A long black tongue licked his ear, and Thax tried to scoot away. It came at him again, and the thrike's beak nipped at his hair.

"Oy, you!" he objected, getting his arm up between them. "Stop that. You need a snack again already, you big whiner?"

He stepped around the thrike's wing and dug into the plastic pocket on his saddle. A woolly handful of dead rodent went to the thrike and a handful of nuts for himself.

Around him, riders were currying hairy hides or leathery hides, or settling down on whatever dry piece of ground they could find. All the thrike handlers were stretching their legs, as a thrike saddle was uncomfortable for travel by land over long periods of time. A thrike's back angled sharply downwards when it walked, and as the saddle was designed to lie flat on during flight, the front portion for sitting upright at the base of the animal's neck was cramped and wobbly. As it were, nobody objected to a company halt to wait until further orders.

Thax could see Officer Mencken and some of the other horsemasters nearby, though the Chief and the Director and most of the other voices of authority had returned to Mawsch to supervise the situation. He was glad not to be in their shoes.

He picketed down the thrike assigned to him for the trip and secretly renamed it Punge. Punge was one of the smartest, but smelliest, thrikes in the Polescos stables, with a distinct acrid body odor, and no one could ever figure out why. Its scent had probably worked its way into Thax's clothes and everything else he had brought by now.

"Water, Thax?"

Onaya tapped his shoulder with a canteen as she came around from behind him. Thax smiled and took the water in one hand and snagged her hand in the other.

"So gracious, milady," he said and raised the canteen in tribute before tipping it bottoms up. The water was still cool and tasted wonderful in the midmorning heat. Then he coughed, and raised his eyebrows at her.

"What did you do this time?"

She released the laugh she had been holding in. "Don't tell anyone. It's kachata."

At the expression on his face, Onaya laughed harder and glanced around, her cheeks pinked in the heat. Thax also looked around, then took another swallow.

"There you go, muddling up my judgment again," he said. "Even a thrike captain can't expect to survive on fizz and women. Did you at least buy some food, too?"

"There's more to life than ordering people around, boss man," Onaya sighed. She plucked back the canteen and took a long drink herself. "This stuff is special. Besides, do you know how much food can be found in the rainforest?"

"I think I saw a whole rice berry about a mile back. Should I go back for it?"

Onaya whacked his shoulder, but Thax took her wrist and closed her in against a tree trunk, sinking her into a layer of vines. His other hand went behind her neck. She was gasping out a laugh as she tried to sound indignant. "You, sir, are full of it."

"You bet I am," he slurred, coming in for a kiss. "And you, ma'am, are stuck."

Punge's wingtips stabbed his side once, then again. The thrike was nipping hungrily at the same tree, its beak spearing under the leaves. Thax pulled away, then finally had to step out of range as batlike wings forced him aside. Maybe Onaya was right about food in the wild, but Thax was no thrike.

"Speaking of trees," he said, glaring up at Punge. "These packers we're after. How are we planning to feed them? They don't eat rocks, do they?"

Onaya pulled out her slot screen, the glow lighting up the tips of her fingers, and tapped the surface until she found what she wanted. "Didn't you do the homework?"

Thax scoffed, but before he could say anything Onaya's voice lilted into an announcer's inflection. "A single maccoton can consume up to two hundred fifty pounds of food in one day." She gestured vaguely to her right. "That's why we're bringing them back along the shoreline."

Thax thought of his confiscated slot screen and rubbed absently at the scrapes itching up and down the left side of his face. His wrist bracer smelled like his thrike. "So that's why we brought all these horses, eh?"

"Ha. You know they don't eat meat."

"What a life," he said dolefully. "What do they put the steak sauce on, then?"

"Gillig trees and beach barbs, dummy. Don't you ever read?"

Two whistles trilled through the air. Thax straightened.

"About time. I was ready to start building a treehouse and making my own clothes out of animal skins." Then, in a louder voice, "Alright, crabcakes, let's get it on!"

His team of five thrike handlers was specially nicknamed by him back in Polescos whenever one of them showed up crabby for early morning patrol. Of course, half the time it was him. Today, all five of them had stayed within earshot though, which was a perk.

Bags were repacked and picket lines untangled from the vines that had seemingly grown up around them over the last two hours. Thax stole one more drink from Onaya's canteen and was about to call out formation when his voice was drowned out by Officer Lars' shout.

"Move out! Double-time it to Dogoby's Reach."

"Whoa," Thax said, only so Onaya could hear. "Dogoby's Reach, by Hannowold?"

"That's way more far east than we were heading, isn't it?"

"Way more far?" Thax grinned back at her. "Yes, ma'am. Many much more distanter."

He heaved up into the saddle seat, planted his boots into the stirrups, and wheeled Punge around back toward the path. The thrike clawed its way straight up the bank. It slipped on some loose underbrush when it nearly collided with two horses that walked as closely together as if they were tied. Thax pulled up short, his mouth dropping open.

The Director rode scowling underneath his hat, both sleeves pushed up, though a closer look showed that the fine sweat-wicking fabric had been torn. The tattoos of one arm were marred by a hasty bandage. The big black gelding crunched over sticks and flung bits of mud in a disgruntled manner, its bridle tied to the head of a fat mule on the far side from Thax.

Challis sat on the mule. Dirt lines ran down her face, but Thax had seen that before. Without her hat, her hair hung loose, her tunic askew, but Thax had seen that before too. He remembered finding her in such a state two or three times around the stables in Polescos, where Forge had apparently made life a living hell for her and her brother. But she had always accepted Thax's company, such as it was. He remembered her clutching his arm, soaking his shirt while he stood uncomfortably hoping nobody would see them. But there wasn't always much else to do when the sounds of Rasalas under Forge's crop kept coming from behind the barn.

What Thax hadn't seen before were the ropes. Ropes ran around her wrists, her boots, and up around her neck. Thax's shoulders flared with pain at the sight, and he thought of the stone wall shoving into his face when the Director had threatened to do the same to him.

"What happened?" It took him a moment to realize he had whispered it. He pulled up next to the Director, hands tightening as much as his tone did. "What happened? What's going on?"

The young woman's eyes snapped over toward him but missed his head by a whole two feet to his left. Thax stared at them, watching tears blink out of them and start flowing afresh. A cut had been torn into her cheek. Thax let his blood curdle inside him until he no longer cared what he sounded like. He no longer cared that the Director was the stronger man, his commanding officer to whom he owed his allegiance.

"Sir, what do you think you're doing? Challis, what happened? Where is, uh ­–"

Challis' voice cracked out, shaky as a leaf. "He's gone."

As soon as she said it, she turned her head away and hunched her shoulders. The Director's riding crop flew and struck her across the back.

"Hey!" Thax shouted.

The Director ignored him and raged at Challis, "Not a word! You'll speak to no one, lass, except to me. Understood?"

Thax urged his thrike forward and brought Punge around directly in front of the others. The animal snorted and clawed at the ground, wings spreading out to each side to keep its balance and in reaction to its handler. The Director pulled up sharply, stopped in his tracks by the wingspan, and by the anger of an amiable man.

Thax punched his bare hand down next to his saddle, and brought it up loaded. A semicircle sidearm had hooked onto his wrist bracer and hugged his knuckles as he gave the contraption a sharp twist. One squeeze of his fist and the weapon would fire.

He pointed it at Director Haske, his voice hard. "If you strike her again, sir, I'll shoot you."

Drunnel just looked at him, eyes narrowing. Then his gaze twitched to the side, and if Thax hadn't noticed it before, he noticed now. They were surrounded by horses and riders, a confused mass of shocked silence. A crowd of faces, most of them unknown to Thax, covered every emotion down the row from fear to reddened anger. These last came from his team of crabcakes, three men and two women who were wisely keeping their reactions silent. For that, Thax was proud of them. What ached in his mind now was that he and they knew Challis, and had known her brother, and had done very little for them. But now they were all she had.

Officer Lars came forward, maneuvering his horse through the others. If he disapproved of Challis' treatment, he didn't show it. Instead, he sat stiffly in his saddle and sent a level gaze at Thax.

"I'd remind you of your place, Tofflar," he said sternly. "Director Haske is acting with full authorization on his decision, given the legal proceedings that you were not permitted to have a say in. Consider well the next words that come out of your mouth."

A distant birdcall echoed up from the ravine ahead. Whispers were starting to come to life around him when Thax spoke up again.

"You hired us, sir," he said. "If you expect to keep us under your service long enough for this expedition to succeed, we have a right to know what's going on. A serious line has been crossed here. Several lines. Probably big ones. "

At that, the Director took a deep breath, one eyebrow arching up. But someone else spoke up before he could.

"I can tell you what happened."

Stunned, Thax looked over at Onaya. Her face was pale where she sat on her thrike, but she held up her slot screen.

"An update just got sent out, from Captain Lakko Haske. We all got one."

Thax glared at the Director and didn't answer. He didn't put away his weapon.

Challis heard the faint beeps from all around her, and from her own pocket. One came from Drunnel's pocket right next to her. And despite the emptiness that filled her sight, she wondered.

* * *

Her vision flashed, so searingly bright that she was fighting blindly for a moment. She tore uselessly at Drunnel's arm and screamed again for her brother, but it was hopeless.

Ras was gone.

Drunnel slammed the door shut, wrestling both of Challis' wrists into one big hand while he tore out his tripwire with the other. He whipped it around her neck. Challis felt her knees hit the floor, and then her hands were forced around two knots. Sudden pressure on her throat, hot tingling zipping down her spine, and her fear of this man turned into a dark determination.

The tripwire sliced into her.

If Lakko's tripwire had felt like an electric shock, this one was a deafening explosion inside her head. A high-pitched whizzing bounced around inside her skull before condensing into a painful little ball of pressure deep in her mid-brain, which shattered into a blind numbness that flooded down to her toes.

Her sight didn't come back. Challis shuddered into a state of horrible emptiness, which then became full to bursting with a moving, cascading pressure that she later realized to have been the combination of all the emotions.

Confusion reigned from then on. Her feet were moving, stumbling, but she didn't know how or why. Sunlight warmed her skin and hair, but there was no change in brightness on her eyelids as if they were simply closed. She was blind, blind as the back of her head. Drunnel's voice was speaking from somewhere beyond the turmoil, but vague words and phrases from the Cormellican Institute scattered through her instead.

She had only been able to see for the last six years because of the nerve-ending scan overlay from Rasalas' brain. It had doubled his vision onto hers, without fail, while somehow activating her damaged visual cortex. But now, nothing was coming through, no input from eyes outside. That had never happened before.

For the next hour, she cried unseeing.