
himself along.
Above the cover of the trees, the huge chain of mountains became visible again. He moved upward
through a long ravine, the sides of the ravine rising away on either side of him. It was shadowed here, but
not shadowed enough; from nearly any point outside the thickest part of the forest, the Dancer would be
visible now. This was the point of greatest danger, where, for long moments, he would be in plain view.
A lucky shot; at that distance it could be nothing else. The kitjan whiplash touched the Dancer, held him
for the merest instant. Nerves fired at random; every superbly trained muscle in the Dancer's body
spasmed at once. He fell in midstride and struck the ground hard, rolling limply, tumbling back
down-slope in complete loss of control.
He ended up in a crevice beneath an overhanging, ice-scoured boulder. The Dancer lay on the cold hard
ground, fighting the unconsciousness that crept in around him. He monitored his heart, found it had
ceased beating at the kitjan's touch. He restarted it, inspected its operation briefly to ensure that it would
continue beating unattended. Spasms ripped the muscles of his abdomen, made breathing impossible.
The Dancer concentrated on the abdominal muscles, and well before he was in danger of losing
consciousness from anoxia had regained control of his breath. His eyesight cleared slowly of its own
accord. The Dancer lay on the frozen ground, waiting. The kitjan screamed once, twice, while he waited
there. The first shot came nowhere near him; the Shield had not seen him clearly when he fell. The next
shot came closer, sent another wash of wracking pain across the Dancer's frame; more of the unlikely
luck that had felled him in the first place.
It was dark now. Once, long ago, before the Dancers had learned to control the temperature of their
bodies, that lack of visible light would have meant little; the Shield saw body heat as well as any Dancer.
Now that darkness might well make the difference between life and death. Lying motionless at the base
of the boulders, looking down the mountain, the Dancer saw the first flicker of motion among the thinning
trees, of the Shield closing in. The Dancer let his heartbeat slow, let the blood move sluggishly through his
veins. He felt it first in his hands, as his body temperature dropped slowly toward freezing, toward the
ambient temperature of the world around him. At last he moved, rolled carefully into a crouching position.
He could not feel his extremities well. He moved cautiously now, not certain how close the Shield might
be, up through the ravine, through what little cover existed above the tree line.
To the cave.
There was little enough inside besides the cache of hardware from the ship. The cave was small, and
even though the
Dancer had not been there in a very long time he found the device he needed quickly: a key meant to be
held in the palm of a mans hand.
In the darkness the Dancer felt for the studs on the surface of the key, and moved his thumb to cover the
oval stud which would bring him safety.
Behind him, at the entrance to the cave, Gi'Tbad'Eovad'Dvan said quietly, "Good-bye, Sedon."
The kitjan found him while Dvan was still speaking. The Dancer never heard his name uttered. In the
moment of his death, as the air left his lungs in a desperate, convulsive scream, the Dancer's thumb
spasmed on the stud controlling the stasis bubble.
They were up above the tree line; Gi'Tbad'Eovad'Dvan unslung the ancient laser from across his back,
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