Spinneret

"Perez!"

Perez jerked violently before his brain could register the fact that the stage whisper from behind him was Meredith's. "It's coming, Colonel," he breathed. "I can see it!"

"I know, but we've got at least a minute before it gets here. Does that window come open?"

Perez's hands remembered their task. "Uh … I think I feel the latch here … there.

It moved about a quarter turn." He glanced cautiously out again. "I'd rather not try pushing it just yet."

Meredith was crouched beside him now, fingering the window himself. "Yeah …

well, we'll just have to hope it's not stuck." He raised his radio. "Major, the minute it's inside here I want all of you in the car ready to take off. No covering fire unless it seems necessary; the last thing we want is to attract any more of them."

He got an acknowledgment and slid the radio back into its pocket. "Wait here," he told Perez. "When I fire, shove the window open and get out. If it sticks, hit the floor and yell and I'll try an armor-piercer on it."

Perez nodded silently, and Meredith moved back across the room. Closing the door to a crack, he stood peering out, his pistol held tightly at the ready in a twohanded marksman's grip. Perez bit at his lip, staring at the gun and hoping the colonel hadn't wasted any of the six spots in his number-two clip on flare shells or something equally useless. Though will even armor-piercers do anything against cable-metal? he wondered suddenly. A vulnerable spot—there has to be a vulnerable spot for him to hit—

From the other room came the clip-clip-clip of metal feet. Perez caught his breath

… and Meredith fired.

The blast of the shell was deafening in the enclosed space, its echoes almost drowning out the sounds of Meredith's next two shots. A snowstorm of ceramic dust erupted from the walls and ceiling as the building shook to the explosions.

Perez threw one arm up to protect his eyes from the dust as he stood and shoved with his full weight against the window. It held an instant and then gave with a screech. Grabbing the edge, Perez vaulted through, banging his shoulder in the process and nearly losing his balance when he hit the ground. Meredith was right behind him, giving him a shove in the proper direction and shouting something he couldn't catch. Ru

Meredith hit the front seat an instant later, and Perez was abruptly jammed into the cushions as Nichols stomped on the accelerator. The car jumped ahead, throwing Perez back and forth as Nichols fought to keep the car on the winding street.

"You all right?" Meredith asked.

"I think so." Perez fished out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. There was a grunt from the other side of the car, and he looked up to see Barner slide awkwardly in through the window, where he'd apparently been sitting in rearguard position.

"As far as I could tell it never fired a shot," he said, twisting to look out the back window.

"I'm not sure it wasn't for lack of trying," Meredith replied grimly. "At least two of those snakes were tracking me from the second it came through the door."

Barner grunted. "You get it?"

"Wasn't trying to. I was firing at its feet, trying to knock it over long enough for us to get out."

"Maybe all the dust helped, too." Barner turned back to face forward. "The local police force, you suppose?"

"Or else a burglar alarm," Hafner offered.

"Burglar alarms are usually set up in the individual house," Perez said, coughing ceramic dust.

"Ours are," Hafner said. "But the whole setup of this town seems pretty cozy by human—well, at least by Western culture standards. It's quite possible that a gregarious people like the Spi

"A police force by any other name," Barner said, dismissing the distinction. "And the real question then is how many more of them are still functional."

The car hit a tight curve and fishtailed a bit getting around it. "I think you can slow down now, Nichols," Meredith said.

The unfamiliar architecture and geography of the Spi

"Well, Colonel?" Perez prodded from behind him. "Was it for defense or not?"

Meredith let his eyes rove the wall's length. No crenels or loopholes for gu

"If it was, it was an extremely passive system," he said. "Regardless, we've got to get through it. Anyone see anything that looked like a break or gateway on our way in?"

"I thought I saw a gap over to the left," Barner offered, frowning off in that direction. "But I can't find it now."

"Maybe the color pattern's hiding it," Meredith suggested. "Let's go take a look."

They piled into the car; and barely fifty meters away they found the tall, thin opening Barner had seen.

"Wouldn't have believed a simple hole could be that hard to see," Barner grunted, leaning through the gap for a quick look at the other side. "Well … it's a cinch we're not going to get the car through here, Colonel, but the tower looks to be only a ten-minute hike away."

Meredith motioned him aside and stepped through the opening himself. Unlike the other side, this part of the cavern was nearly devoid of structures. Those he could see looked less like houses than industrial or business buildings: long and low, with little of the decoration they'd seen on the domed homes behind them. Or they could be the town cafeteria and rec centers, he reminded himself. All the vacant ground could have been gardens or a forest. In which case the tower would have been … what?

The tower. It rose up from the ground perhaps half a kilometer away, looking rather like a cross between a church spire and an airport control tower. About fifty meters tall, he estimated, with what looked like wide windows halfway up and also near the top. A half-dozen flat-roofed buildings were clustered at its base.

Service sheds or housing for the night shift, perhaps? Or were they the local dispatch points for little nasties like the one they'd already run into?

"We'll go on foot," he a

Harrier's eyes widened a bit at mention of the extra weaponry, but he obeyed without argument. Meredith consulted his watch: they'd already used up over an hour of the four he'd allotted for his reco

Barner and Hafner returned with their loads. "Okay," Meredith said, slinging his Stoner 5.56 mm over his shoulder and hooking two of the rifle grenades onto his belt. "Stay in a loose formation and keep your eyes open."

The cluster of huts surrounding the tower base were not, as Meredith had assumed, physically co

"Interesting," Hafner said as they circled the tower in search of a door. "First structure we've come across in here that doesn't have that white ceramic coating."

"Would that make it a more recent building?" Perez suggested. "Put up near the end, when they didn't have time for cosmetic appearances?"