24

But so far, and to her honest amazement, she'd had no problems at all. Collecting enough personal messages and items back on Dharanv to justify a personal visit to Dorcas had been amazingly easy; if anything, she'd had to turn down requests. Now, here on Shamanv, the Dhaa'rr servers were similarly speeding her along her way, taking the time to guide her through the necessary forms and brushing aside the unnecessary ones. The Dhaa'rr clan, all working together.

She grimaced. Or else the word had spread as to who she was and what had just happened to her, and the servers were merely feeling sorry for her. After all, the message had come through to her nearly two tentharcs ago. Plenty of time for a loudmouthed Elder to have spread it through the entire routing center. Short and final: her bond-engagement to Thrr-gilag was ended.

She glanced up at the cloudless sky, glaring in Dharanv's general direction. Short and final the message had been; but at the same time disturbingly empty of information. There had been no indication of how the clan and family leaders had come to their decision, for one thing. Nor had there been any details on the vote itself, which she seemed to recall was usually required. Nothing but the plain fact of the decision itself.

Klnn-dawan-a wouldn't accept that. She couldn't accept that. Nor, she was sure, would Thrr-gilag. Somehow they had to find some way to continue this fight.

But that would have to wait. Right now the most important thing was to get Prr't-zevisti's fsss sample out to Thrr-mezaz on Dorcas. Once that was done, she could return to Dharanv and try to find a way to get the bond-engagement reinstated...

She paused, frowning up at the sky again. Had she just seen...?

She had. Three dark dots were visible in the sky near the horizon. Coming this way, if she wasn't mistaken.

Muttering under her breath, she broke into a jogging run. The servers had told her that the ships for the Dorcas trip wouldn't be there for at least another tentharc. If they were this far ahead of schedule, it was going to be a race to get the forms processed before they lifted off again. Maybe the servers and their pleasant, helpful smiles weren't feeling as sorry for her as she'd thought. Glancing at the sky, she picked up her pace—

And came abruptly to a halt. Lifting her hand, she shielded her eyes from the glare of the sunlight and peered at the approaching aircraft. They were much closer now; still coming toward the routing complex, traveling much faster than she'd realized. She watched them come, feeling her tail picking up speed of its own....

And then suddenly they were there, shooting not quite directly overhead, with a roar and a blast of heat and a violent thunderclap that nearly slammed her to the ground. Three small aircraft, colored black and white, rapidly shrinking again to tiny dots as they made for the horizon.

Like nothing Klnn-dawan-a had ever seen before.

Too late now—far too late—the warning sirens were starting to blare around her. In the near distance she could hear the roar of Stingbirds and other warrior aircraft as they scrambled for pursuit, adding more useless noise to that already filling the complex. Klnn-dawan-a stared at the receding aircraft, feeling suddenly naked and helpless and terrified beneath the empty sky. The comforting sense of safety and seclusion was gone, never to return.

The Human-Conquerors had found them.

ISBN: 0-553-56772-1

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