Leaving the ship had been a mistake, she decided. This planet was cold and harsh and hostile. The freezing air stung her skin, and the dampness of the ground where she sat, once the heat of her body had melted the frost, made her skin crawl. The surrounding trees were either dark and ugly, covered with sharp, menacing needles, or else bare and threatening, like great brittle hands reaching for her from every side. The sky above the scratching branches was terrifying in its huge gray emptiness. The entire outside world was strange and frightening. She had become accustomed to her ship.

  She would have preferred, however, not to have known that. She hated having her nose rubbed in the fact that she had been aboard the little vessel so long that she was no longer comfortable anywhere else.

  What made it worse was that she was never really comfortable aboard the ship, either. She did not really trust the computer, despite its programming, despite her little timer gadget that would destroy the computer if she failed to reset it every hundred hours or so. She had its enforced loyalty, but she was not comfortable with it. She no longer fit in anywhere at all.

  Maybe, she told herself, she would have been all right on Old Earth. Maybe it was just this planet that was wrong, with its dark sky and reddish sun.

  All the more reason, then, to wipe it clean. In the interests of traveling light and not frightening away the natives she had not brought any large, obvious weapons, but she had three fully charged snarks—less the charge used to kill the squirrel—and her own superhuman speed and strength.

  She would be able to do some damage, whatever happened. Even if Slant somehow destroyed her ship or caused her to destroy it, his planet would not be left unscathed.

  She smiled at the thought.

  Flame's conversations with her ship and with the squirrel and with herself took the same time as Turner's psionic study of the ship. As Turner decided that he was on his own in dealing with the starship, the vessel's forward lifters suddenly roared, breaking into his thoughts. His horse whinnied uneasily.

  "Clear area for lift-off!" a toneless mechanical voice called loudly.

  "Hligosh!" Turner said, backing away as a wave of heat reached him. "Computer, what do you think you're doing?"

  "Cyborg unit designated 'Flame' has ordered immediate departure. Stand clear."

  Turner needed no second warning; the heat of the ship's main drive could fry him instantly. He turned and ran at superhuman speed for the doubtful cover of the surrounding forest, forcing himself not to fly for still greater speed. He had no time to reach his mount, but he did reach out telekinetically to push at it, freeing the reins from the bush he had tied them to. That done, he erected a psionic barrier behind him to provide what protection he could, an instant before the ship's main drive fired.

  The ground shook beneath him, and the roar blasted his ears; heat swept over him in a thick wave.

  He sensed but could not hear that the horse was screaming in panic.

  Then the ground was still, and the sound and heat were fading. He turned and looked back to see the ship already shrunk to a fiery spot of light rising into the sky, golden-white against the gray overcast, then gone as it pierced the clouds.

  Far away, Flame glimpsed a flicker of light in the sky. A long moment later she heard a faint rumble.

  "You made it, then," she said.

  "Affirmative. Query: Advisability of landing to recover cyborg unit."

  "No, don't do that—at least, not yet. I'm fine." Ugly and uncomfortable as the forest was, she was not yet ready to leave it. It was different, at any rate, and that was something she valued.

  "Warning: Cyborg must allow for acceptable margin of error on timed destructive device."

  "Don't worry about that. We still have time. You know that; you watched me reset it just before I left the ship."

  "Affirmative. Eighty-three hours, forty-six minutes, ten seconds remaining."

  "You see? We have plenty of time, and I want to scout around some more," she said. "We still don't know what's going on on this planet, or what that antigravity stuff really is. Whatever it is, it must be portable if Slant had it there with him."

  "Affirmative."

  "Did you see any equipment on him?"

  "Cyborg unit designated 'Slant' carried standard-issue rifle-barrel fully automatic rocket launcher, model ARR-eleven."

  "Anything else?"

  "Negative."

  "Maybe it really is some kind of mutation, then—but I doubt it. That was probably just another lie. Besides, if Slant was using it, it couldn't be a local mutation, could it? He wasn't born here." She snorted quietly. "Oh, well, we'll figure it out."

  She knew what she wanted to do before she called her ship down and got back on board. It wasn't necessary, since the ship now had enough nukes to obliterate all human life here, but she wanted to kill someone face to face. She had never done that before. It might be better than watching the mushroom clouds. Killing the squirrel had not been much of a relief for her tense need for vengeance, but people might be better.

  She might even be able to kill the one she really wanted, the man on this planet who had actually betrayed her. She had told him that she might kill him with her own hands, and she might.

  She liked that idea.

  She stood, stretched in the peculiar way they had taught her back on Mars, and then kicked at the dead squirrel with a booted foot. Dark blood smeared the toe.

  "I'll get you, Slant," she muttered. "I'll get you somehow."

  Chapter Eleven

  CAUTIOUSLY, TURNER EMERGED FROM THE FOREST AND STEPPED FORWARD to stand by the wreckage of his ship.

  The blast of the other ship's main drive had left a long teardrop of bare, blackened ground in the clearing behind the shattered tail section. A broad line of white ash lay around the cleared ground, and around that was a band of black cinder that faded gradually into the surrounding undergrowth. Half the wreck lay exposed amid drifting ash, eleven years of accumulated plant life burned away in seconds, leaving bare, pitted metal.

  Turner peered up at the sky for a moment but could see nothing but clouds. He could no longer make out any trace of Flame's ship or its trail.

  He wondered why Flame had ordered the ship to leave. Had she been afraid he would find a way to destroy it?

  If so, she had certainly found the right defense. Obviously, he was not going to be able to hurt it, either single-handedly or with the help of every wizard on Dest, unless it landed again. Magic simply could not reach it in orbit, nor could any other weapon he had available.

  If he could not stop the ship, then he had to stop Flame. Loose on the ground, she was for the moment the more immediate menace.

  He turned around, studying the surrounding forest.

  Flame would surely have stayed with her ship long enough to oversee the salvage of the missiles and warheads, and that would have taken some time. She had probably not left the clearing until that very morning. How far could she have gone since dawn?

  Not very far, he was certain. She was on foot, and despite her training she was not really familiar with this forest. He would have a horse as soon as he could retrieve and calm the animal; he might be able to catch up to Flame if he could pick up her trail.

  Of course, a cyborg could move much faster on foot than an ordinary person, but Flame would have had no reason to hurry. Even if she had expected pursuit, she could not have known that he would have a way of locating her.

  He was not sure he actually could locate her, but as a wizard he had a possible method, and he intended to try. He reached out, seeking for some psychic trace of her passage.

  His horse whinnied from somewhere amid the trees, and he felt the pale mist of energy that was its nervous system. He called for it, both vocally and psychically, and was gratified when it obeyed.

  He stepped forward, turned to his left, and found a direction that somehow felt right. He took a step, then stopped.

  There was no sense in walking off and leaving the horse; he crossed the clearing to meet it halfway, found the reins, and then swung himself into the saddle.

  Once astride, he again located the faint trace he had sensed and guided the animal to the southwest, hoping but by no means certain that he was following Flame's trail.

  He rode on through the afternoon, eating in the saddle. The psychic trace he was following came and went so that at times he had to wander around aimlessly until he could pick it up again, but he never lost it completely.

  He hoped that the trace was actually Flame, but he was still not certain, and on two or three occasions, before he could regain sufficient concentration to continue the pursuit, he had to stop and convince himself that he was not following a stray goat or dog.

  Whenever he could sense it at all, the psychic residue seemed to grow very gradually stronger, but he could not be sure he was reading that correctly. He had attempted no magical tracking since his apprenticeship and had never taken the time even then to become good at it. He found it much easier than telepathy or several other wizardly arts but had never expected to need it.

  At nightfall he had found no physical trace of Flame, though his psionic tracking sense still led him on. The orbiting computer, although perfectly willing to talk to him, would say nothing of her whereabouts or actions.

  He dared not rest for fear he might lose her completely or, worse, that she might double back, find him sleeping, and kill him.

  When he first glimpsed the orange glow on the horizon, an hour after sunset, he was unsure whether it was visible light or something impinging on his wizard-sight. As it grew brighter, however, he realized that it was definitely visible. He smelled smoke as well.

  Something was burning, something big. He hoped it was only forest that was afire.

  Worried, he urged his tired horse forward; the beast obeyed reluctantly and moved no faster than Turner could have moved on foot.

  He cursed, then swung down out of the saddle and, although weary himself, drew on his reserves and levitated, rising quickly to treetop level. It meant leaving the horse behind for the moment, but he thought speed might be essential, and he could fly a good deal faster than he could walk. He refused to worry about what Flame's computer might think about his flight.

  The computer said nothing about it, and he flew on toward the spreading glow.

  Moments later he was sailing over a blazing village, fending off the billowing smoke as he tried to see what was happening on the ground. Even at his altitude of twenty meters or so, the heat of the flames drove away the winter's chill, and he could feel himself sweating inside his heavy sheepskin coat.

  He could see about two dozen homes and a handful of assorted other buildings and outbuildings. In a town of such a size, in the event of fire, he expected to see several people running about, either aimlessly panicking or making desperate attempts to rescue their friends, their families, or their more precious possessions. The rest of the townspeople, he thought, should be watching from the relative safety of the nearby woods.

  So far as he could see, only darkness filled the spaces between the trees, and the streets were empty.

  He dropped to the ground to one side of the village, landing on a sparsely wooded piney hillside upwind from the burning buildings. He could still feel the heat, though, and the firelight painted the trees in stark orange glare and black shadow. The roar of the flames was like a strong gale.

  "IRU 247," he called. "There's a village burning here, probably endangering friendly civilians. Do you know anything about it?"

  "Affirmative. Cyborg unit designated 'Flame' set fire to destroy rebel outpost."

  That was exactly what Turner had feared. "What rebel outpost?" he demanded. "There are no rebels on Dest anymore!"

  "Cyborg unit designated 'Flame' maintains outpost was rebel-held."

  Infuriated by the computer's mechanical calm, he said, "First off, that's no outpost, it's a village—or it was, anyway. Second, what grounds does she have for calling its inhabitants rebels? Those people were loyal to Old Earth! And where are the villagers, anyway?"

  "Cyborg unit reports all rebels terminated."

  Turner felt the shock like a blow to his belly. The village could well have held a hundred people.

  "She killed all of them?" he asked, horrified. "Already?"

  "Affirmative."

  "How? I know they probably weren't armed, but they must have tried to escape."

  "Initial assault was made with snark, allowing for surprise. Survivors of initial assault surrendered and were ordered into large central structure, which was then burned. Persons attempting escape were killed."

  Turner's stomach wrenched, and acid filled his throat. In his own years in the military he and his ship had killed hundreds or thousands of people, but even at the worst he had never carried out a pointless, vicious massacre like this. He looked out across the patchwork of burning thatch roofs and the billowing black smoke. "How could she do that? Why did you let her? These people were loyal!"

  The computer seemed to hesitate, as if uncertain, before replying. "Insufficient evidence exists to allow complete analysis of this situation; therefore, due to ongoing situation, cyborg unit has full discretion. Probability of inappropriate action not sufficient to justify risking loss of ship and mission in the event of cyborg-computer disagreement."

  "So you didn't want to argue about it, and maybe have to blow Flame's head off? You let her kill innocent villagers instead. Aren't you supposed to make sure that your cyborg only kills the enemy?" Turner knew that the anger and bitterness in his tone would mean nothing to the computer, but he spoke aloud anyway.

  The pause this time was so long that Turner wondered whether he had lost contact with the ship somehow. "Affirmative," it said at last. "Computer dysfunction remains within acceptable parameters."

  "Oh, my God," Turner said, his anger suddenly washed out by fear and dismay. His own computer had used that very phrase, "computer dysfunction remains within acceptable parameters," when it began behaving irrationally. That had been bad enough for him as a cyborg dealing with a demented computer, and this time it would surely be worse. This time both the computer and the cyborg appeared to be insane.

  The missiles could be launched at any time if the computer's insanity ever happened to coincide with the cyborg's.

  "What dysfunction are you talking about, exactly?" he asked cautiously.

  "Computer is marginally dysfunctional as a result of damage inflicted by enemy action, and as a result of long-standing internal programming conflicts caused by present situation, and as a result of general wear. Damage is suspected or known in programming and memory relevant to linguistics, cultural information, and procedures for dealing with civilian populations. Other damage may also exist."

  Turner shuddered, took a deep breath, and then coughed as he took in a wayward puff of smoke.

  When he could breathe freely again, he said angrily, "Well, listen, I've lived on this planet for ten years, and there's nothing wrong with my programming or my knowledge of this planet. I'm an expert on the local culture and fluent in the local language, and I'm telling you, the people here are loyal to Old Earth. Don't let Flame kill any more without good evidence to the contrary. Understand?"

  "Acknowledged."

  That did nothing for the dead in this village, of course, but it was the most Turner could do. Hoping for further clues to how the two halves of IRU 247 thought, clues that might help him prevent further disaster, he asked, "What evidence did Flame have that these people were rebels? What did she ask them?"

  The computer hesitated again—more evidence, if Turner had needed any, that it really was damaged. Military computers were not supposed to hesitate over simple questions of fact. He wondered what the internal programming conflicts were and guessed that they resulted from the computer's knowledge that the war was over, combined with its inability to surrender. His own computer had never acknowledged such a conflict, but Turner suspected that it had existed.

  He had no idea that Flame had booby-trapped her own ship.

  "Information insufficient," the computer said at last. "Request cyborg unit designated 'Slant' discuss situation directly with cyborg unit designated 'Flame.' "

  "Fine! I'd be glad to!" he said, genuinely pleased that the computer was finally going to break through the barrier it had placed between the two cyborgs.

  He wondered how she could possibly justify her actions. The villagers had been human beings, just as deserving of life as she was; how could she think she had the right to kill them?

  As he waited for Flame's words, it suddenly occurred to Turner that Flame must be somewhere close to him, somewhere in the vicinity of the burning village. She could possibly have gone a few kilometers away, but not more than that, as the destruction of the village would have required a good bit of time. She might even have stayed to observe the results of her handiwork. She could be anywhere in the area, was perhaps watching him even now. The computer would not tell him where she was, but it would probably be glad to tell her his own location. He looked around but could sense nothing over the heat and glare and roar of the flames; he stepped back, away from the village into the shelter of the trees, just in case. She had threatened to kill him, after all.

  "You wanted to talk to me?" Flame asked abruptly, the voice in his head startling him.

  Before he could reply, she continued. "I don't know how you convinced my computer to overrule me, you bastard, when it knows better than to argue with me, but however you did it, it won't do you any good. If you won't let me kill these people one way, I'll do it another—I'll burn every village on the stinking planet. It might even be better—slower, but more fun."

  "But damn it, they're friendly!" he said, exasperated. "Didn't you ask them? Didn't they tell you which side they were on?"

  "You're kidding, right?" Her strange cackling laughter came over the communications circuit, and he thought he heard it with his ears as well, faint but audible. "I couldn't understand a word these damn rebels said!" she continued. "I yelled at them in every language I know, just in case, but they never answered me with anything but babble."

 

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