Island in the Sea of Time

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

October, Year 1 A.E.

The natives are restless," Alston said, listening to the drums as they echoed under the sound of the engines. Beside her Swindapa nodded gravely. Lieutenant Hendriksson cast a quick uncertain glance her way, then smiled wryly. Somebody farther back in the boat snickered.

Good for morale, Alston thought. Let her people see that the skipper wasn't oppressed by the alien weirdness of the surroundings. Much, she added to herself in blunt honesty. Besides, it had come to her spontaneously.

The boats from the Eagle were advanced up the twisting river in a broad wedge, with the motor launches to the fore acting as scouts. Behind them came the twoscore big inflatable lifeboats; their powerful outboard engines let some of them tow long whaleboats brought along for this voyage. On either side the jungle reared, a medley of greens and great gaudy slashes of flowers, flights of birds like living jewels with their long tails dangling behind them in streaming banners of blue and turquoise, showers of rainbow-hued butterflies. Birdcalls echoed, raucous or sweet. Now and then an alligator, now and then a cluster of tapirs on the bank snorting away in crashing, noisy panic. Once the unmistakable scream of a jaguar. Always the muggy, clinging heat; always the faraway stutter of the drums.

Sweat trickled down into the padding under her armor; a certain percentage were wearing theirs, the others keeping it near to hand, and the sets switching over at two-hour intervals. Practice and sound design meant that they could scramble into it in short order, even in the cramped quarters of the boats. Wearing it courted heat exhaustion, though; and anyone who went overside in forty pounds of steel… well, it was a long wet walk along the bottom to the edge. She blinked at the huge red disk of the sun, sinking ahead of them. Not always directly ahead; the river wound considerably.

What really worries me is how vulnerable these rubber boats are to flung weapons, she thought. And they were laden enough that the outboard engines gave them only a little edge of speed against a well-crewed canoe.

A buzzing came from the radio. "GHU, this is Eagle, over."

"Eagle, the village is just around the next bend in the river," Toffler said. His ultralight was circling at the edge of vision, perhaps a mile and a half ahead. "The sunken hulk is definitely the Bentley. Burned at her moorings, looks like."

"Sure they've cleared out, GHU?"

"Ma'am, they ran like hell. Over."

"Rendezvous there, then. Over and out."

For a moment the craziness of it struck her. An aerial scout, a flotilla of inflated boats of complex synthetics driven by engines, the whole coordinated by radio, and each boat filled with Nintendo-generation warriors in steel armor armed with swords, spears, and crossbows. And the real irony is that this medieval metalwork is almost as far-future compared to the locals as the solid-state electronics in this radio. That reminded her to make yet another mental note to be careful with that equipment. Nantucket wouldn't be making microchips in her lifetime.

She had a Colt Python.357 Magnum at her side, but less than thirty rounds for it-twenty-seven, to be precise, counting the six in the chamber. The machine shop back on Nantucket could make more, in limited quantities, but there was nothing to charge them with, nor fulminate for the primers. There were three other handguns with the expeditionary force, and another back on Eagle, and that was it. The Bentley had, or had had, more in the way of firearms, and it hadn't seemed to have done them much good. What Alston did have was two hundred trained, disciplined people. She hoped that would make the difference.

They sailed into gathering murk; it was quieter as the day's wildlife sought its lairs and roosts, and the nocturnal versions weren't out. A long looping curve and suddenly there were cleared fields, then buildings and canoes drawn up on the bank.

And the schooner's grave. The tip of one mast still stuck forlornly out of the water, not far from where Toffler's ultralight bobbed on its floats. She could see how fast it must have sunk by the relative lack of damage; it just looked like something had taken big black-fringed bites out of the sides. They'd brought an Aqua-Lung, but she didn't think the diver would find much useful. On the north bank the village waited, smoke still trailing up into the darkening sky but eerily quiet, not even a dog barking.

"We'd better get set up," she said, and switched the radio to the general frequency. "Smith, Bulosan, take first picket." Those were the motor launches; they also had the diver. "Group A, all personnel in battle order, and follow me. Mr. Ortiz, you'll maintain station with Group B until I give the signal."

She put on her helmet and clipped a small walkie-talkie to the belt about her waist; it still felt rather odd to have no specific sensation of pressure or weight there, but the armor took all that. The lifeboat rocked under her as crew scrambled into their armor. A dozen boats turned inward for the shore, cut their engines, and grounded. The Americans leaped over the sides, hauled their craft up, and fanned out to make a perimeter. Alston was with them, eyes peering into the gathering murk. Nothing moved, except the rustling of scrubby-looking cornstalks and the buzz of insects. She raised the radio to her lips. "Lieutenant Ortiz, bring Group B in and take over here."

The others followed her as she walked down the single street of the village. The huts were laid out with some precision, and were bigger than she might have expected. Her followers inspected each, prodding at the recesses with blades to make sure nobody was hiding. She entered one herself, clicking on her flashlight. Bedding and tools lay tumbled, as if the locals had simply snatched up whatever was at hand when they fled the apparition in the sky. They must have been three-quarters terrified already, after the brush with the Bentley. The solid wattle-and-daub walls came only to waist height, leaving the hut relatively cool and airy with the woven mats rolled up under the eaves. Possessions were few: flat-bottomed pottery that looked hand-formed, not thrown on a wheel, and bigger globular jugs, both decorated with incised designs. One end of the hut held a terra-cotta figurine of a babylike figure with flat features and fangs; probably a shrine. Hooks, lines, barbed fishing spears, and stone hoes and adzes were in corners. A metate and grindstone lay abandoned, surrounded by corn and maize meal; beside it was a clay platter with a mound of oozing grated cassava.

"Captain!"

She dropped a hand to the pistol; that voice was urgent. A cadet dashed up. "Ma'am, Section Leader Trudeau says there's something you ought to see right away."

He led her and the others up the village street to the earth platform. It was about five feet high, a rectangle thirty feet by fifty, made of the same clay loam as the earth around. The sides sloped inward, smoothed and coated with colored stucco in patterns that looked abstract until she saw past the alien iconography to the shapes of men, animals, and birds. They went up turf steps to a platform that held buildings larger and more ornate than the village, but of the same basic style. The exposed wood was carved and painted in a floridly baroque style. Damn, but those animals look like something out of Dr. Seuss, she thought. Cooking hearths stood beneath gazebo-like roofs. Stone gutters led water away, keeping the surface dry; there were ornamental plantings.

Ruling-class housing, she thought. Or possibly the equivalent of a church. A place where power resided, at least. "Ma'am."

That was Trudeau, his face looking pale and ill in the fading light. That reminded her that the enemy would probably be much better at sneaking around in the dark than most of her command. "Let's get some floods set up here," she called over her shoulder. "Mr. Trudeau?"

He was an upperclassman, near graduation; a slender dark blue-eyed young man, Maine-born of French Canadian stock.

"Ma'am, I've, uh, found where some of the Bentley's crew went."

She began to suspect as he led her over to one of the hearths. The bones were unmistakably human, and the dental work in the skulls equally certainly of the twentieth century. The meat on the spits and in the pots… The smell was thick, like pork stewing or roasting, horribly appetizing. She swallowed heavily once; behind her came the sound of retching.

"Arrange a burial detail, Mr. Trudeau," she said. "But not until I give the word. There was something else?"

Lights blinked on as the equipment was carried up from the village. Trudeau turned away, obviously relieved. "This way, ma'am."

Like the village, the settlement on the platform was laid out on either side of a street. At one end was an open space, trampled hard and set down into the soil. Wooden scaffolds set with stone and painted figures held hoops at either end; in a weird way, it reminded her of a basketball court. At the other end was a wooden platform, smoothly pegged together. Its front was carved in the likeness of a cross-legged man wearing a jaguar mask and holding a rope in either hand. That led around the sides of the slab, to carved images of bound prisoners on either side. Behind the slab in turn stood a roofed cage, with a single door that could be securely fastened. The senior cadet led her toward it.

"It took a bit of looking, ma'am," he said. "And we were sort of, you know, shook up. But here it is."

They entered the cage, flashlights probing. Insects fluttered in and out of the beams. "Over here by the back."

The bars of the cage were hard wood, notched into a single huge undecorated foundation beam on each side. Part of their surface had grown soft and punky with rot, and doubtless they would have been replaced soon. In the meantime they had a surface soft enough to scratch. The shaky letters on one of them spelled one word: Upstream.

Behind her, Ian Arnstein spoke softly: "At least it's not 'Croatan.' Some of them were alive, then. One at least."

"And I know just which one, Professor," Alston said.

Deep in a fissure of the wood, metal gleamed. She went to one knee and dug carefully with the point of her tanto knife. The wood was hard below the weathered layer, but in a few seconds the metal popped free and she scooped it up. A plain golden ring, sized for a woman's hand. A wedding ring. She held it up and shone the flashlight on the inner surface.

"Martha Cofflin's," she said, and knelt silent for a moment, long black fingers curling about it. Then she rose and spoke briskly: "Trudeau, maintain your perimeter." With the handset in her grasp, she gave further orders: "Mr. Ortiz, please relieve all perimeter guards and workin' parties in succession. I want them all to come and see something up here." It was a good thing to know your enemy.

"So, does this count as our first fight?" Doreen said, tight-lipped.

"We're not fighting, we're just discussing," Ian hissed back.

The expeditionary force had built up the hearths from stored firewood-except the ones where that had been cooking-and put a line of watchfires along their perimeter. Doubtless the eyes of the village's inhabitants saw that, where they huddled in the jungle and swamp that bordered the inland edge of their fields, and also the harsher brilliance of portable electric lights. Insects buzzed about; the stores of mosquito repellent were already running low, and huge bright tropical moths plunged into the fires. Despite the shock of what they'd seen, the camp was no longer funeral-quiet. Food was cooking, stored rations, fish and duck caught on the trip up the river, cornmeal and vegetables from the huts. For a while he'd thought he would never want to eat again, but the smell set his stomach rumbling. It had turned very slightly cooler, with a breeze from the river, as the sections assembled below the earth platform. The Arnsteins fell silent with the rest as Captain Alston stood to address them.

"You've all seen what was going on here," she said.

A snarling mutter went through the ranks below. More angry than afraid, Ian decided. Evidently Captain Alston knew them better than he did… which was, after all, her specialty.

"We have definite proof that Ms. Cofflin, at least, was still alive yesterday and was taken upriver toward these… people's main town. I intend to follow and rescue her. Because I really don't approve of Americans being tortured, killed, and eaten. These people need to be taught a good, hard lasting lesson along those lines."

The mutter grew into an angry cheer, guttural and full of menace. Alston nodded. "Good. Keep eager. Just remember that the difference between a real military force and a bunch of savages is discipline. We've got it, they don't, and that's why we're going to go up that river tomorrow and kick cannibal butt."

The next cheer was more like a roar. Alston cut it off with a chopping gesture of her hand. "So eat hearty and get a good night's sleep; you'll need your strength tomorrow. Dismissed."

"Where were we?" Doreen said, as the ranks broke, their noise louder and more cheerful.

"Ah… I think we were about to have a totally useless argument," Ian said.

"Yup, that sounds right," Doreen said. They met each other's eyes and laughed.

"It's not as if the captain would lay on a boat to take you back to the Eagle, anyway," he sighed. "Still, I wish you hadn't insisted."

"We're a team," Doreen said. They began walking toward their quarters. "How'd you put it… Speakers-to-Savages?"

A burst of laughter came from the next hearthfire down. "A little touch of Harry in the night," Ian quoted. Doreen chuckled. Most of the sections assigned to huts had kept the fires going at a low level even after their cooking was done, despite the heat and the insects it attracted. The flames were heartening, he supposed; ancestral memories.

"Odd to think we're actually going to be fighting a battle like Agincourt," she said. "Swords and spears and all… Hi, Marian."

Alston sank down a little way from the fire that burned in its clay bowl before their hut, nodding reply to their greetings. "Fo' Christ's sake don't offer me another cup of that goddam sassafras tea, Doreen," she said. "I'm going to be up often enough tonight as it is." Her teeth showed white against the darkness, and her eyes; otherwise she almost vanished.

"Wait until you're my age," Ian grumbled. "Every bloody night."

"You should try being pregnant," Alston said, topping him neatly.

He blinked. Yes, she was once, wasn't she? Twice. Odd to think of it. Odd to think of her as a mother, too.

"Aren't you going to reassure us?" he asked.

"I might, if you were going to be anywhere near the action," she said. "Assumin' there is action. I'd prefer to bargain Martha out and go." She paused, arms around her knees and chin on them. "Well, no, that's not quite right. I'd prefer to drop napalm an' cluster bombs on them. As it is, I'd rather not fight. Too much chance of our hostages bein' hurt, for starters."

"What do you think our chances are?" Doreen asked.

"Mmmm, pretty good," she replied. Little flames licked in the dark irises as she stared into the flames. "Cortez conquered Mexico at longer odds. I-we-could probably do the same."

"You think so?" Ian said, surprised.

She nodded slowly, with the faraway look of deep thought. Alston wasn't what he'd consider well read in history, but she had a good working knowledge of those parts of it that interested her.

"Cortez conquered Indians with Indians," she said. "He could do it because he came from a more… advanced military an' political tradition. Weapons didn't-won't- wouldn't have-mattered much. They outthought the locals as much as they outfought them."

"I see what you mean," Ian said thoughtfully. "That was Machiavelli's home century, near enough. Montezuma spent his time worrying about whether Cortez was the Feathered Serpent come back again, while good old Hernan was analyzing how the Mexica hegemony worked and taking it apart. We could probably learn the languages, find out who's enemy to who, and-"

"Exactly," Alston said. "We've got more of a technical edge than the Spaniards did, too. The only thing Cortez had that I envy was experienced troops to start with. Ours are green, 'specially at this hand-to-hand style of fightin'. That's the only thing that worries me, and that not much."

Doreen looked alarmed, and sounded it. "Surely you're not thinking of conquering this country!"

Alston showed her teeth. "What, live here in this rotting sauna, and get stuck rulin' these lunatics? I'd rather juggle live squid in a laundromat. Thought you knew me better than to think that's what I want, Doreen."

The fire had died down; many of the others were out, and the huts filled with sleep. Not to mention snores, Ian thought. He'd noticed that the young needed sleep less and got it more easily.

"What do you want, if you don't mind me asking?" he said, curious. As soon as the words were out he half wished them back. On the other hand, curiosity was one itch he'd never been able to resist scratching, and he doubted he ever would.

"Want?" She shrugged. "What does anyone want? A job doing something important, and doing it well, and enjoying doing it. To have good friends, and deserve them. Love too, of course." Her smile grew gentle. "Can't complain on any of those counts, now."

Doreen's hand sought Ian's. "Things must have been, um, difficult for you, before the Event."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Alston said judiciously. "Unless you'd call havin' any chance of a decent personal life destroyed by lying politicians who pander to the bigotry of a bunch of dimwit redneck peckerwood jackasses 'difficult.' Difficult." She snorted. "Thus do we protect our sacred family values."

"Sorry."

"Oh, no problem." She rose, and grinned again. "Got nothin' to complain about now that I'm making the rules… although they give you privileges I don't get, you lucky civilians, you."

After their goodbyes the two looked at each other. "She's right, you know," Ian said, straight-faced. "It would be unfriendly and ungrateful not to."

Still holding hands, they went into the hut. And besides, Ian thought, tomorrow we may die. Quite literally.

"What would you have done if they were all dead?" Swindapa asked.

The alien night pressed down around her; despite the heat she shivered slightly. They were sitting at the edge of the earthen platform, looking down at the village. Out on the water two more lights went like stars and glittered in the river, where boats guarded against surprise. Trees cut off the horizon on every hand, black against the frosted multitude of stars. Those glimmered in the water, bright and many. Even the smells of water and earth were different, strange in a way that the Island was not, scents like spoiled bread and yeast and brewing beer. She looked up. Moon Woman's home floated huge and yellow near the horizon, casting a soul-path across the ripples.

All this world is Your daughter, Swindapa thought. So You are always with me. Her hand reached out and touched the captain's. Fingers clenched, infinitely soothing; so much could be allowed, here where none could see. How good it would be to lay arms around each other in comfort! This place was like the things the Sun People believed about Night Ones; like a dream of Barrow Woman, clutching at the souls of the dead.

"I would have turned around and gone back, if they'd all been killed," the captain said, her voice equally soft.

"Not taken revenge?" Swindapa asked.

Almost invisible, the dark head shook. "Not worth the risk of lives," she said. "As long as Martha's alive, yes, we keep goin'."

"Many more may die than one, though, if there's a fight."

A soft chuckle. "That's not the same thing. We don't… abandon our own, not while I'm in charge."

Swindapa nodded. "That's a good law," she said, and sighed.

The fingers tightened on hers. "I know you want to see your home again," the other woman said. "This… we may not be able to, this fall. The storm season is coming."

"I know," Swindapa said, keeping the shiver of longing out of her voice. Her mother, brothers, sisters, uncles. And the Iraiina. They must be put back. "I know. I know you had to do this, too."

The fingers squeezed hers gratefully. She touched them to her cheek. The journey will come when it comes, she thought. There was a rightness to going and returning in the same season. But oh, the time seemed long!

Morning broke hot and fierce, the dawn coming up like thunder out of the jungle to the. east and clouds that piled on the edge of the world, turning their black heights to crimson and burning gold. Alston finished stretching and watched. Mist lay on the river, drawn by the increasing heat. Tendrils of it drifted between the great trees, as twisted as the vines and lianas that laced them together. I really do prefer the temperate zone, she thought.

"We'd better get under way as soon as Toffler reports," she said to Lieutenant Hendriksson; she and Lieutenant Ortiz followed their commander's gaze and nodded. "I don't like the look of those clouds."

The village swarmed with cadets and sailors making ready. The ultralight was drawn up, Toffler overseeing as fuel was pumped into the tanks from cans brought along.

"Full gear today," she went on. "And be ready for-"

Voices broke in, shouting-a group of the perimeter guards were hustling someone along. Not a local; he was dressed in the tattered remains of shorts and T-shirt. He stumbled and jerked as one of the cadets behind him prodded at him with a spearpoint. Alston frowned; then her face relaxed for a moment into carnivore anticipation as she saw the man had only one hand. Hers twitched to take the long hilt of the katana.

Finish the job, she thought. Then, scolding herself: Of course not. We'll take him home, give him a fair trial, and hang him right next to his sister, if we can. Still…

David Lisketter stumbled to a halt before her. He was plastered in mud, his thin face blotched with insect bites that also covered much of his body. The green-yellow eyes were staring behind smeared spectacles. At last they blinked and focused somewhat.

"Captain… Alston," he said.

"David Lisketter," she said. "You are under arrest for robbery, assault with intent to kill, complicity in first-degree murder, and kidnapping. Oh, yes, and high treason, too."

He straightened. "All right," he mumbled. "But Pamela, they've got Pamela, and Ms. Cofflin too. I saw."

"Saw what?"

"Canoes, big double canoes, two of them."

Alston made a motion with her hand. "Get the Arnsteins."

The cadets pushed him into the shade, and someone brought food and water. He wolfed the dry cassava bread and drank in gulping heaves. Ian and Doreen came up and hovered. Lisketter's account of the attack on the Bentley was disjointed; he'd seen only glimpses as he swam downstream and hauled himself out among the trees.

"They wouldn't listen," he said, again and again. "I tried the Mayan words from the dictionary, and I thought they recognized a few-'east,' 'sea,' a few-but they kept talking so fast. And then they grabbed me, grabbed all of us, and they kept pointing to my eyes and shining lights in them and they wouldn't let go. I had to shoot, I had to!"

Ian Arnstein leaned forward, face gone keen. "Your eyes are the same color as your sister's, aren't they?"

Lisketter peered at him. "Yes, yes," he said.

Ian hurried off to the hut where he'd slept, and came back with something in his hands. It was a wooden mask, of a face halfway between human and jaguar, the eyes inlaid with some polished stone. He held it up beside the one-handed man. The eyes of the living man were a shade of amber-green almost identical to the jade insets.

"I think we have something here," Alston said. She clapped Ian on the back. "Congratulations, Professor."

"What… what happened to the others?" Lisketter asked.

"The locals ate them," Alston said. Lisketter bent over abruptly and lost the food he'd just swallowed.

"Get him cleaned up, and handcuff him."

"Ma'am? What about the village?"

"Load everythin' we can use," she said. Her eyes swept over the buildings. "Then torch it."

"Why haven't they tried to stop us, Captain?" Lieutenant Ortiz asked, bringing his boat alongside. "They've got a lot of those canoes, and they did attack the schooner."

Alston nodded; she liked junior officers who tried to puzzle things out. "The Bentley was sitting still. We're moving without oars, making a funny sound, and we've got Toffler's ultralight flying overhead. At a guess, they're spooked. They'll fight eventually, though, when we get to their capital."

Another village was passing by on the north bank, much like all the others-including the crowd of armed Indians waiting at the landing. The chanting and war dances were pretty standard too. She did a quick calculation, counting huts and heads, focusing her binoculars to count the relative proportions of commoners and brightly bedecked men with elaborate weapons; also the number of adult males, women, children.

"Either I'm grossly overestimatin' the number of people per hut, or a lot of their menfolk are beating our time upriver," she said.

Toffler's ultralight came slanting in from the northwest, sun bright on the colorful striped fabric of its wings. The radio reports were brief and sketchy, just confirmation that Martha Cofflin and Lisketter were alive and captive. Now she could debrief him and get the videotapes; they might not have enough electricity for washing machines, but there was ample to charge a few batteries, thank God.

The ultralight sheened across the sky; it was as if suddenly reality had broken through the veil of myth. Men bore Martha toward a city where they worshiped a jaguar become human; but a man she knew flew overhead. She stood and waved, saw the wings waggle again in acknowledgment.

The chattering throng on the dirt roadway scattered like drops of mercury on dry ice. Porters threw away their burdens, men their spears, their screams shrill and loud enough to drown the buzzing little engine. Only a few of the caparisoned warriors followed them. Most grouped tightly around their leader's litter. Both halted to his command, and the heavy figure stepped forth, down a living staircase of bearers. He stood, arms akimbo, looking upward at the thing that flew five hundred feet above them.

Doesn't know what it is, of course, Martha thought. Aloud, in a murmur: "He can't really see it yet. Too alien. No scale, probably doesn't realize what size it is, maybe doesn't see that it's artificial, and yes, these priest-kings probably do hallucinogens of some sort. He's used to visions."

Toffler circled lower. He steered with one hand; the other held a video camera. Lower still, and suddenly the Olmec warriors realized-not what the flying thing was, but that a man was within it, and steering it. A few more of them fled, but their comrades brought those down with flung darts. The others raised a bristle of points around their lord. Lower still, and a rain of darts sprang up from their atlatls. Even with the spear-throwers they arched well below the aircraft, which circled away and banked. This time it came barely above the reach of the flung spears, straight down the roadway from the plateau citadel. The commander of the guards, a man with a jade plug in his lower lip and a headdress even more fantastically feathered than the rest, snapped an order. Bellowing surprise, the fat priest-king was bowled back into the covered litter. Half a dozen of the warriors threw themselves across him to put their bodies between him and harm. The rest crowded around the litter and its burden, casting darts, waving their rakes and spears and clubs, screaming defiance. Toffler soared above them, then brought the ultralight's nose up in a sharp climb. He circled once more, waggled his wings again, and circled higher.

The priest-king surged out of the litter, scattering the men who'd protected him with a shield of flesh. He roared something and slammed a fist into the face of the commander of his guards. The man reeled backward, fell, rose with his face a mask of blood. His overlord struck him again; the commander stood passively under the blows until the other man halted, panting. Then he went down on all fours and prostrated himself. So did the others; the big man kicked a few of them, then climbed back into his litter. The bearers heaved it upright, Martha's along with it, and trotted forward.

She watched the ultralight bank away to the southeast. "They're not far behind," she said quietly.

But what can they do?

"Run that by me again," Ian Arnstein said sharply.

The cassette whirred into reverse. The display unit was small, compact enough to be carried along in the boat. That rocked as several officers jostled slightly to see.

"Freeze that," he said. A book lay beside him; he picked it up and skimmed rapidly through the pages, each a little limp with the humidity. "Look."

He pointed; the picture was of one of the monumental Olmec stone heads. He brought it close to the flickering screen. "Pretty close resemblance, isn't it?"

Alston sighed and shook her head. "Well, there goes another theory." He looked a question at her. "There was speculation that those heads were signs of early contacts with the Old World-West Africa, specifically."

He looked at the picture. The features did look a little negroid, if you assumed that the depiction was realistic. But even so, the likeness to the heavy-featured man in the litter was unmistakable.

"Go on," she said.

"The archaeologists thought these heads were portrait-statues of Olmec rulers," Ian said. "From the looks of it, they were right for once. And now look at this."

He hit the fast-forward button, to the minute where the guards threw themselves over their ruler. "Does this suggest something?" he said.

"The Secret Service do the same with the president, up in the twentieth," an officer objected.

"Yes, but he doesn't beat them up afterward," Ian pointed out. "I think that's a significant datum."

"Proving that pudgy-face here is a son of a bitch?" Hendriksson asked.

"Proving he's an absolute ruler. I'd guess he was a god-king; it was a common pattern later in these Mesoamerican cultures. Common in a lot of very early civilizations, for that matter. Old Kingdom Egypt, or the Shang. We know they practice human sacrifice, too. So it's probably very tightly centralized… one royal or divine family that marries within its own boundaries, or maybe with the other Olmec principalities, if there are more than one. That would account for the unusual appearance, too."

"It's a thought," Alston said meditatively. "Possibly irrelevant even if accurate, but it is a thought." A slender black arm moved past him to touch the controls. "Let's take a look at the layout of that city."

Martha blinked as they came up the slope and over the crest. The single-minded determination that had leveled this plateau and covered it with the structures she saw was impressive. They climbed up a spur on the southern side, debouching onto a broad ceremonial avenue that stretched thousands of yards ahead. The surface was made of hard-pounded clay stained different colors, reds and greens and oranges, making patterns she could only guess at as they went by. Two of the giant stone heads like those she'd seen in museums flanked the entrance, twelve feet high and hulking in their brutal menace, but they were not the monochrome remnants of her day. Here they were painted: yellow spotted with brown for the faces, brilliant yellow-green for the eyes, crimson for the tight-fitting helmets. On either side of the avenue were rows of hexagonal basalt pillars on timber bases; beyond them stretched rectangular pools joined by covered stone drains; more drains led to fountains done in wood and clay.

Around the pools were statues by the score, each in its cleared space; the brooding thick-lipped heads, birds of prey, jaguars and men in every possible degree of merging.

Nor was that the only type of merging depicted: one huge statue showed a gigantic jaguar copulating with a supine human female. The same theme was repeated over and over again on the vividly painted carved stelae of flat stone and stucco that covered the sides of the low earth mounds marking the axis of the avenue and its side streets. The woman gave birth, and the race of jaguar-faced infants was swept up by men in elaborate headdresses like those of the warriors around her.

She thought of the labor needed to haul stone hundreds of miles through these swampy alluvial lowlands, to carve it into these intricate shapes with nothing better than rock and wood for tools, to heap up these thousands of tons of earth, to gnaw hard tropical woods into shape…

Atop the mounds were buildings, their exteriors lavish with colored stucco and carving. In the doorways and open sides stood more people, including women of the same flat-featured massiveness as the priest-king. Banners of colored cloth and woven feathers streamed from the buildings; the women were bright with jewelry of colored stone and cloth. The smell was surprisingly clean for a preindustrial city, none of the sewer reek she'd experienced traveling in some Third World areas… but then, they have those drains.

The knowledge wasn't particularly comforting. The Romans had had excellent sewers as well, and look at their taste in entertainment.

"Well, here's the sticking point," Hendriksson said.

Alston nodded, looking ahead. A line of canoes stood from bank to bank of the river; beyond them, faint in the hazy distance, she could see the flat outline of the plateau where the Olmec city stood. She estimated their crews at six to seven hundred men, mostly naked brown peasants with spears and clubs; some two hundred of the feather-clad warriors she'd decided to call jaguar knights made up the center of the array. Most of those were on the two big catamarans that made up the center of the opposing host. Their chanting and the boom of their drums was loud in her ears, louder somehow than the droning putter of engines. Light glittered off the glass and painted wood of their weapons, a different sight from the metallic gleam from the American forces.

Silence fell, save for the jungle noises. Sweat trickled down out of the foam-rubber padding of her helmet, stinging in her eyes; she licked it off her lips. The inflated fabric of the boat dimpled under her hand. Well, I certainly can't fight a naval engagement. The inflatable boats were simply too vulnerable and the odds too steep. The problem with technological surprise is that it's only a surprise once. After that, a determined opponent could usually figure out some countertactic. On the other hand, we need to survive the next couple of hours. Drums beat louder, and the native canoes began to surge forward. There was a time when you had to expend an asset.

"Mr. Toffler," she said into the microphone. "Now, if you please. The two big craft."

The ultralight skimmed over their heads, rising beyond to just above spear range. Black pins arched into the air as the Olmecs tried to bring him down; they'd lost a good deal of their initial awe of the aircraft-inevitable, if it was to stay over their heads and report back.

A dot arched down from the rod-and-fabric aircraft, trailing smoke. It landed on the river before the lead catamaran and burst into a puddle of flame several feet across. The Olmecs hardly noticed. Closer, only a few hundred yards now. Toffler came around again, recklessly low. Another dot. This one crashed into the foredeck near the drummer.

"What are those?" Doreen asked.

"Gasoline, benzene, detergent flakes, in three-gallon glass jars with a burnin' cloth fuse," Alston said without looking around. "Poor man's napalm."

She trained her binoculars. The Olmecs weren't ignoring this. The flame had spattered wide, soaking into the reed matting that covered the catamaran's deck, into the dry wood beneath. Gobbets spattered warriors and rowers; they leaped into the river, howling. The elaborate panoplies of the warriors burned like tinder, tall plumes of flame replacing the feathers of their headdresses. The advance of the canoe fleet suddenly turned ragged. Smoke and yellow-white fire billowed up from the catamaran, and the frantic water splashed by the crew did little good.

A few seconds later the warriors abandoned the drifting, helpless hulk and let it ride down on the current toward the Americans. Toffler banked and dove toward the second; it turned and drove back the way it had come, angling for the docks nearer the city. The ultralight pursued. Another bomb missed; a third hit, and by the time the frantic paddles drove the catamaran onto the riverbank mud, half of it was burning. The smaller canoes fled also, some in the wake of the bigger vessel, some upstream with no apparent intention of stopping, and some to the far shore, where the crews took to their heels.

"Molotov cocktails, by God!" Ian whooped. Cheers spread across the little riverboat fleet.

"Just so, Professor," Alston said grimly. "Next time they'll realize that those things can't hit small moving targets. If the other canoes had pressed in, we'd have been in trouble."

She raised the microphone. "All boats, to the shore."

They turned, bows lifting as the engines revved. The buzzing of the ultralight faded as it chivvied the fleeing canoes toward the city; the Olmecs were thoroughly panicked for now, and unlikely to make a stand. The motor launches and inflatables grounded where the natural levee of the riverbank was comparatively low, covered in cornfield and laced with footpaths.

Marian Alston stepped off the side and quickly forward, out of the zone where her boots were driven deep into the mud. More armored figures dashed by on either side of her. Other hands were deflating the lifeboats, heaping up the flattened shapes and pulling a tarpaulin over them. She wet a finger and held it up. Despite the clouds westward, the wind was from the sea-southeast, blowing from here toward the hilltop citadel.

"Get it started," she said.

Islanders kindled torches and spread out. Even in this damp climate the cornstalks were fairly dry by this season. Soon a wall of fire and black smoke was walking westward, faster than a man could. The smell was heavy and rank; behind it the fire left embers, black glowing stalks toppling into ash, a foot-catching chaos of half-burned vines bearing squash and beans. They tramped through it, to the highest point of the levee's ridge. To their right stretched more fields, and patches of undrained marsh. Behind Alston the standard-bearers raised their poles. One streamed with the Stars and Stripes, the other with the Coast Guard flag. Both bore gilded eagles above, and each standard-bearer was flanked by six guards with short swords and big oval shields. The expeditionary force fanned out to either side, a broad shallow V facing toward what would have been San Lorenzo. Crates went forward; working parties donned heavy gloves and began scattering their contents.

Swindapa spoke softly: "I hate this," she said. "The children haven't harmed anyone, and they will go hungry."

Alston nodded. "Can't be helped, 'dapa. Lieutenant Ortiz! Get that line set up!"

The radio beeped at her waist. She brought it up in one gauntleted hand.

"They're coming, Captain," Toffler's voice said. " 'bout a thousand of them, or a little more. I dropped a Molotov, but they just opened out around the spot and kept right on."

"About as I expected. Keep me posted and watch for any activity on the river." She went on to the officers: "Aggressive to a fault. Let's make some use of that."

Behind her the corpsmen were setting up an aid station for casualties. The Arnsteins were nearby; a clear path led from there to the bank, not that many could retreat if things went wrong.

Ian Arnstein nodded; he was a little pale, but otherwise taking it well. "We've probably stepped into a myth," he said. "They're reacting to what they think we are."

"Haven't even tried to parley," she agreed. And they'd thrown things at every boat she'd sent forward to try and talk. "I've got to keep them off-balance, keep hitting them."

"What do you plan on doing?" Ian asked.

"Giving them a good thrashin'," she replied. "Then maybe they'll listen to reason."

Swindapa shivered a little as she watched the Eagle People spread out in response to the captain's orders. It was a strange and terrible thing, this discipline. There was none of the shouting and shoving and milling about you'd expect with a big crowd of people, or even the arguing at a Town Meeting on the island. Just quiet directions, and hundreds moved as if they were the fingers of a single hand. Even stranger and more terrible on land than on the great ship. The captain's face was closed and shuttered, gone away from her while she made this Working, as if a different Power were there behind the dark eyes. Still, they would fight side by side.

She kept her left hand on the hilt of her sword and raised a shading hand to her brow, looking westward. Nothing to be seen there but smoke. Her braided hair was hot on her head; the helmet would give some shade, but also more heat. Never had she been so hot, the weight of the armor and padding squeezing at her ribs. Her heart thudded; the last fight she'd been in had not gone well. I am with the Eagle People now, she told herself. And the captain. The evil luck had been taken away when Moon Woman bore her beyond the circles of the world.

The islander force was spread out on either side, seventy-five armed with crossbows on each wing, standing in two ranks. In the center were a block of spear-bearers with oval shields, three deep. Green-enameled steel armor gleamed and clanked as they settled themselves; the round shields slung over the crossbowmen's backs clattered. The captain walked through the ranks, up and down once in front of them, speaking a word here and there. Then she returned, at the same steady, even pace.

"They should be-right, there they are," she said softly, looking west. "Wish I had more of a reserve… For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful."

The enemy host were coming out of the smoke, trotting along, a great humming wailing chant preceding them. Their spearpoints bobbed and rippled as they came, a huge clot nearly a thousand strong. Some limped or hobbled, from feet seared as they walked through the embers. Others leaped or stamped, jerking in circles, dancing their way to the ground of war. Hands hammered on drums, mouths blew shell trumpets, bullroarers whirled. The feather banners were eye-hurtingly bright and beautiful.

"Not in any order," the captain murmured beside her, raising the binoculars. "But those are their shock troops in the center, the ones in the fancy clothes. The others are farmers. How far would you say, 'dapa?"

"Seven hundred yards?" she estimated.

It was called the Socratic Method, after a great teacher of ancient times, teaching with questions. There was a trick to judging distances; look at the men and see whether you could tell the movements of their legs, their arms, the shape of their weapons. Each gave you a measuring point to judge the distance. It was as cunning as a Star Working, in its way… but more practical.

" 'Bout that," Alston nodded. "What do you think they'll do?"

"Come around our edges… our flanks?"

"That would be the sensible thing to do, but-ah."

The conch trumpets wailed again, and the Olmec host stopped, eddying and swirling. Silence fell over the burned fields, broken only by the small clatters of warriors shifting in place and the flapping silk of the banners overhead. A tall figure strode forth from the enemy ranks, his body gorgeous with a tunic of plaited feathers; more fringed his painted shield and waved from his carved helmet-mask; he brandished a long wooden rake set with flint as he walked slowly forward. His voice came high and shrill, an endless wailing chant.

"A champion, making a challenge," Swindapa said, setting her helmet on her head and buckling the chin strap in place. Shade fell over her eyes, and on the back of her neck.

Alston nodded. "Doubtless you're right," she said, and waited until he was within range. Then she lifted the radio to her lips. "Mr. Ortiz, have that man seen to."

An order was barked. A cadet stepped out of the ranks of the crossbows, leveled her weapon, aimed carefully, and pulled the trigger.

Whung.

The sound was small and tiny, lost in the wind and the chaotic mutter of the enemy warriors. The Olmec champion stopped dead, jerking backward a little. He tottered three steps on his heels and fell with arms outstretched, raising a puff of black ash as his back hit the dirt. The enemy host stopped moving, talking, chanting, everything. For a long second Swindapa could feel their unbelief, and afterward sense their swelling outrage coming in a wave that made the little hairs along the back of her neck struggle to rise. Then a united scream of rage came up from them, and their selves followed behind it. First one, then another, then clumps of them, even the musicians casting aside their instruments. The host moved in a dense clot, many deep and still overlapping the line of the Eagle People. The captain reached back and drew her katana; her other hand held the radio. Her lips curled to show her teeth, and the Fiernan girl knew that this was exactly as she'd hoped.

She shivered a little. Marian was wonderful, a true gift from Moon Woman… but there were times when she was a little frightened of her.

"Points down." she said. The order was repeated, and the long spears came down in a single rippling motion. "Ready."

Voices echoed back from either side. The front rank of crossbows knelt, and both brought their weapons to their shoulders.

"About-" the captain murmured.

The Olmecs' massed pounding run was building into a headlong charge that nothing could stop. Then suddenly it did stop, leaping and screaming with a different note-pain, instead of rage. Those behind piled into those in front, sending many of them rolling and screaming even louder. Their own momentum packed them together; not until the sharp iron was in their feet could they understand why those in the lead had stopped at all. Caltrops, Swindapa knew. Two pieces of sharp iron, twisted together so that one of the four points stood uppermost no matter how they landed. And the enemy went barefoot…

"Just goes to show," the captain said, "that you shouldn't get so mad you don't look where you're putting your feet." Louder: "Commence firing!"

WHUNNNG. The kneeling front rank of the crossbows loosed. There was another sound, like a wind through reeds, and then a slapping like fists on flesh. She could hear the section leaders shouting: "Reload! Second rank… fire!"

WHUNNNG. The short heavy bolts sleeted out like horizontal rain. They punched through hide and shield and bone, and in that massed target scarcely a single point could miss.

"First rank… fire!"

WHUNNNG. Again and again; she set her teeth and made herself watch. Toffler swooped down and dropped another firebomb; this time the enemy were bunched, immobile. Men burned, clawing at the fire that stuck to their skins.

"Ignore the ones running! Go for the fancy-dress brigade!" the captain barked.

Those warriors were at the front of the Olmec array, facing the islander spears. And they were advancing, twisting the iron out of their feet and coming forward, stopping to do it again, leaving red tracks through the ash behind them. WHUNNNG. WHUNNNG. A tenth or more of them went down with every volley.

"Why don't they run?" Swindapa cried.

"They're warriors," the Captain said. "Their whole lives are bound up in their courage and sense of their own honor. They can't let danger or pain turn them aside."

A trickle of warriors won past the caltrops and ran forward, screaming defiance. Crossbow bolts slammed into them, but now they were a more scattered target, and some did not fall.

Closer, and Swindapa could see the contorted painted faces within the mask-helmets. One reached the line of spears, hacked down at a point, pushed forward. The second line stabbed at him.

"Harder! Kill him, goddammit!" the captain barked.

The Olmece swung his stone-edged club-sword with desperate force. His shield went up to stop a spearpoint, but the long steel head punched through the light wicker and the arm beneath. Another caught him in the side, pulling back with a jerk. More probed at him, until the feathers of his costume were dyed fresh scarlet. The warrior went to his knees with blood leaking from his mouth, but a comrade vaulted on his back and leaped, howling. The third-rank islander stumbled backward under the impact, and more Olmecs were coming up, loping for the gap in the line.

"Shit," the captain said. "Stay on my left, 'dapa."

She ran forward at her lover's side. The warrior saw them coming and turned, roaring. The rake came down, and the captain's katana came up to meet it. Stone swept along steel with a tooth-grating sound and the warrior half-turned with the impetus of the blow redirected. Flexing wrists snapped the blade up again, up and back, foot stamped forward, and the blade came down in a blurring curve, just as they'd practiced… only this time there was a man reeling away with an arm hanging by a thread, reeling and falling. The captain moved forward into the next, sword rising to chudan no kame.

Another beside him, spear arm back for the thrust. Swindapa pivoted to deal with that one. Keep your mind out of the way, ran through her. It was true. Her hands had learned; the sword came up and turned as she thrust, cutting edge up, right hand just behind the guard to guide and left on the pommel to give force, body moving behind it. Down, hands loose, now clench, elbows out… the impact, and she continued through the curve of the circular motion, whipping the sword through the diagonal and drawing the cut. Ruin flopped down to lie at her feet.

Swindapa staggered slightly as an obsidian spearpoint broke on her breastplate, knocking her back two steps. Her sword snapped up, cutting into the underside of the Indian's arms above the elbows, and he fell backward. That put him in the rear rank of spear-bearers, and a shield edge slammed down, twice.

Then there was no one else to fight here. More Olmecs were out beyond the line of spears, caught and slashing as the wielders slammed the points forward. The crossbows were down, and the islanders were unslinging the shields across their backs and drawing the short stabbing swords slung at their right hips. An Olmec rake came down on a metal-faced shield and the cadet staggered beneath it, going to one knee. The warrior stepped closer for another stroke, froze for a second's incredulity as he saw how the obsidian edge of his weapon exploded into fragments against the metal, and ran onto the long point of the upflung gladius. The cadet's comrades heaved her back as she knelt staring; others closed in, four against one, stabbing. One reeled back yelling and clutching at an arm bone-bruised through the armor that protected it. The others thrust and thrust again. The Olmec staggered, swung his blunted rake in a final circle, and collapsed. Blood ran out on the ashy ground from the broad wounds the leaf-shaped short swords had made.

And then the remaining foemen were running, running back the way they had come. Woods Woman has their souls, she thought-panic had taken them, the wild fear that breathes out of the deep forest.

"Fire! Don't let them get away!" the captain shouted in an astonishing husky roar, enough to cut through the confusion. Crossbows twanged again, enough to bring down a man here, another there, a steady trickle until the last survivors were out of range.

Swindapa tried to swallow, felt her tongue dry as leather.

The hand she released from the hilt of the katana was sticky, coming free with a tack sound as she reached for the water bottle at her waist. The bodies were steaming under the hot sun, the smells of shit and iron-copper blood already underlain by a slight sickly scent as tissue began to go off. Insects swarmed, feeding.

"We won," she said huskily, staring.

It wasn't a pleasant sight. The captain was right about that, though she hadn't truly believed until now. It was certainly a lot better than losing, though.

A hand patted her armored shoulder briefly. She stood straighter, feeling the constriction around her chest easing.

"We surely did," the captain said.

"Thank God for morphine," the corpsman said.

Alston nodded. The aid station was busy; there were a dozen seriously wounded Americans, one with a raked-open face who might not live. We should modify these helmets-hinged cheek guards. There were a couple of other face wounds, or blades driven in under armpits, or in the back of the leg. The doctor sewed and bandaged, debrided and cleansed. Orderlies moved the treated back under the awnings and stood by to keep the insects off.

And all from a few seconds of hand-to-hand, she thought soberly. If it had come to a melee, or if the numbers hadn't been so grossly unequal by the time the last Olmecs came into arm's reach, she doubted the Islanders' armor and weapons would have been enough. We need a lot more practice, most of us. Or Uzis and M-16s, whichever they could manage to get first.

"Good work," she said to the last of the conscious wounded, touching him gently on the shoulder.

He managed a smile, eyes wandering as the combination of drug and shock blurred the edge of thought. "Kicked cannibal butt, didn't we, Skipper?"

"We surely did, son. Now you rest-you've done your bit."

She stood and moved forward. You could see where the Olmecs had hit the caltrops; there was a row of bodies there, some piled two or three deep. Must have gotten a third of them that way, held up while we shot them, she thought. Swindapa came up with a bucket of water and they cleaned themselves. Blood swirled into the silt-brown liquid. They drank again from their water bottles; everyone seemed to be thirsty. She could feel the sweat oozing through the padding under her armor, as saturated as if she'd gone for a swim. Looking down she saw a line of bright scratches and a dint across the lower part of her breastplate, and she didn't even recall the blow landing. Without the metal, that would have cut halfway through to her spine; those obsidian bladelets were sharp. And it had all taken barely half an hour…

"Ma'am." She returned the young man's salute; her hand went tick against the edge of her flared helmet. She seemed to be noticing details like that. And sensations stayed with her, the ugly slicing, jarring feeling of the sword going through muscle and bone… Enough. Think about that later.

"Ma'am, what shall we do with the enemy wounded? There are a lot of them."

"Bring them back to the aid station, but carefully. Mr. Ortiz! Stretcher bearers and guards for the enemy wounded. We'll do what we can for them."

"Mr. Toffler," she went on. "Report."

The noise of the ultralight's engine came through the handset. "Captain, they're still running, most of them, the ones that haven't fallen down along the way," he said. "The fancy ones are making for the city; they stopped about half a mile on, and they're in a clump retreatin' at a walk. No sign of Martha or Lisketter there, since they took them into the big place on the main earth mound."

"Thank you, Mr. Toffler. Well done, by the way."

There was a slight hesitation on the other end. "Hell, ma'am, I just flew around up here."

"Nevertheless, well done. Refuel when you have to, and stand by."

Martha watched through the narrow slit. The room was featureless adobe, and the roof overhang was wide, but the ventilation slit gave a bar of light when the sun was at the right angle, a breath of air, and a few minutes' vision if she braced her toe against a projecting spot in the wall and hung on.

The warriors who straggled back up the broad avenue were a far cry from the host that had set out that morning. Plumes were bedraggled, or hacked away; most of them limped or hobbled, many bore bleeding wounds. Women and children and near-naked servants gathered along the edges of the broad roadway of colored clay, between the basalt pillars and atop the rectangular mounds. They didn't chant and sing as they had when their men marched out to fight, either. Their silence was like a dirge, compounded by the sound of keening grief that wailed from the interior of the houses. Her arm muscles were beginning to quiver. Gasping, Martha dropped down.

"What did you see?" Pamela Lisketter said. She was beginning to look a little more alert. Which may be good if we can do something, but on the other hand, everything she's done so far has been harmful.

Still, it was a little comforting. Having a zombie as your only companion in confinement was hard on the nerves.

"The… army has come back. Badly beaten, from the look of it. Less than half the numbers that went out this morning, and most of those wounded."

"Should I hope for rescue?" Lisketter said, mouth twisting. "What can they do to me that Cofflin and the Town Council won't?"

Martha looked around the room. It was absolutely bare, except for a tall-necked jug of water and an open pot for wastes. The room stank, of sweat and the chamber pot and their unwashed bodies.

"The town jail's an improvement on this," she said dryly. "And as to what they can do, I suggest a prayer that we don't find out."

She sank down in the far corner, concentrating on hope. The Eagle's crew obviously beat them. They may be myth-besotted, but surely they'll respond to a whack across the face. The problem was, she didn't know how they'd respond.

She heard the buzz of the ultralight's engines again, faint through the thick walls of the prison. She didn't try to climb to the ventilation slit again; the angle was wrong, and in any case it was unwise to strain herself, in her condition. Hours passed, in a silence broken only by the skitter and buzz of insects.

The door banged open. Warriors stood there, warriors with bandaged wounds and rough cloth wrapped around their feet. Behind the fanged, carved masks their eyes were as dark and hard as the obsidian of their weapons. Both Americans had learned the local word for "come"; there was no point in being dragged. Outside was a corridor, and then a wooden colonnade enclosing a court. A ball game was in progress there. The object seemed to be to drive a rubber ball through a vertical wooden hoop on either side of the court. Knowing what she knew, Martha wasn't surprised when the three members of the winning team passed through a ritual and then knelt with their throats over a basin. She did turn her head aside, likewise when the priest came by flicking droplets of their blood on the two women.

That made her stare at their escort. She frowned slightly after an instant; he seemed to be ill in a way unrelated to the cuts and punctures on his arms and chest and thighs. He was swallowing convulsively, and now and then putting his hand to his throat, or rubbing at his loincloth.

A suspicion formed in her mind. Sharp terror drove it forth as they were prodded into another court. This encircled one of the oval pools, and more brightly clad members of the priest-king caste stood around it, men and women. The open side giving onto the avenue held one of the giant jaguar-and-woman statues, and all around it were panels of carved stone or stucco portraying the myth of the jaguar-men. A woman alone in the jungle, and the cat sprang upon her. The same woman hugely pregnant; her tribesfolk menaced her with weapons, and she fled into the jungle to squat and give birth, but the babe was born with fangs and talons. The jaguar returned, to devour mother and child, but the child turned within its stomach and the jaguar rose to walk on its hind legs like a man…

"Shamanistic practices aimed at bringing about a complex of feline transformation," she quoted to herself. The archaeologists didn't know the half of it.

"Are… are they going to sacrifice us too?" Lisketter asked.

"I don't-"

A painful rap on the back of her head silenced her. A ripple went through the waiting crowd as the ultralight passed overhead, the setting sun red on its wings. Then they turned their attention back to their task. Imploring the help of their god, or gods, or ancestral spirits, she assumed.

Aromatic gums burned in clay holders. Brightly clad figures, men and women, acted out scenes whose importance-usually whose nature-she had no conception of.

The ritual went on and on. Objects were raised before the huge masked figure who sat immobile and cross-legged on yet another of the table-altars. The ropes he grasped in either hand led to prisoners on either side; ordinary peasants, by the look of them, naked and with one hand tied behind their backs. The other hand dangled limp, pierced by a stingray spine.

The drums began to beat again, a thudding in the same rhythm as a human heartbeat; flute and shell and bone xylophone. She was numb enough that the death of the two captives went by almost unnoticed, like a flicker in a movie someone else was watching. Lisketter's whimper as they dragged her away toward the pond cut through the glaze a little. Priestesses grasped her and stripped away the rags of her clothes, pushing her down and scrubbing her as they chanted. Then they pulled her onto the bank and began dressing her in an outfit that was mostly woven feathers and not many of those. The last touch was to dip wads of cloth in some murky, musky-smelling substance and wipe them across Lisketter's belly and inner thighs and genitals. Then they bore her between them to the altar, binding her over it spread-eagled.

Martha obeyed numbly as she was pushed into a position near the carved block of stone; in one hand she was to hold a stalk of maize, in the other a rod carved to represent a burning snake. It wasn't until warriors led in the muzzled jaguar on two thick leashes that she could bring herself to believe what was going to happen. Lisketter began to scream and heave against the ropes that held her, and the big cat's tail lashed as it licked its nose and took the scent.

The connection was through a relay on the Eagle, but good enough. Alston went on: "The good part is that we gave them a first-class lickin'," she said.

"Casualties?" Cofflin's voice.

Strange to think of him in the air traffic control tower back on the island. It seemed so far, here in the night where the drums boomed and the light of fires silhouetted the great buildings of the plateau-city ahead.

"Ours? One dead, one critical, twelve or so serious, and the rest walkin' wounded. Theirs… couple of hundred dead, maybe more. Plenty of wounded, too." She hesitated. "The bad part is I still can't get them to talk."

Silence came across the miles. "Can you get her back?"

"Not by direct assault. That city isn't walled, but it's over a hundred feet uphill, and they still outnumber us. Storming that… even if it worked, the butcher's bill would be ugly. Nothin' to stop them killing her right off, either. If I try to besiege them? Well, right now we've got them dazed, but they'll get their wits back, maybe call up overwhelmin' numbers to finish us off, or block the river back to Eagle."

"You're giving up?"

"Didn't say that. There's something I'm goin' to try, but it's damn dangerous, bit of a long shot."

Another long silence. "I'm leaving things in your hands. You're the expert."

"Thanks, Chief. We'll be in touch tomorrow, one way or another."

She turned to her command group, where they gathered around the folding table with the photographs of the city made with the carefully hoarded Polaroid.

Town, really, she thought. For all the massiveness of the monuments and works, the housing didn't look to have room for more than a few thousand permanent inhabitants. She turned the screw of the oil lantern, and the yellow flame grew brighter. A big tropical moth beat its wings against the glass. She shooed it away and traced a line with her finger.

"This looks like the best approach," she said, drawing a line up from the south, where the tumbled outlying hills of the plateau came right down to the water. From the picture they were covered with thick scrub.

"This building here is where they were, and this courtyard is where the… ceremony took place?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am," Toffler said. Beads of sweat glistened on his balding scalp. "By the big pond."

"That's it, then. Any questions?"

"Ma'am," Ortiz said, "I still think it's inappropriate that you lead this operation in person."

Alston nodded. "Acknowledged, Mr. Ortiz. However, I have certain skills that'll increase the probability of success. So does everyone else I've picked." From a very large pool of volunteers, surprisingly large. Amazing how many people will clamor for a chance at probable death. Though I should talk.

She looked at her watch. "Twenty hundred hours. Let's get going. If they move the hostages, things could get very sticky indeed."

There were five in the party. Herself and Swindapa, of course. Lieutenant Hendriksson, who came from rural Minnesota and went bow-hunting for deer as a hobby; she had her weapon in her hand, a Bear compound, and a carefully padded quiver over her back. Pulakis and Alonski, cousins from a small mining town in west-central Pennsylvania.. They were hunters as well, good shots with the crossbow, and both built alike-square young men the same width from pelvis to broad shoulders, long-armed, moon-faced under cropped black hair, their little blue eyes calm. Both of them could probably bend horseshoes with their hands. It was just as well to have a couple of heavy lifters along.

A final check. Everyone was in loose dark clothing; she and the Fiernan were carrying their twin swords, with the.357, a blowgun, and the sling for distance weapons. Swindapa and Hendriksson had stocking caps to pull over their light hair. Burnt cork for rubbing on face and hands also went around; Alonski finished and began to hand it to her, then halted, wincing in embarrassment.

"I'm covered," she said dryly. She took up a final piece of equipment from the table, a slender section of hollow tubing, broke it down at the joint in the middle, and tucked it into her harness. "Let's go."

She turned to Ortiz. "Lieutenant, in the event of failure, don't throw good money after bad. Withdraw. Is that understood?"

"Yes, ma'am." He didn't look happy about it, but on the other hand, she didn't intend to fail.

"Mr. Toffler, you have the signals?"

"Flashlight for Phase One, flare for Phase Two, yes."

"Then let's be about it."

Martha sat in a corner of the cell, head in her hands. It was very quiet. Lisketter lay staring; she hadn't made a sound or a voluntary movement since she stopped screaming, during the rite. When they'd pulled the jaguar off her and the priest-king in his costume of furs had come to take its place.

Catatonic shock, she thought. Probably better. The stucco friezes made it plain what Martha's part in tomorrow's ceremony would be, the cutting and then the feasting.

Now there was a sound-the intolerable taunting buzz of the ultralight going by overhead, freedom just beyond arm's reach. Her head sank wearily down on her knees again.

Then the sound altered; shouting came beneath it, a growing roar. After a moment, the faint light of watchfires that shone through the slit above her head grew brighter.

"Here," Alston whispered into the hot wet darkness of the river.

Slow and muffled, the paddles slid the rubber boat toward the shore. Trees grew almost to the edge, roots grew into the stream, amid thigh-deep water. Do they have leeches here? she wondered, as they gripped at branches and made the boat fast. The water felt tepid and stagnant, and smelled of swamp. She went over the side, holding her swords high in one hand, and waded up to dry-drier- land. The cotton of her trousers clung wetly; she slipped the long katana back into the carrier across her shoulders and the short wakizashi into her belt. Then she took out the pipe, fitted the sections back together, and pushed a round through the plastic mouthpiece and into the tube. It was a steel needle five inches long, with the base set into a plastic bead; a dozen more waited in a case at her waist.

Through a gap in the foliage she could see the riding light of Toffler's craft, circling over the city ahead. Binoculars brought it closer, although not close enough to see the figure beneath or the night-sight goggles on his face. Not particularly modern ones, Israeli-army surplus bought from a catalog by someone on Nantucket before the Event, but they worked. She brought up the flashlight, braced it against a convenient stem, and blinked it on. Three long, one short… and hope that nobody on the plateau was looking in precisely the wrong direction. The undergrowth buzzed with insects, and with slight crinkling and rustling noises. Nightbirds sang or croaked or screeched. Somewhere close a bull 'gator bellowed, announcing his territory to the saurian world.

She waited, controlling her breathing and feeling the sweat slide gelid down her flanks and spine. Might have to do it twice…

No. The riding light on the aircraft returned the signal. She turned her head; the others had the boat tethered and tucked away out of sight. There was just enough light to see their faces as they approached. She knelt in the damp earth and laid down the photograph, then shone a red-dimmed light on it for a second. Swindapa put a hand out to help her steady the curling square of paper, grinning in the dark. Young, Alston thought, with a wrench of the heart that she thrust aside with an effort of will. Calm, calm, she could only be centered and calm at this moment. Don't try to hurry.

In Heiho speed is not the true Way. Speed is the fastness or slowness which occurs when the rhythm is out of synchronization.

"This heading," she whispered, tucking the aerial shot away again. "Follow me."

Her head swung, sighting through the trees on pieces of easily recognized higher ground. It was appallingly easy to get lost in the dark, in unfamiliar brush. They moved forward, placing each step carefully. She pushed vines aside, unhooked from thorns, ignored unseen slapping branches that gouged for her eyes. Every thirty seconds she clicked her tongue softly and they all halted, listening. Good. Quiet. Swindapa quietest of all, and the others not much worse. Steeper ground, crawling on all fours. The lip of the plateau above them now, cutting off half the sky, and the rooftrees of thatched buildings beyond it. She looked at the compass and the landmarks, wiped the dirt and moisture off her palms on the sleeves, of her jacket. Excellent. And it was about time for Toffler to-

A crash came from above, muffled by distance. Shouts. They waited; she could hear Swindapa trying to match her long slow breaths. A glow began to silhouette the rooflines ahead of her. She grinned, a silent snarl. World's first fire-bombing. The homemade napalm would send those roofs of dried grass up like tinder, and they were an easy target, even in the dark.

"Go!" she hissed.

They surged up the final steep section and then sank down again, flattened to an earth roadway of pounded, colored clay. A log retaining wall loomed ahead of them, probably set to prevent erosion along the edge of the plateau. Two guards were walking along it, looking northward toward the fire, talking and pointing.

Most excellent, Alston thought. These Olmecs seemed to make war to a rigid set of rules and conventions-duels by champions, taking prisoners for sacrifice; she had an intuition that they'd refused to talk because trying to get captives back was an outrageous defiance of custom. Their fighting garb was a clue as well, designed for formalized, almost ritual combat out in the open by day. She intended to wring every possible ounce of advantage out of that.

She touched Swindapa's shoulder and pointed to the right-hand of the pair; the men were only sixty feet away, and at that range the Fiernan was eye-punching accurate with the sling. An egg-shaped lead shot went into the pouch. Alston raised the mouthpiece of the blowgun to her lips, took a deep breath, aimed… huff!.

The man on the left stopped talking and went stiff. He turned, shaking; she could see his jaws gaping wide in a spastic yawn. Then he toppled forward like a cut-through tree. God. Must have caught him in the spine.

Swindapa leaped upright as Alston fired. Her body flexed as she swept the sling twice around her head and loosed. A fraction of a second later there was a hard thock sound, just as the second guard was drawing breath to shout. He fell across the body of his comrade, leaking gray and pink from a skull shattered above the ear. The Americans dashed forward and flattened to the earth by the bodies.

"Uh-oh," Hendriksson muttered.

Another man was standing between two bestial statues, looking over toward where the guards should have been. Hendriksson rose to one knee and drew an arrow through her compound bow; the four edges of the hunting broad-head glittered slightly in the distant firelight. The wheels on the tips of the stave flipped over as she drew to the ear and loosed. Another arrow was on the way before the first struck, but the man had time for one strangled shout. They sprinted past him, into a lane between two buildings atop mounds. Alston looked again at her compass and matched it against the memorized image viewed from the air.

"This way. Go, go!"

They ran; speed was more important than stealth now. A quick glance to her right showed the rooftops there aflame, and people swarming about them, forming bucket chains from the ponds and tearing at thatch with hooks on poles. Toffler circled above, the firelight red on the wings of his craft, now and then dropping another Molotov when it looked as if the workers might contain the blaze. The commando headed left, toward the larger building that crowned a mound at the avenue's southern end. There was a wide doorway, flanked by monumental stone heads, and a spear leaning against one-probably the men here had gone to help fight the flames. Inside was a courtyard surrounded by wooden pillars, with rooms leading off from it, and corridors at the corners. Men stood at the entrance to one. When they saw the raiding party they began to shout; two turned and dashed off down the passageway they guarded.

"There!" Alston shouted.

Crossbows snapped, the bowstring slapped against its guard, Swindapa's sling whistled. Two men fell, and another three retreated behind the angle of the wall. Their shouts rang loud.

"No help for it," Alston said grimly, drawing her katana. "Go for them."

They sprinted around the colonnade. The Olmecs were waiting, in the straight confines of the corridor, a splash of color moving in the darkness. Sekka no atari: the words flowed through her mind, but it was as if she were watching her own actions and commenting. Spark of the flint; to strike without windup, without raising the sword. It is not possible to deal this blow without diligent practice, Musashi had said.

She'd had sixteen years of it. Her edge flashed in under the Olmec's rising elbow, landing on the drum-tight skin just below his floating rib. Thumping jar of impact, elbows down, hands clenching as she ripped the curved blade across his gut. Ignore the falling body, turn as the blade swept around. Swindapa was backing up, parrying the blurring strokes of the stone-edged rake, clang and clatter and bang and rattle in the murk.

Fast, she thought, as her body reversed stance to point her the other way. The Olmec was very fast. The blade came up, and her body went forward with the downstroke. Another grinding thump as the vertebrae of the neck parted. Hendriksson and the others were swarming silently over the last Indian, shields pinning him back and short swords stabbing. Alston ignored them and sprinted down in pursuit of the two who'd run first. They were bent over a door set into the painted adobe wall, a door made of strong hardwood and secured with a thick hide knot. One of them turned at the last minute to meet the point of her shoulder.

"Ufff!" Their lungs gasped out air almost together, hers a controlled half-shout to add force to the blow, his an involuntary gasp; mi no atare, the body-strike. Even braced for it, she felt as if she'd rammed herself into a wall. The Indian was shorter than she, but half again as heavy and built like a solid block of mahogany. He staggered, though, falling backward. Her legs moved sideways again, sidethrust kick, the most powerful in the Empty Hand repertoire. Usually a bit slow, but here she was in perfect position for it. The heel caught him in the throat just as he started to straighten. She used the leverage of that to kick off and spin around, ignoring him-larynx crushed at least.

The last Olmec had managed to get the knot slashed open. She saw his back disappearing into the cell, dropped her katana and drew the shorter wakizashi as she plunged after him. The light in the corridor was faint, but this was like diving into an ocean of blackness.

She nearly died as her eyes adjusted. The spear whistled past, the shaft giving her a painful thump on the neck. She scarcely noticed; the Olmec was following his flung weapon, a dagger of volcanic glass in his hand. The ugly wind of it passed before her eyes as she jerked her torso back. Then it shattered against the curved steel of the wakizashi. The Indian shrieked a war-cry and drove in, reckless of the edge and point in her right hand.

Can't let him grapple. Not with his advantages of weight and strength. That was easier to think than do, in this dark confined space. Cut. Cut, and a hiss of pain. A second's blind flurry, and she drove the point home in meat-into the biceps of his right arm. His shriek was as much agony as rage, but his left hand came up and grasped at her wrist, momentum driving her back against the adobe wall with bruising, winding force. The back of her skull rang off the sun-dried brick, and she barely managed to twist as they fell down on their sides. The eighteen-inch blade of the wakizashi wavered between them as he strove to force her wrist back. The Indian suddenly rolled, gaining the uppermost position.

Can't hold him. Luckily she had one more functioning arm than he did. It groped downward, between thighs spraddled as he tried to pin her and gain possession of the knife. All she could see was his teeth snarling, but her hand found what it sought. She grabbed, wrenched, and twisted.

Some pains will reach even a berserker, and the Olmec wasn't quite that far gone. He reared up in a soundless gape of agony. Behind him something moved, a bright horizontal slash and a wet heavy impact. The body pitched sideways. Swindapa stood there panting, sword out in the follow-through, her eyes anxious in the cork-darkened face; Hendriksson had a flashlight out behind her.

" 'm all right," Alston gasped. And there was Martha Cofflin, thank God. Coming this far and not finding her…

"Good to see you," the Yankee said, showing teeth and pushing herself upright along the wall.

"Jared sends regards," Alston said, with the flash of a smile. We're going to pull it off, hot damn!

"Lisketier's in the corner."

"Oh, shit," Alston said, as the light speared empty, mindless eyes. There was drool running down her chin. "Pulakis, you carry her. Swindapa, take point; Martha, you go with Pulakis; Hendriksson, Alonski, we'll take rearguard. Move."

The squat Pennsylvania Slav bent and took Lisketter's limp form across his shoulders in a fireman's lift, rising again with effortless ease. Alston recovered her katana, wiping it down and resheathing it; catching her breath as well.

"Right," she said after a moment. "Let's go home."

They moved out into the corridor, past the still bodies. The floor was wet with blood, enough to make the dirt tacky and slippery under their feet in the dark. None of the Americans had taken more than superficial bruises and cuts, but she had no illusions about that. They'd had surprise on their side. Now was time to get out, just as fast as they could.

Swindapa darted out into the courtyard, and called them on. The raiding party followed, retracing its steps. The fires were bigger now, spreading to more of the north end of the city as tufts of burning thatch drifted with the wind. They were beside the ornamental pool when Lisketter started screaming.

"That's torn it," Alston said, sparing the carved stone altar a single disgusted glance. "Run."

They did, at as fast a jog as was possible. When the Olmecs came across the bodies of their fellows and saw the prisoners-vessels of sacredness to them-gone, their shrieks of rage sounded trumpet-loud. They pelted after the Americans, closing the distance fast. Alston reached the retaining wall, leaped down, and calculated the times.

"Damn," she said mildly. Aloud: "Swindapa, Pulakis, get Martha and the prisoner back to the boat. We'll take rear guard." When the Fiernan hesitated, she put a whipcrack into her voice: "Now!"

The three of them turned back to watch the pursuers. "All right," Alston said as the others behind them crashed down through the scrub on the hillside. "Let's discourage this lot."

Some of the Olmecs running toward them were carrying torches. All of them were backlit as the wood-and-thatch buildings burned out of control. She drew the Colt and leaned forward, her chest against the logs of the retaining wall and both elbows on the clay of the roadway. She wasn't an expert with the pistol, but this was as straightforward as any shooting range-silhouetted men running straight toward you. Beside her Alonski aimed his crossbow and Hendriksson reached over her shoulder for an arrow.

Crack. She slitted her eyes against the muzzle flash of the magnum. One of the men with torches down. Crack… crack… crack… Let the pistol drop back naturally after each shot. Crack… crack. Open the cylinder, work the ejector to spill the spent brass, slip in two speedloaders each holding three rounds. Snap it shut and get back into firing position. Spears whistled overhead in the dark, but the Indians were shooting blind. One of them landed uncomfortably close; well, they had the muzzle flashes to aim at. She shifted a few feet along the wall, firing steadily. The crossbowman and the archer shot, shot again, steady as metronomes. Damn fine work, both of them. Closer… then the enemy were tumbling backward.

"Go, both of you, go!"

They went, sliding down the trampled path on their backsides. Alston followed. Behind her she could hear voices, shouting, whatever the Olmecs used as officers rallying their troops. They certainly didn't lack guts; the past few days had shown that for certain. More war whoops through the darkness behind her. Branches and thorns clawed at her face, at her limbs, at her feet. Torches broke the darkness, cast wavering red gleams of light through leaves and vines. Mistake, she thought, turning to shoot. An atlatl dart thudded into a trunk near her. She crashed downward another dozen feet, shot again, retreated. They were down on the flat below the hillslope, mud catching at her boots; she turned and emptied the revolver, never knowing if she struck anyone. Back toward the edge of the water a little moonlight came in, reflected off the river. The pistol clicked empty.

Her hands swept the sword out. Starlight glimmered on its clean arc. She filled her lungs, gave a kia, and rushed forward. The Olmecs hadn't been expecting that; tateki no kurai, the way of fighting multiple opponents. The first took her point right in the face. She jerked it free and slashed another across the chest and upper arms. Damn, but I'm glad Master Hishiba made us practice outdoors and in the dark.

"Diiiiissaaa!" Alston shrieked.

She retreated a step, another, dodged a rake, beat a spearhead aside, and slashed the hand that held it on the backstroke. The Indians had never met anything like the continuous whirling menace of the katana; however brave they were, it threw them off their balance for a few crucial seconds. There was no way she could tell what her comrades were doing. Behind her something went pop and brilliant light washed across her shoulders, throwing her shadow stark before her. Flare pistol. The leading Olmec stopped, staring goggle-eyed at her face. Never seen a black before, she thought. Her hands took advantage of the moment and slashed the sword in a horizontal cut. The falling body tripped the man behind as he stumbled squint-eyed in the sudden light. The katana came down in the pear-splitter. She lost a crucial second as she tugged it free from his skull.

Something stung in her leg. The damp ground hit her as she fell and she was looking wide-eyed at a spear driven into her leg six inches above the knee. An Indian loomed over her, raising another spear in both hands. Then something silvery slashed across him and he staggered back. Swindapa came leaping after her sword-strike, darkness save for starlight on her katana and wisps of hair leaking out from under the wool cap, screaming something saw-edged in her native language. The Indian came back at her, snarling and drawing back his spear to thrust.

Above and behind him a great winged shape slid down out of the night like the god of all owls, its wings black against the bellowing inferno that topped the plateau. Red dots fell from it, to blossom into fire amid the scrub of the slope, and then it was by only a few feet over their heads and banking out over the river. Swindapa caught the spearman as his head whipped around in shock, a gash across neck and chest that sent him back gurgling and thrashing; the sword in her hands swung in red arcs that drove the Olmecs beyond arm's reach for an instant. Other hands grabbed at Alston, and she bit her tongue in the effort needed not to scream; the shock was wearing off, and the pain of the wound flooded into her.

Water, then inflated rubber flexing under her back, firelight red all around them. The flat twanging snap of crossbows; the whaleboats were out on the water where they'd been waiting all night, just beyond spear range. Swindapa tumbled over her, bringing an involuntary grunt of agony as the haft of the spear was jarred, and paddles dug frantically at the water. Indians waded into the river after them, fell as the Americans in the longboats pumped crossbow bolts into them. Darts fell around the rubber boat, struck into the body of it, and it hissed as air began to escape.

The last nicker of consciousness left her as she was dragged again, into the whaleboat. Her mind clamped down on her right hand, bringing the sword with her, and then there was darkness.

"She won't live long," someone was saying in a hushed voice.

Marian Alston knew where she was without opening her eyes-in the flag cabin aboard Eagle. Her thoughts seemed clear enough, but distant and slow. She forced her eyelids up.

"Surely not that bad," she said quietly.

The ship's doctor was there, and most of her officers; also the Arnsteins, and Swindapa sitting beside her bunk. Hendriksson had her arm in a sling and a bandage around her head.

The voices fell silent, then all broke out at once for a moment. The doctor overrode them: "Not you, ma'am. Pamela Lisketter. Javelin under the short ribs as you were leaving. Alonski was wounded badly too, but he ought to pull through. You lost a lot of blood, though-one of the big veins got nicked. Be thankful you've got a fairly common type."

Swindapa smiled at her and held out her left arm; there was a patch of gauze taped over the inside fold of her elbow.

Alston nodded slowly; that seemed to take an inordinate amount of effort. "Ms… Cofflin?"

The doctor smiled. "Fine, ma'am, and the baby."

"Mr… Hiller?"

"We're under way, ma'am. Heading north-northeast. I don't like the look of the barometer. We're in for a blow, and I wanted sea room."

"Very well," she sighed, closing her eyes again.

Martha Cofflin clung to the line as the quarterdeck canted under her feet. No nausea, thank God, but the sky looked dirty, clouds brassy and black at the.same time. The wind was increasing as well, a shrill piping sound in the rigging. David Lisketter went by between two sailors, his hands-hand and stump, rather-bound before him.

"Hello, Mr. Lisketter," she said flatly, and just loud enough to be heard above the gathering scream of the wind. "There was something I wanted to ask you."

His eyes stared at her like those of an ox in the slaughter chute, and she almost left it at that. No. It's necessary. This musn't happen again, and Jared might be too forgiving. Her hand rested on her stomach; it would have been so easy to lose it…

"Have you-ever had mumps?" she asked.

Slow thought stirred. "Mumps?" he said. "I'm… I think so. Most people do, don't they?"

"Most people aren't asymptomatic carriers," she said. "A few are. I noticed several of the Indians showing the symptoms, though. So one of your party must have been; but you were here long enough for the eight-day minimum incubation period to run… and of course, eating undercooked meat is a wonderful way to catch something. Congratulations, Mr. Lisketter."

"Con… gratulations?" he whispered.

"On your revenge."

"People don't die of…" He stopped, appalled.

"Oh, the fatalities will be heavy," she said. "But it's the long-term effects I was thinking of. You do know that adult-onset mumps often causes male sterility, don't you? I expect that in a population that hasn't been previously exposed, that will be nearly universal. Congratulations, Mr. Lisketter. You've avenged your sister and your friends quite thoroughly. You've single-handedly wiped out the first Mesoamerican civilization, and all the ones which followed from it. Genocide."

Martha turned and headed for the companionway down to the cabins. She had the captain's, with Alston recuperating in the flag suite. There was a shout behind her, and a scream. The splash did not carry over the noise of the birthing storm. Some people were simply too dangerous to have around her friends and family.