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craft, he said finally.
    Which means we won't be able to get out of them, Dae said testily.
    Noo sent him a look. They open. I watched them open one side. If they can open them, then we can.
    So, you're saying we should just get inside them without a fight?
    Noo considered the situation. They aren't fearful of us now. If they'd meant to kill us, they would have tried already. I think they're only trying to figure out what we are, just as we are them.
    The pretty female doesn't want to hurt us, Rak said slowly. I'm not sure about the other two.
    The male thinks they can study us just as well dead, Dae said flatly. I don't think it's a good idea to get into those things. We'll be trapped.
    I don't like it either, Noo said reluctantly. But I don't think we have a choice. They'll bring more or they'll use those sticks they have to make us sleep. The male wants to do that and we won't be able to defend ourselves if they make us sleep.
    So we just go in, Rak asked uneasily?
    Noo sent him a disgusted look. If we do that they'll know we understand them, stupid! They're bringing food. When they bring that, then we'll go in.
    Rak glared at him, but decided to ignore the insult. I hope they bring something good. I'm hungry.
    Noo and Dae exchanged a speaking look. When Noo returned his attention to the alien creatures, he saw that the pretty female was watching them and uneasiness flickered through him at the speculation in her gaze.
    He sent her a limpid look and uttered a soft sound to imitate one of the sounds she'd made. Her brows knit together above her nose for a moment and then the look of suspicion disappeared. "They almost seem tame,"
    she murmured.
    "They're wild animals," Bill reminded her sharply. "They just don't feel intimidated by us. I don't know if that's a good thing or not."
    Despite the fact that Noo had decided that their safest option was to allow the creatures to believe they'd been lured by the food that was brought, it irritated him when that was their immediate conclusion. He settled in one corner of the cage when they'd slammed the opening closed and fastened it, trying to pretend an interest in the food that he didn't feel at the moment, trying to ignore the resentment that they clearly considered him an inferior creature of little intelligence even though he'd deliberately given them that impression. He was also uneasy about their intention and trying hard to ignore that fear. Even though he'd convinced Dae and Rak that they would be safest to take this route, he wasn't as convinced as he wanted to be.
    They had an advantage, he told himself. The alien creatures had obviously underestimated their intelligence, which was a weapon they could use to their benefit. Beyond that, they weren't as weak as they'd allowed the aliens to believe. Unfortunately, they didn't have nearly the strength they would have when they reached full maturity either and that worried him. He thought that they were still far stronger than this species, but that was only a guess. Until he'd studied them more, he couldn't be certain that he could count on strength as a weapon.
    * * * *
     
    Kate rubbed her eyes and leaned back in her chair, staring thoughtfully at a point near the ceiling of her lab while she went back over the data she'd collected on the Sirian beasts over the past year. There was something fundamentally wrong with her conclusions. Deep down, she knew there was, and it made her uneasy-and not just because she'd been pressured to produce a conclusion when she'd known she wasn't ready, that she hadn't studied the creatures nearly long enough to arrive at scientifically accurate conclusions. She just couldn't figure out what, exactly, it was that she'd missed or even pinpoint why she felt so uneasy or, more importantly, the odd sense of urgency that had been nagging at her ever since the Eden convoy had left for Sirius with the first load of colonists.
    Leaning forward again, she propped her elbows on her console and cupped