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compass. She supposed there was an autopilot but she hadn’t figured which switch for that. She knew as much as she did about flying because she’d had to accompany the cook to the markets for fresh produce every day and had figured out the basics from watching him. Then, when she’d seen the commander’s flitter, she couldn’t resist the temptation it presented. So she hadn’t. Like Oscar Wilde, she could resist anything except temptation. Much good her English Literature was doing her now: it was all the extracurricular stuff, like orienteering, that course in survival skills which her mother had laughed about, and her karate course that were invaluable. Like downing heavy planet denizens. She glanced down at Mahomet but he hadn’t so much as twitched a muscle. The bleeding had apparently stopped.
    The city looked rather nice lit up, she thought, with floodlights on some of the more unusual architectural styles: not that the huge looming Catteni Headquarters building smack dab in the center of the hub layout of Barevi City would win any prizes. There seemed to be a lot of lights on in the city, or maybe it was because she was seeing it on an overview, rather than being in the middle of it. There wasn’t enough lighting in the outskirts as she approached them for her to find a good landing spot. Well, she’d go on until she found one of the assembly areas. They were ringed by the stumpy tree forms that had been planted to supply some shade for onlookers of Catteni ceremonies. Plenty of space for her to land the flitter. Strangely enough she didn’t see many flitterscoming into the city from her direction. Well, she
had
come from open jungle lands. But there seemed to be a great number of the larger army type spreading out from the Catteni HQ.
    Something was going on, she realized when she opened the door to the flitter. There was a lot of noise, and it had a menacing sound to it. Of course such distant murmurs often sounded more threatening than they were. She’d just hurry and be out of here in next to no time and on her way back to her hideaway.
    She got the rope she’d seen in the locker and tied it around Mahomet’s feet. Then she looped that about a stumpy tree trunk. She’d winch his body out. She got his feet and most of his legs, but his butt stuck at the lip of the door frame. She was so busy tugging and pulling his posterior over the obstacle that she didn’t notice how much closer all that sound was. And lights. Even the dark assembly area was brighter. Peering down the access lanes that led to the area, she could see lights. Torches? And the rumble was definitely intimidating. What was going on in Barevi City?
    The sound made her redouble her efforts to haul Mahomet out of the flitter. The trunk of the man must have weighed half a ton, for she could not budge it. The noise was very definitely heading in this direction and so was the aerial traffic. She stepped over his inert body and tried to lift his torso and shove him out the door. He’d only drop a foot and with his hard head, he was unlikely to hurt himself. Grunting, straining, propping her feet against the column of the pilot’s chair, she tried every which way to move Mahomet.
    Noise and light were erupting into the far side of the assembly area. She’d better get him back in and
leave!
She skipped over his body, undid the rope from his feet, and was starting to angle his legs back in the flitter when she heard the heavy rumble of big aircraft and felt the compression of air over her. She was panting with her exertions and had no time to cover her nose and mouth as the first sweet, and all too familiar, reek filled the air about her. She collapsed over her victim’s feet, wondering why she had been foolish enough to risk her freedom for a Catteni overlord!

Chapter Two

    THE INDESCRIBABLE STENCH OF MANY FRIGHTENED bodies in a close confinement and the unmistakable ssssslash of a