Shatterpoint

Heading for us.

Dawn will come in an hour. I hope we'll all live that long.

The eruptions have subsided, and the rain has trailed off to an intermittent patter. We've shifted some things around in the bunker. The three younger children are curled up on scavenged blankets in the back, asleep. Besh and Chalk now lie near the Thunderbolt, where I can keep an eye on them; I'm not at all sure that one of these children might not try to do them some harm. Terrel, a boy of thirteen who seems to be their natural leader, is remarkably fierce, and he still does not entirely believe that I'm not pla

I wonder what Nick would say about these civilians. Are they a myth, too? Now all my work in cleaning up this compound does not seem pointless; the children have been through enough tonight without having to see what had been done to the people who'd lived here.

Without having to see the kind of thing that has probably been done to people they know, at their outpost.

Possibly even to their parents.

I can't consider such questions right now. Right now, all I seem to be able to do is stare past the twisted jags of durasteel that once had been this bunker's door, watching the steamcrawlers' upward creep.

I don't need any hints from the Force to have a bad feeling about this.

In dejarik, there is a classic manuver called the fork, where a player moves a single holomonster into position to attack two or more of his opponent's, so that no matter which 'monster the opponent moves to safety, the other will be eaten. Caught in the fork, one's only choice is which piece to lose. The word has come to symbolize situations where the only choice to be made is a choice of disasters.

We are well and truly forked.

I know who these steamcrawlers are bringing: jungle prospectors from the same outpost as the children, fleeing the same ULF guerrillas whose attack had forced the children away- probably the same band that destroyed this outpost. I got the story from Terrel, while I was tending to his broken arm and the girl's scalp wound.

Their outpost had been the next one on this track, some seventy klicks to the north and east. They had come under attack by the ULF at dusk; Terrel's father had given him the task of gathering the other children and driving them to safety.

They'd had no way to know that the ULF had been to this outpost first.

Terrel's arm had been broken by either a bullet or a grenade fragment; he wasn't sure which.

He told me proudly how he managed the dual-stick controls of the steamcrawler with only one hand, and how he had crashed into grassers as he broke through the Korun skirmish line, and how he was pretty sure he'd managed to run down "at least five or six fragging kornos." He says such things defiantly, as if daring me to hurt him for it.

As if I ever would.

The older girl, Keela, has the most serious injury. In the steam-crawler's tumble down the gully, she was thrown from her seat. She has a skull fracture and a severe concussion. I was able to salvage a spare medpac from the 'crawler before it went over the precipice. She's in no grave danger, now, so long as she remains quiet and gets a few days' rest. The medpac had a new bone stabilizer, so Terrel's arm should heal nicely. The younger children-Urno and Nykl and the brave little girl Pell-have nothing worse than a few bruises, and scraped hands and knees from scrambling up the landslide.

So far.

I have not bothered to maintain my pretense of belonging to the guerrillas, though I have also avoided explaining who I really am. The children seem to have decided that I'm a bounty hunter, since I don't "act like a korno"-which is to say, I haven't tortured and killed them, as they were all half expecting, based on the tales they've heard from their parents. As they were all half expecting despite being alive right now only because I saved them. They have decided, based on their vast experience of bounty hunters-courtesy of countless half-cred holo-dramas-that Besh and Chalk are my prisoners, and that I'm going to deliver them to Pelek Baw for a big reward.

I have not disabused them of this notion. It's easier to believe than the truth.

But what should be merely a childish fancy has become unexpectedly complicated and painful; even the kindest illusion will often cut deeper than any truth. One of the younger boys- rather arbitrarily-decided that I must be "just about the greatest bounty hunter there is." A six- year-old's instinctive reaction, I suppose. Soon, he got into a heated discussion with his brother, who insisted that "everybody knows" Jango Fett is the greatest living bounty hunter. Which led the first boy to ask me if,' am Jango Fett.

I ca

I was saved from answering by a scornful declaration fromTerrel."He ain't Jango Fett, stupid. Jango Fett's dead. Everybody knows that!" "Jango Fett is not dead! He is not!" Tears began to well in the little boy's eyes, and he appealed to me. "Jango Fett ain't dead, is he? Tell him. Tell him he ain't dead." At first, all I could think to say was "I'm sorry." And I was. I am. But the truth is the truth.

"I'm sorry, but yes," I told them. "Jango Fett is dead." "See?" Terrel said with terrible thirteen-year-old scorn." "Course he is, stupid. Some stinkin' Jedi snuck up behind him and stabbed him in the back with one of them laser swords." Somehow this hurt even more. "It didn't happen that way. Fett was. killed in a fight." "Tusker poop," Terrel declared. "No stinkin' Jedi could've took Jango Fett face to face! He was the best." With this I could not argue; I could only contend that Fett had not been stabbed in the back.

"What d'you know about it? Was you there?" I could not-still ca

And I ca

Now their heroes are bounty hunters.

The line of steamcrawlers has halted half a kilometer below us-where the lava wash took out the track. This won't stop them for long; when the cliff collapsed, it made a natural dam across the break. In the hours since the eruption, I would guess that the lava has penetrated the rocks and dirt, and cooled enough to stabilize the slide. Intelligently cautious, they're testing its integrity before attempting to cross. But I know they'll make it. Then what will I do?

It seems I have no choices left. Surrender is not an option. To save Besh and Chalk-not to mention myself-I'll have to hold the children hostage.