After Thax had disappeared into the rain, Drunnel turned to Groffoco.

"We need a better position," he said. "Tofflar was right about one thing. Hannowold will have patrols scouting for two miles outside the city's radius."

"Agreed." Groffoco busied himself with his slot screen before going on. "Sir…"

Drunnel loaded his pack up onto his shoulders. Groffoco tried again.

"Sir, I need to ask… I mean, if I may."

"What is it, Captain?" The other raised his eyebrows in an ingenuous look. "Go on."

Groffoco coughed, retied his wrist bracers, and tried to put the questions together into one inside his head before asking. There were too many. His thoughts raced between how in the world the Director had heard the argument earlier, to what had happened to Challis, to the unmistakable presence of something paranormal going on over the course of the entire expedition so far. He was still fuzzy on the real reasons why he had been placed in charge of Tofflar's thrike team, and it wasn't just because of the man's wayward mouth.

"Challis?"

Groffoco looked up to see the Director looking around in confusion. He noticed why at once and joined in rubbernecking.

"Those Gannagens." Drunnel cursed and started looking behind trees. "Disappear the minute you turn your back," he muttered angrily. "She's gone."

* * *

She moved through the underbrush as silent as a shadow. Rain dripped down her face, but Challis wore a warm smile of thrilling accidental discovery. The raindrops patted every surface, bringing the forest to a new level of activity that was different from the animals and insects inhabiting it. Leaves and roots drank up the water in an age-old habit of survival, and at the same time revealed themselves to Challis' paranormal awareness like semi-living beings caught in the act of growing.

Pulling in water, Challis realized, took much more of an effort than receiving sunlight. She could sense the rain infusing into the plants of the jungle, and sense it enough to be able to walk without banging into trees. Life was everywhere, and she could blindly navigate it better here in the depths of Dogoby's Reach than she ever could half-blind in the streets of Polescos.

Then Thax appeared, at first a body of determination twenty feet in front of her, and then one of utter indignation about two feet away. He was less distinct than the greenery, but there was no surprise there. The human aura was so much more complicated.

"What are you doing?" His whisper bit down sharply into her musings, and Challis could perfectly picture his glance around for anyone watching. "Go back to the others, are you crazy? You can't come."

"I can find her," Challis insisted, pushing his hand away. He smelled strongly of thrike.

"He gave me back my slot screen. I'll be fine." Thax turned and started to walk away.

"There is a group of people on foot nearby, maybe a quarter of a mile toward the city. Hannowold patrol, or Perraxis raiders, I can't tell. But if Flantain is hurt, you'll need my help."

He stopped. "You don't think I can manage on my own?"

"I think, Toff," she said, knowing she would regret it, "that if you can let go of that insufferable ego of yours for half an hour, we can make this a double effort and get Flantain back safe before half-light."

"What the… mighty chestnuts, Gannagen, I still outrank you, you know that?"

"But, but think about it." Challis reached out a hand to rest on a tree trunk. It was slightly spongy under her fingers. "Who knows, maybe some of us have already been taken into the city, and the locators on the remaining screens are being used to find the rest of us. Hannowold has been host to an active army base since the Mission Trials eight years ago, so the patrol system is likely highly efficient."

Thax's thumb drummed the side of his screen. Challis became aware of a combination of emotions emanating from him, then an overwhelming feeling of defiance. His only increased her own and she set her feet.

"What do you even know about the army base?" Thax asked. "We're not just in danger of getting sniped at from a mile off. Why do you think those raiders tried to stop us? Or how they knew about our expedition?"

"I thought they just ­–"

"Hannowold's resources come from all over Petchkan." Thax's voice dropped, getting more agitated as he went on. "The Director and Bosk would have sent word by pterosaur patrol to every stop before we arrived. But raiders split us up, and within Hannowold territory."

"They're raiders," she interrupted. "It's what they do."

"Not Perraxis raiders, even this far north. The only reason they would treat us like hostages is if they were in league with someone else. Someone in direct competition to the FHF. It means, we can't just waltz into the closest military city for supplies like we were planning to. They…" he drew out the word, "wouldn't let us leave."

Challis paused. Thax's words seemed so matter-of-fact, but they were still darting at her faster than she could keep up.

"Or…" she said slowly. "Maybe Shaw just wanted thrikes, like he said."

"You're missing the point," he sighed, his voice more distant as he turned away.

Challis faced where the city stood out of sight overlooking the ravines, the jungle, and the plains beyond at the foot of the far mountains. All at once, the prospect of the waiting maccotons dropped into her throat, and she had to swallow down a surge of impatience. Drunnel had better know what he was doing. He had brought her to the ravines for a reason. Hannowold would have to be dealt with, and soon.

"If what you're saying," she said, "is that the hostility between tech factions in Petchkan is growing…" She crossed her arms, still in thought. "All the more need to avoid anyone we meet down here."

"Exactly." He turned back to her. "And I can't protect both Flantain and her thrike if you're piggybacking too."

Challis stressed every word. "You won't need to. I said I could find her. And," she took a breath, "anyone else."

She heard the slight beep of his slot screen, and his quietude as he stared down at it. Then, "What did you say about those locators in the slot screens?"

Challis just held out her hand, palm up. The worst he could do, she figured, was just walk away. She hadn't been lying about the presence of a potential threat nearby, though the ravine's overgrowth would provide fine cover at least for now. The idea about the slot screens being used against them by the city officials, on the other hand, was all-the-while, all-the-way, pure speculation. But she was tired of the condescension, deserved though it was, and definitely couldn't back out now.

She almost dropped the slot screen in surprise when it plopped into her hand.

"Fine," Thax said heatedly. "Prove it."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Wow."

"Would you get a move on? I'll take up the rear if you're so sure of yourself. But not a word of this to Groffoco."

Challis nodded, then powered off the slot screen and slipped it away.

The rain was turning the ground into a mudbath as they took a diagonal descent down the slope to the left. Challis felt ropey plants slip in and out of her grip, but the traction chains on her poor old boots did a phenomenal job of keeping her more or less upright as she crouch-crawled over the turf. Puffs of ferns and leafy bunches brushed wetly across her face. When at last she could stand without slipping, Challis eased her way into what she could tell was a trench in the ravine, maybe five feet across the bottom with walls of mud and roots jutting up on either side. Her boots splashed in a stream, but it was noiseless in the rainfall.

Thax followed, still in shock that she really could find her way forward. He hadn't been entirely serious. But he shook himself out of it, keeping his annoyance at bay, and his eyes up. The trees were huge here, each a whole exhibition of meaty limbs and mossy tresses all decorated with pompous amounts of vines and leaves as if in rivalry for the most impressive ecosystem. Those that had failed and eventually fallen sagged dead over the top of the little culvert in heavy shadow, or stabbed down into the path like exposed bones. They were dark inside. Moss had eaten away at the edges enough to reveal the gaping maws of empty logs big enough to ride a horse into.

Long breaths, in and out with deliberate weight, brought the taste of the jungle deep into Challis. Rich, moisture-ridden air seemed to rush into her veins and pump up into her brain. She focused on the effluxes that flowed over her and, if it wasn't her imagination, sensed a breathy feminine energy alongside a wilder thrike presence not too far away. Off in the distance, an unmistakable separate group of hunters pressed through the rainforest too, and they were closing in quickly. Challis made sure her own screen was completely powered off in her pocket and tried to think past the panic spreading over her concentration.

"Are you scared?"

Thax's whisper behind her made her jump.

"Damn you, don't do that!" she panted. "That's not funny."

He swallowed a muffled laugh. "Sorry. But in all seriousness," he cleared his throat. "You look scared. Trouble coming? Or is this freaky place just getting to you?"

Challis kept her head moving, letting each plant and obstacle appear as tingling accumulations of energy in her mind.

"Trouble." She paused to rest, gripping a root in the wall to keep her hands from shaking. "But also, yes. We need to hurry or I'm going to go insane."

A warbling bird noise sounded from the shelter of heavy greenery high above them. In the silence of the rain that followed, Thax frowned and eyed Challis uncertainly. Given what he had seen so far on this expedition, one couldn't just say things like that. He was half-convinced that somebody was insane indeed, and it wasn't him.

"Are we close?"

"I think so."

They stepped carefully across a bed of squashy red floral plants that choked out the stream. Little leaping frogs bounded away from each step and disappeared just as quickly.

"Hey, can I ask you something?"

She shrugged. "If you want."

"What's the deal going on here? Did you really go flat blind?"

Challis paused next to a trickling stream falling from overhead, and Thax watched as she cupped her hands under the water. She rinsed the mud off them and then, after a hesitation, took a drink. Her efforts were as clumsy as anyone's, strands of her hair falling unnoticed over her eyes. Thax pulled his canteen from his belt and squeaked the cap off, waiting.

She thought of Rasalas, who had always, always been there. The constant sharing of his eyes, and the medical experiments that had enforced that. He was gone now, she could numbly accept that, but she wasn't ready for the realization that he wasn't coming back.

"I sold him out," she said, mostly to herself. If she had kept her mouth shut, Drunnel might not have told Lakko to kill him. If Lakko hadn't been there in the first place – but no, he was looking for the tripwire. It had been in Rasalas' saddlebag, flung there in the heat of anger after… she had taken it from him. She had just wanted to try it. But, after all, he had been wearing it around like a Haske himself.

"Flat blind. But Director Haske gave me this," Challis went on dully, a hand closing around the wire for a moment. Then she brushed her fingers along her scalp and tied everything back into a single braid, smoothing back a fabric headband. Rainwater dripped down her neck. "It's how I know where Flantain is, and how we'll find those maccotons. And…" She gave him a pointed look, though she missed his head by a few inches. "I can just about tell what you're doing right now."

Thax tore his eyes away from her. Despite being blind, Challis still knew how to form facial expressions, unlike someone blind from birth, but it still looked unnatural. He busied himself with a long drink of his own. He wasn't used to so much water in the atmosphere, all around him, trickling and dripping and soaking his clothes.

"Missing Onaya?"

"Of course I am," he said, strapping on the canteen again. "I still don't know where she is. Or any other person from this soup-in-a-bag expedition."

"Soup in a bag?"

"Yeh." He gave a snort. "Hits the ground with a splat and never belonged there anyway. Let's move on, shall we?"

The rainpour grew louder first, then heavier as if bypassing the treetops entirely. Challis eventually let Thax go ahead of her, simply so she could hold onto his belt to keep from slipping. He objected at first, unwilling to be dragged down with her if she fell, before realizing that she used to do this all the time with someone more patient than he. Someone with more weight and better footing, granted, but the least he could do was to give her that security. They moved in silence, and Thax wondered half-heartedly if half-light had come and gone.

Challis directed them along the channel, which started to swell upward in the center to split into two equally dark and shadowed gorges. Dogoby's Reach, Thax thought, was far too tame a name. Named after some ancient village, the ravines would more aptly be called Levels of Purgatory, or perhaps The Belly of the Beast. The walls deepened and started to lean inwards, threatening to close in completely on the two if they dared to slow down. The stream in the middle had grown to a rush that forced them to slink along the edge, such as it was, to avoid slipping on the rocks in the current.

"The rain's going to slide the whole ravine down on top of us," Thax muttered. "We shouldn't be here."

"We're close," Challis breathed, the murmur hardly audible in the rain. "Close now."

"Her, or them?"

Challis' head was on a swivel, the eerie movements apparently helping her determine direction as she homed in on Flantain's location. "Both."

"Did anyone ever tell you –"

A faint whistle tapped their ears from somewhere ahead, and Thax halted. The whistle came again, a series of short notes, slower this time but evenly spaced out. "Holy crickets. You were right." He licked his lips and responded with the same signal, keeping it as soft as he could but loud enough to carry through the rain.

"Come on."

They snuck onward, Challis keeping them to the right. The ground rose out of the water enough to form a slippery trail of mud that slurked at their boots. A deep stack of fallen tree trunks loomed up dark in front of them, and for an unnerving second Thax got the impression of a giant creature blocking the path, woody limbs raised high above two glowing eyes between him and the canopy backdrop. He wiped the rain from his eyes and stared up at it. Light was coming from the top, two unnaturally green beams that appeared over the rim of the gorge with the distinctive bobbing of handheld flashlights.

"Patrol," he hissed. "Move it, Gannagen!"

They flattened against the wall, where leaves splattered them with cold droplets. Then Thax pulled Challis forward straight into the heap of tree skeletons, where a trunk's mouth yawned open wide enough to let them push inside without needing to duck. The sharp odor of rotting wood filled the cramped space, almost overpowering in the sudden absence of rain.

"Did they see us?" Challis panted.

"Don't think so, not in this rain." Thax braced himself against the inside of the log enough to be clear of the entrance. "I saw their lights, though. New Moon Beamer flashlights, too." He blew out a breath. "I'd give a lung and an eyebrow for one of those."

"Tofflar."

He spun around at the new voice. Deeper in the depths of the trunk, a woman lay partly supported by the half-rotted wood bulging into the space. In the faint light, Thax could just make out the fitted riding uniform of his teammate, legs and feet covered by the darkness of her cloak.

"Sienna," he gasped, relieved. "There you are."

"Hi, Flantain," Challis dropped down next to her. "You're alright, aren't you? It's been a hell of a time since you were shot down."