THE BLACK MOUNTAINS

The supply wagon that carried her into the Black Mountains was drawn by an aging shag that looked as if it was going to drop dead any moment. Grunting within its harness, it hauled the wagon the last few hundred feet up the steep dirt road, while the drover shook its reins and muttered obscenities under his breath. Feeling pity for the poor creature, Susan stepped off the moving wagon almost as soon as they were in sight of Mill Creek Camp; if the shag noticed the slight lessening of its burden, though, it gave no indication, save perhaps to emit one more of the farts that had threatened to make her ill during the long journey from Clarksburg.

Noticing that she'd jumped off, the drover reached back into the wagon bed and pulled out her duffel bag. "Here y'go," he said. "Ain't much further, but if you insist on getting your exercise . . ."

"No, wait, I didn't mean for you to—" Susan began, but before she could stop him he carelessly flung the bag in her direction. She couldn't catch it, though, before it fell into the road. Susan heard the drover laugh as she rushed over to retrieve it. She had no idea what she might have said or done to deserve this sort of treatment; the old codger was being mean only for its own sake.

Sighing, she picked up the bag by its strap and slung it over her shoulder, then followed the wagon up the road, swatting at the skeeters that purred around her face. Nearby was a log flume, elevated upon stilts a few feet above the ground. The camp was only a couple of hundred yards away; it was late afternoon, the early autumn sun beginning to set behind Mt. Shapiro. Still time enough for her to locate her uncle and find out where she was supposed to stay.

From somewhere through the trees, the sound of something like rolling thunder. Susan looked around in time to see a massive rough bark log, seven or eight feet long and twice as thick as her own body, making its descent down the flume. Carried along by a rush of water, the log bumped against the sides of the trough as it hurtled to the bottom of the mountain, where the flume spilled into Mill Creek. There it would be lashed together with other logs, then floated down the creek to Clarksburg and the mills, where it would be cured, cut, and sawn into lumber.

Interesting, but not her concern. She was here on business of a more scientific nature. Or at least that was how she perceived it; she had no idea whether her uncle would see things the same way.

The logging camp had been established on a saddleback on the southwestern slopes of Mt. Shapiro, a couple of thousand feet below the summit. A dozen canvas tents erected on wood platforms; ten were large enough to sleep a half-dozen people, while the other two had been joined together to form a mess tent. Clothes hung from lines strung between the tents. A couple of privies at the edge of the woods, and a small shack that, judging from the adjacent water tank, served as communal bathhouse. Nearby was a corral where a couple of shags grazed on hay bales; the wagon she'd ridden up the mountain was parked next to it, but the drover was nowhere in sight. Indeed, the camp appeared to be deserted, yet wood smoke drifted upward from a tin flue poking through the roof of the mess tent, and that was a good sign that someone was inside.

The screen door creaked on rusty hinges as she pulled it open, slammed shut behind her as she stepped inside. The tent was dim, the fish-oil lamps hanging from the rafter beams as yet unlit. A long blackwood table ran down the center of the room, with benches on either side; a potbellied stove stood off to one side, a pile of tree knots beside it, and the air was warm with the aroma of baked bread. From behind a closed flap at the far side of the room, she heard faint voices.

"Hello?" Susan left her bag next to the door, cautiously ventured closer. "Anyone here?"

The voices went silent, then she heard a chair moving back. The flap moved aside and a heavyset woman, starch-fed and with snarled blond hair, peered out at her. She said nothing for a moment, examining Susan with eyes narrow and suspicious, then she glanced behind her. "Yep, it's her," she said to someone else, then she looked back at Susan. "Well, don't just stand there. He's waiting for you."

Susan hesitated, then walked across the dining room, ducking her head a little as she passed through the flap impatiently held open by the woman. The kitchen was cramped: crates and barrels stacked against the walls, a wooden cupboard, a bunk bed, a small table upon which someone had been cutting vegetables. Skillets and pots hung from hooks along the rafter, and a large kettle simmered atop a brick oven.

Two men sat in wicker rocking chairs next to the oven. One was the wagon driver; he favored her with a wily told-you-so smirk as he took a drink from the earthware jug in his lap. Susan didn't recognize the other man until he turned around, and even then it took her a moment to realize that he was her uncle.

"Would'a gotten here a lot quicker if you'da let James bring you the rest'a the way." Lars Thompson's tongue was thick with alcohol; she could smell the bearshine on his breath from ten feet away. "Hope you enjoyed your constitutional."

"Just thought I'd stretch my legs." James cackled at this, and she decided not to mention the rest. "Good to see you again, Uncle Lars."

"Well, hell . . ." Lars rose from his chair, stomped across the kitchen to wrap his arms around her. "Good t'see you too, Susie," he said, using a childhood nickname she'd long since outgrown. "Been a long time . . . a long time."

Drunk or not, at least he got that part right. It had been many years since the last time she'd seen Aunt Marie's husband. There was no blood-relation between them; her father's younger sister had met Lars when they'd served together in the Rigil Kent brigade during the Revolution. That was back when they'd all lived in Defiance, and although Susan had only been a child then, she remembered how much Carlos had disapproved of his sister taking up with Lars; indeed, only a few months after Liberation Day, after he'd become mayor of Liberty, her father had exiled both of them from New Florida, after they'd come close to killing someone in a brawl.

As a condition of their punishment, he and Aunt Marie, along with the savant Manuel Castro, had been sent out to explore the frontier. Their mission had succeeded, in spades; after several months of exploring the southern coast of Great Dakota, the trio established a camp on its southeastern shore, just across the West Channel from New Florida. Great Dakota offered vast forests that didn't exist on New Florida and were more accessible than the ones on Midland, and so it wasn't long before Lars and Marie were joined by his Uncle Clark and Aunt Molly. Together with Lars's younger brother Garth, they founded Clarksburg, thus setting up a family-owned timber company that would soon become the colony's main industry.

All lamb on Coyote bore white wool, yet nonetheless Susan knew the expression "black sheep of the family," and how that applied to Lars Thompson. Clark Thompson had been the colony's original major, but after he was killed in an accident, his elder nephew had assumed the role. Lars was a drunk, though, and his incompetence nearly led the colony to ruin before his own family had deposed him. Aunt Molly assumed the task of leading the new colony, but only for a short while; by then, Marie had straightened out her act, and it wouldn't be long before even Garth, once as wild as his older brother, was responsible enough to take over the job of mayor.

To keep Lars satisfied, Molly Thompson gave Lars the job of running the family's logging operations in the Black Mountains. On the whole, it was a wise decision. Lars was never a good politician, but he was a pretty good boss, and considering that the Thompson clan derived its power and fortune from the timber business, the position of camp foreman carried considerable responsibility. Yet it was no secret that his family would have little to do with him otherwise; he seldom spoke to either his aunt or younger brother, and his wife remained married to him in name only.

So here he was, her wicked Uncle Lars: tough and lean as a faux-birch sapling, hair cropped short by a careless pair of scissors, beard long and coarse and tinged with grey. No more than forty by Gregorian reckoning, nonetheless he looked much older; he might have been pleasant to look upon, were it not for a couple of missing teeth and the hollow look of someone who'd spent far too many nights with a jug in his lap.

"Good to see you, too." Susan gently prized herself from his arms. "Sorry it took awhile to get here."

"Well, y'know . . ." Lars stifled a burp behind his hand. " 'S'cuse me . . . I understand you're a teacher now. Spendin' your time lecturin' and writin' and all that, don't s'pose you get much a chance to see your kin." He turned to the others. "James, Tillie, this here's my niece. Susan Montero. Come all the way out here to help with our l'il pest control problem."

"Hope so. 'Bout ready to make me lose my mind." Tillie had settled down on a stool next to the table, where she resumed dicing potatoes and carrots. "Have to keep a light on all night, just so they won't swipe anything. Can't hardly sleep a wink."

"Yeah, well, least you get some." James took another swig from the jug. "Gotten to the point where I have'ta post night watch on the corral. Spook the shags one more time, they're liable to break down the fence."

"They harass the shags?" Susan became curious. "Never heard of chirreep doing that."

"That your name for 'em?" Lars took the jug from James. "Treecrawlers is what we call 'em. 'Course you'd know better, considering how you've studied 'em."

"You study these things?" James gave Susan a bleary-eyed stare. "Thought Lars just said you were a teacher." He looked at Lars. "Shee'it, thas' what she tol' me. If'n I'd known better . . ."

"I'm a naturalist. I teach biology at the university, when I'm not doing fieldwork." She tried to make it as plain as possible, yet no one seemed to understand what she was saying. "I study chirreep . . . treecrawlers, I mean . . . in their natural habitat."

"Been doing this all her life." Lars draped an arm around her shoulders. "In fact, when she was a little girl, she—"

"I'm sorry, but I'm really tired." Susan knew what her uncle was about to say, and it wasn't something she liked to discuss, least of all with strangers. Not only that, but there was something in the way he touched her that made her uneasy. "It's been a long day," she said, quickly stepping out from beneath his arm. "I could use a nap. If you could show me where I'm going to stay . . ."

"Sure, 'course." Stroking his beard, Lars made a pretense of pondering the question. "Now that I think of it, there's a spare cot in my tent. Private quarters, too, so you wouldn't have to—"

"My upper bunk is empty." Tillie didn't look up from her work. "Joe, my husband, he's gone into town for a few days, so I'm sure he won't mind. Gets a little busy at mealtime, but if you'd like to lend a hand . . ."

"Love to. Whatever I can do to help." Susan hoped that she hadn't spoken too quickly; from the corner of her eye, she could see Lars glaring at the cook. "It'll give me a chance to meet everyone here. Might help me assess the situation a little better."

Tillie laughed out loud. "You're going to be assessing biscuits and ham at five in the morning, but that's all right with me. Get that bag of yours, then you can grab a little shut-eye." Rising from the table, she gathered a double handful of diced potatoes and dropped them into the kettle. "You men need to take your cocktail hour somewhere else. I've got dinner to make, and our guest would like a little time to herself. Now shoo."

It seemed for a moment that Lars was going to argue with her, but when Tillie looked back at him, there was something in her face that made him reconsider. "Well, awright then," he murmured, then he headed for the back door, motioning for James to follow him. "See you later, Susie. We'll talk some more at dinner . . . and I got someone I want you to meet."

"Looking forward to it." Susan watched as the two men wandered out of the kitchen. The screen door slammed shut, and she sighed and sat down on a barrel. "Thanks," she said quietly. "I appreciate the save."

"Think nothing of it." Tillie dropped some carrots into the kettle. "Half the women in camp have had to be saved from him."

Susan had been looking for an excuse to get rid of Uncle Lars, but once she climbed up on the bunk bed, she realized how tired she really was. So she dozed for an hour or so, listening to Tillie humming to herself as she moved around the kitchen, and as the daylight seeping in through the cracks in the tent began to wane, she got up and asked if there was anything she could do.

Tillie put her to work in the dining room, setting the table for dinner. Plates, mugs, and flatware were stacked in the kitchen cupboard; once they were laid out, the cook showed Susan how to stoke a fire in the potbellied stove. Once it was hot, Tillie brought out a pan of fresh-baked corn bread and placed it on top to keep warm; she placed jugs of sourgrass ale on the table, then stepped outside to ring the dinner bell. By the time she brought out the stew, the loggers were coming through the front door.

They were big men, hard as the mountain upon which they worked, their faces and clothes filthy, their boots caked with mud and wood chips. A few women as well, but they were nearly as muscular as the men; in a couple of instances, Susan had to look twice to make sure they were female. They stamped their boots on a mat just outside the door, then took off their jackets and hung them from hooks on the support posts as they made their way to the table, taking places to which they'd long since become accustomed. As they filled their mugs with ale, Tillie quietly showed Susan how to ladle the thick vegetable stew into serving bowls and pass them down the table along with platters of corn bread. Only a few loggers seemed to notice that there was a new face among them; most were too tired to care.

Uncle Lars was among the last to arrive. He came in with a young man little more than a teenager; like most of the woodcutters, his hair was shoulder-length, tied back and kept out of his eyes by a bandana. A good-looking kid, despite the layer of grime on his face. Lars gave her a wave, then pointed to a couple of seats left open at the end of the table. Susan nodded and let Tillie finish serving dinner.

"Making yourself useful. Glad to see it." Lars wasn't nearly as dirty or exhausted as the men who worked for him, she couldn't help but notice. "Thanks for helping out. Tillie needs a hand when Joe isn't around."

"Least I could do." It appeared that her uncle had sobered up a bit; perhaps he'd taken a nap, too. "Thanks for offering a bed, but she said I could stay with her if I—"

"Think nothing of it." Lars's face went red, and the teenager glanced first at her, then at him. "Might as well get some of that stew while there's still some left." As she took a seat across the table from the young man, Lars motioned for Tillie to pass them the serving bowl. "Wanted you two to meet," he went on. "This here's my boy, Hawk. He's been working up here this season, learning the family trade. Hawk, this is your cousin Susan. She's come here to—"

"See if she can help us get the treecrawlers under control." Hawk took the bowl as it came to him, politely offered it to Susan. "Know all about it, Pop. You told me last week, remember?"

"I did?" Lars's brow furrowed as he searched his memory. "Umm, well, I guess I . . ."

"You were drinking at the time." Hawk ladled some stew onto his plate, then handed it to Susan before helping himself to the corn bread. "Long trip from Liberty?"

"Umm . . . yes, it was." Susan took some stew and corn bread, then passed the bowl and platter to her uncle. "Took a wagon to Leeport, then bought passage on a keelboat to Clarksburg. Stayed with your mother and sister in town last night, then caught a ride up here. Got in late this afternoon." Catching the look in his eyes, she realized that she'd mentioned places he'd never been. "I'm sorry we've never met until now."

Indeed, until yesterday she'd never laid eyes on either one of her cousins. It was only last night that she'd met Hawk's sister, Rain, for the first time, a sweet little girl who'd proudly shown off her watercolor sketches of the Clarksburg harbor. Aunt Marie had said little about Hawk, though, except that he'd recently dropped out of school to move up into the mountains with his father. The only pictures she had of him were from childhood, and they bore scant resemblance to the young man who sat across the table from her. It was as if her aunt had written off her older child as a loss to her estranged husband, and now doted upon the one who'd stayed with her.

"We don't get into town much," Lars said, as if this explained everything. "We come up here soon as the snow melts and stay until it gets too cold to work. Beginning of each season, we move camp to another part of the range, wherever we find a good stand of timber we can—"

"Pop tells me you know a lot about 'crawlers." Hawk passed the serving bowl to his father. "Did he ask you here, or did Mom?"

Lars scowled. "I told you . . ."

"Your mother did," Susan said. "She got in touch with the Colonial University, told them that the company was having trouble with chirreep . . . treecrawlers, I mean . . . and asked if they had any experts who could come out here to study the problem." She shrugged. "As it turned out, they did . . . me."

"Like I was saying," Lars continued, "I knew your cousin was studying this sort of thing, so I told your mom, 'Y'know, you oughta get 'em to send out Cousin Susie, 'cause she's—' "

"Sure you did." Hawk barely glanced his way. "Hey, lucky break for us. A scientist in the family, ready to drop everything and come all the way out here to—"

"Watch that tongue, boy. Gonna get you in trouble." Lars didn't look up as he shoveled stew into his mouth, yet for the first time Hawk didn't respond to his father. "Yeah, we've had a helluva time with those chirreep." He mispronounced it as shire-reep, not sure-reep as Susan had said. "First it was them stealing stuff, and that wasn't so bad so long as we locked everything away, but lately they've taken to sabotage."

"Really? What do you mean?"

"Trying to knock down the flume, for starters. Pulling down one of two support beams so that the trough collapses when we send down a log. Done that three times already. And once they pried a hole in the spill dam, so . . ."

From the other side of the room, a sudden crash as a plate shattered on the floor. Someone bellowed an obscenity, and Susan looked up in time to see one burly logger hurl himself across the table at another man. The next instant, the mess tent was filled with the sounds of a fistfight; men and women stood up, either to get out of the way or see what was going on.

"Oh, hell." Lars leapt to his feet, rushed toward the brawl. "Awright, damn it, break it up, break it up!"

"Don't worry 'bout it." Hawk scarcely seemed to notice the fight. "Happens all the time. Just their way of saying how much they love each other."

Susan regarded him quietly as he daubed a piece of corn bread in his stew. No more than five or six Coyote years; too young to be so cynical. "Pardon me for saying so," she said, keeping her voice low, "but I have a feeling you don't get along with your father very well."

"Oh, no. We're best friends. So long as he isn't drunk, that is." Hawk didn't look up at her as he swirled a spoon through the stew on his plate. "So tell me . . . did he try to get you to sleep with him, or did you ask Tillie to put you up just because you wanted to learn how to make this crap?"

Susan didn't know whether to laugh or slap the kid across the face. "Neither," she said at last, doing her best to muster a reply. "I figured I'd sleep with you, and let your father teach Tillie how to cook."

His eyes slowly rose. He stared at her for a long moment, as if trying to determine whether she was joking or not. A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. "Are you sure we're related?"

"Oops, I forgot. I'm your cousin, aren't I?" She shrugged. "Sorry, offer rescinded."

"No problem." He chuckled, then the smile faded. "Not that it wouldn't have stopped Pop. He's already made moves on most of the women in camp, even the wives of guys who work for him." He blushed and looked away. "Why draw the line at his own niece?"

"Sorry." She didn't know why she said this, yet he nodded all the same. "If you don't like him so much—"

"Why am I here?" Hawk gazed across the room. His father had stopped the fight, and now he was seated at the opposite side of the tent, talking with the loggers who'd been at each other's throats only a few minutes ago. They were passing around a jug of ale, and there was no sign that he was returning anytime soon. "I dunno . . . kinda figure my options are limited. Stay with Mom and paint pretty pictures like Rain, or come up here and learn the family business." He glanced at Susan. "What do you think? Do I look like an artist to you?"

No, she thought, you look like a kid who doesn't know what he wants from life. And more the pity, because he was obviously a more intelligent person than one who should be spending his time splitting logs. She gazed at the woodcutters seated around them. They were the sons of starship engineers, the daughters of pioneers, yet through the years of learning how to survive on this world they'd forgotten their legacy, until now all they had were splinters in their hands and dirt under their nails, and only the most vague memory of the cosmos. And in this way, one generation became less than those that had come before it.

She tried the stew, discovered that it was awful. An idea occurred to her. "How long have you been up here? Since last Machidiel?"

"Pretty much." A suspicious look. "If you're going to tell me I should go back to school . . ."

"No, no." Although that was her first thought, Hawk obviously wasn't interested in having another adult giving him well-meaning advice; he'd clearly rejected completing his formal education as much as he'd rejected his mother's efforts to make him more like his sister. "Look, you know the mountains, right? Well, I don't, and I'm going to need a guide."

"So why don't you ask someone else?" Not a snide comment, but an honest question.

"Like who? Your father?" She raised an eyebrow. "If I'm going to do my job right, I've got to get as far away from camp as possible. That's where I'm going to find the chirreep. But I don't want your dad to get me out there alone . . . you said that yourself."

"No." Hawk shook his head. "No, that's not such a good idea."

Susan gestured to the men sitting around them. "Maybe some of these guys know the woods," she went on, "but I don't know them. Unless you want to introduce me to—"

"I know what you're saying." Hawk seemed to think about it a moment. "Look, I might be able to get away for a couple of days, but what am I going to tell him?"

"What's wrong with the truth? I've hired you to be my guide . . . my research assistant, if you want to put a fancy name to it." She paused. "There's money in it. The university gave me a small grant for expenses. Call it . . . say, thirty dollars a day."

"Thirty?" He shut his eyes in disgust. "Try again, cuz."

"All right, forty."

"Sixty."

"Fifty. High as I go."

He sighed. "All right, fifty . . . but you carry your own pack."

"Did I say I wouldn't?" Fifty dollars a day was steep— she knew the loggers earned that much for a week's work— but she needed him, and he knew it. The kid was sharp, all right. "Don't worry, I know how to hike backcountry."

"Didn't say that you didn't. So when do we start?"

Susan didn't reply. As they were speaking, she'd gazed down the table. Uncle Lars was drinking with his guys; the plates had been shoved aside, and they were working their way through another jug. Yet, in that moment, he happened to look straight at her, and there was a certain glint in his eyes that caused a shiver to run down her back.

"Soon as possible," she murmured. "First thing tomorrow."

She awoke to the sound of Tillie humming to herself as she stirred flour and eggs into batter for the breakfast biscuits. It was still dark outside, yet coffee was already brewing in an urn on top of the oven. Susan's first impulse was to roll over and go back to sleep, but Tillie would have none of it; she prodded her awake and made her get dressed, and once Susan returned from the privy, Tillie put her to work setting the table. Susan had barely finished when the loggers started coming in; they drank coffee until Tillie brought out the biscuits and gravy, then reappeared a few minutes later with a platter of sliced ham. No one spoke much; it was too early in the morning for conversation.

Hawk showed up while she was helping Tillie prepare sack lunches for the crew. He gave her a quiet nod, but otherwise said nothing to her; at his insistence, they hadn't told anyone where they were going. The sole exception was Uncle Lars, and only because he had to know that Susan had hired his son to be her guide. All the same, Susan noticed that Hawk said little to his father when he finally showed up. Not that he was in a talkative mood anyway; with his eyes swollen and his shoulders slumped, he was obviously nursing a hangover.

After she helped Tillie clean up, she found Hawk waiting for her outside. He'd brought a small pack, into which he'd stuffed a canteen, a map, a compass, and a flashlight. Susan had her own pack, in which she carried, along with a canteen and lunch for them both, a camera, a satphone, and a pair of binoculars.

Dawn had painted the sky with wispy slashes of crimson and gold as they began hiking up the trail to the logging site. The crew had already left camp, and Susan and Hawk followed the timber wagons into the forest; from far ahead, they could hear voices coming through the trees, breaking the cool silence of the morning. Scarlet pikes cawed at them from the lower branches of the trees, as if threatening to impale them on clingberry thorns as they did with the leafbugs upon which they preyed. Susan caught a brief glimpse of a pair of shy brown eyes peering at her from a hole beneath a faux birch, then a root rat scurried back into its lair. The woods were alive, its inhabitants spying on the intruders.

"Not a bad place to spend a year," she said, and Hawk gave her a skeptical look. "Here, I mean. I'm rather envious."

"Thought you grew up in the mountains."

"I did, but Great Dakota has a different ecosystem from Midland. There's species here you don't find on the Gillis Range." She smiled. "You know, we've been on this world almost forty years, Earth-time, and yet we've explored less than a quarter of it."

"Yeah? So?"

"Aren't you curious? About what we haven't seen yet?"

"I guess." He shrugged. "If you weren't busy trying to make a living."

She was trying to figure how to respond to that when there was a sharp crack from somewhere up ahead, followed by a loud crash that echoed down the mountainside. "Hey, they just brought down a big one," Hawk said, quickening his pace. "C'mon, you want to see this."

Susan followed him up the trail until, all of a sudden, they emerged from the woods; there were no more trees around them, and a vast clearing stretched away as far as the eye could see. A short distance away, several loggers stood around a giant blackwood they'd just felled. Its lower branches had already been trimmed away, and now the trunk itself lay upon the ground, like a titan brought low by a gang of dwarves.

"They've been working on that one all week," Hawk said. "These old ones, they're pretty hard to bring down. Guess someone got up here early to make the final cut."

Susan didn't answer. She was awestruck by what she saw. Where there had once been old-growth forest were now mile upon mile of barren slope. Scraggly undergrowth surrounded vast acres of raw stumps, with granite boulders now laid bare beneath the sun. She'd seen logging operations before— quite a bit of Midland's rain forests had been harvested, particularly on the western side of Mt. Shaw— but the sheer scale of the clear-cutting being done here in the Black Mountains boggled the mind. Blackwood, mountain rough bark, faux birch, swoops-nest briar: all leveled indiscriminately, with nothing larger than the smallest sapling left standing.

"Good God," she whispered. "What are you people doing?"

Hawk looked at her. "What do you mean, what are we doing? We're cutting down trees."

"I don't . . . you don't . . ."

"We started on the other side of the mountain," he went on, oblivious to her shock as he pointed to the northeast. "About eight seasons ago, back in a valley the other side of Thunder Ridge, then began making our way over here. Trick is finding a good stand where you can put in a road. Last spring, we moved the camp over to this side, to get us closer to the creek. Took us a while to put in the flume, but since we did, we've been moving out twice as much timber as we did last year."

They began making their way through the clearing, stepping over dead branches, passing stumps sawed low to the ground. Here and there, men and women used crosscut saws to cut trunks into logs, which were then anchored together end-to-end by thick chains fastened to iron hooks hammered deep into the wood. Shags dragged the logs to nearby wagons, where they were loaded aboard and carried to the flume. The larger branches were pulled aside to be trimmed to size, the smaller ones thrown upon massive piles where they would be burned.

"We're using hand equipment, for the most part," Hawk explained, "but look over there." He pointed to where a couple of men were carefully mounting a yellow-painted instrument upon a tripod. "That's Big Lucy, our particle-beam laser. Used to be a Union Guard weapon until Pop managed to swing a deal for it. Takes a lot of juice, so we only use it for—"

"And you're not replanting." Susan stared back at the ground they'd just crossed. Already there were signs of soil erosion, deep furrows in the mud where rain was washing away what remained of the ground cover. "You just cut everything down, then move on."

"Umm . . . yeah, sure. There's plenty of trees left."

Susan looked at him, saw nothing in his face save for ignorance. "I've seen enough here," she said quietly. "Let's go."

Leaving the site behind, Hawk led her across the clearing to a trail that went farther up the mountain. It had been made by an exploration team, he said; if they continued to follow it, they'd eventually reach some cliffs at the base of the summit. After that, they would have to bushwhack it; nonetheless, they might be able to make it to the top of Mt. Shapiro by noon, and still be back in camp by sundown.

"That sounds good," Susan said. "The chirreep might use this same trail, and it could lead us to their habitat."

Hawk seemed puzzled. "We always figured they live in the trees."

"If that were so, don't you think you would have found them already?" She shook her head. "Chirreep usually build their dwellings on the ground. The ones on Barren Isle live in sand-domes, and the group we found on Midland burrowed holes in the side of a cliff." That was getting close to something she didn't like to discuss, so she went on. "This tribe might be arboreal, sure, but I'm willing to bet that if you haven't found any abandoned tree houses in the blackwoods you've cut down, then that's not where they're living."

"If you say so." He shrugged. "You always figured they're . . . y'know, like apes or something."

"They're not animals," Susan said quietly.

The trail brought them to the top of the log flume, where a stream trickled down the side of the mountain. It had been diverted to a small pond just above the flume where a spill-dam had been erected; a rotary winch positioned on top of the wall raised and lowered a narrow gate above the mouth of the flume. Hawk explained to her that, when the crew was ready to send logs down the mountain, they opened the dam's gate and allowed the pond to flood the trough. "Can't use the flume when we've had a dry spell," he said, "but after we've had enough rain, we can send logs all the way to Mill Creek . . . provided, of course, that the treecrawlers haven't played with the flume again."

"Your father said something about that last night." Susan studied the dam; about eight feet high, it was built of mud-packed logs, the pond behind filmed over with floating algae. "Have they ever sabotaged this?"

"Once." Hawk pointed to a place at the bottom of the dam where a small hole had been patched. "They pried open a couple of logs here. Didn't do much damage, except for causing the water to drain out. We found the hole and plugged it up, and they've stayed away ever since. It was after that when they took to knocking down support beams."

Susan frowned. "Doesn't make sense. Chirreep are usually shy of people . . . they only come around when they think we have something worth stealing. This is the first time I've heard of them trying to destroy anything we've built."

"You said this was a different tribe. Maybe they do things differently. Of course, you're the expert."

"No one's an expert on chirreep. Except maybe another chirreep." She patted the side of the dam, then turned away. "C'mon, let's go. Maybe we'll find something farther up the mountain."

The woods became more dense as they climbed uphill, and before long they couldn't hear the sound of the loggers at work. The trail followed the stream for a while, then gradually cut away, making a series of switchbacks that meandered up the mountainside. The slope gradually became steeper as well, and by late morning they found themselves approaching a line of sheer granite bluffs, sixty to a hundred feet high, that loomed over them as a vast wall of rock. The summit was now less than a thousand feet away, but here the trail came to an end; if they wanted to reach the mountaintop, they would have to find their own way.

Susan found a large boulder near the base of the bluffs; she climbed on top, then sat down and pulled out her binoculars to study the escarpment. As carefully as she searched, though, she couldn't find any indications of cliff dwellings. Of course, the chirreep might have concealed their homes behind tree branches, but still . . .

"Ever seen any smoke coming from up here?" she asked.

"Now and then, sure." Sitting beside her on the boulder, Hawk took a drink from his canteen. "We get lightning storms up here all the time. Sometimes they cause brush fires." Then he looked at her askance. "Oh, c'mon, you can't be saying . . ."

"They know how to make fire. That might have been what you saw, and just didn't know it."

"You've seen that?"

"Uh-huh." She trained her binoculars on the top of the bluffs, searching for signs of chimney holes.

"Y'know, I've heard—" Hawk stopped himself. He was quiet for a minute or so before he went on. "Mom once told me that you were kidnapped by them. A long time ago, back during the Revolution."

Susan lowered her binoculars. Damn. She should have known this was coming. Aunt Marie had been there, after all, and this was a story she would've told her children, perhaps late at night when she was putting them to bed. No sense in denying it. In fact, maybe it would help him understand.

"It happened, yeah," she said. "On Mt. Bonestell, just outside Shady Grove. I was a little girl then, about Rain's age. Your Uncle Carlos and Aunt Wendy brought me there, along with the rest of the children from Defiance. They were trying to keep us safe from the Union Guard, but when we got to Shady Grove—"

"I know the rest. Some treecrawlers . . . chirreep, I mean . . . grabbed you just outside the stockade and took you up the mountain. Your folks came to rescue you." He peered at her. "You mean it's true? It's not just a story?"

"No, it really happened," she said, yet that wasn't all that had occurred. Hawk didn't know how that tribe of chirreep had fallen under the sway of Zoltan Shirow, the leader of a religious cult who'd come to Coyote. When his original flock had perished on Mt. Shaw, Zoltan had fled into the Gillis Range; eventually he'd found the chirreep, who'd come to worship him as a god. Her parents had kept this part of the tale from everyone, and had sworn her to silence, because one of their best friends was Ben Harlan, who'd been Zoltan's guide during their doomed trek across the Midland mountains. Ben had lost the woman he loved on Mt. Shaw, and Susan's parents wanted to let him continue to believe that Zoltan was dead. Not that it mattered much in the long run, for Zoltan had doubtless been killed during the eruption of Mt. Bonestell, along with the chirreep tribe, yet his involvement in that incident was something of which very few people were aware, even to this day.

"That's how I got interested in the chirreep." She pulled out her canteen, unscrewed its cap. "When they took me inside their cliff dwelling, I got a look at how they lived. Not much, of course. I was a little kid, scared out of my wits. But I saw tools, clothes . . ."

"Oh, c'mon."

"You still think they're animals, don't you?" She took a sip of water. "Far from it. More likely they're much like hominids, early predecessors to homo sapiens, except maybe a little more advanced. They know how to fashion tools, control fire, build dwellings . . . it even appears that they have some sort of language."

"Yeah. Right." He looked away. "Next thing you're going to tell me, they're building starships."

Susan let out her breath, gazed at the forest surrounding them. "You know," she said after a while, "you're a pretty smart kid." Hawk smirked, but she went on. "No, I mean that, really. There wasn't enough in Clarksburg to hold your interest, so you moved up here with your father, but it's pretty clear that you've seen through him as well, and I don't see you becoming a lumberjack."

"Logger." He scowled. "We don't use that other word."

"Logger, okay. But is that what you really want to do with your life?" She put the cap back on her canteen. "As for the chirreep, I'm beginning to wonder about why they've taken to knocking down—"

"Shh!" Hawk suddenly held up a hand, hushing her. He cocked his head, as if listening to something in the forest. "Just heard something."

Susan held her breath, quickly glanced about. She had little doubt that the boy's senses were more attuned to the mountains, yet so far as she could tell, nothing had disturbed the late-morning solitude save for an autumn breeze rippling through the trees. When she looked back at her companion, though, she was surprised to see that he'd drawn a weapon from his pack: a flechette pistol, the type once carried by the Union Guard during the occupation. Hundreds of firearms like this had been left behind when the Union was forced off Coyote, yet nonetheless she was surprised to see one in the hands of someone so young.

"Are you sure?" she whispered. "I didn't—"

"I did." Hawk squatted on the boulder, gun clasped in his right hand as his eyes darted left and right. "Thought it was behind you, but—"

"But maybe it was behind you," a new voice said.

Startled, Hawk twisted around on his hips, almost losing his balance as he swept his gun toward the figure who'd just come from behind a briar only a few yards away.

"Easy now," the stranger said, slowly raising his hands to show that they were empty. "No reason to get excited."

"What . . . who are you?" The pistol trembled in Hawk's hands. "What are you doing here?"

"I was about to ask you the same." A quick smile as the stranger's gaze traveled to Susan. "On the other hand, I pretty much know that already. If you're looking for chirreep, you might try to keep your voices down. I heard you a hundred yards away. If I could, so can they."

"Sorry. Weren't expecting to find anyone else up here." Susan relaxed a little, but not much. The newcomer was about her age, tall and lean, with dark brown hair beginning to grow long and a beard that looked as if it'd been only recently cultivated. He wore a homespun serape and a wide-brim catskin hat, and a rifle was slung over his right shoulder. There was something about him that seemed vaguely familiar, yet she couldn't quite put her finger on it. "If you know so much about us . . ."

"Only said I know why you're here. Like I said, your voices carry." He glanced again at Hawk, who was still pointing the gun at him. "That's rather rude, you know. Put that away before you hurt someone."

"Hawk . . ." Susan glared at the boy, and he reluctantly lowered the pistol. If she'd known he'd packed a gun, she would have made him leave it behind. "I'm Susan Montero," she went on. "I'm a naturalist, conducting research for the Colonial University. This is my cousin Hawk Thompson. He's my guide."

"How interesting." The stranger put his back against the tree, folding his arms together as he casually studied them. "You're related then . . . and I take, Master Thompson, that you're of the same family that owns the timber company."

"Uh-huh." It was plain that Hawk still didn't trust him, for he didn't return the gun to his pack. "I didn't catch your name."

"That's because I didn't give it." He regarded them both for a moment, as if trying to make up his mind whether to explain his presence, then he stepped away from the tree. "Very well, then. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Just wanted to know who was making all the racket." He started to turn away. "I hope you have a delightful hike. Now, if you'll excuse me . . ."

"Wait a minute." All at once, Susan remembered where she'd seen him before. A couple of months earlier, shortly after the new starship from Earth had arrived. The first group from the ship to land in Shuttlefield had included a senior officer who'd mysteriously vanished that same evening. Susan had met him only briefly, but all the same . . .

"You're Jonathan Parson," she said. "The second officer of the Columbus."

The stranger stopped. "You're mistaken. Name's John Carroll. I used to work at the mill before I moved up here to homestead."

Susan looked at Hawk, and he shook his head. "I haven't heard of anyone homesteading on this side of the mountain," he said. "You got that satphone?" Susan nodded, then reached down to take it from her pack. "Shouldn't take but a minute to check with the company office," Hawk continued. "They've got records for all former employees."

"Good idea." Susan handed him the phone. "While you're at it, call the blueshirts, too. They've been looking all over for Parson since he—"

"Okay, all right." Turning to face them, Parson held up his hands. "No need to get smart about it."

"And so the truth comes out." Susan took the phone back from Hawk. "So what are you doing up here? Besides hiding out, I mean."

"I don't know what you—"

"C'mon. You know something about the chirreep . . . you just said so yourself." He feigned a confused shrug as if to deny this, but she shook her head. "You called them chirreep, not treecrawlers. That's pretty specific knowledge for someone who's been here for . . . what, little more than two months?"

"Yeah. Not only that, but you also said they could've heard us coming." Hawk nodded toward the bluffs. "Makes me wonder if you know where they live."

"And if I did, why should I tell you?" Parson gave him a stern look. "Your family is destroying their habitat. All I have to do is go down the trail a couple of miles, and I can show you—"

"Seen it already," Susan said, "and I don't like it any more than you do." Hawk stared at her, but she ignored him. "Look, I'll be straight with you. My school sent me out here to investigate reports that chirreep have been attacking logging operations. The company wants to put a stop to this, but I'm more interested in finding out the reason why. If you can help us—"

"Why should I?"

"Then I'll make sure you're left alone." She held up the satphone. "No calls to the blueshirts, and the company doesn't have to know one of their former workers is where he ought not be." She glanced at Hawk. "Isn't that right?"

Hawk was quiet for a moment, then he nodded. "Sure. Doesn't matter to me."

"So your secret is safe," Susan went on. "And if you know something we don't, maybe we can work together to find a way to protect the chirreep. If you heard everything I said, then you know I mean them no harm." She paused. "So what do you say?"

Parson gazed at the silent forest around them. For a moment, it almost seemed as if he was listening to voices only he could hear. "Let me think about it," he said at last. "I'll get back to you later."

"If you need my satphone code . . ."

"I've got other ways. Now, go back to your camp. You'll hear from me later . . . if you hear from me at all."

And then he turned away once more, walking back the way he'd come. Susan tried to observe which direction he was headed, yet within moments he was lost among the trees, disappearing into the forest as if he'd never been there.

"Oh, man, that's weird." Hawk let out his breath, then he looked at Susan. "You really think he knows something?"

She slowly nodded. "Yes, I do." In fact, she was counting on it.

That evening, once she'd set the table and helped Tillie serve dinner, Susan ate alone in the kitchen. She didn't want to talk to anyone, lest they ask her what she'd found on the mountain that day, and she'd made Hawk swear not to tell Uncle Lars about meeting Jonathan Parson. Besides, she had work to do.

So she sat cross-legged on the upper bunk of Tillie's bed, nibbling at a plate of goat cheese and sourdough bread as she studied her pad, reviewing reports her colleagues at the university had previously written about the behavioral patterns of the chirreep. As she suspected, there was precious little useful information. Even after all these years, not much was known about the chirreep; most of their knowledge had been derived from chance encounters in the wild, and even then much of that was hearsay and rumor.

Four years ago, before she'd joined the university, the biology department had sent an expedition to Barren Isle, where her father had discovered what he'd then called sandthieves. According to Zoltan Shirow— the first and, so far, the only human known to have successfully communicated with them— this tribe was known as the chirreep-ka; as Carlos Montero had later observed, they were smaller and more primitive than the ones who'd abducted her from Shady Grove. Yet they were just as elusive; although the expedition had no trouble locating their sand-domes, the chirreep-ka remained in hiding the entire two weeks the expedition spent on the island. Remote cameras and motion detectors were set up, camouflaged hunter's blinds were built near the domes, food and trinkets were set out as bait, and then the scientists waited for days and nights on end for the tiny aboriginals to show themselves. Yet save for two or three brief instances when the scientists happened to spot a small form scurrying through the brush, the chirreep-ka went unseen. It was as if the sandthieves had known they were coming and had resolved not to reveal themselves, even if it meant facing slow starvation. In the end, realizing that they were causing harm to their subjects, the expedition had left Barren Isle with little more knowledge of the chirreep-ka than they had before they'd arrived.

No. The answer to this mystery didn't lie in previous research, or in the academic theories of her colleagues. She had to dig much deeper than that. Like it or not, she had to return to the nightmare she'd endured as a child.

Ignoring the boisterous voices coming from the other side of the mess tent, Susan straightened her back, clasped her hands together in her lap, and shut her eyes . . .

Wandering away from Shady Grove. Curious to see what lay outside the stockade walls. She's a little girl, and it's a lovely morning in late winter. Her mother and father aren't around, but what harm could come from taking a walk by herself? So she slips away through the front gate, heads for the woods near the settlement. But she's not alone, and she doesn't know this until she suddenly finds herself confronted by a brown-furred creature almost as tall as she is . . .

Harsh laughter from nearby. Distracted, Susan briefly opened her eyes, then shut them. Go back. Back through the years. Be brave; they're only memories, shadows of the past . . .

A surge of panic. Trying to flee, only to find another one blocking her path. And now a third, coming in from behind to put a hairy hand around her mouth before she can scream. A brief struggle, an attempt to escape, but they're stronger than she is, and finally all she can do is let them take her.

A forced run through the forest. The cold winter sun slashing through the branches. Small hands shoving her, pushing her, never letting her rest. Climbing the base of Mt. Bonestell, leaving the settlement far behind, even as she hears voices calling her name somewhere far behind. She loses her cap by the side of a frozen creek, but when she bends down to retrieve it, strong hands pick her up, bodily carry her across the ice. Strange voices gibbering at her, a tongue she doesn't recognize— kreepha-shee kashe chee!—then her tormenters drop her on the other side of the creek, and now more running while her tormenters hoot and chirp all around her, ignoring her tears and pleas to be let go . . .

The back door creaked open. Probably Tillie, taking out the garbage to the compost heap.

The long sprint up the mountain. Branches lashing against her face, cold and fatigue sucking what little strength is still left in her small body. Fear. An overwhelming sense that she's about to die, and the dark hope that it'll happen soon so that it'll be over and done and she can go to Heaven.

But death is not her destination. Instead, she suddenly finds herself at the bottom of a vast grey cliff, an enormous escarpment in which dozens of holes have been bored. Figures prance around her, tugging at her hair, her clothes, pushing her toward an opening at ground level. She has to duck her head to go inside . . .

Yes. There's something there. Concentrating, she screwed her eyes shut even tighter, struggling to recall.

A labyrinth of tunnels, a maze within the rock, seemingly without end, the only light coming through windows and chimneys. The odor of mildew and rot. Brief glimpses of tiny burrows. Miniature axes no larger than her hand, little beds of woven grass, a dwarf-size fireplace in which coals smolder. A female cowering within a room, staring at her with oversized eyes, her infant suckling at her breast. And now, an upward climb, scrambling up wooden ladders, relentlessly prodded and pushed until she enters a narrow shaft through which sunlight gleams down . . .

Something tugged at her memory.

Climbing the shaft, the frail wooden ladder bending beneath her weight, desperate to reach the light far above. Yet now, from somewhere far away, she can hear her mother's voice, desperately calling her name . . .

A small, warm hand touched her foot. Susan opened her eyes, and found a chirreep crouched beside her on the bed.

Startled, she immediately jerked away from the small creature. Almost as surprised, it snatched away its hand and drew back from her. Yet it didn't leap off the bed, as she expected, but instead regarded her with its enormous black eyes, more curious than frightened.

The chirreep was only a couple of feet tall, scrawny yet muscular, almost like an oversized spider monkey. It was covered head-to-toe with coarse black fur, save for a thick silver mane around its neck and chest, yet it wasn't quite naked; it wore a small loincloth, and a small piece of quartz hung from around its neck on a length of woven grass. Earlier observations by other researchers indicated that such jewelry was worn by tribal leaders, but no one could be sure.

Susan held her breath, fought to remain calm. It had been many years since she'd been this close to a chirreep. Indeed, this was the first time she'd ever known one to enter a human dwelling, although she remembered Tillie mentioning something about keeping a lamp burning in the mess tent to keep them from stealing things. This one must be particularly brave to come in through the back door while the lights were on. Not to mention extraordinarily quiet; it had managed to climb up on the bed without her noticing.

Laughter from outside the kitchen, as someone in the dining room presumably told someone else a funny story. The chirreep darted a nervous look in that direction, and it tensed on its hind legs, ready to spring away. Why had it come here? If it meant to steal something, then why make its presence known to her?

"Chirreep," she said quietly. It was the only word of their language she or anyone else knew; no harm in using it now. "Chirreep," she said again, and pointed to her visitor.

The chirreep returned its attention to her. "Chirreep-sha katoom," it rasped softly. "Kreepha-shee shon-shee koot." It advanced cautiously toward Susan, until it was close enough for her to pick up the rank odor of its pelt, then it reached beneath its loincloth.

Another burst of laughter, then footsteps just outside the kitchen. "You're going to have to do better than that!" Tillie said loudly, then she swept aside the flap. "Lord, these men, they're going to . . . oh my God!"

The chirreep was already off the bed. Pausing only long enough to drop something in Susan's lap, it dove headfirst from the top bunk, grabbing a skillet hanging from the ceiling rafter, and using it to swing across the room. Tillie barely had time to snatch a pot from the oven and hurl it after the creature before the chirreep lunged through the back door. The pot missed it by several feet, and black bean soup sprayed in all directions.

What happened next was a blur. Tillie shrieking, throwing more cookware at the open door. Loggers charging into the kitchen, demanding to know what was going on. Scattered gunshots outside the tent, while men and women yelled at one another. Uncle Lars managed to get Tillie to calm down and tell him what she'd seen, then he asked Susan for her side of the story. Still sitting cross-legged on the bed, Susan pretended innocence; she'd seen the treecrawler, too, but not until she'd woken up to find it trying to steal her pad. No, it hadn't taken anything. No, it hadn't bitten her. Yes, she was fine, and, no, she didn't want to spend the night in his tent. She caught a glimpse of Hawk, standing just outside the kitchen. There was a sly grin on his face, and for a second she thought he winked at her. Then his father ushered everyone out of the tent; they needed to double the watch tonight and keep a sharp eye on the corral and the flume. Where there was one of these little bastards, there had to be more.

Once everyone was gone, Susan helped Tillie clean up the mess. The cook was a wreck, and it took a couple of shots of bearshine before she was calm enough to climb into bed, yet even then she insisted on putting a paring knife beneath her pillow. So it wasn't until much later, when the camp had finally settled down and Tillie was snoring away in the bunk beneath her, that Susan dared to retrieve the object the chirreep had tossed to her, which she'd hastily shoved beneath the blankets of her bed.

A scrap of paper, human-made, wrapped around a small rock. Upon it was scrawled a short message:

TOMORROW, SAME PLACE/TIME. NO PHONE, NO GUNS—CAMERA OK. BRING GIFTS—THEY LIKE FOOD (VEGGIES) AND FLASHLIGHTS. COME ALONE. TELL NO ONE.— J.

P.S.—MY FRIEND'S NAME IS KATOOM (I THINK). PLEASE TREAT HIM WELL.

Susan reread the note several times, her mouth open with astonishment. It wasn't until she was sure that Tillie was asleep that she dared speak aloud the thoughts in her mind.

"I'll be damned," she whispered. "He's learned how to communicate with them."

Slipping away from camp the following morning was easier than expected. After she set the table for breakfast, Susan pretended to have trouble getting a fire started in the dining room stove. When Tillie came out to help her, Susan went back into the kitchen and stole a few carrots and potatoes, tucking them into her pack along with her camera and a spare flashlight. She then waited until the work crew showed up, and while Tillie was bringing out the coffee and biscuits, she made her exit through the back door, being careful to sneak around behind the tents so as not to be seen. No one spotted her, and by the time first light was breaking upon the mountains she was heading up the trail to the logging site.

The morning was cold, the sky overcast with grey clouds that foretold of rain later in the day. Susan was glad that she'd worn her jacket and cap. She had little trouble retracing her steps from the day before; all she had to do was follow the log flume back to the dam in order to locate the path Hawk had shown her. She was well ahead of time, but she didn't allow herself the luxury of taking it easy. Someone would eventually notice her absence, and although she'd taken the precaution of destroying the note Parson had sent her, there was always the chance that Hawk might figure out where she'd gone.

She felt bad about not taking the boy into her confidence. He'd proven himself to be a reliable guide, and he'd demonstrated a certain willingness, however reluctant, to open his mind to the possibility that the chirreep were more than mere animals. Yet the fact that he'd packed a gun without telling her made him less than completely trustworthy, and Parson had specifically stated that she was to come alone and not tell anyone where she was going. And although she was wary about venturing up the mountain on her own, she didn't want to pass up the opportunity to discover something new about the chirreep.

By midmorning, she'd returned to the cliffs, and was mildly surprised to find Jonathan Parson waiting for her almost exactly where they'd met yesterday. He sat on top of the boulder, as if he hadn't gone anywhere since she'd last seen him.

"Good morning," he said, chewing on a piece of lamb jerky. "Glad to see my letter got through."

Susan bent over to clasp her knees and catch her breath. "You mean . . . you mean your little friend . . . didn't tell you?"

Parson considered the question as he took a drink from a catskin flask. "Who do you think I am? Tarzan, lord of the chirreep?" He caught her baffled expression, shook his head. "Sorry. Obscure literary reference. Look, it took a couple of hours just to make him understand that I wanted him to deliver that note to you, and he ate the first two before I got it across to him. So I'd appreciate a little—"

"Thank you." Susan sat down on the ground, then took off her pack and pulled out her canteen. "My apologies. It's just that . . . well, I've got a thousand questions to ask you."

"No doubt." Parson capped his flask, then slid down the rock until he was standing in front of her. "I have a few of my own. Did you bring treats for my friends?" She pulled some carrots from her pack and showed them to him. "Good. They'll like those. And you're not carrying a gun, and you didn't tell anyone?" She shook her head. "And you're sincere about wanting to learn more about them? This isn't about finding a way to exterminate them?"

She looked him straight in the eye. "I'm a scientist," she said evenly. "I've been studying them all my life. I don't know what I can say or do that would convince you that I mean them no harm."

Parson said nothing for a moment, then slowly nodded. "I believe you," he said at last. "About not wanting to harm them, I mean. And so does my teacher. I spoke with him last night, and he told me that he's aware of you, if only by reputation."

"Your teacher? Who's that?"

"Later. Right now, I'd like to put a little more distance between us and the camp." Parson stepped away from the boulder. "Think you're ready for some more climbing? It gets pretty rough after this."

Susan gazed at the bluffs towering above them. "We're going up there, aren't we? That's where we'll find the entrance to their dwellings." She glanced at him again. "A cave of some sort, leading into the mountain. Right?"

Parson stared at her. "How did you know this?"

"You're not the only one who's made contact with the chirreep." Standing up, she placed her pack once more upon her shoulders. "Take me there."

Leaving the trail behind, they made their way uphill through the woods. Once they reached the base of the cliff, Parson led Susan to the north, picking their way across heaps of broken talus that had sheered away from the granite wall, season after season of relentless erosion. The escarpment rose above them like a time-lost fortress, spotted with lichen and spongy moss; their footfalls echoed quietly off the trees below, resounding against the stones of years.

"This is where it gets tricky," Parson said at last, pausing to rest his back against the opening of a crevice. Looking up, Susan saw that it formed a narrow crack leading up to the top of the bluffs. "Think you can handle it?"

Susan stepped back to examine it more closely. A vertical ascent of nearly forty feet, yet there were plenty of handholds, along with chimneys where she could wedge her back and legs against the wall. "Sure. Just gimme a second to rest."

"Hoped you'd say that." He uncapped his flask, took a sip, and then passed it to her. "Ever heard of Manny Castro?"

The unexpected question caught her off guard. He'd been the Savant who'd come to Coyote aboard Glorious Destiny, the first Western Hemisphere Union starship to reach the 47 Ursae Majoris system; her mother had met him way back then. Later, once the Union took control of Liberty, Castro had been the colony's lieutenant governor, serving under the Matriarch Luisa Hernandez. He'd been captured during the battle of Thompson's Ferry and thrown into the West Channel, only to reemerge once the Revolution was over; a short time later, he'd accompanied Uncle Lars and Aunt Marie during their forced exile, yet had disappeared again not long after Clarksburg had been founded. A figure of near-mythic proportions, much like Zoltan Shirow. Children liked to frighten each other with stories about the evil savant who would creep into their homes and steal them away if they weren't good.

"Of course," she said. "Why?"

"You asked who my teacher is. Now I'm telling you."

She stared at him. "Manuel Castro? C'mon . . ."

"I find it difficult to believe myself. Back on Earth, savants . . ." He stopped himself. "A long story. Let's just say, they're not very popular. Nonetheless, I've become . . . shall we say, associated with him . . . and he's been something of a teacher to me. We live on the other side of the mountain, and I've assisted him with his research. Which coincides quite a bit with your own."

"You've been studying the chirreep," she said, and he nodded. "And you've learned to communicate with them?"

"After a fashion." He took the flask back from her, took a drink himself. "For instance, my friend Katoom . . . I'm not sure whether that's his name or his position within the tribe, but nonetheless that's what he calls himself. But his people call themselves the chirreep-sha, and to them we're kreepha-shee, which we think means 'aliens.' We've been trying to understand their language, but it's been one word at a time, and only after we've established peaceful relations with them."

"I'm impressed you've gotten that far. The university has been studying them for years."

"Yes, well, you didn't have a savant living up here. That's all Manny's done the last three years . . . observe the chirreep-sha, gain their trust, take notes. After he took me on as his student, I've been doing much of the legwork, so to speak. Lately we've made an interesting discovery." He gestured to the mountainside below them. "That's what I was doing when I . . ."

Parson suddenly stopped, as if he'd heard something. Susan was about to ask him what was wrong, but he quickly raised a hand, motioning for her to be quiet. A moment passed, then he signaled her to follow him deeper into the crevice. Together, they moved out of sight, and there they waited for several long minutes, remaining still and not saying a word to each other.

The sound of talus sliding underfoot, then a shadow fell across the slope. A figure stepped into view, only a few yards away. For a second, it seemed as if he might pass by without spotting them, but then he turned to peer into the crevice, and they saw who it was.

"Good morning, Master Thompson," Parson said. "Out for a stroll?"

Caught by surprise, Hawk slipped on the broken rock, nearly falling over before he caught himself. "I didn't know . . . I thought . . ."

"Oh, come now. If you've come this far, then you must have been tailing us for quite some time." Parson stepped out of the crevice. "You're quite the woodsman, though, I'll give you that. Being able to track her all the way from camp, I mean."

Susan paled. "Jonathan, I didn't know he was—"

"I don't think you did." He glanced at her, then returned his attention to the teenager. "You realize, of course, that you're not welcome here. If she'd wanted you to come along—"

"She would've told me . . . I know, I know." Hawk looked embarrassed. "But it wasn't hard to figure out where she'd gone. All I had to do was catch up. And when I saw you head up here . . ."

"You followed us to see where we'd go." Parson was visibly impressed. "Quite the stalker, you are. You'd have made a good spy. Well, now, off you go."

"Jon, wait a minute." Susan stepped out from behind him, confronted Hawk. "If you go back now, what are you going to do? Tell your father what you've seen?"

Hawk hesitated, then shook his head. "I only wanted to find out where you're headed. You hired me to be your guide, remember?"

"Uh-huh. And if I told you that we're going to find the chirreep, could you promise to keep this to yourself?"

"Oh, no, hold on just a moment." Parson held up a hand. "When I said that I wanted you to come alone, I meant it. No guns, no satphone."

"Not carrying 'em." Hawk pulled off his pack, extended it to Parson. "Look inside. My canteen, a map, and a flashlight. Go ahead, see for yourself." He gazed at Susan again. "And if you want me to make a promise, then I will. Nothing I see here gets back to my dad. Or the company, or anyone else. I promise."

Unwilling to trust him at his word, Parson opened Hawk's pack and rummaged through it. "Well . . . we could use the extra flashlight, at least." Then he looked at Susan again. "But if you bring him along, there's a chance the chirreep might not accept us. Two's company . . ."

"And three's a crowd." Susan considered her predicament. Until now, Hawk had done nothing to earn her distrust except carry a gun; she should have anticipated that he'd follow her, considering that she'd slipped away from camp without any explanation. Indeed, she had less reason to trust Parson, a relative stranger, than her own cousin. And hadn't she wanted to impress upon him the fact that the chirreep were more than simians? "Well . . . we'll just have to take that chance, won't we?"

Parson didn't reply for a moment, but a look of disgust crossed his face. "Right," he said finally. "Very well . . . but I can't promise you how this is going to turn out." He thrust the pack back into Hawk's hands. "And you . . . do what I say and keep your mouth shut, and we'll get along just fine. Understand?"

"Sure. Whatever." Hawk shouldered his pack once more, then peered up at the crevice. "So . . . I guess we're about to climb this thing?"

"We are indeed." Parson cinched tight the straps of his own pack. "And let me tell you . . . if you fall, I'm not coming back to save you."

"Wasn't expecting you to," Hawk mumbled.

Despite appearances, the ascent wasn't nearly as difficult as it seemed from the base of the cliffs; the rock was stable and didn't crumble when they put their weight upon it, and there were plenty of small ledges for them to grasp as handholds. They took their time, resting whenever possible, helping each other if they could do so without losing their own balance. Nonetheless, it took over an hour for them to climb up the narrow crevice, and once they reached the top of the bluffs they had to stop to catch their breath.

They'd emerged upon a broad shelf above the tree line, with only a few scraggly bushes growing here and there. The summit rose above them as a naked pinnacle, like a giant granite thumb thrust up against the heavens. Grey clouds scudded across the sky behind it, and Susan had the illusion that the rock was teetering, about to fall upon them. Looking away, she hastily zipped up the front of her jacket; without any trees to break the wind, she felt a chill.

"Not much farther, I hope," she said.

"Not at all. In fact, we're almost there." Parson looked around, as if searching for something, then turned to her and Hawk. "All right now, this is important," he said, his voice low. "From here on, you two need to do exactly what I say. No arguments, no questions . . . just do it. Any mistakes now could get us in serious trouble."

"How do we know you—?" Hawk began.

"Keep your voice down." Parson glared at the boy. "I mean it, kid. Start fooling with me, and I'll pitch you over the side."

Hawk started to object, but Susan interceded. "All right, you're in charge," she said. "What do we do now?"

Parson pointed to the left, where the shelf led alongside a steep rock wall. "We're going that way. Walk single file, and try not to talk if you don't have to. And watch your step . . . it can get rather dicey after this."

Susan followed him along the top of the bluffs, with Hawk close behind her. Parson was right; the shelf gradually became narrower, until less than four feet of sand-covered rock separated the escarpment on their right from the sheer vertical drop on their left. She tried not to look over the side as she made her way along the path, being careful where she put her feet. From somewhere many miles away, she heard the distant rumble of thunder. A storm was approaching. She prayed that they wouldn't be caught up here; high winds could easily toss them over the precipice.

Yet then they came around a bend, and suddenly the shelf became wider, almost as if it was a small hollow, with the mountainside forming a concave half-bowl that curved around them. Parson stopped; he put a finger to his lips, then silently pointed to the center of the hollow. Looking more closely, Susan saw an opening in the middle of the floor: a sinkhole, formed over time by rainwater trickling down the slope and carving a vertical shaft where it'd found a fissure.

Yet it was far more than that. Here and there around the sinkhole, small piles of sticks had been placed, as if stacked as . . . yes, of course, firewood. And even farther away, deep within the hollow, lay a circle of stones: a fire pit, filled with black ashes and charred pieces of wood. This was the place where the smoke seen from the logging camp had originated.

"Give me the food and your second flashlight," Parson whispered to Susan, then he looked at Hawk. "Yours, too. We're going to need to give 'em everything we can spare."

Hawk hesitated, but surrendered his light after Susan prompted him with a nod. She removed from her pack the carrots and potatoes she'd lifted from the kitchen, and added one of her flashlights. Parson cradled the vegetables and flashlights in his arms, trying not to drop anything. "All right, now, follow me. Stick close, and don't say a word."

Hunched over by his burden, Parson slowly walked across the hollow, Susan and Hawk right behind him. No one spoke as they approached the sinkhole, yet as they drew closer, Susan spotted something sticking up from the opening. It looked like two tree branches laid side by side, until she recognized it for what it was: the top of a ladder.

"Stop here," Parson said, once they were a dozen yards from the sinkhole. Susan and Hawk watched as Parson carefully laid the offerings upon the ground a few yards from the hole. He took a few seconds to separate the carrots from the potatoes, then neatly placed the two flashlights next to them, switching them on as an afterthought.

"All right," he said, "come with me." Then he stood up and walked away. They retreated another few yards, then Parson sat down, crossing his legs and beckoning for them to do the same. "Keep your hands in sight at all times," he whispered, "and don't make any sudden moves. When they appear . . . if they appear . . . don't look at them straight on. And no one say anything, for God's sake."

"How do they know we're—?" Hawk began.

"They know. Now shut up and wait."

And so they sat in silence, almost as if in meditation, as they watched the sinkhole. The storm was closer now; the day had darkened, and the thunder was no longer quite so distant. The wind was picking up, and Susan felt shy drops of rain against her face. Gazing toward the summit, she saw that it had all but disappeared within the grey smudge of low clouds. They were exposed to the storm; when it hit, and doubtless it would be soon, there would be no place for them to seek shelter.

Like everyone who'd grown up on Coyote, she'd learned to respect the elements. Her eyes sought out an overhang within the far side of the hollow. It wasn't very large, but it might offer some protection, if they huddled together and put their jackets over their heads.

She felt Parson prod her shoulder with his elbow, and she looked around to see a small form emerging from the sinkhole. Stepping off the ladder, the chirreep crouched low, its hands nearly touching the ground as it stared straight at them. A young male, Susan decided; it wore a loincloth, but no jewelry. It moved a little closer, examining the gifts but not daring to touch them. After a few seconds, it retreated to the ladder and disappeared again.

"So much for that," Hawk whispered. "Nice try, but—"

"Quiet," Parson hissed. "That was just a scout. Whatever you do, stay—"

"Here he comes again." Susan saw the same chirreep come up the ladder once more. This time he wasn't alone. Two more were behind him; the last to appear seemed to be the same one who'd shown up in camp last night. The three chirreep stopped at the top of the ladder, no longer crouching but standing upright; they didn't move away from the sinkhole, though, but instead carried on a brief conversation, a rapid succession of soft-pitched chirps and hoots.

She glanced at Parson. His head was cocked slightly as he listened intently, yet when she caught his eye, he shook his head. He couldn't understand what they were saying either.

An abrupt flash, and Susan looked up in time to see a wand of lightning strike just on the other side of the mountain peak, followed a couple of seconds later by a sharp crack that startled even the chirreep. Their leader snapped something at the two younger ones, and they scurried over to the food and flashlights. Yet, as they quickly gathered the gifts in their arms, Katoom calmly moved toward the three humans seated nearby, until he was only a few feet away.

"Chirreep-sha kasho haka," he said, looking directly at Parson. "Katoom hoota kreepha-shee, heep! Hona shaka heet!"

"He's thanking us for the offerings, I think," Parson said softly. "There's something else, though, but I can't tell what . . . never mind." He pointed to the sinkhole. "Kreepha-shee hoota, Katoom," he said slowly. "Haka hoota."

Katoom peered at him. "Hana hoota? Kreepha-shee?"

"Kreepha-shee haka." Parson pointed again toward the sinkhole. "Katoom hoota?" He gestured to the sky, then fluttered his fingers around his face, as if pantomiming rain falling down upon them. "Kreepha-shee hoota," he repeated. "Katoom haka."

Susan got it. Parson was telling Katoom that the kreepha-shee had brought haka. Now he was asking if they could be allowed into their hoota, to get out of the rain. She desperately wished she could take notes, but that was out of the question just now; the best she could do was try to commit everything to memory.

Katoom seemed uncertain. The other two chirreep had picked up everything and had disappeared back down the hole, but he remained with the visitors. Another growl from the sky, and now cold rain came pelting down upon them. That seemed to help him make up his mind. "Kreepha-shee hoota kasha, koot!" he exclaimed, then gestured to the sinkhole. "Koot! Hoota koot, kreepshee-koot!"

"I'll take that as an invitation," Susan said.

"Yes, it is." Parson pushed himself to his feet, then helped her up. "We've given them something, and they're offering us something in return. It's their way."

"Have you ever done this before?" Hawk asked as he stood up.

"Once." Parson paused to look at him. "I just hope you'll remember what you see here."

The ladder was rickety, barely able to sustain their weight; they went down one at a time, testing each rung before they made the next step. The sinkhole was nearly twenty feet deep, and when they reached the bottom, they found themselves in a narrow tunnel only four feet in height, forcing them to bend over double.

Yet, although the tunnel was dim, it wasn't completely dark. There was a pale green glow from the rock walls, vein-like and irregular, yet just bright enough to light their way. Susan probed one of the veins with her fingertip, felt a sponge-like substance. Bioluminescent lichen, like some sort of moss that grew upon the cave walls. She wondered if it had been deliberately cultivated, decided that it was so; the tunnel itself seemed to have been excavated by patient hands over dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of years.

Katoom waited patiently until all his guests had made their way down the ladder, then he scampered down the tunnel, holding aloft one of the flashlights he'd been given. "It's okay," Parson said, switching on his own flashlight as he bent down upon his knees to gaze back at Susan and Hawk. "I know where he's taking us. Just stay together, and we'll be all right."

"Sure, but what if we . . . ow!" Hawk winced as he banged the back of his head against the ceiling. "Damn! Why'd they have to make these things so small?"

"Because they weren't made for you." Parson began shuffling forward. "And don't worry about getting lost. We're not going very far."

Parson was exaggerating; the tunnel may have been less than sixty feet in length, but it seemed twice that long. Susan felt her thighs and calves beginning to cramp, and more than once her skull connected painfully with the ceiling until she pulled out her remaining flashlight and switched it on. And yet, despite her discomfort, she found herself experiencing déjà vu; this place was very much like the cliff dwelling she'd seen as a child. Only this time, there was no fear, only the thrill of discovery. She was entering the heart of a mystery; soon, all her questions would be answered.

The passage took a sharp curve to the right, and suddenly the tunnel came to an end in a larger cave. Standing upright, Susan gaped at what she saw; their flashlights revealed a cavern nearly a hundred yards across, the size of a small amphitheater. Stalactites hung from between the cracks that ran across the ceiling fifty feet above their heads, and the broken remains of formations lay here and there across the clay floor. The air was cool, but not cold, and their footfalls echoed softly off the smooth rock walls.

They weren't alone. From all around them, chirreep stared at them. They squatted on the cavern floor and stood upon high ledges and guarded the openings of small niches that had been carved into the walls. Although they maintained a respectful distance, their eyes reflected the glow of their lights, and their subdued voices were a constant babble of hoots and clicks and chirps.

"Oh, crap, we're surrounded." Hawk nervously glanced left and right. "Look, I'll take my chances with the storm. Let's just get out of here."

"If they wanted to harm us, they would have done so already." Parson nodded toward Katoom, who calmly stood only a few feet away. "He's accepted us as friends. So long as nobody panics, we're fine. And we can leave anytime we want."

"We can? Great." Hawk took a backward step toward the tunnel. "Tell him thanks, but we need to—"

"Cut it out." Susan aimed her flashlight at the cave walls; the chirreep flinched, raising their hands against the glare, and she hastily swept it away from their eyes. "What are all these holes? Their sleeping places?"

"Sort of. But it might also be where they hibernate." Parson searched the chamber until he found one that was vacant, and shined his light within it. Now she could see that it was packed with matted grass, with what looked like bags stuffed along the sides. "This far underground, the temperature probably remains constant year-round. I'm guessing that they sleep most of the winter down here, consuming food that they've stashed away."

Susan nodded; his theory made sense. With the exception of marine life, all of Coyote's native fauna were warm-blooded. During the planet's long winter, those species that didn't migrate to the equatorial regions, like the swoops and the boids, or survive by foraging, like the shags, had evolved as hibernating animals, burrowing deep underground or building nests inside fallen trees and ball plants, with smaller creatures like root rats freezing solid. Since no one had ever spotted a chirreep during the winter, this had led biologists to speculate that they holed up within their dwellings. Here was proof that this theory was correct.

"That's not what I wanted to show you, though." Raising his flashlight, Parson aimed its beam toward the far wall of the cavern. "I found it over there, the first time I came down here. But that was pretty much by accident. I don't know if they'll let me see it again."

He lowered the light, looked at Katoom. "Kreepha-shee hoota shak," he said haltingly, and the chirreep cocked his head slightly, as if trying to divine his meaning. "Hoota shak," he repeated, then pointed toward the far wall. "Kreepha-shee . . . um, shak. Shak."

Katoom hooted with what couldn't be interpreted as anything but amusement; the chirreep surrounding them responded the same way. "Guess you got their funny bone," Susan said. "They probably think we're idiots."

"Kreepha-shee shak koo-shoo heeka!" Then Katoom darted away, gesturing for them to follow him. "Shak koo-shoo! Heeka sha! Kreet!"

"Sounds like an invitation to me," Parson said, then he led the others across the cavern, heading for the place he'd indicated that he wanted to see.

The far wall of the cavern hadn't been tunneled out, save for a narrow opening that appeared to lead farther into the mountain, yet wan sunlight crept down from a crack in the ceiling high above, from which water dripped into crude bowls placed next to what looked like a fire pit dug within the cave floor. Yet this wasn't what attracted Susan's attention; it was what was on the wall above the shallow pit.

"Oh, my God." Stopping dead in her tracks, she stared in disbelief at what her flashlight beam revealed. "Paintings. Cave paintings."

Dozens of pictographs, crude yet unmistakably deliberate, rendered by alien hands grasping pieces of charred wood to etch primitive drawings upon the smooth granite. They covered much of the wall from the floor to as far as their arms could reach: jagged lines depicting mountains, Bear represented here and there by a larger circle bisected by an oval half-ring. Tiny stick-figures went in and out of holes, danced around flames, lurked beneath trees . . .

"They're not animals." Behind her, Hawk's voice was low with astonishment. "You're right . . . they're not just animals."

"Rather settles the issue, doesn't it?" Parson gazed at the wall with admiration. "For all I know, it might just be their version of graffiti. But I think it may be more than just that."

"It is." Pulling off her pack, Susan removed her camera. "This is their history," she murmured as she raised its flash and adjusted the lens for maximum exposure. "I could spend days . . . months . . . studying this thing."

"You don't have that much time. There's a limit to their hospitality. Get what you can before they throw us out." Parson walked to the far left corner of the wall. "Here's what I thought was important. Look."

Bending low, Susan studied the drawings with her flashlight. A blaze above wavy horizontal lines seemed to represent mountain peaks; beneath it, several figures appeared to be rushing away. Next to it, another picture: choppy lines that could have been water, with a half-moon-shape floating upon it; three large stick figures sat in the crudely drawn boat, and nearby a couple of small figures watched from behind trees. Another picture: more tall figures, marching up a slope, while tiny figures hurried away. And yet another image: a row of triangles, and beside them tall figures pushing over trees, hauling them away . . .

"It's about how we came here." Susan found herself barely able to breathe; ignoring the camera in her hands, she pointed to the first pictograph. "Look . . . that's got to be a ship arriving. Probably the Alabama. Look how frightened they were. And then, here . . ." She shined her light on the second pictograph. "The first time they saw us, when a boat came across the West Channel." She looked at the stick figures hiding behind the trees. "They knew about us before we became aware of them. They must have been terrified."

"Can you blame them? We were invaders from the sky." Kneeling next to her, Parson pointed to the third and fourth sets of drawings. "Then we came up into the mountains. They ran away, but then we set up the camp, started cutting down trees."

"Hey, y'all, look at this." To their right, Hawk was bending down beside another row of pictures. "Is this what I think it is?"

Susan moved closer to him. Captured by her flashlight beam was another etching: two long parallel lines, tilted slightly downward and held up by shorter lines. Yet near one end, the parallel lines had been broken in half; chirreep beat upon them with sticks, while larger figures ran toward them.

"That's where they broke the log flume," Susan said. "They did this even though we tried to chase them away." She glanced at Hawk. "Do you see? We began to destroy their forest, so they acted to protect what they considered theirs."

Hawk turned to stare at the chirreep gathered behind them. They'd become quiet now, silently observing the humans they'd allowed into their hideaway. "They want us to see this, don't they?" he said quietly. "They're not afraid of us anymore, and they want us to know that."

"Oh, they're still frightened of us, all right." Parson shook his head. "And that's what you should be worried about."

Susan didn't respond; she was busy taking photographs, praying that her camera was sensitive enough to record the images in the weak glow of their flashlights. "This changes everything, you know," she murmured. "Nothing's going to be the same again."

"Uh-huh." Parson gently tapped her arm. "And you should be worried about that, too."

Uncle Lars was drunk, as usual, yet he wasn't so far gone that he couldn't understand what was being shown to him. With a glass of bearshine resting on his camp desk, he peered at the images downloaded into his battered comp from Susan's camera. He examined them one at a time, not saying anything while Susan patiently explained the pictographs to him; on occasion he clicked back to study one or two of them again, but otherwise he remained quiet as his niece told him what she'd seen. When she was done, he picked up his glass, knocked back the shot of bearshine, hissed between his teeth, and delivered his verdict.

"Yeah? So?"

"Do you know what this means?" Susan fought to stay calm. "They're intelligent creatures. They make tools, gather food, practice art . . ."

"Yup. Those are some pretty pictures, all right. Imagine the people at your school are gonna be real interested to see 'em." He shrugged. "Don't mean crap to me."

Susan regard him with disbelief, then turned to gaze at Hawk. He was sitting on a cot behind them, still reluctant to speak. Night had fallen by the time they'd returned to camp; although they had missed dinner, Tillie grilled some cheese sandwiches for them, which they'd eaten before going over to Lars's tent. Susan had asked Hawk to come with her, yet he'd apparently decided to let his cousin do the talking. Now he simply looked away, as if this had suddenly become none of his business.

"It should," she went on. "You saw for yourself . . . the reason why the chirreep are causing you trouble is that you've invaded their territory. At first, they just went in hiding. It's even possible they might have stayed away if you'd carried out your logging operations somewhere else. But then you came farther into the mountains, and at some point they decided that you posed a threat. And so they took to knocking down the flume—"

"And I'm supposed to do what? Go 'way, leave 'em alone?" Lars shook his head. "Besides, weren't you supposed to tell me how to get rid of 'em?"

"That's never what I agreed to do. I came up here to study them and recommend what steps you should take based upon my findings. Now I'm telling you—"

"Fine. You've told me." He burped, his breath even more sour than it'd been before, then he leaned closer to her. "Now, c'mon," he said, laying an affectionate hand upon her knee, "you gotta see this my way."

Susan felt her face grow warm. "I've seen it your way," she said, unapologetically pushing his hand off her leg. "You're destroying their habitat."

"Maybe so." Rebuffed, her uncle's eyes narrowed. "But my business here is the family business, and the family business is what keeps all these people employed. So far as I'm concerned, this is my mountain, and that gives me the right to do whatever I want."

This was getting her nowhere. Not that she'd ever really believed that she could appeal to his better nature; so far as she could tell, he had none. "All right," she said as she stood up, "then I'll take it up with the rest of the family. Aunt Marie may see things a bit differently, and so will Molly, once they find out what you're doing up here. And if they don't—"

"Who are you going to tell? Your father?" Lars smirked at her. "Go right ahead. Tell everyone. Show 'em your pictures." He reached for the half-empty jug of bearshine next to his desk. "By the time they make up their mind, I'll have taken care of this little problem myself."

"What are you saying?"

"What d'ya think I'm saying?" Lars leisurely poured himself another drink. "These drawings . . . you found them in a cave somewhere on the mountain. Well now, all I have to do is take a few of my men back up there. Hunt 'em down, smoke 'em out, shoot 'em down . . . problem solved."

"You won't be able to do that. You don't know where they are." Indeed, she'd been careful not to reveal the whereabouts of the dwellings, other than to vaguely say that she'd found them somewhere on Mt. Shapiro. Nor had she told him about Jonathan Parson, or how he'd led her to the chirreep. "If you think I'm going to—"

"Girl, you think I need you anymore?" Lars looked past her. "He's going to show me . . . aren't you, boy?"

Susan looked at Hawk, sitting in silence upon the cot, his hands clasped together between his knees. He gazed at the floor, not looking up at her, and it was then she realized she might have made a fatal error. He'd sworn to both her and Parson that he wouldn't tell his father anything about what he'd seen, yet his loyalty was not to her, but to his family. If he decided that one was greater than the other . . .

"Hawk . . ." she said softly.

"Now you just mind your own business." Uncle Lars regarded his son with smug satisfaction. "Where are they at? Tell me, and I'll make sure you get cut in for a nice bonus."

"Really? Wow, that's generous of you." He took a deep breath, then shrugged. "Sorry . . . don't remember."

For a moment, Lars stared at him. Then he put down his glass and slowly rose to his feet. "Don't try my patience," he said, his voice filled with quiet malevolence. "You either know or you don't . . . and you're not stupid enough not to know."

" 'Not stupid enough not to know.' " A smile ticked at the corners of his mouth. "Now there's something guaranteed to make me feel pretty good about—"

"Boy, you're rubbing me the wrong way." Lars pushed past Susan, advanced upon his son. "Are you going to tell me, or aren't you?"

Hawk slowly raised his face to stare his father straight in the eyes. Even though Lars blocked her way, she could tell that the boy was trembling. "No," he said at last. "I'm not going to."

Lars's right hand came up, slapped his son across the face. The blow was hard enough to knock the boy off the cot; Hawk sprawled across the wooden floor. Susan tried to scream, but the only sound to come from her throat was a tight gasp; shoving Uncle Lars aside, she rushed to Hawk's side.

"Okay . . . I'm okay." Raising himself up on one elbow, Hawk lifted a hand to his nose. It came away streaked with blood; more seeped down his lip and into his mouth. He spat it out, then looked up at his father. "Is that . . . that your best shot?"

Lars stood over them, his fists clenched at his sides. He seemed to shake with rage, and for a moment Susan thought he'd launch another attack. But then he saw something in his son's eyes— contempt, fearlessness, perhaps even pity— and it was as if all the anger had been sucked out of him, for he simply staggered back.

"G'wan," he mumbled as he lurched back to his desk and slumped down in the chair. "Get outta here, both of you."

Hawk started to say something, but then reconsidered. Instead, he let Susan help him to his feet. Holding a hand against his swollen nose, he shuffled out of the tent. Several loggers, attracted by the commotion, stared at them as they walked away, yet no one spoke to them.

"Is it broken?" Susan stopped to examine his face in the glow of a lantern. "I have a first-aid kit in my bag. Let me—"

"It's okay. Nothing worse than he's done before." Hawk snuffled a bit, then spat a clot of bloody saliva onto the ground. "Forgot the old man could hit so hard."

There was something here she hadn't heard before, but now was not the time to ask. "You were very brave," she said softly, brushing his hair aside to gently kiss his cheek. "I'm proud of you."

"Yeah, well . . ." He took a deep breath. "Tillie will put me up tonight. Tomorrow I'll find you a ride back into town." A wan smile. "Maybe I'll go with you. Think I have a shot at getting into the university?"

"You might." Susan took her cousin's hand, led him toward the mess tent. "In fact, I think your education has just begun."

Parson was waiting for them by the back door. He'd left them just outside camp, and now he was sitting on the woodpile behind the mess tent. "I heard," he said quietly, standing up as they approached. "Apologies for eavesdropping, but I wanted to know what he'd say." He looked at Hawk. "I'm sorry it came to this, but if it means anything—"

"Don't worry about it. Had to be done." Hawk glanced behind them; no one was observing them, yet he seemed anxious. "Look, it's not safe for you to be hanging around. Either of you. When my dad gets like this—"

"You're right. We should leave." Parson nodded in the direction of the woods. "There's a way to get from here to Manny's farm. It's just around the other side of the mountain. If we start out now, we can be there by morning, and I think he'd like to meet both of you."

"Are you sure?" Although she was no longer comfortable with the idea of remaining overnight in the logging camp— she shivered at the memory of the way Uncle Lars had touched her that last time— the notion of traveling by night made her equally as nervous. "What if we get lost?"

"Trust me . . . we won't." Parson smiled at her. "We've got friends out here, remember?"

Susan peered into the darkness. She couldn't see anything, yet she had the distinct feeling that they were being watched, by eyes that became accustomed to nights in the Black Mountains long before humankind had come to this world. Until today, she'd thought of them as alien, but now she realized that it was she herself who was the outsider. If Parson was right, though, then she'd made friends with a force of nature; if she protected it, then no harm would come to her.

"All right. I'll get my bag." She took a step toward the door, then something occurred to her. "You know," she added, stopping to turn back to him, "there's one more thing. I didn't notice it until just a few minutes ago, when I looked at the cave drawings again. They showed pictures of the chirreep knocking down the flume . . . but I didn't see any of them trying to destroy the dam. Why do you think that is?"

Again, a smile stole across Parson's face. "As I said, we've got friends," he said quietly. "Now let's get out of here. We've got a world to save."