was too steep for the Tub, so we didn't cross the bay." 'Is it possible that the Farmers have just allowed the land to remain fallow because they have enough here?" asked Scott.

"It has been fallow many, many years,' Bjorn said. 'But the soil is rich and would grow everything we needed. Especially if we used the land as wisely as the Farmers do,' and he ended on an admonitory note.

"All we need is another shipment of replacements,' Beverly said with a grin.

"Hell's bells, General,' and Mitford grinned, 'we saved everything we didn't use, so we've still got the ploughs and other farming junk. I'd heard none of the scraps were vacuumed up or beamed or whatever. We only have to mount ploughs and stuff back on the air cushions and use 'em for their original function. No big problem!' "That's true, though some will not want to give up their runabouts,' and he winked at Mitford, 'for ploughing. What about the scavengers?"

"Nary a sign of them,' said Mitford.

"And that's a puzzle,' Whitby said. 'We left out our garbage every night we were there - and found it still there the next morning.

But the terrain is very similar to what we have here."

"No night-crawlers on that continent?"

"None we could find, at any rate." Mitford took up the recital.

"We did find rocksquats, whole colonies of them up in the hills and just as dumb as the ones over here. There were avians where the lodge-poles have grown up into forests. Perhaps the damned crawlers died of starvation." He grinned. 'We can always rustle a few loo-cows from here and see what happens.

There're none there that we could find." 'Many of the same root vegetables and berry bushes already grow there, and other vegetation is similar,' put in Bjorn, his expression glowing with pleasure. 'And fish and clams . . ." 'Roasted corn would have gone so well with them,' Kris said suddenly, and sighed. 'I'm sorry." Scott bent an understanding look on her and his lips twitched in a slight smile.

"You're not alone." 'We may yet find something similar,' said Bjorn, his wide face eager to please her. 'We don't really have a complete catalogue of the planet's flora." 'By the way, Mitford,' Beverly said, 'we disarmed the darts as you recommended. That's quite a powerful anaesthesia!'

"Indeed,' Zainal and Kris said in unison.

"That's right,' and Scott turned to them, 'you were caught and subsequently saved another, less fortunate group." He paused a moment.

"If there are truly no night-crawlers . . . There are many valid reasons for shifting our operations to that continent." Mitford leaned forward, circumscribing the area they had searched with his index finger. 'It's great country, sir. It'd take quite a few trips in the transport, but it might be the smartest move we've done since we got dropped here." 'If we could be sure the Eosi aren't watching murmured and looked at Zainal.

"They will still be "considering", Scott,' Zainal replied to the unasked question. 'Eosi consider long and hard before acting.

Here, we use transport at correct times so the orbital does not see - short trip. If thrusters are used carefully, in short bursts, the geo-synchronous one will not show enough to read." 'Besides which,' Mitford said with great satisfaction, 'they don't even know we've got those ships. And if they've any smarts at all, once they've seen reports of that monster, they'll stay the hell away from Botany." Everyone looked at Zainal, who looked right back around the table and then shrugged.

. . ." Scott

Not every valley being utilized as new accommodation was as far along in supplying shelter and other amenities as the headquarters establishment. Nevertheless, the thought of picking up again and resettling was met with a certain amount of resistance, especially from the technical and engineering groups who intensely disliked a second displacement because they were already involved in various projects and didn't want to drop tools - even the ones they were making. However, the availability of the massive caverns, when they were having to put together sheds from primitive substances, did cause them to reconsider.

Then, all of a sudden, they wanted to be the first to get over there and resettled.

The miners were less happy - especially Walter Duxie, the mining engineer in charge - since they'd already reached a good iron lode and wanted to continue working it. While the Catteni space mapping did show mineral deposits on the target continent, they were loath to leave one that was already showing results. So it was decided that they could continue where they were: they had an adequate work-force which could take turns hunting and supplying their needs, and the nearby caves were already habitable. Judicious use of the KDL would bring ore to where smelting and fabrication processes would be handled.

"What about the fuel situation?" Beverly asked Zainal at one meeting. 'What happens if we run out? We've scarcely the technology to make it even if the natural resources are available."

Zainal grinned. 'I know where more supplies are kept."

"You pirate,' Beverly said with a laugh, and then had to explain the tem.

"I will make a very good pirate,' Zainal decided, pleased with the definition. 'Not the only one, too." 'Hey, what else could you lift at the same time?" Su asked. He was head of one engineering group that found themselves constantly having to invent the tools that had once been always available.

"Depends on what you went,' Zainal said.

"Hey, can I go with you and see what's on display at the store?" Su asked, and Zainal pointed at Beverly.

"Ask him. We will not need to go soon. Not much fuel is needed for short hops." Nevertheless, Zainal kept a close watch on the gauge on the first trip and, having decided on the minimum amount of fuel he could use and still reach a safe trajectory, tried to shave minutes off thruster use to preserve every ounce possible.

Mitford had taken a full load of passengers in the Tub to start up the new location, leaving Zainal and Kris behind, helping to organize who and what would go in up-coming KDL transfers.

The farming community wanted to be among the next wave, as it was essential to plant as soon as the danger of frost was over.

So far 'winter' on Botany had consisted of cold, damp days interspersed with sunny cold days and a lot of early-morning frosts.

No real storms, no snow despite cloudy days when the sky suggested blizzards to many who came from cold climates.

The temperatures dipped very low occasionally, hampering work outside, but there was always something to be done in what shelter was available from the cold. The people who suffered were those used to tropical conditions, and they were given extra clothing and first priority when rugs and long vests of rocksquat pelts were available.

Not long after Mitford had left on the first of many Tub trips, Sandy Areson - who ran Headquarters Valley Canip - came over to Kris where she sat, eating a quick lunch in the Big Building.

"Been trying to catch you alone ever since you got back from the other continent,' Sandy said.

"Alone? That sounds ominous,' said Kris.

"It is and it isn't,' Sandy told her, 'and I have to agree with the basic logic of it as far as spreading the wealth is concerned." "What wealth?" Kris asked, puzzled. Wealth on Botany meant hours of work applied to what 'extras' might be available, above and beyond essentials like food and shelter. Even she and Zainal had done stints of kitchen duty.

Although they were the only ones at the long table, Sandy leaned closer to Kris and said, 'Us,' pointing to her chest.

"Us?" Then Kris shook her head as she caught on. 'Us as in women . . . of child-bearing age?"

"You got it,' Sandy said, leaning back again and grinning wryly. 'There are far more men than women on Botany, and as there hasn't been a Drop in four weeks, we're not likely to get more. So, if we want to keep up a decent genetic pool . . ."

"You mean, we're operating as if we'll never get off Botany?"

Sandy gave her an astonished stare. 'We're dropped, we stay,' she said, 'or don't you listen to what Zainal says?" Kris gulped. "I guess I've been naive after all . . . I mean, we have the KDL. We could get off." 'And go back to Earth?" Sandy looked even more disgusted with her. 'You been away from the camps too much, gal, and involved with that hunk of Catteni. Not,' and she hastily put up one hand, 'that I blame you. I didn't know they came in any variation of "nice" . . ."

"People are considering him "nice", then?"

"Hey, spare me the sarcasm, Kris Bjornsen - and yes, lots of people have got it through their thick and intolerant skulls that Zainal is a lot more Botanical than Cattenical now. "I drop, I stay"." Sandy snorted in amusement. 'Especially the brassheads. But you two can't procreate. You do know that?" when Kris nodded, she went on, 'And you're of an age to do so." Feeling a total rejection of what she knew would come next, Kris leaned away from Sandy. She couldn't, she really couldn't go with anyone else, even to increase the genetic pool of a colony she was working very hard to make secure.

"Now don't get all silly about it,' Sandy said. 'We've got enough doctors here now, so you can just get inseminated with sperm at the appropriate time in your cycle. I did. I was one of the first,' and now Sandy patted her abdomen. 'Mind you, I chose the father."

Kris gulped again, feeling distinctly queasy at the prospect.

"Anna Bollinger's preggers, too, but she got formally handfasted to Matt before she did. Janet's too old. Patti Sue also did it the old-fashioned way, but I just wanted to warn you that you're on the list. It won't be like being unfaithful to Zainal at all." 'That isn't my problem,' Kris said in a weak voice. 'How can I possibly get pregnant until we're all settled and we know what the Eosi and the Farmers are going to do? What'd happen if . . ." 'Calm down, Kris,' and Sandy captured one of her waving hands and held it firmly in both hers. 'You're one of the last on the list, I should say, because your talents are more valuable elsewhere than in the lullaby line." Kris couldn't suppress her agitation. She hadn't planned on having kids for years! She was barely twenty-two, or thereabouts, since she'd lost a lot of subjective time on the way to Botany and hadn't a clue what sort of month, day or year it was.

Then she didn't think she'd make a good mother anyhow. She'd never liked baby-sitting jobs in high school or college, unless the kid was asleep. When any of them woke up and screamed at her, she never went back to that family. She didn't think she had an ounce of maternal instinct in her.

"Anyway, we're going to set up creches and mincers who are maternally inclined so once a baby's here, you can ignore it completely if that's the way you feel about motherhood." 'That is just the way I feel,' Kris said, trapped. Which she didn't add. 'When did this get decided? This is the first I've heard of it." She was starting to get uptight now. She hadn't minded or complained about any of the duties she'd been asked to perform on this-alien planet; she'd welcomed the opportunities to show her flexibility and stamina and develop skills she'd never have used in a normal life on Earth.

Sandy kept grinning at her. 'In case you're interested, you're going through the same phases that others have - including Astrid before accepting the inevitable." That jolted Kris; she hated reacting in a predictable way.

Sandy chuckled now and patted her shoulder.

"It won't be soon and it won't be as bad as you expect. But I figured you mightn't have been told. You've been out on scouting parties, so you missed the great debate and no-one's had the courage to tell you about it."

"Who stuck you with the duty? Did Mitford know?"

"I volunteered. Mitford was too chicken,' Sandy said, grinning.

"Look at it this way, Kris. We've made Botany our own and we're going to keep it ours, and that means having a next generation to bequeath all our hard work to. I like this planet . . ." 'Now!" Kris reminded her wryly, feeling a bit sheepish over her outburst.

Sandy shook her head. 'No, I did from the start, because I could be myself here and what I knew was damned helpful, where back on Earth,' and she jerked her thumb over her shoulder, 'I was considered "fringe", or "weird" and "antisocial", nonconformist and definitely an odd-ball. Hell, here I'm running generals and admirals through my hoops as a town manager. Sure beats the hell out of being "tolerated".

And I'm not the only one who has found a real home on Botany. I think you have, too, even if it means giving up nine months to producing a baby." 'I hadn't thought of it all quite like that . . . I mean, your situation. I mean, back there as opposed to all the things you've done here. There's one matter that hasn't been taken into consideration, though,' Kris went on. 'The Farmers." 'Yeah,' Sandy said in a thoughtful drawl. 'But we'll-worry about that when we need to. Right now . . . cops,' and she stopped, looking in the direction of the entrance.

Zainal was there, looking around, and he spotted Kris and Sandy.

Sandy got up. 'Good luck,' and she left with a wink and a grin.

Kris wasn't sure she was ready for Zainal to join her just then.

Sandy's disclosure had really shaken her, and she'd have to sort all this out in her head. Disregarding the unsolved and unknown Farmers, she had to admit that having kids on Botany would give the colony stability, not to mention a morale boost.

Especially if someone who'd experienced the abuse Patti Sue had had could now contemplate getting pregnant.

Kris found very little consolation in knowing that she wouldn't have to have physical contact with the male parent, although that route struck her as cowardly, if not downright cheating some guy out of . . . could she call it a 'good time'?

Isolated from whet 'society' was available on Botany because of the scouting expeditions, she'd had little contact with other guys.

Mostly she and Zainal had worked with other pairs, like Sarah and Joe, and Whitby who had attached to Leila although they seemed an odd couple.

She had known, kind of peripherally, that the Sixth Drop had contained a group of women who had at first been totally ostracized by the other women in the camps to which they were assigned. She had noticed and commented on it to Sarah, who took some relish in telling her that these were 'ladies of the night' who had been picked up in one of the German cities along with the actual demonstrators. Apparently, Germany tolerated brothels but insisted that the occupants have periodic medical examinations to be sure they did not transmit sexual diseases, so these 'girls' were 'clean'. With a larger ratio of males to females on Botany, there'd been endless requests of the available women for sexual favours, on any terms. Some of those terms put the offenders up in the stocks to cool off. The arrival of the professionals had been greeted with considerable enthusiasm by Camp managers, so the women had been given the option of continuing their previous profession if they so chose. When assured such practices would be considered 'work hours' for community benefit, all but two had decided to continue. It was stipulated that they would still have to take their turn at the less glamorous chores of the camps, like kp and latrine, though they were excused from sentry duties. But they in turn had laid down strict regulations about how they could be treated by clients and the number they would be willing to accommodate. Proper respect was the first requirement - from the female population as well as the male.

The puritanical among the Botany women refused to admit that the oldest profession had a place on this planet. But they could not refuse to admit that a lot of guys went around camp in much better humour and with fewer snide remarks directed at the so-called 'prudes'.

There were a few intolerant women, like Janet and Anna Bollinger who studiously avoided them, but the rest did as requested and treated them with due civility.

"You look worried, Kris,' Zainal said as he straddled the bench before settling down beside her. 'Isn't the soup good

today?" he asked, noticing her unfinished bowl.

"Yes, it's good,' and she hastily picked up her spoon, though it was now only lukewarm.

"Sandy says something to worry you?" He looked concerned.

"Woman things,' she said, avoiding an explanation.

"Mitford says you will have to bear a child for the colony.

Maybe two." 'What!" Kris dropped the spoon in the soup, splashing it, and then becoming furious at such sloppiness, mopping hastily with a wad of fluff.

Zainal regarded her with a very level gaze, one corner of his mouth twitching as he leaned closer to her. 'Was that what Sandy was saying to you?" She hid her face from him. 'So Mitford had nerve enough to tell you? And not me?" 'Man-o'-man stuff,' Zainal said, and she could just see him grinning at her out of the corner of her eye. "You know you cannot have a child by me. Is that why you stay with me? So you do not have a child?" She glared at him. 'I stay with you because I'm in love with you, you . . . you . . .

brass-head,' she replied in a low and intense voice.

He covered her hand briefly with his, squeezing her fingers.

"You are young and strong. You will be a good mother." Kris gulped. "No, I won't. I'm not in the least bit maternal motherly!' She blurted out the denial, daring him to object. 'I'd make a lousy mother. I'm not ready to have kids, I'm too young." He gave her a long look. 'It is not something all Earth women do? Have babies?"

"Not all, by any long shot,' she told him grimly.

"I see,' he said slowly. 'It is not because you don't want to offend me?" 'I'm the faithful type, I don't want any man but you.

Even if we can't have children,' she replied in a tight voice, looking down at the soup which now had a thin haze of congealing fat on it.

"You do not need to sex another man. Mitford explained it to me." 'That's even worse,' she told him with gritted teeth, rolling her eyes.

"I wish to see a child from you. Choose Mitford. You like him!'

"WHAT?" Kris half-rose from the bench in agitation, and those by the hearth looked over at them. She dropped back to her seat, one hand over her face, as close to tears as she had ever been since coming to Botany. The trouble was she did like Chuck Mitford, very much, and if she hadn't gotten so incredibly tangled up with Zainal, she might have tried to come on to the sergeant. She had never once done so, nor had Mitford come on to her at any time: maybe she hadn't been mistaken in thinking that he'd have been interested in her if she hadn't paired off with Zainal. Of course, he had kept her so constantly in Zainal's company that finally sexual tension had been inevitable.

Zainal put an arm around her. 'Do not be this way, Kris. It is no big deal." 'No big deal ?" She whirled on him, pushing his arm away, and had the satisfaction of seeing him recoil slightly from her expression. 'No big deal!" She started to get off the bench but he held her down, exhibiting far more of his strength than he had ever used with her before.

"You are not a silly woman, Kris Bjornsen. When it is time, you will have the child and I will help you. Do not make it such a big deal." Then he got up and so startled her that she grabbed for his hand. Had she lost face in his eyes because she was, indeed, being somewhat silly? If he didn't mind, why should she?

"Your soup is cold. I get you hot."

Kris was nearly lightheaded with relief and nodded acceptance of the courtesy. She was relieved, too, that she had a little time without him beside her to sort out incoherent reactions and irrational emotions. When she put her hands to her face, they were icy cold. Or were her cheeks burning hot with outrage and embarrassment? Whichever, she needed to cool down and stop acting so stupidly. She started at the point where Zainal had said that he did not mind her having sex with another man; he even wanted her to have a child. All Catteni women had children whether they wanted to or not? Then she coped with him choosing for her the man she respected above all the others.

That suggested a sensitivity in the big Catteni most unusual for his species. Or was Humanity contagious? She knew he admired Mitford, too. Or had he and Mitford discussed a putative father of Kris Bjornsen's compulsory child? Which she doubted.

Mitford wasn't that sort of man. And she couldn't really see the sergeant and Zainal exchanging man-o'-man topics.

He returned with a bowl of steaming soup and a watchful expression on his face and, oddly enough, sympathy in his yellow eyes.

"Thanks, Zainal,' she said, spooning up soup and blowing to cool it. 'I did over-react there, I think." 'I love you, you know,' he said in a sort of off-handed manner which would have exacerbated her already jangling nerves if her remnant of common sense hadn't realized that such an admission was also very un-Cattenish. He covered her free hand with his. 'It is not an emotion I thought I would live as a man to have." And that caught her hard, right in the guts. She dropped her head to his shoulder, weeping as quietly as she could. She knew he had had two children; even the chosen had the right to produce heirs on Catten. But he'd never said a word about the woman, or women, who had borne them. So he had not allowed himself to love? Because he knew he was chosen and would not live long 'es a man'?

"Why do you cry . . . now?" He was utterly puzzled.

"For you. Because you can love me."

"It is not hard to do."

She could hear the ripple of amusement in his voice and, dashing the tears from her eyes, looked up at him with as good a smile as she could present.

"Eat your soup. We have work to do soon,' he said very gently, and she loved him even more deeply than ever.

***

The Eosi Mentats had deliberated; had examined the reports from both satellites with infinitesimal attention to detail. With each fresh review, their agitation grew. Two separate concerns were identified: firstly, the Eosi were not, as they had assumed, the only highly intelligent species in the galaxy, and why had they never encountered the Others when they had been assiduously exploring this arm of the Milky Way? Secondly, how did the Others arrive at a technology so far superior to their achievements, and how soon could they match and then surpass it?

Mentat Ix called to their attention the brief glimpse his shell had had of a comunit. Logically, an investigation should be made of the extant equipment for insights into the construction of the machinery situated on the colony planet.

Mentat Ix was assigned, with two younger Mentats which had technological skills and inventiveness, to inspect and analyse the installations. The warship AA 1 would take them there and also provide guards against any demonstrations by the indigenous population, who were known to be volatile.

As the superb new warship reached the ionosphere of the subject planet, its new propulsion system developed a fault, an oddity indeed, which resulted in a shock wave passing over the vessel from bow to stern. Gauges on detection equipment went off-scale for a nano-second, then returned to normal positions, and the engines resumed operation as if they had never faltered.

System analyses were run and damage reports undertaken, but no fault was found in any department of the AA 1. Even the Ix Mentat was confounded. It liked that no better than the other shocks this wretched back-water system had given it.

The captain activated every safeguard provided by this latest example of Eosi/Catten engineering and technology as he continued into the atmosphere of the third planet. There were no more life-forms detected than there should be, according to the numbers of prisoners sent there and the numbers Of lesser creatures previously assessed.

There were 2003 fewer humans than the records of removal, but there would have been some casualties both in transport and since landing.

The Eosi had stipulated that they land at the point where most of the Drops had been made, easily identified by the wrecked transport vessel.

Teams of guards trotted out of the AA1, to make a quick surveillance of the immediate area and the wreck, and were halfway across the field when they were suddenly attacked by aerial creatures.

Shot down with the accuracy for which such crack troops are famed, these were identified as indigenous life-forms, previously recorded by the original survey team.

Reaching the wreck, they reported signs of intense heat and fire damage in the propulsion section. That, of course, was consistent to the reports from both the Drassi in command of the transporter and the rescuers who had subsequently lost their lives in the second accident.

"Third,' Mentat Ix corrected the captain.

'lord?" the captain asked nervously.

"The scout ship also disappeared after landing on this planet."

"My pardon. I didn't know of that incident, Lord."

"I do." And that was that.

The skiff, which was commodious enough for three Mentats and necessary crew. They saw nothing impressive in the facilities built into the cliffs, or in the machines that dutifully awaited the timely resumption of their pre-programmed duties. In fact, the machinery was almost depressingly simple in design and function when compared with the orbital and the massive ship that had stunned the Ix on its first trip to this solar system.

"None of this suits our purpose or forwards an understanding of the mentality of the makers,' Mentat Ix said, although it found no fault with the sun nor the freshness of the air. 'When the colony is established, I may even take control of this planet." Mentats Co and Se exchanged discreet glances and followed their senior back into the ship. Despite the failure to find anything of technological significance, Ix did not issue any immediate orders, but retired to its own quarters to meditate.

Eventually Ix sent orders to the captain that the skiff must be readied for a second exploratory trip. It took the other Mentats with it, showing the pilot where it wished to land. It also required the pilot to hover when the glyphs carved into the hillside were noticed.

"The message is in Catten,' Mentat Co said.

"Yes, the renegade Zainal was here." The Ix Mentat gnashed the teeth in its host's mouth in a most unusual fashion, then peremptorily gestured for the skiff to be landed where once, as Lenvec, it had settled to remind a brother of duty owed.

There was nothing on the site, merely more fields with hedgerows; nothing certainly that would have accounted for the chosen's escape.

And only faded traces of where the scout ship had landed. The Ix Mentat turned its head in the direction from which the humans and Zainal had come.

"Take us there!" and it pointed.

The skiff took off and shortly came to the deep ravine which, at a low hover, showed not only visible evidence of human occupation but easily detected a considerable number of life-forms in the intricate cave system. Several emerged to observe the aircraft. The skiff's detection equipment picked up the use of comunits, but on a frequency which could not be directionalized before the signal cut off abruptly.

"They have more of those hand units,' the Ix Mentat said superciliously.

"Does the Mentat wish to land and speak to the humane?" the pilot asked, as more emerged from the caves.

"I have no interest in pests." But the Ix had been more closely observing the signature of the humans than anyone realized.

Primarily it searched for the unmistakable signature of a Catten life-reading, and that was not visible outside or inside the caves.

Deep inside the Ix's mind, one pathetic whimper trembled.

"The humans appear to have moved about a great deal,' said Mentat Co, 'if these,' and it flicked a long nail at the screen where more clusters showed at different locations, 'are indeed human pulses."

Ix Mentat regarded Co with some interest. 'Moved where?"

"On the smaller continent adjacent to this one. Many human life-signs registered there as we overflew it." 'Return,' Ix Mentat said and sat back, impatient to reach the ship and order it to the second continent, where the Catten signature might be found among the other conceritration of humans.

As the AAI lifted, having left a substantial declivity across most of the field with the weight of its visit, the Ix Mentat entered the bridge and stood behind the officer responsible for the life-form detection.

"Set for Catten sign,' the Ix said, clicking its long nails together in a tattoo that had the Catten of fleer cringing with nervousness.

The AAl made the next continent in a shallow curve. It had not yet reached even the intended altitude when the screen gave off a brief blip - registering the presence of a Catteni. It vanished so quickly that the duty officer wondered if it had been a legitimate sighting, but the Mentat was taking no chances and ordered the vessel to circle the point, a prong of land extending into the narrow channel between the two land-masses. But again nothing registered on the screen.

"An anomaly, perhaps,' the Co suggested blandly after

sufficient time had elapsed to have done several orbits about this wretched planet.

"Perhaps,' the Ix replied irritably and signalled to continue across the water.

The greatest concentration of the lesser, human signatures was found around the northern bay. 'They've infested the place,' the Co remarked as the 'babble' was screened for any sign of Catten.

The Ix pondered a long while as the AAI held its position, using great quantities of fuel to do so. Then, with an abrupt gesture, the Mentat Ix ordered the captain to return with all possible speed to Catten.

The captain wished to do so as well, anxious to be rid of his Eosi passengers, and he gave the necessary orders . . . and was nearly bounced from his command chair as the forward Notion abruptly ceased.

The engines were still running, their pulse beginning to reach up to a whine of frustration as the ship met an impenetrable obstacle.

"There's some sort of barrier, captain,' the helmsmarr said, looking at the opacity which held them motionless. 'It's all around the planet." 'Destroy it,' the Ix ordered with an agitated wave of its long arm.

The captain ordered a full barrage of all forward weapons, certain his fire power was sufficient for the task. The ship rocked and crewmen covered their eyes at the resultant flash-back.

"I see a lessening in the opacity directly ahead,' the navigator said, trying hard not to think how futile this brand-new ship's much-vaunted artillery had been.

The captain called for more power and the ship moved slowly, slowly, slowly, pushing through the barrier it had been unable to destroy. Then, all of a sudden the ship plunged forward through the obstacle, knocking to the deck many who were not holding on to something, including all three Mentats.

Although several officers sprang forward in an instinctive effort to assist, the Mentats snarled away any help and slowly got to their feet, glaring around them.

"Turn!" the Ix ordered the captain. 'I want to know what that barrier is and how it could impede this ship." The captain gave the order to the coin-board to switch to the stern view screen. Nothing happened.

"I asked for the view astern,' he roared but, while the communications officer cringed from his captain's anger, all his attempts to access the rear views came to nothing.

"There is no response,' he said.

"Damage report,' said the engineering officer, 'indicates problems with the arrays, sir. It is an external problem." 'Fix it!' the captain said, bringing his fists down on the armrests.

Orders were forwarded, and the Ix rattled its long nails with far more irritation than the captain dared show.

"Well, then, turn the ship around so that the forward viewscreens can enlighten us. I must examine that obstacle,' Ix said, making a small tight circle with one finger.

In getting free, the full power of the AA I 's engines had carried them a considerable distance before that manoeuvre was completed. The captain muttered unhappily when he saw how far they were from the misbegotten bubble, and an unhappy silence ensued in the bridge until they had returned close enough to examine the phenomenon.

During that time, a damage report suggested that every protuberance of more than twenty centimetres and all the more delicate arrays had been snapped off.

And indeed, as they neared the opaque bubble, it was obvious in the forward view-screen that every last one of the missing parts was embedded in the bubble, outlining the less fragile silhouette of the AA1. And the bubble completely enclosed the planet, just short of the two satellites. The orbital continued its programmed circuits, but there would be nothing on its tapes but an endless view of the bubble.

"It admits sunlight,' said the science officer, relieved to find something positive to report for he had to add that its composition was totally unfamiliar.

"Examine it thoroughly,' the Ix said, looming over the technician, expecting answers.

The Catten, one of the top men in his branch of the service, used every technique available to him at a station that was supposed to be the latest improvement for its duties, but could find nothing further to report. Finally he spread his hands to admit defeat. He dared not look above his head at the Mentat, so he did not see the blow that crushed his skull like a melon.

The Ix stormed from the bridge with its juniors behind it, and the captain told the helmsman to return to the original course back to Catten. Then he gestured for the corpse to be removed from the science station.

"Hell, I don't know what it was,' Marrucci told the others gathered in the bridge of the KDL. 'Never seen anything like it pushed all the gauges off-line and it looked . . ." he paused, 'for a split second, as if deep space got lit up." 'Now let's not lose perspective here,' Scott began and then stopped.

Beverly whistled under his breath. 'I know it can't be technologically possible,' he began slowly, 'but then a lot of stuff we've been seeing recently is so far beyond what we'd generally consider science-fictional that maybe we can stretch that little bit further and think that it's possible to put a barrier around an entire planet." "There's something out there now that wasn't there earlier,' Scott said, leaning on the edge of the scanner board and staring at it.

"Even if it only shows up like a mist or a veil or an opacity." 'There Alas a Star Trek episode I saw as a kid,' Marrucci remarked almost apologetically, 'called the "Tholian Web", and it was building a lattice to keep the Enterprise in." 'So how did the Enterprise get free?" Beverly asked without a trace of irony.

Marrucci thought for a long moment and then shrugged. 'I can't remember. But I can see the web being spun around it, and they knew they only had so much time . . ." he trailed off.

"So, are the Farmers keeping us in? And why did they let the Eosi ship in and then out?"

"It blew a hole in the web and got out?" Marrucci asked,

looking around the bridge for any other explanation. 'That might explain that flash, the Eosi blowing it open." 'There's no hole in it now,' Scott said, standing up again but not taking his eyes from the screen. 'And why was the Eosi ship here in the first place?" 'Looking us over?" Fetterman suggested. They'd all been alerted by the Deski sentries here at Retreat Bay when the ship had over-flown them. Then the group at old Camp Narrow had informed them that the ship had landed in the Drop Field.

Discreet observation had followed, and reported, every move, including the skiff arriving at the abattoir and the subsequent removal to the field near Camp Rock, and Worrell had reported the skiff hovering over Camp Rock. And, in detail, what he had seen in the skiff.

"I saw three . . . giants . . . in the skiff,' worry said, his voice shaky. 'They were staring down at us, and I've never seen such nightmares. They were . . . sort of Catteni, but no Catteni is that big and glows. The heads are all distorted and the features sort of caricatures of Catteni. Not even Catteni deserve that sort of fate.

I'm glad Zainal missed out if that's what he was avoiding!" 'I concur with what Worry says,' Leon Dane came on line.

"I've never seen anything like that, not in Sydney nor in any of the material that we commandeered during our operations in Australia.

There's a disease - elephantiasis - that causes something that looks similar. But the gross enlargement of the head isn't at all like an encephalic abnormality . . . No wonder ordinary Catteni are frightened by the Eosi. They scared the shit out of me just now." Shortly after that report, the warship was seen to pause just over the channel, where it circled for a long time. But time enough for those at Retreat Bay to complete the camouflage around the KDL and Baby, which were now housed in the big cave.

"You don't think they've been looking for Zainal, do you?" Mitford asked. 'He'd've been about there,' and the sergeant pointed to the area that had attracted the Catteni hover, 'in the Tub." 'What effect does several fathoms of water have on Catteni detection scans?" Marrucci asked those around him.

"Zainal might know, but let's not call and ask him, huh?" Mitford said.

No-one could, anyhow, since that was when the Eosi warship met the immovable opacity and the brand-new worry about whether they were sealed in or others sealed out.

Having completed its programmed task, the bubble-drone assumed its monitor facet and observed the approach of a small spaceship which had just taken off from the subject planet. It had, of course, observed the arrival and landing of the same craft earlier but, as it was not programmed to take any action at that point, it continued its primary assignment, extruding the material that would form the protective barrier. However, when the spaceship did not heed the initial resistance of the barrier, it accessed its emergency instructions. In that brief period of time of adding scope to its activities, the space-craft displayed force which had to be disseminated quickly through the barrier to diffuse the effect. The further efforts of the space-craft to pass its confines weakened the barrier. Then the instructions were available and the barrier assisted the expulsion of the hostile craft. The substance of the barrier caught on and held protuberances and smaller exterior parts of the exiting body. But the overall integrity of the bubble remained intact and the subject planet was now safe from external dangers, of which the space-craft could now be considered one.

Since there had been an attack, the orbiting mechanism initialized its message segment and programmed it with a full report of the proceedings. Once the message segment reached the point at which its hyperspace drive could safely function without a backlash affecting the integrity of a solar system, it made its quick passage back to its home base.

This time its purport was quickly examined by entities able to deal with the subject matter.

By the time Zainal and Kris drove out of the water at Retreat Bay?

they were aware of the excitement of those they passed who waved vigorously at them as they made their way to Headquarters in the big cave. That's where they found Mitford waiting for them in his little run-about.

"The consensus of opinion is that they might have been looking for you,' Mitford told Zainal. 'Get in, the pair of you. Let the others unpack the Tub." 'We just made it into the channel when the ship passed overhead,' Kris said, taking a seat. 'We were well started when we heard the reports about the landing in the Drop Field, and Zainal here,' she gave him a little grin, 'put the pedal to the metal and headed towards the channel as fast as the Tub would go. It wouldn't have done for them to spot it when it's supposed to be shards in space with the rest of the KDL." She glanced at Zainal.

She'd said nothing to him about her other suspicion, which Mitford had voiced, that the ship might be looking for him. At least, not until the skiff was reported landing where Lenvec had and where they had hijacked the scout vehicle. That's when Zainal started driving faster than was safe over the terrain they were on.

He was racing to the channel, to get as deep as the Tub could safely go. That's when she knew he was really worried. But now he seemed amused by the incident and shrugged off Mitford's report.

"Worry saw three Eosi?" Zainal asked, his yellow eyes sparkling with an almost demonic glitter.

"Yeah, and they scared the shit out of him and Leon Dane."

Zainal's smile widened with irony. 'They are frightful. It was only with great effort that I did not embarrass my father and all my line by losing water." Then he gave his big shoulders one of his characteristic shrugs. 'But only the first time." 'Is that what you would have become if you'd gone back?" Mitford asked, not quite meeting Zainal's eyes.

The Catteni nodded once, slowly. 'So they came back? And looked at the machinery in Narrow, and at the field and at Camp Rock, and didn't find Catteni life-signs. But they have gone. There was nothing on the screen when we got out at the Bay.

I What happened? I wish to hear more." 'There is more to tell, too, that you wouldn't have seen underwater. The brass-heads are waiting for you,' Mitford said with a big grin, stopping the air-cushion by the stairs at the KDL's open hatch.

They climbed in.

"Good news, serge?" Kris asked, remembering those last few klicks before the Tub immersed itself. Zainal's expression had been so grim, so . . . frightened . . . she didn't like to think of anything frightening Zainal, even if she knew very well that the Eosi did. Did he suspect the ship might be searching for him . . . still?

Especially if the others did.

Could his brother, Lenvec, be still conscious enough to make an Eosi search him out and take revenge?

"Well, sort of good news,' Mitford said with an odd twist to his smile.

"Tell me, Zainal, could that warship scan underwater?" 'I hope not,' Zainal replied and Kris, watching him closely, saw his jaw muscles tighten.

"If it's any consolation, I don't think they can because otherwise they would have found you - if you're what they were looking for,' Mitford said. 'They did spend a lot of time circling the channel on the other side, about where you would have submerged." 'We cut it pretty close, I think,' said Kris, her eyes on Zainal. 'But they have gone away,' Zainal said with a satisfied nod.

"They've gone. With a bang,' Mitford agreed, grinning broadly, but neither Kris nor Zainal had time to question that because they had reached the bridge where Scott, Beverly and Marrucci waited for them.

"Glad you made it here safely, after all,' Scott said in welcome, but he gestured for Zainal and Kris to join him at the big screen.

"Gino, replay the Catteni ship's departure, will you?" Marrucci, grinning from ear to ear, tapped in the necessary keys as if he'd handled Catteni equipment all his professional life.

Zainal echoed the gasp Kris gave when she saw the blip of the Catteni vessel stop, short.

"How could it hit a wall in space?" she asked. Only then did she notice the barely visible skin of the bubble. 'That's what stopped it?" She turned first to Beverly, then Scott and Mitford, and finally to Zainal.

He was shaking his head, but his eyes were gleaming with intense satisfaction. 'It circles the planet?" he asked.

"We have reason to believe so. But watch,' said Scott, holding up one hand, fingers wide to give his eyes some protection from the flash.

"Wow!" Kris exclaimed, blinking to clear the after-image from her eyes. 'What was that?" 'The forward blasters of the ship firing at once,' Zainal said in a very odd tone of voice. 'And it isn't enough." He continued to watch, but a half-smile turned the corner of his mouth and he began to chuckle. Now he folded his arms across his chest and, still chuckling, watched as the Catteni warship slowly pushed its way through the obstacle and became invisible. 'Ah!" He dropped his arms.

"That is very interesting indeed,' he said, turning to Scott.

"Yes, we think so,' and Scott settled himself on the edge of the screen control panel. 'We think they were looking for you . . ." "I told them,' Mitford said, seating himself at the next work station.

Scott shot him a glance. 'Could they have been?"

"For what purpose?" Zainal lifted one shoulder negligently. 'I speeded the Tub so they would not see it out in the open. They might have seen it submerging, if they had the scanners in the right direction. If they came, it was to see what their orbital saw.

It was in place when the whizz-ball came over, and it was also there when the big one sent down all the new machines. The Eosi looked at those, did they not?" Mitford's expression was one of relief and Scott regarded Zainal with a look close to embarrassment.

"They come to see what's new on Botany,' Zainal repeated, showing his teeth in a full grin. 'Not for me." Kris allowed herself to relax a trifle. She'd forgotten all about the fact that the Catteni orbital would have sent reports back.

Of course that's what they had come to see! Zainal didn't enter into the matter. He was dropped and he stayed.

"So, do you think the Farmers erected that space barrier?" Scott asked, his eyes fixed intently on Zainal's face.

"Who else? Since the warship had to blast its way out, Zainal said. 'The watch did not report anything happening in space?" 'Just that the Catteni orbital seemed to have developed a shadow,' Marrucci said. 'I was watch officer when the Catteni arrived. There was nothing, nothing there then."

"Is the shadow still with the orbital?"

Marrucci grinned. 'Can't see that far any more." But he did call up the log for that period and showed them the tiny shadow behind the orbital.

"If that's the gadget that did the trick, why didn't it move fast enough,' Mitford said in a low grumble, 'to keep the Eosi from getting in at all?" 'Maybe it just took time to spread out,' Beverly suggested.

Then he turned to Marrucci and added, 'Even that Tholian Web took time, didn't it, to enclose the Enterprise?" 'The Enterprise?" Kris exclaimed in surprise. 'The Tholian Web? Oh, I remember that episode." 'D'you remember how the Enterprise got free?" Marrucci asked hopefully.

"No,' she replied sheepishly.

"You're no help." 'Enough,' said Scott, making a cutting gesture to stop their levity. 'This episode has no happy ending. This planet is now enclosed." 'To keep us in?" Kris asked softly, and knew the others had the same question in their minds. Then, because she couldn't bear the tension, she added facetiously, 'Maybe they want to be sure their machinery stays intact. If they can't differentiate between us and loo-cows, they surely will look at a warship that big with some uneasiness." 'But the Catteni ships were coming in and out of here like yoyos,' Mitford said.

"But the Farmers weren't alerted to the change in . . . tenants, shall I say?" and Scott gave a mirthless smile, 'until that homing device was sent off." 'By the way, whose bright idea was that?" Beverly asked, frowning.

"It got a reaction, which is what we wanted,' Mitford said, declining to name a name. Which, Kris felt, was more forbearance than Dick Aarens deserved.

"Not for - how many months was it . . ." Beverly asked, 'before the whizz-ball arrived?" 'Seven,' Zainal said, 'and then only three weeks until the big ship arrives to replace the machines." "What I can't understand,' said Kris, 'is why that scan of theirs hasn't apparently taken any notice of the existence of a new type of life-form on their planet? Loo-cows have six legs, noticeably, and we have only two. Surely that was noted somewhere?" She raised her hands in a puzzled gesture.

"And the barrier did let the Catteni warship out,' Beverly said in a puzzled tone.

"For which I, and I'm certain Zainal, too, is very grateful,' Kris said in an undertone. Beverly shot her an understanding smile, his eyes flicking over Zainal beside her.

"Indeed,' Scott said, clearing his throat nervously.

"Very grateful,' Zainal added in a low, fervent tone, leaning back in his chair, stretching out his long legs and giving a sigh of relief.

"But why did it?" Scott asked, pursuing the puzzle.

"Because the ship used weapons against it?" Zainal asked.

"That is a possibility, of course, if the Farmers are pacific by nature,' Scott went on. 'But we don't know that, do we?" 'We know by the valleys,' Zainal said, 'which were to keep something in or something out. But not to kill it. Only now we are kept in and danger is kept out." He pointed to the screen where the Catteni ship's departure was on replay. 'I think the Eosi have been given much to think about." 'But where does that leave us,' and Scott glanced around those on the KDL's bridge, 'in relation to the Farmers?" 'Remember that we all felt that we'd been scanned?" Mitford began, making sure he had everyone's attention. 'Okay, so the whizz-ball orbital did an inventory and the supply ship dropped off what was needed to fill in the gaps. Let's say that, like all the Farmers' stuff, it was programmed to expect certain life-forms and recorded a great many more of an unidentifiable sort.

Maybe that's why there's a bubble around us, until the Farmers can come have a closer look at something that isn't programmed." 'You're just hoping that's the case, Mitford,' Scott said. 'It would vindicate everything you originally aimed to do. Attract their attention and their help." When Mitford nodded, he went on, 'Only your plan's gone agley, as the Scotsman said."

"Not much agley, sir. Not yet, at any rate."

"It would if the Farmers decide that we're some sort ofnalignant life-form which has contaminated their planet." Kris glared up at Scott, appalled that he'd say such a thing.

Then she paused and amended her thinking: that he'd say what possibly everyone else feared - but his expression gave no apology for his blunt speech.

"No,' Zainal said into the dismayed silence his observation caused. 'No,' he added in a stronger tone and sat forward, clapping his big hands to his knees to emphasize that denial. 'The Farmers are cultivators, a race that protects; the valleys prove that to me. The scan could have killed a malignant life-form but did not. The barrier could have destroyed the warship. It did not. But it let it out. We will prove we are cultivators, savers, protectors, too. When the Farmers come . . ." 'You think they will?" Marrucci asked, his thick eyebrows raised in hope of a negative response.

"I think they will, but I will not wait until they do,' said Zainal with a wry grin on his face. 'I will not worry until they do.

I will live well until they do."

"I think I agree with you on that, Zainal,' Beverly said.

Me, too,' echoed Marrucci.

"I may have reservations, Zainal,' Scott said, 'but worry is futile, especially,' and now he flung out both arms in a gesture

of resignation, When faced with a far, far superior force."

"This planet has a great potential,' Beverly said in a quiet, affirmative voice. 'Let us make as much of it as we can, and hope that the Farmers see us as cultivators and, perhaps, useful tenants." 'Amen to that,' Marrucci added and made the sign of the cross.

Kris ducked her head respectfully even as she reached for Zainal's hand. He did not mention Phase Three but, by the way he returned the pressure of her fingers, she knew that he had not forgotten it.

While the brass-heads, with Peter Easley, Yuri Palit and Chuck Mitford, visited the various communal mess halls set up around Retreat Bay and further inland to counteract rumours and explain what had happened, Zainal and the fly-boys discussed a quick run in the scout to examine the bubble. Bert Put, Marrucci, Raisha, Beverly and Vic Yowell were dying to see the phenomenon. The argument had been that, if the satellites could no longer see what they were doing on the surface, there was no harm in making use of the aircraft for exploratory purposes.

And one of the first things to be explored was the bubble: 'As close as one could get to it." 'Or in it,' Kris had added, staying in the background but determined to go along for the ride for a variety of reasons.

She'd learned all she could about the new equipment, and had driven the Tub often enough to have got the hang of the Cattenisize finger pads on the control boards. She might never learn to pilot, but there were always other duties during a flight for which she felt herself well able.

She also had a feeling that Zainal had no intention of giving up his plan to 'hitch a ride' on the next Farmers' vehicle that darkened Botany's skies. How he could achieve that goal, she hadn't a clue and he was giving her none, though there were times when he stared blindly out at nothing, with unfocused eyes, and she knew him well enough to be aware that he was turning over ways and means of achieving a hitch.

Considering how quickly the supply ship had made its deliveries, would he have time enough to reach it before it took off again at its incredible speed? The scout and the KDL were equipped with a tractor beam, and she suspected that's what he hoped to use to secure himself to the exterior. But what if he got knocked off when the Farmers' ship accelerated or activated whatever it used to travel the immense distances they were now convinced it traversed?

She kept hoping that when his plans were completed, she'd be part of them. For all the good friends she now had on Botany, she did not wish to be left here by herself. Especially since Zainal's presence protected her from importunities. Already she'd had several distressing interviews with men who wanted to be on her 'paternity' list. They professed themselves willing to forgo a natural conception but they would like to have her bear their child.

She had managed to thank them for their interest - when she really wanted to clout them as hard as she could - and told them she would consider their offer. And made sure to stick closer to Zainal's side than ever, even though it meant stopping work on the quarters they were building. She did what she could without his help - until guys started showing up with offers of assistance . . . and the 'paternity' requests.

Then Raisha discovered she was pregnant, and deferred to whoever wished to take her spot.

"I've been up and it was wonderful,' she said, her eyes shining with the memory, 'but I don't want to whoopsie in free fall, thank you." That condition was becoming widespread, Astrid, Sarah and the three girls who had been Catteni decoders all announcing pregnancies.

Kris kept as close to Zainal as she possibly could, even sitting through repeated instructions at the scout's control board to avoid the 'infection'. No wonder so many individual quarters were being built in the Bay area.

There was no problem filling in Raisha's place, and Bert magnanimously offered to step down too. Beverly and Marrucci went over the credentials of all those who volunteered for the flight and selected Antonio Gedes for Raisha's spot, but Zainal insisted that Bert remain - having had some experience with the craft and in space - while two other pilots, Alejandro Balenquah and Sidi Ahmed, were added to the flight list.

"Not that we're ever likely to go far,' Balenquah said gloomily.

He was swarthy, with deep-set black eyes that surveyed his surroundings with reserve. Kris wasn't sure she liked his noncommittal posture, when here he was being offered what half-a-dozen less qualified men and women would have killed to get. Well, not 'killed', but definitely envied.

"Look at it this way, mate,' said Bert Put, also displeased by the man's attitude, 'you never know, do you? Did you ever think you'd drive a ship in space again? Well, you're doing it now, and here." 'I guess . . ." and Balenquah altered his attitude. He was actually the quickest of the three new men to become easy with the unusual equipment and the finger-pad boards.

The flight had been planned in spite of severe reservations from Reidenbacker and Ainger. They were ground personnel, Marrucci had remarked privately to Kris, and suspicious of air and space manoeuvres.

If the satellites were no longer visible on the screens of the KDL and the scout, then it was two to one that the SATs couldn't see inside within the bubble. It was therefore not only safe, but a wise precaution to see what the barrier was like up close.

"Not to mention the fact that you're dying to go up again,' Kris said and he grinned, more boyish than ever despite having reached the rank of colonel in the Air Force.

"You got it, Bjornsen,' and he cocked a doublejointed thumb at her, making the rest of his hand into a mock pistol before dropping the thumb. He also had a habit of cracking his knuckles when he was nervous, a routine which fascinated Zainal who could not, to Kris's relief, duplicate the action.

Having one person do it in the confines of a pilot compartment was enough!

Zainal also wanted to see if he could locate a Farmers' satellite, or whatever was controlling the bubble.

"If they spy on us, it is good. They want to know more before they come."

"That's your interpretation,' Kris said.

He regarded her with his yellow eyes and a slight smile on his lips. 'And what is yours?" She thought for a moment and then laughed.

"Yeah, we could very well be a mouse run." 'A what?" Zainal asked, puzzled, so she suggested they take a break from house-building while she explained about laboratory mice and labyrinths to test intelligence and learning ability.

"To add to whatever that scan of theirs discovered about us."

"But we do what we want,' Zainal said, still puzzled.

"Maybe we just think we do,' she replied, just now identifying that possibility.

"Scott would not like to think someone else commands him,' and he chuckled as he got back to his feet and reached for another brick.

"No, he sure as hell wouldn't,' Kris agreed, and laughed as she rose to join him. 'We've got just enough mortar mixed for another course,' she said, scooping up a trowel-full. 'I'm getting quite adept at this." Then she remembered Sandy Areson'sremark about plastering being like feeding an infant, and that she'd use the same skills when she had one of her own. She tapped the next brick in place with such force that it split in half.

"That's the fourth one tonight,' she said irritably. 'Maybe they need to bake them longer or something." Sandy was in fact in charge of the brick-firing, so Kris knew it was no fault of the manufacture.

Brick-making was another chore shared throughout the community. But there was something soothing about shovelling the wet muck into the moulds and knowing you were building your own place from scratch including the ones on your arms, hands and legs, collected from the process of building.

Still, it would be a nice place when it was finished. She and Zainal had picked the spot together, on that first trip. They had a splendid view of the Bay, with enough clear ground around to plant vegetables and berry shrubs, and a stand of 'young' lodgepole trees behind them. After months of barracks living, nearly everyone on Botany wanted privacy and the Bay area certainly afforded that.

The Narrow Valley mess hall had been disassembled, loaded aboard the KDL and reassembled on a height above the Bay.

Smaller offices' clustered around it on the natural terraces and levels below and above. The hospital was the only other large single structure, and Leon Dane announced that the medical staff did not have time to build a separate maternity wing. He was, however, training midwives for home births since he was certain all the babies would decide to be born at the same time.

Private accommodations spread out around the Bay in all directions, at first built from the lodge-pole tree timber before the brick manufactory got production up to a useful level. Those involved in cutting timber made the interesting discovery that even the smallest of the lodge-pole trees which had grown down into the plateau were at least a thousand years old.

"They have rings, just like trees on Earth,' said Vigdin Elsasdochter, the environmental specialist in charge of responsible logging, ready to show the section she carried around with her. 'And tight rings to indicate the climate has not changed much throughout the millenium: no drought, no bad winters, no hot summers. Some of the larger trees may be ten thousand years old." Once again the question of how long the Farmers had been in possession of the planet was brought up. Especially since the 'new forest' of 'young trees' had been seeded by the much older ones. Even Worrell refused to worry about it.

"I got other more important things to worry about,' he'd said

one night in the mess hall. 'Like allocating glass to people who want to have picture windows and stall showers! Of all things,' and he'd flung a hand towards the Bay, 'as if we don't have a great big bath-tub out there!" Those who had been in the building trades on Earth, like the Doyle brothers, were kept busy - offering advice, showing novices how to do things he'd learned, Lenny said, 'at me da's knee, so to speak'. Some of the Asians had the most trouble, since they had been accustomed to different building materials.

After assigned chores were done and the evenings gradually lengthened, everyone worked on their homes, and lent a hand to neighbours for jobs that required a gang.

While some of the brass-heads were living in the cliff hangar, and bunking down on pallets in their offices, all of them had picked out sites, but keeping track of work assignments for nearly ten thousand people and aliens took most of their time.

"Someone has to do it,' Mitford remarked when Kris complained that the admiral seemed to be the unelected head of everything. 'And, hell, Kris, I might have run the battalion to all intents and purposes, and managed to whip us into some sort of order there at the first, but he had an aircraft carrier and they carry ten thousand; he's used to dealing with those kind of numbers, I'm not. I was only too glad to hand him the can, you know." Mitford remained in charge of exploration and mapping, attempting to fill in the spatial map with the details necessary for further expansion of the farming and ranching. 'If you can call loo-cows ranch animals." Knowing that the sergeant was truly happier on reconnaissance in the Tub, Kris decided not to harbour any ill-feelings towards Ray Scott. There was no question that he wasn't working all the hours God gave the day here on Botany. And some days he seemed almost agreeable, as if Botany was mellowing him. At other times, she was certain he disliked and distrusted Zainal - and her, by virtue of her association with the former Emassi officer. He vacillated between extreme cordiality when deferring to Zainal's knowledge of some matters and total dismissal of Zainal's opinions. He didn't have command all his own way, which somewhat mollified Kris; and she supposed that, having run an aircraft carrier, he had the requisite experience. She had occasion to be grateful it was Scott who issued most of the orders rather than Geoffrey Ainger, whom she didn't like at all. He was so Brit that he was almost as much a caricature of the serving officer as Colonel Blimp had been, and she knew he considered Zainal a dangerous commodity.

She got along well with Rastancil, Fetterman and Reidenbacker; John Beverly was the nicest of the lot, because he always looked straight at her when he asked or answered questions.

And Easley, but then he was as his name - easily to get along with. In fact, when he was involved, meetings seemed less tense and often more productive. He had such a knack for gently redirecting tensions and making suggestions that kept discussions going around, instead of stopping at Ray Scott all the time.

Which brought her back to the present and the meeting Scott and Rastancil had called them in for. They wanted Zainal to check the more mountainous terrain that had not yet been explored during the flight.

The number of orbits had expanded from a quick flight up to the Bubble and back down, to five days of circumnavigating the planet.

"See if there are any blind valleys here on our continent, or deposits of minerals. We could use more lead, copper, zinc and tin, if this continent has them." 'I believe it does,' Zainal said. 'The miner, Walter Duxie, has copies of the original spatial survey maps." "Duxie? Do I know him?" Scott asked over his shoulder at his ever-present aide.

"Yes, he agreed to leave the other place and supervise mining here,' Beggs murmured. 'Stocky man, balding, forties, English." 'Ah, yes, get them for me to see,' and Scott turned back to Zainal and Kris.

She wondered what Beggs's description of Zainal was - and

idea, especially with those families which were increasing. 'I think it looks well." 'Does at that. I can help hand out nails, too.

Brought you my handy-dandy nail apron, as well." She handed over the object and, laughing, Kris tied it about her waist while Sandy started herself. He never seemed to meet anyone's eye, but then he was so seldom asked questions: he just answered Scott's. Then she decided she didn't want to know.

Two days later, Zainal was satisfied that those accompanying him on the Bubble Mission, as its participants named it, were sufficiently trained to put what they had been learning into practice. He announced a dawn take-off and dismissed them, suggesting that they all relax for the rest of the evening. Not that he intended to follow his own advice, because they were ready to put the shakes on the roof of their two-roomed cabin. Kris decided she needed to be so thoroughly tired she couldn't stay awake, because she was far more excited about the trip than she let on.

Zainal had just finished setting the piles of shakes in order and was steadying the ladder against the gable end when Mitford, Worry, Tesco, Sandy Areson, Sally Stoffers and the two Doyles arrived, hammers in hand and with a second ladder.

"Can't have you breaking something the day before the Bubble,' Mitford had said gruffly.

Kris grinned gratefully, because Zainal might have patiently learned the rudiments of construction but she was terrified that he'd fall through the rafters, or break them, and he wouldn't let her go up on the roof by herself to nail the shakes.

"You can't help,' Kris said flatly to the two women.

"Heard about your design with my buff bricks,' Sandy said.

She was puffing a bit from the walk up the hill, and had brought along her own stool; she put it down facing the front of the cabin and nodded approval. 'Didn't realize we had so much colour variation . .

.

batches."

"I liked the buff so that's what I made, and then added more buff to the red ones,' Kris said, observing the effect objectively.

They'd put the darker bricks around the door, window-ledges, corners, the chimney and the hearth surround. They had a back door, too, out of the smaller room, so they had easier access to the latrine. And a sleeping loft which had become a popular. Maybe it's all you novices mixing your own idea, especially with those families which were increasing. 'I think it looks well." 'Does at that. I can help hand out nails, too.

Brought you my handy-dandy nail apron, as well." She handed over the object and, laughing, Kris tied it about her waist while Sandy started filling the three commodious pockets with the nails. 'Is Zainal going to fill that big mouth of his with nails?" Kris chuckled. 'No, Lenny already warned him about swallowing nails; even a Catteni gut couldn't handle a mouthful.

He's got a pail." Zainal had the ladder in place now and, before he could pick his pail off the ground, she was up the ladder, a bundle of shakes and the hammer in one hand and the other helping her up the rungs.

"Hey?" Zainal protested.

"You'd never know he was Catteni,' Sandy said conversationally to Sally, 'unless you had to look at him." Sally smothered a giggle as Zainal made as graceful a climb up the ladder as Kris had. Mitford and Lenny Doyle appeared on the roof from the other side and then the hammering began, echoing in the little dell, and picked up by the rat-tat-tat of other hammers on other roofs.

With so many to help, passing shakes and replenishing the supply of nails, the cabin was roofed by the time the sun went down. Then Zainal passed around 'beer' while Kris served up tea from the kettle in the fireplace.

"Looks bigger somehow, with the roof on,' Kris remarked, glancing up at the rafters and taking a deep breath of the fragrance of the new wood of the shakes. They could have had slate, but Mitford thought shakes were nicer and easier to put up.

They lounged about outside until first Moonrise and then the guests left.

"We'd better hike to the hangar and get to bed in the scout,' Kris said, moving towards the doorway. They had no door yet.

Zainal stopped her. 'I want to stay under my own roof, which I have built . . ."

"Helped build,' she said, teasingly.

"Tonight,' he finished, and gestured towards the pile of blankets which she hadn't noticed in the rush to get the roof done.

"That would make the evening complete."

"Not quite,' Zainal said in a low voice, drawing her into his arms. 'It is Rood to have our own place. Very good, indeed." And that should have been an idyllic time for them. Except that when she got up in the night, between moons, she didn't want to disturb the soundly sleeping Zainal and, on her way back from the latrine, tripped over the left-over bundle of shakes and broke her right arm.

She was furious with herself for being so clumsy and for losing her chance for going on the mission.

"Why Couldn't I have broken the left one? I'm right-handed,' she said, weeping more from disappointment than pain as Zainal carried her to the nearest available air cushion, one of the flat-beds, arid drove her the rest of the way to the hospital. Both bones had been broken, although Leon Dane comforted her with the thought that it hadn't been a compound fracture which would have been nasty with their limited facilities.

Then he poured her a tot of the grain alcohol that was currently in use as a pain-killer. They hadn't quite got a decent smoky taste to it, but she wouldn't complain.

"This is quite nasty enough,' she said as Zainal held her against him while I eon manoeuvred the bones back into place. She fainted after' not during, and regained consciousness while he was fixing the last of the bandages into place around the splints.

"I would lake to have immobilized it in plaster, only we haven't got that kind yet,' Leon told her. He poured her a smaller tot, 'to help your sleep,' he said.

Then he led Zainal, who carried her, to an otherwise empty ward.

Final set her gently down next to the window and then moved the retest bed against hers.

"Let's not make a practice of that,' Leon said, caught between severity anal amusement at Zainal's preemptive rearrangement.

But he put out the solar-powered light and closed the door quietly behind him.

Kris could almost have wished that Zainal had let her suffer on her own, but the whisky had dulled the ache in her arm and the warmth of his body, and his concern, comforted her so that soon enough she was asleep.

He was gone in the morning when the noise of the scout's takeoff woke her, and the bed had been put back in its proper position. It was dawn and he had blasted off on time. She wondered who had taken her place, and then didn't want to know. She tried to go back to sleep but couldn't with the ache, so she got out of bed and, with a blanket wrapped around her, went in search of someone and preferably a hot cup of herbal tea. Maybe that would help the ache in her arm. What actually helped her arm was a more judicious shot of the grain whisky in the tea.

"I can't spend the next few weeks drunk as a lord,' she said to the attendant in the hospital's kitchen.

"Ah, the ache'll ease off,' Mavis, the duty nurse, told her, grinning. 'At least we've got a decent tipple to help. Now, let's get back to your room and I'll help you dress. Can I bring your old coverall up to your cabin when it's clean? And have a look round it while I'm there? Cumber and I are building, too, and I like to get a notion of what others have done. Did you use bricks or timber?" Mavis was deft in the dressing and kept Kris's mind off her awkward and painful arm as she helped.

"Stop at the pharmacy and they'll give you a bottle - for medicinal purposes,' Mavis said with a grin, pointing towards the right door. 'I'll call for a ride, but you may have to wait . . ."

"I can perfectly well walk . . ."

"You can perfectly well not,' said Pete Easley, coming in the hospital at that moment. 'I promised Leon I'd collect you. Got your bottle of medicinal? Sit there while I grab one. I know where they stash it,' and he went into the pharmacy and was out again before Kris could take a seat. Then, with his hand under her left elbow, he escorted her out to the runabout.

"Mitford lent it to you?"

"For you, crippled as you are, Mitford is ready to do a great many things. Besides,' and Easley looked down at her with a devilish grin, 'he promised Zainal he'd look out for you." 'Hmmm, how kind,' she said in an acid tone, knowing just what might be going through Zainal's mind in asking Mitford to be on hand.

"You could take another day in the hospital, you know,' Easley suggested, his eyes intent on her face.

"I'm not sick,' she said peevishly, and walked ahead of him to climb into the runabout.

The space on the driver's seat was not very wide, though it usually accommodated two people easily - but not one with an unwieldy cast and a brown bottle of hooch. Easley ended up sitting slightly canted so he wouldn't inadvertently bump her.

She felt clumsier than ever and definitely out of sorts. She couldn't be hung over from what she'd had last night, but she'd have given her eye-teeth for an aspirin. Then she remembered how Zainal laughed at all the eye-teeth she'd given away, and somehow her mood improved.

"He got off all right?" she asked.

"Right on time. Laughrey took your place." 'Laughrey, the former Concorde pilot?" Her good humour increased. She liked Laughrey and he'd be in heaven, literally as well as figuratively. 'At least it wasn't Scott's little pipsqueak . . ." She would have hated it if Beggs had gotten the empty chair.

Pete Easley laughed. 'The guy's good at what he does, but Scott only tolerates him because it keeps him out of other people's hair.

He's a natural yes-man, but he's got an eidetic memory." Early risers waved a greeting at Kris and Pete, some of them pointing to her arm and signalling 'tough luck'. Not sure how to respond to the sympathy, she waved back, smiling. She glanced skyward, knowing that Baby was probably

over the other hemisphere about now.

"Could I sneak onto one of the bridges, d'you think?" 'Only when you've had some breakfast. You're white as a sheet,' he said, pulling in to park at the mess hall.

So she had breakfast, which Pete Easley brought over to the table at which he had seated her, one not visible from the door.

"Don't think you need condolences right now,' he said, sitting so that he blocked her from casual glances.

"Is news of my accident all over the Bay?" she demanded, swinging back to annoyance again.

"Well, there had to be an explanation when Zainal showed up with Laughrey, and we all know how keen you were to go on the mission,' he said, adding, 'and you know how news goes through Retreat." 'Hmmm, yes, indeed I do." She grimaced then becauseeven to her she sounded cranky.

"Don't worry about it, Kris,' Pete said. 'I'd be a lot crankier." And he escorted her back to the runabout without too many people commiserating with her.

"I think I'll take you home, Kris,' he said, making the turn towards her cabin where he should have turned towards the hangar. 'You still don't look like yourself."

"I'm not,' she agreed. 'I am definitely not myself."

But also she didn't want to go to a cabin that was empty of Zainal. She tried to think of the things she could do one-handed and came up with very few. Even dish-washing required two.

"Look, Kris, they won't reach the Bubble for a couple more hours.

How about I drop you off at your cabin and come get you in time for that? Okay?" 'Yeah, that sounds pretty good,' she said as he slowed the runabout right at her front door. She was getting out when she realized the doorway was no longer open. 'Hey, how did that get there?" and she pointed to the brand-new addition.

Pete grinned. 'Lenny Doyle brought it down at first light. He thought you might prefer to be miserable in privacy." Delighted with the surprise, she worked the latch up and down.

"If you pull the string to the inside, it's like locking it,' he told her, and demonstrated.

"Like the pioneers used to do,' and she grinned as she experimented, pulling the latch-string in and out.

Pete gave her a gentle push inward. 'Get some rest now. And I'll be back for you." He shut the door and she pulled the string in again.

"Thanks, Pete,' she called and heard his cheerful 'No problemo' and then the whispering sound of the air cushion driving off.

Someone had also tidied up the bedding and increased the fluff content of the mattress. Kris blessed whoever had done her that service. She nudged one of the stools across the flagstone floor with her feet, knocked it over and kicked it into place by the bed, uprighted it, placed the bottle on it within handy reach, and sat down on the bed to take off her boots. She wouldn't sleep, she knew that, but she took a pull on the bottle before she lay down.

A determined knocking and someone calling her name roused her and she sat up, knocking her arm painfully.

"I'm coming, I'm coming,' she called, discovering it's not as easy to get to one's feet with an arm in a sling. When she opened the door, Pete Easley was leaning on the frame, smiling broadly.

"You did sleep and you look one hundred percent better,' he said, but he took out of his pocket a comb, one of those carved out of loo-cow bones, and ran it through her hair. 'That's even better.

C'mon. We've just time to get to the hangar before they make the Bubble." When they entered the KDL's bridge, it was crowded with an avid audience, but Scott made peremptory gestures for her to be let through and then installed her in one of the seats.

"You'll be interested to know,' Beverly was saying from Baby's piloting compartment, 'that the Bubble does not register on any detection equipment. But it's visible . . . as you can see."

Which they did, as from Baby's perspective. They could also

see the scout-ship on the KDL's screen, with its nose a scant ten metres from the barrier.

"We will poke it,' Zainal's voice said, and Baby drifted into the opacity of the Bubble and bounced slowly backwards.

"Here, let me adjust the screen a bit so they can see what the warship left behind,' said Marrucci, laughter rippling through his voice.

"We'll need a touch of reverse for a proper view,' and that was in Laughrey's amused baritone. He chuckled openly as the viewscreen of Baby slowly swung to starboard and then equally slowly reversed.

"See what we mean?" Bert Put asked, and Kris could just imagine the grin on the Aussie's face. 'Lost every array they had, and every mast they had." 'Outlined for ever in Bubble,' said Balenquah. 'Cadre de digs, the Farmers make some clever stuff!'

"Can you make any analysis of it?" Scott asked.

"Can't if sensors can't pick up anything,' Bert Put said. 'Not unless we go out and see if we can cut a patch of it." 'No,' said Zainal. 'If you wish, someone will go outside, but we will not take sample." 'Affirmative to defacing it, Zainal,' Scott said. 'But I'd like an EVA inspection of it." 'I go,' Zainal said, and immediately there was protest from both Baby and the KDL observers.

Kris discovered her left hand on her lips, to keep from adding her protest. Then she conquered her fear.

"He's the one to go, Ray,' she said firmly. 'He knows the gear and the ship. No-one else has checked out for a space-walk, have they?" 'I have,' said Bert Put, 'but not with this equipment.

Zainal'll be just fine, Kris. He's already suiting up." Zainal's EVA suit also had its own camera so, after a nervous wait, the view was transferred to his helmet eye and they saw the shimmering veil of the Bubble as he slowly approached it. They could see his hands reaching out to prod it gently, and the reaction of even that light touch as he floated away from it.

"Can you put your helmet on it, Zainal?" Scott asked, receiving a note from the engineers watching the space-walk.

Slowly the Bubble filled the camera screen and was placed right up against the material. Nothing of the black space beyond could be seen through the fabric, and it was smooth.

"Like a balloon's skin,' Kris murmured under her breath.

"That's how I'd describe it,' Scott agreed.

Then Zainal pulled back. 'There are no flaws, even around the debris from the warship."

"Could you make it to that spot?" Scott asked.

"He's at the end of the tether right now, Ray,' Beverly said.

"We've got all the photographic material you need for examination of that flotsam. No need to risk Zainal for it." 'Agreed,' Scott said indifferently. 'Thank you for your effort, Zainal." 'No problemo,' said Zainal's deep voice as his helmet turned and took in Baby's bow and the windows into the pilot's compartment.

Kris's mouth went dry. He was a long way from the ship, even if he was slowly returning to it. Feeling someone's hand close reassuringly on her shoulder, she glanced up at Pete Easley. She gave a sigh and controlled the flutter in her stomach. The break began to throb again, but she decided to ignore it: the pain wasn't there, she had no time for it.

Then Zainal was back inside the scout and his camera turned off.

She breathed a sigh of relief, oddly echoed around the crowded bridge.

Which, she realized, was just a bit too crowded for her and she rose from her seat, glancing appealingly at Pete.

"Thanks, Admiral,' she said, nodding to the others she knew out of those on the bridge.

A way parted for her as Easley conducted her off the bridge and then off the KDL. Her knees were near to buckling as she stepped down the ladder, hanging on with her left hand. And her arm ached despite her efforts to make it stop.

"There're sandwiches and tea,' Pete said, showing where a trestle table was burdened with lunch items. 'And I know where they keep the hangar's hooch,' he added.

"This isn't like me,' she protested, peevish again.

"No, it isn't,' Pete said equably. 'But you're allowed. Sit.

I'll be right back." He doctored a cup of tea and brought more sandwiches than she thought was fair, but she polished off two and had two cups of hooched-up tea. The ache in her bones subsided.

"D'you want to go back in and see the next show?" Easley asked.

He was really being very nice, Kris thought, but she shook her head.

"Then I'll take you back to the cabin,' and he cupped her left elbow, though he parked the runabout very close to where they'd been sitting.

He was really quite a nice guy, she thought, wondering who'd snap him up as the father of a child, or children. He wan a good head taller than she was, and rather more athletic than you'd think with that pose of indolence he usually affected. Not badlooking, either, though nothing as toy-boy handsome as Dick Aarens was.

Or Yuri, with his Slavic cheekbones and snapping black eyes.

Neither of them was a patch on Zainal though.

The comunit buzzed and Pete answered it. 'Oh, you have?

That's great. I'm taking Kris home. She needs to rest. Okay?

Fine. See you. No, they don't know what the Bubble's made of . . . except it's the biggest damned balloon ever made. Over." 'Yeah,' and she giggled, 'it is the biggest damned balloon ever made, and we don't know who blew it up." Pete grinned at her and she knew she was acting silly, but it was better than being peevish.

"I love that door,' she said as the runabout stopped in front of it.

"It's the best front door I've ever seen. Zainal will be so pleased.

Say, how much hooch did you pour in my tea?" 'Only enough to stop the ache in your arm. It has stopped, hasn't it?" She looked down at the clumsy white extrusion. 'You know, it has." Pete swung the door inward and she had taken the first step before she realized that the inside was different.

T

"My God, what's been happening with my back turned?" she demanded, swaying a bit as she turned towards Pete.

He took her good arm and led her inside. 'Well, we were going to wait with the shivaree until Zainal could be here, too, but with you hors de combat, as it were, Sandy, Lenny, Ninety, Chuck, Sarah, Whitby and Leila thought maybe now would be the right time to bring the stuff in." 'Stuff?" She blinked, trying to focus on first the table, with six glasses almost symmetrical in manufacture, and a pottery set which looked like Sandy's best designs - two pots, one large, one small, and a cast-iron skillet. There were benches around the table, and at one end a chair big enough to fit Zainal. She put her hand to her mouth in surprise. But when her startled gaze flicked past the opening to the smaller room and saw the wooden bedstead with carved posts and the huge puffy fluff mattress that covered it, she burst into tears.

"Now, now, Kris,' Pete said in consternation and, pulling her against him, began to stroke her soothingly, saying a lot of things that she didn't really hear because the generosity of her friends and the team was so overwhelming.

Then he was holding one of the glasses to her lips and urging her to drink. She did, because she hated to be such a baby when everyone was nemg so nice to her. And then her knees seemed to give way and Pete picked her up - as easily as Zainal could and deposited her on the bed, arranging the pillows behind her and urging her to finish the drink.

"The bed - it's so marvelous. . .and they all know I've wanted a really, really, truly thick mattress . . ." and she clung more firmly to Pete, as the only steady thing in a rapidly whirling world.

She felt arms around her and, out of habit and forgetting that Zainal was off in space, she put her face up to be kissed. And it was.

And so were her cheeks, and her neck, just where she liked it, and she was kissing the masculine face, slightly stubbled, which surprised her because Zainal didn't grow a beard but she needed comfort right now, and the kisses were very nice indeed, and she couldn't resist returning them . . . nor protest, even with her right arm feeling so heavy and not quite hers, when the coverall was slipped off and she felt the warm skin next to hers. This was all somehow inevitable and, in the end, quite enjoyable.

Kris woke up with a terrible hangover and discovered - the hard way, by accidentally banging her right arm as she tried to sit up that it was still in a splint, though the throbbing was muted. The struggle just to sit only made her head worse.

She remembered being in the KDL's bridge, and coming back and seeing all the lovely gifts and crying, and sitting down on the bed and Pete Easley . . . She sat bolt upright, collapsing almost immediately with the headache and trying to remember more.

And she'd enjoyed it far more than she should have. In fact, she could almost - not quite but almost - regret that her scruples required her to honour the bond that had grown between herself and Zainal as if it were a legal one. And that meant no jumping in the sack with anyone. Well, there were extenuating circumstances involved last night that would never recur.

Furthermore she'd keep far away from any of that 'medicinal', inhibition-destroying alcohol. As much because of the headache she had as to what it did to her self-control.

Well, she thought philosophically and chuckled. At least I remember enjoying it. Then she sighed. She hoped their next meeting wouldn't be awkward. Or that she'd have to explain to Pete that last night was it! She wasn't about to two-time Zainal.

Even with someone as good in bed as Pete Easley. Some girl was going to be very lucky! She made another injudicious movement and thought longingly of a cool compress on her forehead and maybe the back of her neck.

Maybe a hair of the dog? She pushed back the blankets, and noticed that Pete had neatly laid her coverall on the stool in easy reach, her boots beside it.

Yes, the bottle of medicinal spirits was on the table, and the glass he poured for her, with a good inch in it. Had he had some before he left? Whenever he had left, and she did briefly worry that his departure might have been noticed. Well, if it had, it had. She lifted the glass and knocked it back shuddering at the taste. It was remarkable she'd been able to drink any of it.

She made a slow way to the hearth and, holding her head very I ;

still, lowered herself, spine-straight, to light the fire laid there.

Another considerate touch by Mr Easley. And the kettle was full

of water.

One of these days, they'd have water piped in to houses, but that was in the future . . .

She went back to the table to inspect the gifts she remembered vaguely having seen earlier, now sunlight came from the small side window above the bed. Its slightly wavy glass sent a prism of rainbow light onto the table. Then she realized how the sun was shining in, from the east. For they had faced the cabin south! Good Lord! She'd slept the rest of yesterday and an entire Botany night? No wonder her arm didn't ache as much.

The headache had begun to ease off by the time the kettle had boiled. She took herbs from the little pot on the mantel and made a cup which she took to Zainal's chair to drink. It was a comfortable chair, and her butt eased into the contours. It'd need a cushion or two . . . no, she couldn't see Zainal sitting on a cushion but the wood, when she felt it with her left hand, had been rubbed smooth, smelling only vaguely of the vegetable oil that had been used to give it lustre. She wondered who had made it.

Then she absorbed the construction of the table - a three-inch slab of the slate which was quarried nearby, set on sturdy, slightly tapering rounds of lodge-pole trees, with notches which spiked through the slate at the corners, keeping the top firmly m place.

There was a tentative knock on the door.

"Coming,' she called and saw that the latch-string was inside.

So she must have come to long enough to do that when Pete left.

She opened the door to Mavis Belton from the hospital, a clean coverall in her hand.

"Oh, do come in,' said Kris. 'Kettle's just boiled. I was having a cup to get over my hangover."

"How's the arm?" asked Mavis, with a grin.

"Not as bad as yesterday, that's for sure. Come in, come in."

Mavis did, but only after a careful look into the main room of the cabin. Then she saw the furnishings and exclaimed with surprise, running her finger over the surface of the slate slab and admiring the sturdy lodge-pole legs that held up such a weight.

"Not something you could tip over easily,' she remarked, stroking the chest and then Zainal's chair. 'Big enough even for him, I'd say." 'He'll be delighted with it. He looks so uncomfortable on stools, with his legs sticking up like Arnie Schwarzenegger on a kindergarten chair. Here's your tea, and I'll just steal Zainal's chair. I can rest the splint on the arm." 'I just ended my shift, but I thought you'd like to hear that Baby's doing fine in her orbitals." 'I saw them reach the Bubble, and Zainal's space-walk,' Kris said. 'That was before Pete Easley plied me with so much liquor I must have passed out." 'I think we're going to have to alter the recipe. That particular distillation is double potency. I told Leon and Mayock they'd better cut it more." 'They should,' Kris agreed, rubbing the back of her neck. 'My hangover's hung-over for fair." 'Sit out in the sun; it's a lovely day." Mavis rose. 'May I look around? Inside and out?" 'Sure, but watch that pile of shakes on the way to the latrine, will you?" By dinnertime, when Mitford came by in the runabout to take her down to the mess hall, Kris had completely recovered. But she took him to task and demanded to know who had done the furniture she'd found in the cabin on her return from the hangar.

"Whose idea was that table? Not even Zainal could tip it over and how'd you get it down here?" she asked.

"We were going to do it while you and Zainal were gone, surprise you on your return,' Chuck Mitford said with a sly grin at her. "But with you on the sick list, seemed a good idea to put up the bed . . .

and then what was a bed without a table and the chairs!" 'Well, it was very, very much appreciated. Especially that thick mattress on that wide bed! Drunk as I was, I appreciated that!" Then she caught Mitford's odd expression. 'Oh yes, Pete Easley got me high as a kite just in case you hear rumours that I was drunk. I was. I slept through an entire Botany night without so much as moving. Mavis came by this morning and said they were going to cut the last batch. I said they'd better . . .

bed?"

"Oh, the Doyles and me. I cut the timber, and Lenny did the posts and showed me how to make the joints and stuff. He and Ninety did the table and the chair. Said it was the least they could do for the guy who kept them from becoming frozen steaks in a Farmerst freezer. Joe and Sarah did the mattress and pillows; Sandy Areson the pottery and glassware, of course; Whitby the benches. Coo traded for the pots and the skillet. No big deal." 'No big deal?" she exclaimed, and a faint reminder of her hangover made her head ring with the loudness of her voice. 'You furnish our cabin and it's no big deal.

It's a real big deal to me,' and she leaned over and kissed the sergeant on the cheek before she knew she was doing it. 'There! And don't blush like that, Chuck Mitford. I do appreciate what you all did and, besides, no-one saw me kiss you." She giggled when the sergeant lifted one hand half-way to his cheek and then dropped it quickly back to his lap. He was still red-faced.

"You finished your cabin first, so you'll have a chance to help others furnish theirs when they've built,' he said in a gruff voice.

"By the way, stood a tour on the KDL, and the mission's going a-okay. Not a wrinkle on the balloon as far as they've gone.

Seamless. All the tech heads are scratching their arses over what was used." 'What's the general feeling? Or is it too far away to bother the claustrophobics?" she asked, trying not to resent her absence . . .

and Zainal's.

"I think people are glad. The Deskis evidently had a wild night

it was damned near lethal. Who made the of dancing, singing . .

. if you can call that warble singing . . . and Coo says there are giants protecting us."

"Did he see the Eosi?"

"No,' and Mitford shook his head. 'And frankly, I'm just as glad I didn't. Worry's still having nightmares, and I think that's why Leon made the latest hooch so strong. Hoooo-eee!" He let out a long whistle. 'You can blame them for getting you drunk, not Pete Easley.

Which reminds me. Officially you're on sick leave, Bjornsen, so don't get any ideas about doing anything with that busted wing until Leon gives you the okay. Got me?" 'Yes sir, sergeant, sir,' she said, saluting repeatedly with her left hand.

The makers and donors of the furniture were saving spaces for them at a table in the mess hall. Kris lavished praise and gratitude on all for making a cabin into a real home, promising to do as well by them, when their cabins were up. Then the conversation devolved to Baby's mission and Mitford, sipping what he assured Kris was a well-watered jolt of hooch, brought them up to speed.

The monitor also tracked the small vessel in its exploration, especially the examination at the barrier, and followed its progress until it landed safely again on the western continent.

Baby returned safely and with sufficient masses of information to keep all the brass-heads, engineers, miners and Aggies busy.

The mission crew took a longer time to get themselves back down to the surface, they were so high on the experience.

Carnal s course had used a minimum of fuel and won the plaudits of the aviators and astronauts. Everyone on board had had instruction from him on how to fly Baby and a little chance at manoeuvring.

"We may not have flight simulators, but what're they against the real thing?" Balenquah demanded. 'Too damned bad we can't go anywhere in the KDL. Zainal says it's much easier to pilot - had to be since Drassis flew that series. That whole caper of capturing the KDL was a waste of time." 'No,' said Bert Put, evidently rather fed up with Balenquah's opinions, 'it got us extra fuel, a new bridge console and a lot of tools we'd have a hard time duplicating." 'Oh, yeah, forgot about them,' Balenquah replied. 'Well, if we have to shift population, it'll be handy enough."

"There'll be flying in the KDL,' Marrucci said, 'maybe only mine and grain runs, but we're not totally grounded, you know." 'We are for any real space work,' the man went on, talking himself into a morose state.

Zainal rose then, muttered something about having to see the admiral and took Kris from the table. Glancing back just as she and Zainal left the mess hall, she saw that others were departing from the table, leaving Balenquah on his own.

Zainal had been gob-smacked, as Lenny Doyle would say, when Kris who had kept quiet about the surprise until he got into their cabin saw the gifts. The door - which he admired even before he opened it, with Kris barely able to contain her excitement at what lay beyond it had required his attention, admiring the detail, the latch-string, which gave him great amusement pulling it in and out.

Then he entered the room and saw the table and the chair, the pottery and glasses which Kris had put on the mantel, having no other place to store things - yet. Lenny had promised to teach her how to do mortise-and-tenon joints in wood and make herself proper chests and drawers. But the table and the chair shocked him, with one knee raised for the next step, and he stared and stared and then inarticulately tried to ask her who, how, where these things had come from.

As she replied, interspersing the explanation with giggles for the surprise yet in store for him, he examined everything, even to trying to lift the slate-topped table. He sat in the chair, got up, turned it upside down to see how the legs had been fitted in, and the stringers, and then righted it to sit in it again, stroking the arm-rests with his big hands.

Maybe Catteni didn't have tear ducts, or never cried, but Zainal's eyes were certainly full of fluid and, though he tried to speak, he kept shaking his head, speechless.

"I've saved the best for last,' she told him and, taking a hand that was attached to a body reluctant to leave the chair made to fit him, she led him to where he couldn't miss the bedstead.

He had an immediate response to that: the very devil of a look

in his full eyes as he swooped her up into his arms and carried her, for all the world the way John Wayne had treated Maureen O'Hara in The Quiet Man, and demonstrated how much better he could perform on a resilient surface.

Mitford took her off the sick-list when he wanted their team to find a pass through the western hills to the far shore; he let her go along. He knew very well that she'd be better employed marking klicks, which she could do with her left hand, than left at Retreat fretting that she was useless.

While that was being organized, she spent some time making bricks since she could fill the moulds left-handed. She owed Sarah and Joe for their hand in the 'Great Furniture Surprise'.

When some loggers were injured - two badly - she sat in the ward with them, checking pulse and temperatures; there were no blood-pressure devices and no thermometers, so it was all hands-on.

She also fed Boris Slavinkovin, who had broken both arms and most of his ribs when the rolling log had gone over his body for a short-cut.

Being fed by a one-handed aide didn't embarrass him half as much, he told her because it didn't tie up a whole human who could do other jobs than feeding him. Then he asked her if she could teach him better English, since he was now stuck in bed and had to do something.

Ex-teachers had gotten together with an ax-cartoonist and created a language primer for those who wished to learn English. There were fifty copies in print, thanks to supplies on the KDL, and they were well-worn by the time Kris snagged a copy for Boris.

Leon and Mayock managed to dilute the potency of their distillations so that it not only had the faint aftertaste of a Botany nut variety, but did not cause such speedy and legless inebriation.

The only person whose metabolism could cope with the previous grain whisky was Zainal so, rather than water down what was left (which Leon felt was a crime), the remaining keg was given to him. The first time he sampled it, Kris told him - l

about Pete Easley getting her drunk on barely two half-glasses of it, and the hangover she'd had the next day. That reminded her that she hadn't seen as much of Pete as usual. But she thought nothing of it, going to her stints at the hospital or the brick factory.

Then they were ready to leave on their exploratory mission, and it was a great relief to all the team to be back together again and out on their own.

"One can get too accustomed to the comforts of home,' Sarah announced, settling back in her seat on the big air-cushion truck.

"Though I wish we could have started the cabin before we left.

And thanks again, Kris, for all those bricks. Worry's put his name in for a hundred, and so did Jay Greene. We should have enough by the time we get back." 'We do appreciate the ones you did for us, too,' sai4Leila in her often inaudible voice. She was holding hands with Whitby, while hanging on to a strap with the other.

Leila looked a bit white, Kris thought, and wondered if she too was pregnant. Sarah was, and very cocky about it, taking it in her stride like any modern woman.

"Sure thing, Leila. Kept me out of mischief,' said Kris.

And actually, kept mischief away from her, for any of the importunate men who tried to charm her found themselves also making bricks, if that's where they caught up with her, or feeding a bed-bound patient, which was scarcely a romantic setting for the sort of offers they hoped to make.

Boris Slavinkovin put in his bid and she had to threaten him with her absence at mealtimes if he kept it up.

"You'll have to some time, you know,' Sarah said bluntly.

"Oh, I will, I will,' Kris said airily, and did not meet Zainal's eye when he glanced at her beside him. 'Ah, that's another klick, isn't it? We've gone one thousand pleas again." She added a slash to her sheet.

They found a way through the hills, through twisting but connecting ravines, separated by banks which the air cushion could manage easily. They marked the more accessible routes with Os in the blue, almost luminous paint that was a recent innovation. (Red and yellow had already been produced from local vegetable dyes.) The cul-de-sacs were marked with an X.

For some reason, Zainal found the procedure very amusing but wouldn't tell her why. They did not find any blind valleys nor night-crawlers, but they did find a new variety of rocksquat and some avians that were almost as good eating as chickens, though some caught closer to the sea left a fishy aftertaste in the mouth.

They made their way down the coast until the rocky terrain was impassable even for the remarkably manoeuvrable vehicle.

They were headed back up the eastern coast two weeks later when Kris experienced some fleeting nausea first thing in the morning. For a couple of days she was sure it was caused by the ripe soft fruits that flourished in the almost tropical weather this far south, and she ignored the minor discomfort until one morning when Joe was replacing the splints and bandages on her arm. The bandage material came from the legs and arms of Catteni coveralls, cut in strips, softened slightly by much washing and use and adequate for their purpose. Her arm was sweating so much in the heat that she was glad to change the wrappings with the extra roll of bandage that Joe had in his medical kit.

"Arm's healing well,' he said, feeling the breaks with careful fingers. 'I can feel the thickening of the bones where they've knitted." 'Doesn't hurt any more either,' she told him, though she sighed as he replaced splints and bandage strips.

He gave her an odd sideways glance. 'Trip's done you good.

You were looking a little off-colour before we left." 'Which reminds me? Anyone else having trouble digesting that pink-fleshed fruit we had last night?" she asked.

Joe was not only medic but botanist.

"No, but we didn't gorge on it either. Why? Got the runs?" 'No, a touch of indigestion, I guess,' and she shrugged it off, but Sarah had overheard her query and joined them, peering into her face with an intensely disturbing grin on her face. 'So?" Kris demanded when Sarah didn't explain.

"Breasts hurt? Had your period? How long have you noticed the nausea?" Defensively, Kris crossed her arms over her breasts, and as if Sarah's comment had been a curse they were tender. She didn't dare change the position of her arms as her mind raced to the conclusion Sarah had obviously just reached.

"I can't be pregnant,' she said, jerking her chin up. 'I've never . . ."

"Never what?" asked Sarah with a sly expression on her face.

Kris closed her eyes, remembering the potent hooch she'd had for her arm, remembering Pete Easley offering her more, and more, and enough so that she had . . .

"I'll kill him,' she said, meaning it fervently. No wonder he had kept out of her way. Just wait till she got back to Retreat.

She'd . . .

"Is something wrong with Kris's arm?" Zainal asked, and Kris wanted to seep into the ground like a night-crawler.

"Nothing, nothing's wrong with my arm,' and she shot to her feet, glaring at Sarah and Joe.

"No, but she's pregnant,' Sarah said gleefully.

Kris hauled back her left arm to punch Sarah, but Zainal caught her around the waist.

"You had to go blab it!" she shouted'trying to reach Sarah who had nimbly danced out of her way, with the grinning Joe moving into position to protect his mate, with hands out in a placatory move.

"Now, Kris, don't go off half-cocked,' he said as Leila and Whitby came running over to see what could possibly have happened.

"Kris is preggers, too!" Sarah crowed.

Then Zainal was holding her so tightly to his chest, leaving her feet dangling above the ground, that she had to hang on to him for balance.

"Thank you, Kris,' he murmured into her ear and all the fight went out of her. She hung limply against him as his arms around her assumed a kinder hold, a loving one. There couldn't be many males on any world who would thank a woman who got pregnant by another man.

"You're welcome, I think,' she added and squirmed to be released.

When he put her back on her feet, she apologized to Sarah and Joe with as good a grace as she could manage. 'I wanted to be sure,' she said mendaciously. 'It could have just been the ripe fruit." 'So, tell us who the lucky guy was?" Joe asked with the familiarity of an old friend.

Kris chuckled, deciding on an entirely different course of action which meant she couldn't publicly go after one sweettalking lothario of a Peter Easley, but neither would she confirm it to him or anyone . .

. unless of course the newborn gave some clue to its paternity. That would serve that . . . so-and-so right.

Taking advantage of a girl in her condition . . . and yet . . .

she suppressed any recollection of what she hadn't been able to remember of an incident that would result in a lasting and visible proof.

"That's for me to know, and you to guess,' she said, delighted to be able to pay Sarah back for blurting out what Kris would rather have kept secret.

The long trek up the eastern coast went well, all other events considered, and everyone settled down to the fact of her pregnancy. At night Zainal held her against him with a tenderness she certainly had not expected of him: enough to make her eyes water and wish, with all her heart, that she might have transcended the barriers of species' biology and been pregnant by him.

By the time they got back to Retreat Bay, she had never felt better in her life. She had to see Leon about her arm and he was very pleased with its progress, but wanted her to keep the splints on anyway, since she insisted on working, though she could use her right hand now. He also confirmed her pregnancy and had the grace not to enquire further.

"Actually, you're lucky you're here on Botany. Doesn't take as long,' Leon said with a wry grin.

"What do you mean? It doesn't take as long?"

"Average pregnancy is 260 280 days. But it'll only take you 212.8 Botanical days to gestate." When she blinked in confusion at him, he grinned and added, 'Thirty-hour days don't change the development rate of a foetus, but it sure alters the days you stay pregnant."

"Oh!'

"Most of my o.b. patients find that comforting."

"I'll remember that."

Word of her pregnancy got around, and she could find additional comfort in the fact that her 'admirers' went elsewhere with their persuasions. And when she saw Pete Easley across the crowded mess hall one evening, she merely gave him a cheerful wave and left him wondering. She did like the man. He'd been drinking, too. Maybe she was assigning his solicitude that day to exterior motives because he'd been drinking as much of that hooch as she had. How could she fault him for getting drunk and doing what was natural enough? Pregnancy was also mellowing her.

The temperature was definitely warming up and bushes were blossoming, spreading a heady smell that the inland breeze wafted down to the Bay area. The agricultural teams had ploughed during their absence, and sowed the fields with seed purloined from the now deserted Bella Vista camp in a special trip of the KDL. As no ship had come to collect what was left of the grain, the KDL did, for the supplies brought across the channel were low.

The silos were swept clean for this year's storage.

On the continent that had been evacuated, the machines had been ploughing, too, and many of the fields were sown. Some wit among the Aggies set up a competition, one-sided though it was, as to the growth and health of their crops versus the Farmers' and the resultant yield per acre. The Aggies had already elected to use fields the same size the Farmers had, since the arable land seemed to divide into such sections: another clue that this continent might once have been farmed too. The rustled loo-cows grazed the less desirable fields and the hillsides.

About the time the crops were a good six inches high and thriving, a most unpleasant discovery was made: there were night-crawlers again.

Not many, but enough to know that there was a resurgence of the menace.

Astrid put forward the theory that it was the loo-cows, excreting internal parasites that had a second cycle as nightcrawlers. There were enough to agree with her, but it made for an interesting argument in the evenings and had those with wooden floors in their huts replacing them with thick slate or flagstones. And many of those who had not sited their dwellings moved nearer the better-travelled areas.

No-one walked out at night on any field, and the sentinel positions were either made of stone or set high above the ground on stilts.

This was, however, a very minor setback. Compost heaps were hastily shifted to stone tubs, and the disposal of noxious wastes was no longer a problem. Not that anyone wanted nightcrawlers in a latrine. Since such facilities no longer had to be dug, it became a punishment chore to do the late evening dumps, far enough from the rapidly expanding community to reduce the hazard of night-crawler infestation to the populated areas.

Spring lasted months, but the fine weather assured the Aggies of excellent crops, as good as or even better than what the Farmers were cultivating. The varieties of tubers and pulses occupied half as many fields as the grain crops, and caves were found to store the harvests rather than having to search ever further afield for the edibles. The night-crawlers were not attracted to vegetable matter unless it was mixed with bloody substances, so these crops were not disturbed. The rocksquat compound flourished, and it was discovered that baby rocksquats were far more delicate in flavour and meat than the adults.

Evening classes in various skills were given, although the nights when Admiral Ray Scott threw his first successful pot, or Bull Fetterman completed a set of six dining-chairs, and Marrucci managed a creditable mortise-and-tenon drawer for his chest, remained landmarks in the assimilation

of the disparate ax-professionals into true Botanicals.

There were failures, as Mitford put it: people who refused to do their share of work, or felt themselves put upon by 'authority' to always having to do the less glamorous tasks. Judge Bempechat gave each offender three chances to redeem himself or herself in the eyes of the community. Then the unrepentant had a one-way trip back to the Old Continent where they could fend for themselves, with cup, blanket, knife and hatchet. After the expulsion of the first dozen or so, delinquency reduced significantly.

Once a month, the two valley prisons were visited. The Turs disappeared one by one until the valley was empty. The Catteni eventually put up shelters and, when they asked for supplies like nails, or meat as a change from a fish diet - these were provided. But nothing that could give them any assistance in escaping, though Zainal doubted they would try.

"They are Drassi and Tudo. They have enough to eat, a place to sleep, and that is sufficient." 'I can't imagine anyone not wanting to better conditions,' Marrucci had said, for he was often in the pilot's seat in one of the two small airships that did the run. 'I mean, when you consider we're damned near city size with our own distillery . .

." He was hoping to add wine to the spirits and had already been south for the soft fruits as a basis for his 'cordial'.

"They like it the way they have it now,' and Zainal shrugged.

"D'you think the Turs did escape?" Marrucci asked.

"Who cares?"

"You gotta point there." The Tub went regularly to the mines with supplies for the men and women working there, to rotate change personnel and bring back ore. The judge often gave a month's sentence at hard labour for misdemeanors, and only one ever found mining an enjoyable occupation; he stayed on.

For evening entertainment, those with any talent provided shows, managing to remember enough of a musical comedy or even a play to put on abridged versions or invent dialogue and action to add to what they remembered. Decks of cards were manufactured from the heavy wrappings on stores in the KDL and Baby. The cards didn't shuffle well, but that didn't keep the players from betting an hour's work or a special bit of scrimshaw to make it interesting.

Gold had been found but it was decided - not without heated debate - that barter made a better system for a small community like theirs where everyone was expected to work communityhours, not pay to get out of the labour. Among the diverse trades of the colonists there were several jewellers. They would contract to produce jewellery for those who found gold, and even a few gemstones, and decided among themselves what was fair payment in grams of the metal.

Iri Bempechat had taken on several assistants as legal advisers in disputes, most of which could be settled by compromise.

However, the ax-military personnel formed lower court, but their decisions could be appealed, leaving Judge Bempechat to give the final verdict on an issue.

"We don't need a formal government,' Beverly had said one evening when the topic came up again in a mess hall that was more crowded than usual due to an unusually heavy and long fall of rain. (It was the beginning of many such rainfalls which limited themselves to night-times.) 'Why complicate what has been working rather smoothly?" "If it ain't broke, don't fix it,' Mitford called out, and got a good laugh out of the old army axiom.

"We have a form of government, actually, though most of you don't realize it. We just don't have elected officials or a nominal head of state. Nor do I believe one is required,' said Iri, his cultivated and mellifluous voice reaching to the furthest corners.

"Those of us with special expertise have taken on the duties required to ensure peace and tranquillity. Community hours handle public services, such as they are, and the rest of us work where we can be useful and at our previous professions for the most part, even in the limited fashion due to the constraints of supplies. I suppose we should thank our lucky stars that we have so many skills among us.

Practically every walk of life is represented. Our alien associates,' and he gestured to the Rugarians sitting in their usual group, and the Deskis who were more apt to mix in with humans, 'have supplemented us in many ingenious ways. I think some of us may have a chuckle, comparing what we used to do with what we're doing now, but frankly, I think it's been beneficial as well as instructive. We're all doing very well indeed. And able, for the most part, to do what we do the way we want to. Certainly without any bureaucratic interferences, and certainly without a thread of red tape.

You don't know how happy that makes me!'

Good-natured chuckles greeted that sally.

"Why indeed should we fix something that isn't broken?" he added, raising his hands in appeal.

"Yeah, but what happens to our pleasant utopian dream when the Farmers come?" Balenquah asked, glancing around.

"Leave it to Balenquah,' an anonymous male voice said.

"What does that mean?" the pilot asked, rising from his chair and staring round, trying to discover the source.

"It means,' Marrucci said, reaching across the table and hauling Balenquah down, 'you're out of order, off course, and being a pain in the arse again. You're alive, you're sure kicking, you're even flying, and if that isn't better than starving in a Catteni prison for blowing up their freighter, you're gone in the head." 'Don't say another word,' Beverly put in from a nearby table, 'if you want to fly again." 'That's just what I mean,' Balenquah complained. 'We need a formal government, so you know who's got the right to give orders." "That's enough out of you, Balenquah,' said Scott, seconding Beverly's admonition.

"You're not an admiral of anything here, Scott,' Balenquah said.

"Oh, boorrring,' drawled one of the 'ladies' from two tables over. And she yawned ostentatiously, which made the others at her table howl with laughter.

"You are, you know,' said Marrucci, shaking his head at

Balenquah who had coloured with such open ridicule, 'a real bore with all this gloom and doom and I'm obviously,' now he turned to look at the 'ladies' table', 'not the only one who thinks so."

Balenquah rose, with his right arm cocked but, even before Marrucci could rise to defend himself, Scott had nodded to the man beside him and they had risen, captured Balenquah's arm and were hustling him out of the mess hall and into the rain.

Add bouncer to my list of new-world occupations,' Scott said to Beverly as the two returned to their seats.

At their table, Kris found herself sharing a bit of Balenquah's pessimism. The problem of the Farmers was just beneath the surface of everyone's thoughts, despite the way most people carried on as if there were not that threat hanging over them.

Zainal kept insisting that the Farmers were benign. He could give no other reason for that than the way this planet had been tended for thousands of years, if the 'new forest' of lodge-pole trees was an indication.

"And it has been months since the Balloon was blown up,' he reminded her as they walked back to their cabin when the rain had stopped. Flagstone pathways had been laid around much of Retreat Bay now, to hinder night-crawlers, although walkers automatically stamped hard every third step.

Kris let Zainal do it for them both as she didn't like jarring the baby she could now feel move, in little flutters, within her: normal activity at five months. Sarah kept complaining that her little dear kicked like a soccer star, but she was eight months along. By now, almost every female of child-bearing age, including the Deski and Rugarians, was expecting - which meant that Retreat Bay would have a baby boom of 2,103 new souls. Anna Bollinger might have given birth to the first human baby on Botany, but there had since been thirty-four born to women who had been captured pregnant. Now the new crop which had been ploughed on Botany, as someone had remarked in a biblical fashion - were reaching tem. Patti Sue was first, and prideful about producing a son for Jay Greene.

Kris didn't know which she wanted, apart from being healthy

and not too much resembling its sire. Somehow she couldn't ask Zainal what his preference would be. And yet, he would act in loco parentis to whatever she produced.

Most of the pregnant women carried on in their speciality as long as possible: and Kris, Sarah and Leila were no exceptions.

In fact they had arguments with the sergeant that he was assigning the team the 'easy' trips. So he organized Zainal to take Baby to the smallest continent - really more of a very large island than a continental land-mass - to circumnavigate it, the coastline being the only part that was green.

"Bit like Australia outback,' Sarah remarked as Zainal guided Baby cries-cross the interior. 'Like Nullarbor. Nothing for Flicks!

Not even mulga or brush . . . sand and rock,' she added in disgust.

"Hmmm, yes, I see,' Joe said, without explaining his cryptic remark as he gazed out the starboard side in the pilot's compartment.

"Real rock!" He pointed now to a rocky ridge that ran obliquely across below them, like vertebrae, with dips and spires. 'Dinosaur bones."

"Hmmm, that's what they do look like,' Kris agreed.

Whitby insisted that they land and spend one night at the base of that range, where the spatial maps indicated one of the ore deposits.

"We should know where copper and zinc are, and that's what's down there. If the lodes are near the surface, it might be advantageous to take a week or so to work up a cargo."

So they landed, and it was hot.

"Just like home in the dry,' Sarah said ecstatically, throwing her arms back, with her gravid belly out and turning her face up to the sun.

"Good way to get sunstroke,' Joe said as he slammed her reedweave hat on her head. 'We are not, I repeat, we are not delivering you prematurely in the confines of Baby." 'Having a baby in the Baby?" Sarah was off in a fit of the giggles.

Whitby, Leila, Joe and Zainal went off to try and locate the ore, laden with bottles for samples and soil. Sarah and Kris, who found the heat especially enervating, found what shade they could in the lee of Baby by digging out enough soil under the landing vanes to sit on blankets. Kris dozed off while Sarah dragged her hands through the scattered rocks, trying to find interesting ones.

Sarah, too, dozed off, and they were both awakened by the laughter of the returning prospectors. Each carried some sort of dead animal, resembling a large rat.

Kris recoiled when Zainal plunked three brace beside her. The pelts caught her attention because they were mottled in soft sandy shades.

"Camouflage? From what?" she said, venturing to touch the nearest. It was rough with dirt and sand.

"Burrowers,' Joe said succinctly, 'but they test edible. We thought we'd give them a try. They eat the insects of which this continent has a multitude. I saw twenty-five varieties and caught,' he held up several bottles tied together to prevent breakage, 'only a few for closer examination. You never know what might be useful." He grinned wickedly. 'Or tasty. And nutritious." 'How would you know?

You never hunted out back with the aborigines,' Sarah said.

"Neither did you."

"But I did a paper on the ones the aborigines favour,' she replied hotly and they were off again.

The desert burrowers - Kris declined to think of them as 'rats' were skinned and, after Joe did further tests with the equipment in Baby, were cooked in the galley and served as part of the evening meal.

The flesh was different in texture and taste from anything else that Botany had provided: sort of nutty and sleek. Almost difficult to bite into.

Twilight brought out their natural predators, bat-like creatures who swooped on long triangular wings from rocky eyries to catch the burrowers. The cooler air encouraged a different set of insects to appear, ones that bit and itched and forced everyone to take refuge in the scout-ship. But not before they saw the desert burrowers in action, making incredible leaps

into the air to catch their meal on tongues that elongated to make the capture and seeming to disappear from sight the moment they heard bat-wings above them.

"We've some like that on ol' Earth,' Joe remarked, watching from the scout.

The men were in general pleased with their prospecting and had marked the areas with the blue paint, though Whitby and Joe argued about its durability in the unremitting sun.

"Well, we'll wear test it good, then,' Joe said, shrugging. "And we've the coordinates anyway." Zainal made for the coast in the dawn-light the next morning and, keeping Baby at a low altitude, made a touchdown in those spots that looked different. This tropical area displayed fruits and nuts, not unlike citrus and coconut, and samples were gathered of everything, including a different variety of insect life.

Kris found the smell of rotting vegetable and fruit unsettling, but said nothing until the reserved Leila murmured a complaint.

"There're sort of plateaus up ahead,' Whitby pointed out.

"Maybe cooler up there, with an off-shore breeze to keep the gnats and nits away." Kris disliked using pregnancy as an excuse to avoid any task, but she was glad enough to let the men rig a shelter of the thick fronded vegetation on a height overlooking a rather lovely white-sanded bay. (On inspection, the white sands contained particularly vicious biting insects, so the charm of the area was considerably diminished and Sarah and Kris could lounge in comfort above that nuisance). There were even smaller fronds to use as fans, and the breezes were cooling and pleasantly scented with whatever was blooming further inland.

Leila took off exploring with Whitby, but she came back with her face and bare arms blotchy with contact to plants they had had to cut their way through.

"The sap which zapped me,' Leila said as Kris and Sarah washed her arms and face, 'is very sticky, and Joe is hoping we've found a rubber substitute." 'The hard way,' said Sarah in a droll tone of voice. 'Is this helping?"

Leila gave a little sigh. 'Only as long as the wet's on me." 'What wouldn't we give for a decent anti-histamine!" Sarah said fervently.

"We've chemists enough . . ." said Kris.