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looked around, and then shouted. His comrades began to run, searching for the source of the shot.
    Vor aimed carefully, fired again, and the second shot also caused only panic, not injuries. Then he realized that the two men wore personal shields, nearly invisible barriers that stopped fast projectiles. Concentrating, he swung the rifle toward the man lagging behind, squinted, and squeezed off another shot—striking the muscular slaver in the lower back. The man pitched forward and fell onto his face. So, they didn’t all have shields.
    As soon as the third rifle shot sounded, Vor was up and running toward the slaver craft. The fallen man’s companions had seen him drop, and they began to shout, looking in all directions. As he sprinted, Vor raised the rifle again and fired another shot, more carelessly this time. The projectile ricocheted off the metal hull near the hatch, and the slavers yelled. Vor shot again, hitting the open hatch door.
    Over the course of his life, Vor had killed people under various circumstances, usually with good reason. Now, he couldn’t think of a better justification. He actually felt more regret for the gornet bird he had killed the previous evening.
    Slavers were fundamentally cowards. Protected by shields, the rest of them rushed inside and sealed the hatch, abandoning their fallen comrade. The big vessel’s thrusters belched exhaust, and the last slaving craft staggered into the air, taking its cargo of captives. Though Vor ran as fast as he could, he couldn’t reach the ship in time. He raised the rifle and fired two more impotent shots at the underbelly, but the craft raced away over smoldering fields and homes.
    He could smell the smoke in the air, saw the buildings burning, knew that his people had been decimated. Were they all captured or killed? And Mariella, too? He longed to run from house to house, find anyone  … but he also had to rescue the captives. Before the ships got away, he needed to know where they were going.
    Vor stopped by the man he had shot. The slaver lay on the ground, his arms twitching. He wore a yellow cloth tied around his head, and a thin black line was tattooed from his left ear to the corner of his mouth. A moan escaped from his lips, along with a trickle of blood.
    Still alive. Good. With a wound like that, though, the man wouldn’t last long.
    “You are going to tell me where those captives are being taken,” Vor said.
    The man groaned again and gurgled something that sounded like a curse. Vor didn’t consider it an acceptable answer. He glanced up, saw the fire spreading along the roofs of the houses. “You don’t have much time to answer.”
    Receiving no cooperation from the man, Vor knew what he would have to do next, and he wasn’t proud of it, but this slaver was far down on the list of people for whom he felt sympathy. He drew his long skinning knife. “You are going to tell me.”
    *   *   *
    WITH THE INFORMATION secured and the man dead, Vor ran past the outbuildings around his big house, calling out for anyone who might be alive. His hands and arms were covered with blood, some of it from the gornet bird he had butchered, some from the slaver he had questioned.
    Outside, he found two old men, Mariella’s brothers, who helped bring in the harvest each year. Both were groggy, returning to consciousness. Vor guessed that the slaving ships had flown over the settlement and sprayed the houses and fields with stun beams to knock everyone unconscious, then they’d simply hauled off anyone who looked young and strong. Mariella’s brothers did not make the cut.
    The healthier candidates—his sons and daughters, grandchildren, neighbors—had been taken from their homes and dragged aboard the ships. Many of the town buildings were now on fire.
    But first, his wife. Vor burst into the main house, yelling, “Mariella!” To his vast relief, he heard her voice calling back, from upstairs. In the second-story guest room, she was using a