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Chapter One

"Damaged?" Scout Captain Ian Fieran scowled at the screen scrolling statistics on the Gen'gineer data'bot. "How badly damaged?" He rubbed at his eyes, closer to red with bloodshot than their natural gray-green. His jet, short-cropped curls were gray with dust and dirt, ground in over several straight days of little water and no rest.

Finding a still-whole data'bot was the first stroke of blinding good luck his team had run into during the whole ugly cleanup operation. Below ground, their command post was dark and damp and dirty--above ground, the once-flourishing colony world of Reveleer was a burned-out wreck, the colonists tortured in the name of 'improving' the Human genome.

Finding one piece of equipment the Gen'gineers hadn't destroyed before the Commonwealth's military arrived would almost repay the devastating losses suffered by the colonists, the Fleet and the Scouts. Almost. But if the renegade data'bot was damaged, flying out of orbit at that moment, what were the chances they could retrieve anything that would help in the battle against the Gen'gineers?

He had to hope. Hope was the only thing that let him sleep at night, lately.

"Impulse jets are out of control and trajectory is the only function sending in reliable readings," Tech Lieutenant Oralii Horn said. She glanced up from her own screen, filled with twice as much data as her commander's, and smiled. "The Gen'gineers aren't going to retrieve this one or blow it up before we can get to it."

"This time."

Around them, the dark, damp hole of an underground command station glistened with operations lights sparkling on the spilled guts of half-dismantled machinery. This operation was to have ended nearly two weeks ago. Ian and his team of top flight Scouts were still pulling all the pieces together. This rescue had turned into a major disaster, nearly wiping out four complete squads of Scouts and seriously decimating three more. Ian's team had lost a trainee technician; a boy fresh from Basic, with too much life ahead of him, not to mention the brilliant potential. One life lost was one loss too many.

The Gen'gineers had decimated an entire first generation colony, including over one hundred children, along with all their livestock and over eighty percent of the plant life on the planet, indigenous as well as imported. Simply because the colonists had 'defective genetics,' and the Gen'gineers had taken it on themselves to 'improve' the Human race.

Trying to change the Human genome for the better had brought on the Downfall Wars, centuries ago. The Commonwealth was still picking itself up from that disaster, which had taken civilization back to the era of knives and tribal warfare. Despite all the work of the Commonwealth Upper University and the Order of Kilvordi, pockets of Humanity still suffered the fear of mutations that had spawned monstrosities and pathetic wrecks. All thanks to Humanity's arrogance.

"One out of how many data'bots?" Ian met Oralii's gaze and forced a smile into his fatigue-stiffened face. "Just think of the damage we could do to their morale alone if we captured one whole. Forget about the crater we could put in their operations if we could get some coordinates and records that weren't scrambled by a self-destruct program."

"At least this time we caught them by surprise." No sparkle of humor touched her amber-colored eyes. She raked her long, talon-tipped fingers through her chocolate mop of short curls, and slouched down in her chair.

"Who's out there and near enough to do a snatch-and-grab?" Ian watched her slam the query into her control board. He glared once more at his overview of the data on the cleanup. "All right, people," he said, turning around from his station to face the rest of his team. "Theories? Any data that would tell us where that data'bot might be heading? Rendezvous with a mother-ship that slipped past us, or heading out to another nest?"

"Lots of traffic along the general path," Nobi Cole, Ian's cousin and the team's advisor offered. "Spacers as well as Leapers pass through there on a regular basis. If it gets caught in a Leaper's field or latches onto a Spacer before one of our Darts or the Fleet's retrieval net catches it..." He shrugged, ducking his platinum-haired head for a moment.

"I've been wracking my brains to explain that much distance in such a short time," Coreen Aylash said. The silvery pale, wraithlike Psych Tech frowned, genuinely puzzled. Ian smiled, feeling a chuckle threaten deep in his chest. It was a rare day when she showed any emotion; especially one so weak as confusion. "It's using up too much fuel for such a fast burn. Unless it plans to just go dead and hang there in space until someone comes along to retrieve it."

"Where's it headed for now?" Rifler Shane asked from the corner where he and the rest of the Shadows on the team still stripped off the last of their impervious outdoor gear.

"Doesn't matter," Oralii said, turning in her seat to grin in triumph at them. "That hot-shot from Thorn Squad caught it. Transport Twenty-One is closest. Have them load it on and head back to base?"

"And tell them if I don't hear about the data they get from it before the Commonwealth Council gets their report--"

"They're going to hear from Cousin Bain," Nobi interrupted. He gave Ian an innocent look, which earned a few battle-weary grins and chuckles from the rest of their team.

"Bain's going to hear from me," Ian said, and let out a gusting breath that could have been a curse before he simply ran out of energy. "Going topside. Ask how soon we can lift from this place. I have a wedding to go to, and if we're late, we'll have half the Leapers in the Commonwealth snarked at us. If we haven't earned a good month's rest leave and hot food and hot baths, there's no justice in the universe."

"That's what Scouts are for," Droban Gilmore, the team medic muttered.

Ian nodded, then climbed up out of their command post, to the opening in the maze of charcoal and ash that once was a lush, thriving forest. The Gen'gineers had done that, following their usual spoilsport tactics of destroying what they weren't able to control. After weeks of this, he was able to block out the devastation from his conscious thoughts.

Ian smiled wearily, thinking about the wedding he and Nobi would soon attend. Captain Jaklyn K'veer of the Leaper ship Estal'es'cai, was a cousin, just as Commander General Chobainian Kern of the Scout Corps was a cousin, all descended from two sisters who had married the two men who established the Scout Corps: Chobainian Kern and Gorgi Cole. Sometimes, it paid to have relatives in influential, powerful places.

Ian usually chose to keep as far from his illustrious cousin's red tape and scheming as he could manage. He wasn't above throwing his weight around when he needed it, though. Nobi wasn't above nudging him to use his connections. When it came to Gen'gineers, the Kerns, Fierans and Coles used whatever it took to stop them.

* * *

Twenty hours later, the Estal'es'cai came into orbit around Reveleer. Ian's Scouts waited to board their shuttle up to the last two transports left orbiting the planet. They were packed and cleaned up and working on over-tired nerves, with stiffened fingers, aching muscles and reddened eyes. They had gone into overdrive since the Leap ship Mourning came into orbit to gather all the Scout ships into the Leap field and transfer through to Drasti, the planet given wholly over to the Scouts and Rangers as their base of operations.

Regular ships, even the super-powered Star Class, could only reach near-light speed. Journeys between star systems took months if the pilot was lucky enough to latch onto an unpredictable and unreliable Slip Field; years at the best of times; sometimes generations if the ship couldn't quite reach near-light.

Spacers were pilots with the genetic 'tweak' that let them find and use Knaught Points--warped spots in the fabric of space and time--to turn journeys of years into moments. They were limited to the locations of the Knaught Points, and where each opened into known space. Spacers had made colonizing and supporting the Commonwealth's network of worlds possible. The first Scouts were all Spacers, and Spacers still worked closely with the Corps, piloting their ships to provide speedy handling of emergencies and disasters throughout the Commonwealth. Still, journeys remained tedious and dangerous in the long distances of space between the Knaught Points.

Then the Leapers had found the Commonwealth's universe. Or rather, re-discovered it. Leapers had descended from Downfall refugees, fleeing an existence as slaves. The government of First Civ had classed them as non-Human, to take advantage of their unique genetics and all the potential that lay in them.

Leaper captains had the ability to link with their ships' computer brains and slide from one layer of reality to another, freeing them from the positions and destinations of Knaught Points, which limited Spacers. They were only limited by their own code of ethics, the strength of their captains, and the civilized behavior of the universes they visited and traded with. If anyone harmed a Leaper, whether crew or captain or family, all Leapers boycotted contact with that particular government, planet or planetary system. No more transport services, no more trade of culture and science. No one wanted to alienate Leapers. The damage and loss was too great, both to economy and culture.

Even without the influence of the Estal'es'cai and the captain's blood ties to the Scouts, Leapers supported the Scouts. They provided transport so the elite military teams could deal immediately with problems at all levels, no matter how far the colony or station might lie from the center of the Commonwealth.

For two Leaper ships to appear when only one was needed at the end of a cleanup operation was highly significant. For Ian and Nobi, the ship itself meant much more than that. The captain of the Estal'es'cai was family, and Jaklyn had been taking advantage of her own brand of influence with powerful relatives.

"Getting nervous, do you think?" Nobi muttered as he and Ian piloted a Dart craft up to the ship.

"Let her have her fun. How often does she get to show off?" Ian resisted the urge to jab Nobi, sitting behind him, with his elbow. He wasn't fourteen, taking his first solo run in a shuttle.

That didn't mean anything, though, as he stared at the flagship of the Leaper fleet. Ian felt like a little boy again. All the promise of adventure, the mystery, the allure of Leapers washed over him, making him tremble. Not all could be blamed on his body's screaming need for sleep and a good dozen hot meals.

The elongated, tapered tube of the Leaper ship filled his lozenge-shaped view port, silvery gray against the black and star-shot brilliance of space. The ship sat in the shadow of the planet. Ian wished for a fleeting moment that he could have seen the ship reflecting the sun's glory. Then he chuckled, knowing the brilliance in his eyes would have doubled his thudding headache.

"Did you ever wish..." Nobi sighed, the sound turning into a groan that made Ian's body echo deep in his muscles and bones.

Ian knew what Nobi meant. Leap talent only ran to the female side of the family. All the Kerns, Fierans and Coles had sons. Herin K'veer, who had married Gorgi Cole, had one daughter and her descendants inherited the Estal'es'cai.

The communications board whistled and lit up, and coding scrolled across the horizontal screen as the Dart began receiving docking instructions from Watcher, the ship's brain. Ian acknowledged, turned the Dart's controls over to Watcher and settled back in his seat to enjoy the view and the ride.

Petra Hayne, Executive Officer, met Ian and Nobi in the docking bay. She laughed when both men stopped short and stared, looking her over from head to foot twice, just to make sure what they saw.

"Something wrong, Cousins?"

"Since when don't you wear uniforms when non-Leapers are on board?" Nobi asked.

Ian wouldn't have phrased it quite that baldly. Still, he wasn't used to seeing any Leaper in civilian clothes. Especially the hot pink singleton and loose overtunic that only accented Petra's sapphire eyes and dusky skin. He knew they had ordinary clothes they wore when not on duty--or on display, as Captain Herin had said often--but Leapers usually wore uniforms as protection. No one wanted to hurt or offend Leapers, so it was only polite to warn of their presence.

"Since when do you count as non-Leapers?" Jaklyn said, stepping through the hatch.

She wore a flowing gown of iridescent blue. Her jet-black hair was pulled back in a topknot that cascaded down her back, nearly to her waist, with three tiny braids hanging from each temple, glittering with silver and blue beads. As always, Ian looked for some similarity between Jaklyn and Nobi. Maybe the snub nose--shape, not size. And the stubborn chin. The long-fingered hands, yes. But nothing else.

Nobi didn't waste time. He opened his arms wide and gathered the captain up in a hug, turning her around twice before setting her down. Ian settled for a less exuberant embrace, which let him see the triple-strand bracelet on Jaklyn's wrist.

"Now I believe it." He caught her hand, lifting it and turning the younger woman so Nobi could see her wrist. "Finally let Edrori catch you?"

"You've kept that boy dangling for too long," Nobi added.

"He's not a boy, and he kept me dangling just as long." Jaklyn's false pique died in a wide grin and a blush. "Come on. I promised Bain you two would hit Rejuv before we hit Drasti to pick him up." She started toward the hatch. "If I pick him up."

"Still demanding the right to give you away?" Ian guessed.

"Still." She led them down the passageway from the docking area. Lights sparkled in the sensor dots, allowing Watcher to follow their progress and have a lift car waiting. "Do you think we'll ever kick some sense into Bain's skull? No, forget sense. How about some manners?"

"When he knows--or thinks he knows--something is right, he sticks to it. It's genetic with the Kerns. That's how the Corps got formed in the first place," Nobi said with a grin.

Ian decided to keep quiet and avoid the regular complaint. He looked forward to a stint in the medical bay's Rejuv tank, to wash away all the fatigue poisons and alien bacteria that might have settled in his body, and get his first real stretch of uninterrupted sleep in months.

He watched Jaklyn. She glowed with happiness. Well, why wouldn't she? Edrori, the son of another Leaper captain, had known her since Jaklyn was born. Despite the hazards inherent in space travel, life on a Leap ship was a luxury cruise compared to that of any other space-faring career. Especially that of a Scout.

Ian shook his head and grimaced. He could almost hear his father's sigh of frustration mixed with amusement. Ian had been born a Spacer. He grew up thinking the life of a Spacer was what he wanted, until his parents were killed in a spaceport battle and he went to live with the Kern side of the family. He was only fourteen, full of hormones, rage and angst and whatever else made teenage boys turn into raving lunatics. When his fury and hunger for revenge began to fade, he decided the Scout life was exactly to his liking. He could make a difference in the universe.

Life as a Scout wasn't what his father would have chosen, but Ian had long ago accepted that it was in his blood, and he wasn't his father.

People could and did marry and raise families within the Scout Corps. He just couldn't see himself leaving his wife and children behind every time he went away on a mission, not knowing if he would return to them. How could he put someone he loved through that kind of uncertainty? Even if he married another Scout, how could they do that to their children? Yet, he knew plenty of Scouts who raised children on the edge of dangerous territories, and they were happy. Most of the children became valuable members of the Scout Corps in their own turn.

Ian just couldn't see himself doing it. He had seen too much destruction, too many innocent mothers and fathers and children killed for the crime of loving the wrong father or mother, wife or husband. Scouts made enemies, and as the leader of a notoriously successful, elite Scout team, Ian had more enemies than he could count.

Chapter Two

"Hello, Ian. Welcome home." The slightly metallic, synthesized male voice came from the ceiling speaker grids.

"Ganfer." Ian smiled and looked around for the nearest sensor disk. The ship-brain at the center of Scout Corps Headquarters could see everywhere, hear everything, but it was still polite to look somewhere, as if looking into Ganfer's eyes. "How are you?"

"Busy, as always. Bain thinks he can't leave this place for more than a day without it falling apart."

"This universe existed long before there were Kerns to make it run smoothly, and it'll be fine when they're all gone." Ian settled down in an alcove complete with benches and a data screen. One of the things he enjoyed about returning to Drasti was a chance to talk with Ganfer.

"They? You're a Kern. Your father might have changed his name to Fieran so he could be a Spacer--"

"He chose Fieran to honor Captain Lin. Without her raising your Bain Kern, the Scout Corps wouldn't even exist," Ian shot back. He closed his eyes. "Sorry, Ganfer. Still tired."

The last thing he wanted to do was argue with Ganfer. The ship-brain was only an artificial intelligence, some would argue, but he had been in existence long enough to have a personality. Most Leaper ship-brains had personalities, on one level or another. Ganfer was different--his massive memory system had been damaged, and he had raised an adolescent girl, alone for years in space. Lin Fieran was one of the most popular, passionate, fiercely independent Spacers and Free Traders who ever lived. Without her taking an orphan boy under her wing and giving him his heritage as a Spacer, Bain Kern never would have had the experiences, freedom and training to establish the Scout Corps.

Lin Fieran deserved to be remembered with more than a memorial in the center of Drasti's training grounds. She deserved more than to have what little remained of her ship made part of the Scouts' training center, and the computer records of her adventures part of the training program. Come to think of that, Ganfer deserved more than to be planet-bound, helping train young Scouts to rush out to save the universe.

"We're all tired, Ian," Ganfer said, with that warmth in his electronic voice that always startled the people who were convinced he was nothing but a complex computer program. "Scouts age a century every time they put themselves on the line. I liked Brohans. He reminded me of you."

"That's probably why Bain put him in my squad," Ian muttered. He sighed and closed his eyes, instantly calling up young Brohans' face, all the excitement and fury, terror, pain and exhausted triumph that had aged the new graduate on his first mission.

"Lin would point out that the only reward you get for being the best of the best is harder and harder missions, until one of them is too hard."

"True." He opened his eyes. "Do you ever want out, Ganfer? To be put into a new Free Trader ship and head out across the galaxy again?"

"My family is here. Lin is here, Bain and Rhiann, Gorgi and Herin. If Bain ever gets married and has children, I have to make sure they're brought up right. How can I do that if I'm playing at being a shooting star?"

"Too true." Ian let his stiff shoulders slump. He did feel better. He always felt better after talking with Ganfer.

"So, when are you going to settle down and produce some Fierans for me to help raise?"

"Where did that come from?" He had to laugh, though. "Has Bain been priming you? My father didn't want me to be a Scout, but I ended up here. I'll do one step better--I won't ever have children."

"Won't?" a new voice asked. Commander General Bain Kern lounged around the corner and came to a stop, putting one foot up on the bench where Ian sat. "Or you just haven't found the woman who'll put up with you long enough to make a couple babies?"

Ian scowled at his cousin. Bain was ten years his senior. The streaks of silver in his hair made the gap look like twenty. Otherwise, they could have been near-twins, with the same wide shoulders and streamlined build, square faces and dark eyes.

"Maybe you can recruit some of Jaklyn's boys to take over the legacy," Ian said. "Are you ready to go?"

"The sooner we get this wedding over with," Bain said, nodding, "the better. Our cryptos cracked that data'bot you sent ahead to us."

"And?"

"It was supposed to steal a ride with a Spacer-piloted merchant ship on a regular route, and detach at Chorillan."

"Chorillan?"

"It's a Rim world," Ganfer supplied. "On the very edge of expansion. Only one generation established. The major export is silverleaf."

"A colony that new probably has only explored one percent of the untamed wilderness," Ian said, nodding. "The perfect place for the Gen'gineers to set up an auxiliary lab."

"Get all the rest you can before the wedding," Bain said. Then he grinned. "Unless you want to take that vacation you were grumbling about when you arrived?"

"Ganfer, find Nobi and report this conversation, would you? I'll send the alert to the rest of our team, and he's in charge of getting a Leaper tow to Chorillan."

* * *

Ranny was sick. That was a given.

The question that made Miranda's lunch churn in her stomach was whether it was Phase, or just a physical reaction to losing his parents so brutally more than six months ago. There was so much upheaval on the colony world of Chorillan, who could predict how long it would take a child to work through all the loss and pain? She knew she shouldn't be upset, but the timing was awful. Nearly all the procedures for adoption had been taken care of, but an illness--especially if it was suspected to be Phase--could bring everything to a screeching halt.

Especially if her brother, Kallin, heard about it. Kallin was the consummate politician. He would use the opportunity to raise more fears of Wildlings in the public mind and hurt Miranda all in one blow, by delaying the adoption.

After school that day, Miranda had hoped to take Ranny to see the house she had moved into four days ago, which would be their house when he became her son. Sighing, she stepped out of the door of the school building and headed across the mossy playground field to fetch Ranny. Delaying the inevitable would only hurt him, not help him.

The bright, noonday sunshine hurt her eyes, and her back ached and her head throbbed. Miranda straightened her shoulders and refused to squint. She wasn't ill with whatever kept eating away at her father. She refused to fall victim to the malady that seemed to touch a quarter of the Colonial Council. Just because the illness liked to attack the families of Wildlings didn't mean she would fall sick. Just because her brother Daral was a Wildling didn't mean she would fall sick.

If there was any justice in the universe, Kallin would have fallen ill, not their father, Daran.

No, she only suffered the normal exhaustion of a teacher who was expected to be teacher and counselor and nurse to thirty children on a day-to-day basis. It didn't help that it was still spring, and Phase always hit children in the spring, and fools feared catching some deadly disease from too much contact with children.

No, she was only tired. She didn't--she refused to--suffer the mysterious wasting illness that slithered through the colony's first generation. Master Daran Riallon was not ill from a virus. The doctors didn't know what made him increasingly tired, anemic and cold, but they assured his wife and daughter and son that it wasn't a virus.

Miranda blinked away tears as she approached the huddled shape of the little boy at the base of the tree. Why did Ranny have to suffer? Hadn't he suffered enough already? Who would have expected grieving, frustrated parents to become violent and attack the very people who were trying to help their children? Ranny's parents were both technicians at the Rehab Center, and had been shot in the first terrifying moments of a totally inexplicable riot.

Her mother, Kalinda was against the whole idea of Miranda adopting a child. How could Miranda hope to become a leader in Chorillan's government if she limited herself to being a teacher, and raising a child alone?

Miranda gladly left the political legacy of her family to her brother Kallin. She cared about Ranny, who had been coming to school with increasingly darker smears of sleeplessness under his bloodshot eyes. Yesterday the boy wore red marks on his arms where a plastic coated ball had smacked his bare skin during play. Today, a ball made of hopper skin and stuffed with grass had hit him in the face and he didn't show any mark from that.

Sensitivity to synthetic materials was a symptom of Phase.

"Please, Fi'in, don't do this to him," she whispered, as she approached the little boy.

Her father believed in Fi'in, creator and guide. At least, he had seemed to believe when she was a child. She wished she could believe enough to call on that power and assurance now.

Ranny's strawberry blond hair hung in dirty tangles and his blue eyes were almost lost behind swollen lids and streaks of bloodshot, and his clothes were grimy from huddling in the dusty roots of the goldapple tree. They hung on his delicate frame like rags. Still, he could have been Miranda's little brother, the physical resemblance between them was so strong. Miranda had been counting on that resemblance to sway her mother into supporting her plan to adopt the child. Madame Riallon had not been mollified in the least.

"Ranny?" Miranda twitched the loose folds of her long green trousers and squatted before the boy. He flinched, as if she had shouted instead of whispered his name. That brought tears to her eyes. "Does your head hurt?"

"Gonna split, Teacher," the little boy whimpered.

"Is everything too loud? Does everything smell wrong?" She almost smiled when the boy's eyes widened and his misery gave way to crawling hope. She still remembered how it was to be a child, burdened with overwhelming suffering, believing that no adult could ever understand. "Did you eat anything for lunch?"

"Couldn't swallow. Tasted rotten. And Mistress doesn't cook bad at all," he added, his voice rising until it strained and cracked.

"That's okay, Ranny. It's not Mistress Hoering's fault or yours. You're just getting sick, that's all." She resisted the urge to draw the boy into her arms and cuddle him for comfort. Her clothes were synthetic and would only inflame the boy's discomfort.

"Can I go back to the dorm?"

She stood and held out a hand to help the boy to his feet. "I already called Mistress Hoering and she's waiting. I want you to go straight to the showers and use cooliberry soap to wash all over, even your hair. And I want you to find clean clothes that are only made of pod thread and put them on. I bet your skin itches something terrible, doesn't it?"

"Can't hardly sit anymore." He tugged up the baggy legs of his pants, revealing the dust smeared across his legs, putting a protective film between his sensitive, reddening skin and the synthetic cloth.

"You'll feel better after you wash." Miranda watched the boy wipe the last tears from his eyes--smearing more dust into mud. "Then, we're going to take a trip. You'll feel much better by dinnertime, and in a little while, you can come home."

"You'll be my Mama when I come back?"

"I'm already your Mama in my heart, Ranny." She dropped down to her haunches so they were eye-to-eye. "We just have to wait for a bunch of clerks to say it's okay, remember?"

Something huge settled in her throat, choking her, when the boy nodded and managed a muddy grin. She stood and knuckled away tears and held out her hand. Ranny gave his hand into her grip and they started walking across the playground, toward the dormitory where other orphans lived.

Far in the distance, the towers of Port's space facility stretched up to the sky. Beyond that, taller than anything Humans could build, stretched the trees of Chorillan. In the shadows of those trees, far from the taint of anything man-made, suffering children like Ranny were able to find relief. They lived in rough log cabins and wore pod fiber clothes, ate only natural food, most of which they grew or harvested themselves, and waited until their suffering ended. For the most part.

Chorillan's colonists had to take a weekly detoxification pill to fight the minimal levels of 'unfriendly' elements in native plants and animals. When children like Ranny passed through the discomfort of Phase, they no longer needed the detox pills. They would always loathe the smells of Port, the spaceport, the small manufacturing plants, the processed food most colonists depended on. They would prefer going barefoot, wearing natural fibers and leather cured from the skins of native beasts. They would be Wildlings.

"What's wrong with me?"

"I have to give you a few tests," Miranda said. She couldn't force herself to give the half-lie of "allergy," that many parents gave their children when Phase struck them.

And yet, was there any better explanation for the sensory overload that some native-born children suffered? An allergic reaction to anything not naturally occurring on the planet, which turned their nervous systems hypersensitive.

Miranda's brother, Daral had been among the first generation to go through Phase, back in the days when the Azuli had been considered friendly. Many children had vanished into the forests of Chorillan, and supposedly the blue-eyed, canine Azuli had watched over them. For the first ten years or so, most children had returned unharmed from the wilderness. But there were a few, every year, who never returned. Daral was one of them. Most people believe the Azuli stole the children, and no child ever ran away from the holding area. For eight years now there had been a bounty on Azuli pelts. Azuli never came near Port nowadays, and rarely approached the Outposts.

Wildlings who had managed to escape into the wilderness during Phase always seemed to move through the world and react to it like wild animals forced to perform in a circus. No one quite knew whether to pity or fear them. When Daral went through Phase, the children received nothing but pity and support. Now, though, the pity held fear. Not fear for the suffering Wildlings, but fear of the Wildlings. What they might do when they reached adulthood. That fear had turned into a riot that killed Ranny's innocent parents. And now, the boy suffered even more. It just wasn't fair.

While Ranny washed and changed his clothes, Miranda conferred with Mistress Hoering, the orphanage supervisor. They tested the boy, even though they both knew the results. Synthetic cloth created an immediate red, itchy rash on his freshly washed arm--and the rash faded when rubbed with pod fiber cloth dipped in spring water. Ranny's favorite treat was dibble root cake. Mistress Hoering had some made with synthetic ingredients. Ranny turned his nose up at it, saying it smelled rotten, though it was fresh from the oven. When Mistress Hoering offered him a nutritious stew of all native vegetables, the boy devoured it and asked for more.

Miranda took Ranny to the Wildling holding area that evening after school let out. She still struggled with tears when she returned to her too-quiet home, to find her brother, Kallin waiting for her. He came to scold her about missing the weekly dinner with their parents and used her trespass as a launching point to lecture her more when she told him about Ranny.

"Write him off," he told her, blue eyes snapping with angry sparks. "Wildlings have to be put in their place now, while there aren't so many. They can't be allowed to think of themselves as full Humans, with rights."

"They're not mutants!" Miranda shot back, horrified out of her misery.

"No. We don't have the facilities to do that kind of testing. More's the pity. If they were mutants, we could have them sterilized and we wouldn't have to worry about them overrunning us twenty years into the future." His stern mouth worked as if he would say something else. Then he shook his head. "We should throw them all in labs from the start. Letting them live on their own will only make trouble for us in the future. They aren't Human. They never will be. It's us against them. Remember that."

"Would you say that if Daral had come back?"

"Daral's better off dead. The sooner Wildlings are treated like the dangerous animals they are, the safer we'll all be. Chorillan is dangerous, little sister."

"I'm not your little sister," she muttered.

The truth was that Daral was the oldest, by half an hour, then Miranda, then Kallin; triplets, all with golden red hair and blue eyes, born in their mother's elegant image.

"Chorillan is dangerous," Kallin repeated, with that superior smirk she hated. "We should have prohibited people having children twenty years ago. The Council is still dithering over closing immigration until some answers are found."

"You'd close the entire colony down, if you had your way," Miranda shot back. She clenched her fists, wanting to punch him, wanting to bloody that curled lip. She didn't, because civilized people didn't resort to violence.

No, she retorted silently. They didn't resort to violence--they simply destroyed lives in slower, more insidious ways.

Chapter Three

"Chorillan. Data," Ian said as he and Nobi walked into the conference room assigned to their team on board the Mourning.

Jaklyn and Edrori's wedding ceremony had gone off without a hitch, with the mothers of the bridal pair taking their vows. Ian had tried to pay attention, but his brain had been in overdrive, planning and calculating and trying to remember what he could about the planet where the Gen'gineer data'bot had been headed. Unfortunately, he couldn't recall anything beyond what he and Bain had discussed and Ganfer had told them.

"Near the Rim. Colony world, still under colonization debt, third generation of settlement. Silverleaf tea and lotusite originate on Chorillan, so be polite and grateful." Oralii nodded at Droban as she spoke, earning a few chuckles from the rest.

Silverleaf tea was a non-addicting restorative, and lotusite a pain killer that sped healing without any nasty side effects. The Scout Corps believed devoutly in using natural remedies. The Corps' medics had eagerly adopted lotusite.

"Third generation, and still paying off the debt? What's the problem?" Nobi asked.

"Growth is only one-third what was projected when the first ship landed," Coreen said. She tapped a command into her data pad, and immediately everyone's data pads flashed, indicating they had received the report files. "Why? Maybe we can find out when we get there. There's a strange lack of information leaving the planet. If there's some kind of problem, the colonists aren't asking for help, and they're hiding behind their right to autonomy. Exports are down, expansion is almost non-existent, and birth rates are those of a heavily settled planet, not a colony world that hasn't even passed a Standard century."

Droban whistled appreciatively and bent his dark head over the screen of his pad. As a medic with more equipment than colonial doctors, he had up-to-date scientific data and a better chance of discovering something wrong with the eco-system and the health of the colonists. On several other worlds and occasions, Scout medics had discovered problems and cures that had escaped everyone, up to Commonwealth Upper University researchers.

The rest of the team followed suit. The Mourning had three stops to make while in-system, to pick up other ships the Leaper would tow to their destination systems. The first transition would take the Scouts to the Chorillan system. They didn't have much time to study and prepare.

Ian knew this hunt for the Gen'gineer lab was going to reveal layers of hidden problems on Chorillan. The trace elements in the soil and plant life certainly didn't contribute to the slowed growth and lowered birth rate, because simple detoxification pills or shots took care of that. The planet never would have been opened for colonization if such difficulties couldn't be dealt with simply and inexpensively.

So what was it?

Chorillan did a thriving trade in silverleaf, lotusite, medicinal plants, rare woods, minerals and the few animals cleared for off-planet transport. So why weren't the income levels higher? Other planets with half the natural resources had been free of their debt by this time in their history.

There should have been twenty thousand people living in Port alone, not ten thousand on the entire planet. The first four outposts should have developed their own spaceport facilities and had at least five thousand inhabitants, not a mere thousand each, and still depending on Port for all off-planet transport and communication.

Chorillan should have had fifty outposts pushing at the edges of settled territory, adding at least one new outpost every other planetary year. That alone should have pushed up the exports by a factor of ten.

Instead, Chorillan's population still centered around Port, the first and only spaceport. The four original outposts were mere suburbs of Port, jumping off places for people who headed into the wilderness. The youngest outpost at the furthest fringe of civilization was Emers Outpost, sixteen Chorillan years old. Chorillan years were roughly fifty-two percent longer than Standard years, making Emers nearly twenty-five Standards old.

Ian's gut feeling said Gen'gineers hiding on Chorillan could be the problem. But why? What did they want? Could they be experimenting on the colonists? Did the lowered birthrate result from outside interference?

Ian knew the colonial government could see the arrival of Scouts from two angles. Either his team would be seen as intruders and spies from the Commonwealth Council's colonization division, or the Scouts would be seen as saviors, depending on whether the colonists wanted help or refused to admit there was a problem.

Ian studied the level of technology and educated workers in the colony. He might have to draft assistance from the colonists and wanted to know his limits and possibilities before he had to ask.

The education offered by the schools was the best to be had. A generous portion of the colony's budget went toward importing the most up-to-date teaching materials. Figures for healthcare technology and data on the training and weaponry of Peace Forcers were strangely lacking.

Industrial imports were lower than Ian expected--but Chorillan's main exports were obtained through harvesting and trapping, not mining or assembly, so that was easily explained away.

Immigration figures were lopsided.

Ian rubbed his eyes before returning to the data. He had to have read it wrong.

No, after four reads, it stayed the same. The glamour in colonization always focused on the Rim worlds, the ones at the true ragged edge of civilization. Chorillan was no longer a truly rough 'n ready, frontier world, so the rush to settle there had slowed understandably. The planet even had an established social elite, made of First Ship families, the politicians, and merchant families. That was a healthy sign of stability, and expected.

The trouble lay in the outward immigration figures. Between fifteen and twenty percent of the childbearing age population had left Chorillan each year, for the last ten Chorillan years. Why the childbearing age range? Why so marked a contrast with the older and younger ages?

"They're not giving us complete data," Rifler said, when everyone had finished reading the report Coreen and Oralii assembled.

"You think the Gen'gineers are involved?" Droban said. He slouched in his chair at the other end of the long conference table and sighed in response to the nods from most of the team. "That's what I was afraid of. We don't have the tech for full-spectrum genetic scans."

"Do you have the equipment to at least determine we have Gen'gineer interference here, so we can call in the Upper University researchers?" Nobi asked.

"Definitely."

By the time the Leaper crewman--a boy of fourteen, somber in his dress blacks--brought their transition drugs, they had a plan of action. They would separate into teams of four or five and scatter across the planet to gather data. Four shuttles and a full complement of Scouts would follow the incomplete data and coordinates found in the data'bot, to uncover the Gen'gineers' illegal laboratory and station. The rest would study Chorillan's society and find out just what they were hiding, and what stunted their growth.

"A good Scout cares," Ian reminded them, as they held their transition pills and tilted their chairs back into reclining position. "A great Scout saves personal feelings for after the mission." He nodded salute to them and popped the pill into his mouth. When he woke up, they would be in orbit around Chorillan.

* * *

"What are you crying about now?" Kalinda Riallon sighed and shook her elegantly coifed head.

Miranda was her mother's image; heart-shaped face, gray-blue eyes, red-gold curls. That was where the similarities stopped. Sometimes, she looked at her mother and wondered if the Gen'gineers were still running amok in the universe, and had created a flawed clone of her mother. How could the woman who had taught her to sing nonsense songs and cried over Daral when he went into Phase be so cold, so concerned about social status and political power to the detriment of innocent lives?

"Don't start in on the girl," Daran said from the other end of the oval table in the dining room. His long, elegant face had extra shadows from the strain of a hard day in Council, which only accented the pallor that had replaced his usual healthy tan. "If you'd pay attention to something besides the latest squabbles in Council, you'd know what's bothering her."

Miranda had come to visit her parents to make up for missing dinner three days ago. She had been just as surprised as them when she received a call. Kallin's absence from the house, which he still shared with his parents, had been a relief until Miranda got the call. Now, with the news of Ranny's disappearance, she wondered if Kallin had anything to do with it. Ranny wouldn't run away from the holding area; he had promised her when she went to visit him yesterday. He was afraid of the forest. He was afraid of the people he claimed he saw come out of the forest to watch the children when they played or learned to gather their own food.

Faking a breakdown in the security system around the Wildling holding area and then stealing a handful of children to make it look like they ran away was just the sort of nasty trick Kallin would play. Hadn't he done such cruel things when they were children?

Miranda knew she had no proof. She also knew now she should have left the house after receiving the news, rather than gone to the dining room to make her apologies to her parents. Too late now.

"It doesn't matter," Miranda said. "A problem with one of my students. I'm sorry, but I'll have to go help."

There was nothing she could do to help Ranny now, except pray he survived his flight into the wilderness, untrained and alone and frightened. If she had been there when the security system went down, she might have been able to stop him, or at least follow him into the forest. She was better prepared to handle Chorillan's wilderness than half her students, but what good would that do Ranny?

She kissed her father good-bye and aimed an air kiss at her mother's cheek. Miranda welcomed the excuse to leave the strained atmosphere, even though she knew she would pay for the trespass for months to come.

"You don't need to work," Kalinda called after her as she walked to the door of the room overlooking the elegantly manicured garden. "You're wearing yourself out for other people's children. Why not accept that invitation from the Montrose's? A few weeks of relaxation will do you a world of good."

"Because I'm a teacher, Mother." She didn't bother pausing in the doorway. It was an argument that had been going on as long as she had taken the teaching job. "The Montrose's are Kallin's friends, not mine."

"Yes, but Harker Montrose is more than interested in you. Think what a good marriage you could make."

"A political marriage isn't for our daughter," Daran said. "If Kallin wants one, let him marry Harker. He isn't selling his sister into slavery just so he can advance his influence through the Council." The slight richness of humor in his voice startled a little sob from Miranda.

She wiped away the tears she had been trying not to shed for Ranny and continued down the hallway to the front door. Once in the privacy of her little transport cart and on her way home, the privacy didn't give her the freedom to cry. She almost could have been amused by that irony, but her mind kept spinning through the news.

Ranny had become a lost Wildling. Unlike the children who stayed within observation, who could be treated and helped, lost Wildlings had to be hunted down and dragged home. They had to undergo a year of rehabilitation treatment. It often took months to find them--more proof that the Azuli hid the children nowadays, instead of helping them. If Ranny wasn't found before fall, he might never come home.

Just before she reached her solitary home, a startling thought came to Miranda. She and her father loved to camp and explore, and before the wasting illness latched onto Daran, they had spent holidays and school breaks as far out into the wilderness of Chorillan as they could go. She knew as much about the dangers and beauties and secrets of Chorillan as anyone who made their living exploring and trapping and harvesting. Why couldn't she go out and find Ranny?

He would come to her, and run from strangers. The sooner she found his trail, the sooner she could convince him to come home. She could save Ranny. She wouldn't traumatize him with nets and traps or sicken him with tranquilizer darts--or risk killing him with the brute force some of the Health Authority's hunters employed.

She had a four-week school break starting in just two days. Miranda had been planning on settling Ranny into her home during that break. Why not spend it on an extended camping trip? If her father were feeling better, Miranda knew she could have talked him into accompanying her. Daran would have loved such an outing. Especially if it frustrated both Kalinda and Kallin.

She had just reached the paved lane leading to the storage hut behind her house, where she parked the three-wheeled cart, when a glimpse of movement made her turn her head to the sky. Through the streaks of gold, peach and lavender, she saw ten black dots moving down in a wedge formation toward the spaceport. Miranda held still, like the time she tried to coax a hopper to take a piece of dibbleroot from her flat palm, and she waited. She held her breath, wondering what those silent black specks were. Some kind of small, space-to-atmosphere craft. Something more advanced than the shuttles employed by the colony. Who was coming to Chorillan, and what did they want?

Had the Council finally asked for help from the Upper University? That help might come too late for Ranny, but if it could save future generations of children, Miranda would welcome the scientists with open arms.

Maybe when she returned from the wilderness with Ranny safe and happy and cooperative, she would have something to offer these scientists.

* * *

"Nothing wrong with our equipment, but the antiques they're using here can't take the DataStream at our normal speed. Plus, the colonial computer network still uses the antique e-language they brought with them. Translating between that and what we use is causing problems in getting the data we need." Oralii frowned at the screen of the computer terminal and muttered a curse. Her fingers flew in a flurry over the input board.

Ian and Nobi exchanged longsuffering looks. Everything about Chorillan was at least two generations behind in terms of technology. The Colonial Council appeared more concerned about paying off its debt and hiding its inadequacies than it was about making sure its people had the most modern technology. Ian hoped that didn't extend to emergency facilities. Chorillan's Council could face charges from the Commonwealth Council if disaster struck and they weren't able to help their people adequately. This trouble with the computers in the team's suite at Government House was symptomatic of the primitive conditions the Scouts had faced since landing.

Their physical examination had required three doctors, each with their own bank of scanners and sampling tools. The Scout Corps could handle the entire examination in one tenth the time, with one hand-held diagnostic scanner that did everything with one tiny, painlessly extracted blood sample.

The decontamination of their Dart ships and shuttles had required envelopment in huge tents of impermeable plastic, with four separate condensing gases pumped in to kill microbes and wash away any space-born debris that might damage the eco-system of Chorillan. The Scout Corps and older, more affluent planets used a sonic beam that pinpointed damage for the maintenance teams to attend to, as well as rendering viruses and other contaminants harmless.

The computers in the guest suites had obviously been put last on the list of upgrades. Oralii pounded on the input board, ground her teeth and smothered curses, just in case the people of Chorillan were so backward they insisted on spying on their military guests.

In another day, the Scouts would have their permits from the Council and the freedom to move about on their alleged shore leave and update mission. That was no fiction. Chorillan had been studied and cleared for colonization more than a Standard century ago. Many things in the eco-system could have changed since the introduction of Humans and their technology, plants and animals. Bain Kern had volunteered the Scouts to take care of that necessary update survey, which automatically required Chorillan's government to cooperate fully, completely, and immediately. It also provided a handy cover for their hunt for Gen'gineers, just in case the renegade scientists had allies in Chorillan's government.

When all protocol had been attended to, the Scouts would be free to use their own equipment. Until then, they had to play the game of etiquette and avoid rubbing the colonists' faces in the fact of their primitive conditions.

Ian couldn't wait to get to work. There was nothing he enjoyed more than moving about in fresh air, on soil instead of deck plating, letting a new world soak into his blood and bones. His ancestors had been Leapers and Spacers, but he would always love the open wilderness more than space.

"Ha!" Oralii favored them all with a grin and pointed at the flimsi-port, which spewed thin plastic sheets with hard copy of the data she had finally finagled out of the planet's computer system. "Finally got a match on the coordinates we took from the Gen'gineers' data'bot. Stupid planetary computer didn't want to even acknowledge those coordinates exist. I swear, their planetary security satellites don't even fly over land that isn't settled."

"Against regulations," Droban muttered.

"What does that matter? Look at all the other regs they're just barely following," Rifler said with a snort. He glanced down at his coordinates sheet. "So, this is where we're going to be hunting, eh?"

"If the match is accurate, we have an area sixty kilometers wide and just over one hundred kilometers long. The bedrock presents a nice little echo effect to most rebound sensing equipment and makes shadows on the alloy readings. And, we all know the Gen'gineers have the latest in shielding equipment, so we're going to have to go in and search on foot and not rely on fly-bys."

"What are the variables?" Ian asked. He glanced around at his team, scattered through the room, on lounge chairs, couches, the floor and standing against the wall, to gauge reactions.

"Besides it being all wilderness, with a few rivers and ravines thrown in? They might as well scrawl 'here there be dragons' on these maps. These folks don't believe in venturing very far past the safety of their sonic fences."

"I wonder why," Nobi murmured.

* * *

Miranda paused with one hand on the front door lock of her parents' house. Fortunately, there was a late Council meeting tonight, a reception of some kind for a retiring official, and her mother and Kallin had plans to finagle an interview with the Scouts who had landed yesterday evening--all activities that would keep her parents and brother out of the house. The perfect opportunity to borrow camping equipment without anyone asking uncomfortable questions--or offering unwanted opinions and lectures.

She didn't know why it felt odd to be here. She had a perfect right to that equipment. Her mother would probably thank her for taking it out of the house, along with the memories of their happy, innocent lives before Phase took Daral.

No, she knew exactly why she wanted to get in and leave before anyone came home. She didn't want her parents, and especially her brother to know her plans. She wanted to be able to vanish into the forest before they knew she was gone. She wagered that the need to save face in public would keep her parents from calling out the Peace Forcers or wilderness scouts to hunt her down. She also rested heavily on the hope that her father would trust her to know what she was doing, and talk some sense into her mother. There was no talking sense into Kallin.

If only she could rely on Daral to help her look for Ranny. She and Daral had been so close, in temperament and interests, while Kallin could have been adopted into the family. It was hard to believe they were triplets. She loved to teach, to devote her life to children. Daral had been the dreamer, the explorer--he had wanted to grow up to become a Scout and fly through the galaxy. Kallin had been their mother's shadow, her favorite, eagerly molding himself into Kalinda's image.

Sometimes, Miranda wished she had either vanished into the wilderness with Daral, or Kallin had gone into Phase. Maybe there was something wrong with her, to despise her only remaining brother so intensely, but she didn't much care.

At home, her gear had already been packed and pared down to the bare essentials. One change of clothes, medical kit, energy bars and water purification tabs, fresh ammunition for her multi-dart and the wilderness survival information disk assembled for use in data pads.

And on the off chance that someone searched her house to find a clue to where she had gone, Miranda had removed every trace of the secret, semi-illegal research she and a number of other teachers had been conducting. Her notebook and backup disk contained all the data they could glean about Wildlings, every report, every common denominator, every theory they proposed and either destroyed or proved through statistics. They had no legitimate reason for keeping their research secret, but they told no one of their work. Each one shared the chilled sense that the government wasn't telling all the truth about Phase and Wildlings and the actual survival rates of the children affected. If they kept records long enough, ferreted out all the data possible, perhaps someday they would understand what caused it. Maybe find a preventive treatment. Or a cure.

She had to take that information with her to protect her co-conspirators, if nothing else. Besides, Miranda wanted to add to her data, perhaps even prove several of her theories while on the hunt for Ranny.

Maybe if the Scouts were still here when she returned, she could pass her information along to one of them, and they could get it off-planet, to someone who could do something with it. Someone along the chain of communication didn't believe there was a danger, and hadn't passed the information along to those who could help. Why else hadn't the Commonwealth sent someone to help the people? Why else had children been allowed to suffer and become lost in the forests of Chorillan? If she could make the Scouts believe, then help would come.

From the neglected storage alcove that opened off the massive kitchen, she retrieved more travel rations, sleeping bag, tarpaulin and her father's multi-dart. Most of the camping supplies were draped in spinner webs and coated in dust. Her father had loved camping, even after Daral had vanished. Only in the last two years, since his debilitating illness had taken over, had he stopped taking even overnight trips. Miranda blinked away tears of memory as she took the neglected supplies from their hiding hole. She had only good memories of her camping trips. She missed them. She hoped she still remembered enough to stay out of trouble and find Ranny before she ran out of time.

Before both of them ran out of time.

She took supplies out in handfuls and sorted them on the kitchen table, deciding what to take, what was useless, what to leave behind. On her third trip from the storage alcove, Miranda sensed a presence in the house. She caught her breath and nearly stumbled on the step in the dark. Who was here?

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