I got it from Robin Hood,

way up the one stretched from spike to spike and the one used for raising supplies, which Andrea had kept pulling in as he made the ascent. Casey Brown had secured the end of this round his waist with a bowline, but the bowline had proved to be nothing of the sort but a slip-knot, and Andrea's enthusiastic help had almost cut him in half. He was still sitting on the cliff-top, exhausted head between his knees, the radio still strapped to his back, when two tugs on Andrea's rope announced that Dusty Miller was on his way up. Another quarter of an hour elapsed, an interminable fifteen minutes when, in the lulls between the thunderclaps, every slightest sound was an approaching enemy patrol, before Miller materialised slowly out of the darkness, half-way down the rock chimney. He was climbing steadily and methodically, then checked abruptly at the cliff-top, groping hands pawing uncertainly on the topsoil of the cliff. Puzzled, Mallory bent down, peered into the lean face: both the eyes were clamped tightly shut. "Relax, Corporal," Mallory advised kindly. "You have arrived." Dusty Miller slowly opened his eyes, peered round at the edge of the cliff, shuddered and crawled quickly on hands and knees to the shelter of the nearest boulders. Mallory followed and looked down at him curiously. "What was the idea of closing your eyes coming over the top?" "I did not," Miller protested. Mallory said nothing. "I closed them at the bottom," Miller explained weanly. "I opened them at the top." Mallory looked at him incredulously. "What! All the way?" "It's like I told you, boss," Miller complained. "Back in Castelrosso. When I cross a street and step up on to the sidewalk I gotta hang on to the nearest lamp-post. More or less." He broke off, looked at Andrea leaning far out over the side of the cliff, and shivered again. "Brother! Oh brother! Was I scared!" Fear. Terror. Panic. Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain. Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain. Once, twice, a hundred times, Andy Stevens repeated the words to himself, over and over again, like a litany. A psychiatrist had told him that once and he'd read it a dozen times since. Do the thing you mutiple shot digital camera fear and the death of fear is certain. The mind is a limited thing, they had said. It can only hold one thought at a time, one impulse to action. Say to yourself, I am brave, I am overcoming this fear, this stupid, unreasoning panic which has no origin except in my own mind, and because the mind can only hold one thought at a time, and because thinking and feeling are one, then you will be brave, you will overcome and the fear will vanish like a shadow in the night. And so Andy Stevens said these things to himself, and the shadows only lengthened and deepened, lengthened and deepened, and the icy claws of fear dug ever more savagely into his dull exhausted mind, into his twisted, knotted stomach. His stomach. That knotted ball of jangled, writhing nerve-ends beneath the solar plexus. No one could ever know how it was, how it felt, except those whose shredded minds were going, collapsing into complete and final breakdown. The waves of panic and nausea and faintness that flooded up through a suffocating throat to a mind dark and spent and sinewless, a mind fighting with woollen fingers to cling on to the edge of the abyss, a tired and lacerated mind, only momentarily in control, wildly rejecting the clamorous demands of a nervous system which had already taken far too much that he should let go, open the torn fingers that were clenched so tightly round the rope. It was just that easy. "Rest after toil, port after stormy seas." What was that famous stanza of Spenser's? Sobbing aloud, Stevens wrenched out another spike, sent it spinning into the waiting sea three hundred long feet below, pressed himself closely into the face and inched his way despairingly upwards. Fear. Fear had been at his elbow all his life, his constant companion, his alter ego, at his elbow, on in close prospect or immediate recall. He had become accustomed to that fear, at times almost reconciled, but the sick agony of this night lay far beyond either tolerance or familiarity. He had never known anything like this before, and even in his terror and confusion he was dimly aware that the fear did not spring from the climb itself. True, the cliff was sheer and almost vertical, and the lightning, the ice-cold rain, the darkness and the bellowing thunder were a waking nightmare. But the climb, technically, was simple: the rope stretched all the way to the top and all he had to do was to follow it and dispose of the spikes as he went. He was sick and bruised

Till envy, with malignant grasp,

that I remembered how easy it would have been for anyone to crouch down behind the backs of one of the rearward facing front seats and shoot me at point-blank range as I passed. But there was no one there and as I plunged through the door I caught a fleeting glimpse of a dark muffled figure, no more than a featureless silhouette in the none too powerful beam of my torch, wriggling out through the smashed windscreen of the control cabin. I brought up my automaticthe thought that I could be indicted on a murder charge for killing a fleeing person, no matter how criminal a person, never entered my mindand squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. I squeezed the trigger again, and before I remembered the existence of such a thing as a safety-catch the windscreen was no more than an empty frame for the thickening snow that swirled greyly in the darkness beyond, and I plainly heard the thud of feet hitting the ground.Cursing my stupidity, and again oblivious of the perfect target I was presenting, I leaned far out of the window. Again I was lucky, again I had another brief sight of the figure, this time scurrying round the tip of the left wing before vanishing into the snow and the dark. Three seconds later I was on the ground myself. I landed awkwardly but picked myself up at once and skirted round the wing, pounding after the fleeing figure with all the speed I could muster in the hampering bulkiness of my furs. She was running straight back to the cabin, following the line of bamboo sticks, and I could both hear the thudding of feet in the frozen snow and see the wildly erratic swinging of a torch, the beam one moment pooling whitely on the ground beside the flying feet, the next reaching ahead to light up the bamboo line. She was moving swiftly, much more so than I would have thought her capable of doing, but nevertheless I was steadily overhauling her when suddenly the torch beam ahead curved away in a new direction, as the runner angled off into the darkness, about forty-five degrees to the left. I turned after her, still following both my sight of the torch and sound of the feet. Thirty yards, forty, fiftythen I stopped and stood very still indeed. The torch ahead had gone out and I could hear nothing at all. For the second time that night I cursed my unthinking folly. What I should have done, of course, was to carry straight on back to the cabin and await the moment she turned up there, as she inevitably must: no person could hope to survive for any great length of time, without shelter of some kind, in the deadly cold of that little tikes my real digital camera arctic night. But it wasn't too late yet. The wind had been blowing almost directly in my face as I had been running: all I had to do was walk back, keeping it on my left cheek, and I would be bound to hit the line of bamboos at right angles, and the chances of my passing unwittingly between two of them, with the light of my torch to help me, did not exist. I turned, took one step, then two, then halted in my tracks. Why had I been lured out here away from the bamboo line? Not so that she could thereby escape meshe couldn't do it that way. As long as we both lived, we were both utterly dependent on the cabin and would have to meet there sooner or later. As long as we both lived! God, what a fool I was, what a veriest amateur at this game. The only way she could escape me, really and permanently escape me, was if I no longer lived. I could be shot down here and no one would ever know. And as she had stopped running before I had and been first to switch out her torch, she must have a much better idea of my position than I of hers. And these two rash, incautious steps I had taken had given her a new and even more accurate bearing on my position. Perhaps she was only feet away now, lining her gun up for the kill. I switched on my torch and whirled round in a complete circle. Nobody there, nothing to be seen at all. Only the frozen feathers of the snow brushing my cheeks in the blackness of the night, the low moaning lament of the soughing south wind and the faint rustle of ice spicules brushing their blind way across the iron-hard surface of the ice-cap. Swiftly, softly, I moved half a dozen long steps to my left. My torch was out now, and I'd been crazy ever to switch it on in the first place. Nothing could have been better calculated to betray my positionthe light of a torch, seen head on, can be seen at twenty times the farthest distance that its beam will reach. I prayed that a flurry of snow had hidden it. Where would the attack come fromdownwind, so that I could see nothing in that blinding snow, or upwind, so that I could hear nothing? Downwind, I decidedon the ice-cap one could move as silently as on a tar-macadam road. The better to hear, I pulled the parka hood off my head: the better to see, I slipped up my goggles and stared out unwinkingly under my visored hands. Five minutes passed, and nothing happenedif, that is, the freezing of my ears and forehead could be called nothing. Still no sound, still no sight of

They name thee before me,

just completed her analysis when he woke, equally alert. With a loving tug at her hair and a smile, he stood up, sniffing at the breeze now strong enough to ruffle his hair, turning slowly. He stopped when he faced in the direction she had. Hurricane making, Carrigana. Come, well have a lot to do. Not so much that they didnt start the morning with a quick passage at arms, not the least bit perfunctory despite the brevity. Then they had a quick swim, with Lars keeping a close watch on the dawn changes in the sky. Making up in the south so itll be a bad blow. He stood for a moment as the active waves of the incoming tide flounced against his thighs. He looked southwest, frowning and, dissatisfied by his thoughts, started inshore, taking her hand as if seeking comfort. She thought nothing of his brief disappearance as she cleared up the camp site. Lars pushed his way past the bush screen, an odd smile on his face as he came up to her, two garlands of an exceptionally lovely blue and white flower in his hands. This will serve, he said cryptically, gently draping one around her neck. The perfume was subtly erotic and she stood on tiptoe to kiss him for his thoughtfulness. Now you must put mine on. Smiling at his sweetness, she complied and he kissed her, exhaling a gust as if he had acquitted himself nobly. Cmon now, and he gave her the basket, slung the blanket with their clothing over his shoulder, and grabbing her hand, led her back through the underbrush. Though the sun was not yet up over the horizon, there was considerable activity on the beach when they arrived. Torches were lit outside all the waterfront buildings, and torchlit groups of scurrying people pushed handcarts. Bobbing lights on the harbor, too, indicated crews on their way to anchored ships. The schooner was gone but Killashandra had not really expected to find the big ship still at Angel Island. Where can they take the boats? Around to the Back. Well just check to see how much time there is before the wind rises. Therell be a lot to do before we can take the Pearl Fisher to the safe mooring. Killashandra glanced up and down the picturesque waterfront, for the first time seeing just how vulnerable it was. The first line of buildings was only four hundred meters from the high-tide mark. Wouldnt they be just swept away in hurricane driven tides? They often are, Lars startled her by saying as they strode purposefully toward the settlement. But mostly make video from digital camera polly floats. After the last big blow, Morchal salvaged the complete roof. It was floating in the bay, he just dried it out and reset it. I should help Keralaw, Killashandra suggested tentatively, not really wanting to leave his side but ignorant of what island protocol expected of her in the emergency. Larss hand tightened on her elbow. If I know Keralaw she has matters well in hand. Im not risking you from my side for an instant, Carrigana. I thought Id made that plain. Killashandra almost bridled at the possessive tone of his voice but part of her rather liked the chauvinism. She had too hearty a respect for storm not to wish to be in the safest place during one. Common sense told her that was likely to be in Lars Dahls company. Men and women were filing in and out of the tavern. Lars and Killashandra entered and found a veritable command post. The bar was now dispensing equipment and gear which Killashandra could not readily identify. Along the back wall, the huge vdr screen was active, showing a satellite picture of the growing storm swirling in from the south. Estimated times of arrival of the first heavy winds, high tide, the eye, and the counter winds were all listed in the upper left hand corner. Other cryptic information, displayed in a band across the top of the screen, did not mean much to her but evidently conveyed intelligence to the people in the bar. Including Lars. Lars, Olavs on line for you, called the tallest of the men behind the bar, and he jerked his head toward a side door. The fellow paused in his dispensations, and Killashandra was aware of his scrutiny as she followed Lars to the room indicated. However rustic the tavern looked from the outside, this room was crammed with sophisticated equipment, a good deal of it meteorological, though not as complex as instrumentation in the Weather Room of the Heptite Guild. And all of it printing out or displaying rapidly changing information. Lars? A young man turned from the scanner in front of him and, screwing his face in an anxious expression almost pounced on the new arrival What are you going to do Lars held up his hand, cutting off the rest of that sentence, and the young man noticed the garland. He threw an almost panic stricken look at Killashandra. Tanny, this is Carrigana. And theres nothing I can do with this storm blowing up. Lars was scrutinizing the duplicate vdr satellite picture as he spoke. The worst of it will pass due east.

Have nought but a staff in my hand.

purpose to force an investigation of Optherian restrictions. The FSP, much less her own Guild, would not tolerate such an outrage. If and here her brief knowledge of the Optherians let her down the Optherians admitted to FSP and the Heptite Guild that she had been abducted. Still, the Elders needed an operative organ by the time of the Summer Festival, and to do that they needed a crystal singer to make the installation. The crystal they had, but surely they wouldnt attempt such a delicate job. Well, it wasnt that delicate, Killashandra knew, but the crystal would prove difficult if not handled properly. So, grant that the Optherians would be searching for her, would they think to search on the islands? Would the islanders be in contact with the Ruling Elders about the terms of her ransom? If so, would the extortion be successful? Probably not, Killashandra thought, until the Ruling Elders had abandoned any hope of finding her within the next two months. Of course, that could throw their timetable off. It would take nearly three months for a replacement Guild Member to reach Optheria, even if the Optherians admitted the loss of the one already dispatched to them. On her own part, shed be stark raving lunatic if she was left on this island for several months. And if the Optherians acquired another singer to install their wretched white crystal, that didnt mean that theyd continue their efforts to find her! After much deliberation, silent as well as vocal, Killashandra decided that the smart thing to do was rescue herself. Her kidnapper had overlooked a few small points, the most important of which was that she happened to be a very strong swimmer with lungs well developed from singing opera and crystal. Physically, too, she was immensely fit. She could swim from island to island until she found one that was inhabited, one from which she could be rescued. Unless all the islanders were in on this insidious kidnap scheme. The hazards that she must overcome were only two: lack of water was one, but she felt that she could refresh herself sufficiently from the polly fruit the tree flourished on all the islands she could see. Too, the larger denizens of the sea constituted a real problem. Some of them, cruising beyond her lagoons, looked deadly dangerous, with their pointed, toothy snouts, or their many wire-fine tentacles which seemed to have an affinity for the same yellowback fish she favored. She had spent enough time watching them to know that they generally fed at dawn and dusk. So, if she made her crossings at sony digital 6x camera midday, when they were dormant, she thought she had a fairly good chance to avoid adding herself to their diet. Three weeks on the island was long enough! She had a few of the emergency food packets left and they would be unharmed by a long immersion. Following the directions in her useful little pamphlet, she had made several sturdy lengths of rope from the coarse fiber of the polly tree, with which she could secure the hatchet to her body. Her original clothing was down to shreds which she sewed with lengths of the tough stem into a halter and a loin cloth. By then she had become as tan as her abductor and was forced to use some of the oilier fishes to grease her hide for protection. She would coat herself thoroughly before each leg of her swim to freedom. Having made her decision, Killashandra implemented it the next day at noon, swimming to her first destination in less than an hours time. She rested while she made up her mind which island of the seven visible would be next. She found herself constantly returning to the one farthest north. Well, once there, none were far away if she decided shed overshot the right line to take. She made that island by mid-afternoon, dragging herself up onto the narrow shore, exhausted. Then she discovered some of the weak points in her plans: there werent many ripe polly fruits on the island; and fish wouldnt bite on her hook that evening. Because she found too few fruits, she was exceedingly thirsty by morning and chose her next point of call by the polly population. The channel between was dark blue, deep water, and twice she was startled by dimly seen large shapes moving beneath her. Both times she floated face down, arms and legs motionless, until the danger summoned by her flailing limbs had passed. She rested on this fourth island all the rest of that day and the next one, replenishing her dehydrated tissues and trying to catch an oily fish. To her dismay, she could only attract the yellowbacks. Eventually she had enough of them to provide some oil for her raddled skin. On her voyage to the fifth island, a fair sized one, she had her worst fright. Despite the suns being at high noon, she found herself in the midst of a school of tiny fish that was being harvested by several mammoth denizens. At one point she was briefly stranded on a creatures flank when it unexpectedly surfaced under her. She didnt know whether to swim furiously for the distant shore or lie motionless, but before she could

Raise a flame in the breast for the war-laurell'd wreath;

It was Jackstraw who heard it firstit was always Jackstraw, whose hearing was an even match for his phenomenal eyesight, who heard things first. Tired of having my exposed hands alternately frozen, I had dropped my book, zipped my sleeping-bag up to the chin and was drowsily watching him carving figurines from a length of inferior narwhal tusk when his hands suddenly fell still and he sat quite motionless. Then, unhurriedly as always, he dropped the piece of bone into the coffee-pan that simmered gently by the side of our oil-burner stovecurio collectors paid fancy prices for what they Near Askalon's towers, John of Horistan slumbers, imagined to be the dark ivory of fossilised elephant tusksrose and put his ear to the ventilation shaft, his eyes remote in the unseeing gaze of a man lost in listening. A couple of seconds were enough. "Aeroplane," he announced casually. "Aeroplane!" I propped myself up on an elbow and stared at him. "Jackstraw, you've been hitting the methylated spirits again." "Indeed, no, Dr Mason." The blue eyes, so incongruously at

And range in the greenwood with us;

laughed aloud. Elder Ampris, every would-be crystal singer has perfect and absolute pitch or they cant get into the Heptite Guild. Guildmember Trag doesnt need to be a trained musician. Guildmaster Lanzecki isnt either. One of the reasons I was chosen for this assignment is because I am and trained in keyboard music. Now, Trag, if you will inspect the installation? She and Lars lifted off the cover. Trag was not above giving Ampris a second fright for he tapped out three of the Beethoven notes in the soprano register before altering the sequence to random notes. Then he did each note in turn, listening until the exquisite sound completely died before hitting the next crystal. Absolutely perfect, he said, handing her the hammer. Now, with your permission, Elder Ampris, Killashandra began, I would like to use the organ keyboard. When she saw his brief hesitancy, she added. It would be such an honor for me and it would only be the sonics. After last nights performance, I would be brash indeed to attempt any embellishments. Bowing stiffly to the inevitable, Elder Ampris gestured for her to proceed from the loft. Not that she could have done anything to damage the actual organ keyboard, and live, with so many security guards millimeters from her. As she took her seat, pretending to ignore the battery of eyes and sour expressions, she decided against any of the Beethoven pieces she remembered from her Fuertan days. That would be risking more than her personal satisfaction was worth. She began to power up the various systems of the organ, allowing the electronic circuits to warm up and stabilize. She also discarded a whimsical notion to use one of Larss themes. She flexed her fingers, pulled out the appropriate stops, and did a rapid dance on the foot pedals to test their reactions. Diplomatically she began with the opening chords of a Fuertan love song, reminiscent of one of the folk tunes that shed heard that first magical night on the beach with Lars. The keyboard had an exquisitely light touch and, knowing herself to be rather heavy handed, she tried to find the right balance, before she began the lilting melody. Even playing softly and delicately, she felt, rather than heard, the sound returning from the perfect acoustics of the auditorium. The phase shield around the organ protected her from the full response. Playing this Festival organ was an incredible, purely musical experience as she switched to lowest manual for the bass line. For her as a singer, keyboards had gel photo digital cameras been essential only as accompaniment, tolerated in place of orchestra and choral augmentation. She might have been supercilious about the Optherian contention that an organ was the ultimate instrument, but she was willing to revise her opinion of it upward. Even the simple folk song, embellished with color, scent and the joy of spring, she thought sardonically, was doubly effective as a mood setter when played on the Optherian organ. She was sorely tempted to reach up and pull out a few of the stops that ringed the console. Abruptly she changed to a dominant key and a martial air, lots of the bass notes in a sturdy thumpy-thump, but half-way through she tired of that mood, and found herself involved in the accompaniment to a favorite aria. Not wishing to spoil the rich music by singing, she transferred the melodic line to the manual she had just repaired, taking the orchestra part in the second manual and the pedal bass. The tenors reprise naturally followed, on the third manual, mellower than the soprano range. From that final chord, she found herself playing a tune, filling in with a chorded bass, and not quite certain what tune it was when she felt someone pinch her hip. Her fingers jerked down the keys just as she realized that it was Larss melody she was rehearsing. She made the slip of her fingers into the first music that came to mind, an ancient anthem with distinct religious overtones. She ended that in a flourish of keyboard embellishments and, with considerable reluctance, lifted her hands and feet from the organ, swiveling around on the seat. Lars, being nearest, took her hand to ease her to the ground from the high organ perch. The pressure of his fingers was complimentary, if the arch of his eyebrows chided her for that slip. It was the surprise on Elder Ampriss face that pleased her the most. My dear Killashandra, I had no idea you were so accomplished, he said with renewed affability. Woefully out of practice, she said demurely, though she knew that she had struck few wrong notes and her sense of tempo had always been excellent. Almost a travesty for someone like me to play on that superb organ, but I shall remember the honor for the rest of my life. She meant it. There was a general sort of highly audible reshuffling as the security men permitted a handful of hesitant new arrivals closer to the console. Some nervous clearings of throats and foot scufflings also echoed faithfully about the auditorium.

That courtiers thrive at latter Lammas day,

branches and burying themselves to their fins in the soft and shingled slope. Incendiaries! Mallory had barely time to realise that they had been spared the horror of a 500-kilo H.E. bomb when the incendiaries erupted into hissing, guttering 'life, into an incandescent magnesium whiteness that reached out and completely destroyed the shadowed gloom of the carob grove. Within a matter of seconds the dazzling coruscation had given way to thick, evil-smelling clouds of acrid black smoke, smoke laced with flickering tongues of red, small at first, then licking and twisting resinously upwards until 'entire trees were enveloped in a cocoon of flame. The Stuka was still pulling upwards out of its dive, had not yet levelled off when the heart of the grove, old and dry and tindery, was fiercely ablaze. Miller twisted up and round, nudging Mallory to catch his attention through the cracking roar of the flames. "Incendiaries, boss," he announced. "What did you think they were using?" Mallory asked shortly. "Matches? They're trying to smoke us out, to burn us out, get us in the open. High explosive's not so good among trees. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred this would have worked." He coughed as the acrid smoke bit into his lungs, peered up with watering eyes through the tree-tops. "But not this time, not if we're lucky. Not if they hold off another half-minute or so. Just look at that smoke!" Miller looked. Thick, convoluted, shot through with fiery sparks, the rolling cloud was already a third of the way across the gap between grove and cliff, borne uphill by the wandering catspaws from the sea. It was the complete, the perfect smoke-screen. Miller nodded. "Gonna make a break for it, huh, boss?" "There's no choicewe either go, or we stay and get friedor blown into very little bits. Probably both." He raised his voice. "Anybody see what's happening up top?" "Queuing up for another go at us, sir." Brown said lugubriously. "The first bloke's still circling around." "Waiting to see how we break cover. They won't wait long. This is where we take off." He peered uphill through the rolling smoke, but it was too thick, laced his watering eyes until everything was blurred through a misted sheen of tears. There was no saying how far uphill the smoke-bank had reached, and they couldn't afford to wait until they were sure. Stuka pilots had never been renowned for their patience. "Right, everybody!" he shouted. "Fifteen yards digital camera review and nikon 40dx along the tree-line to that wash, then straight up into the gorge. Don't stop till you're at least a hundred yards inside. Andrea, you lead the way. Off you go!" He peered through the blinding smoke. "Where's Panayis?" There was no reply. "Panayis!" Mallory called. "Panayis!" "Perhaps he went back for somethin'." Miller had stopped half-turned. "Shall I go " "Get on your way!" Mallory said savagely. "And if anything happens to young Stevens I'll hold you . . ." But Miller, wisely, was already gone, Andrea stumbling and coughing by his side. For a couple of seconds Mallory stood irresolute, then plunged back downhill towards the centre of the grove. Maybe Panayis had gone back for something and he couldn't understand English. Mallory had hardly gone five yards when he was forced to halt and fling his arm up before his face: the heat was searing. Panayis couldn't be down there; no one could have been down there, could have lived for seconds in that furnace. Gasping for air, hair singeing and clothes smouldering with fire, Mallory clawed his way back up the slope, colliding with trees, slipping, falling, then stumbling desperately to his feet again. He ran along to the east end of the wood. No one there. Back to the other end again, towards the wash, almost completely blind now, the super-heated air searing viciously through throat and lungs till he was suffocating, till his breath was. coming in great, whooping, agonised breaths. No sense in waiting longer, nothing he could do, nothing anyone could do except save himself. There was a noise in his ears, the roaring of the flames, the roaring of his own bloodand the screaming, heart-stopping roar of a Stuka in a power-dive. Desperately he flung himself forward over the sliding scree, tumbled and pitched headlong down to the floor of the wash. Hurt or not, he did not know and her did not care. Sobbing aloud for breath, he rose to his feet, forced his aching legs to drive him somehow up the bill. The air was full of the thunder of engines, he knew the entire squadron was coming in to the attack, and then he had flung himself uncaringly to the ground as the first of the high explosive bombs erupted in its concussive blast of smoke and flameerupted not forty yards away, to his left and ahead of him. Ahead of him! Even as he struggled

'They '11 pay a visit to thee.

breweries were often situated in suburbs where the fumes would not irritate the fastidious. She reached the dirt road that served as main artery for the settlement, deserted at that morning hour except for some small, peculiar-looking animals basking in the sun. She was aware of being watched, but as that was only to be expected, she continued her inspection of the unprepossessing buildings facing the road. The brew-smell continued to permeate the air but intensified to her right. Common sense indicated that the wide gray structure on the far side of the road some thousand meters away was probably the source. She headed there. As she walked she heard doors and windows open behind her, marking her passage to her objective. She permitted herself a small smile of amusement. Human nature did not change and anything new and unusual would be marked in a society as dull and repressed as she suspected Optherias was. The brew-smell was almost overpowering by the time she reached the gray building. An exhaust fan was extracting the air from the roof, its motor laboring. Although there was no sign or legend on the building to indicate its purpose, Killashandra was not deterred. A locked front door, however, did pose an obstacle. She rapped politely and repeated her knock when it brought no immediate response. Thumping on the door also produced no results, and Killashandra felt determination replace courtesy. Was brewing illegal in Optherias largest city? Or could it be brewing without due license? After all, Bascum originated on Optheria and might have a monopoly. To be sure, she hadnt paid much attention to what plants were being so carefully tended in the gardens. Home industry? Thwarting the ever vigilant and repressive Elders? Quickly she stepped around the building and toward its rear, hoping to find a window. She caught a glimpse of a running juvenile body and heard it raise its voice in warning. So she raced around the corner to find the rear doors folded back on a scene of much industry as men and women supervised the bottling of a brew from an obviously improvised vat. The young messenger took one look at her and fled, ducking down the nearest alley. May a thirsty stranger to this planet have a sample of your brew? Im perishing for lack of a decent glass. Killashandra could, when she exerted herself, be smoothly charming and ingratiating. Shed played the part often enough. She glanced from one stony expression to the next, holding her smile. Ill tell you it was some shock to discover this planet doesnt import video capture drivers jvc digital camera anything spirituous or fermented. Shuttle got in yesterday, someone in the group said. Too early for tourists. Those clothes arent local. Nor island. Im not a tourist, Killashandra inserted in the terse comments. Im a musician. Come to see the organ, have you? The mans voice was so rich in contempt, disapproval, cynical skepticism, and malicious amusement that Killashandra tried hard to spot him in the hostile group. If I can judge by my reception above, that sour lot permits few favors. A body really needs a brew here. Again she fortified her smile with winning charm. And licked dry lips. Later, in reviewing the scene at her leisure, Killashandra decided that it might have been that unconscious reflex that won her case. The next thing she knew an uncapped bottle was thrust at her. She reached to her belt pouch for the Optherian coins she had acquired on the Athena but was curtly told to leave off. Money didnt buy their brew. Although some had turned back to their job, most watched while she took her first sip. It was rich despite its clandestine manufacture, slightly cool, undoubtedly improved by a proper chilling but superior to the Bascum and almost on a par with Yarran. Your brewmaster wouldnt happen to be of Yarra origin? she asked. What do you know of Yarra? Once again the question was posed anonymously though Killashandra thought the speaker was on her left, near the vat. They make the best beer in the Federated Sentient Planets. Yarran brewmasters have the best reputation in the Galaxy. A rumble of approval greeted this. She could feel the tension ease though the work continued at the same swift pace. Above the rattle of bottles, and the noise of crating the full containers, Killashandra heard a gasping wheeze to her right, on the roadway, and then a dilapidated vehicle, its sides scarred and rusting, pulled up to the open door. Immediately crates were loaded into it, Killashandra helping, for shed finished her bottle and wondered how she could wheedle another, others, from them. Thirst properly quenched, shed find it easier to deal with the reproaches of Thyrol and the others. No sooner had the load bed