“Who was the big thug?” Nudge wrapped her arms around her knees, resting her head on them. They’d been grabbed one by one, back at the station. Some of the scientists had tried to fight and had a bunch of serious injuries to show for it. I felt sorry for them, but if you lie down with dogs . . . (No, Total, don’t get offended. The flock were the “dogs” in that metaphor. See, they hung out with — You know what? To heck with it.)

“Don’t know,” I said. Adrenaline had been keeping me alert when we first got here, but now it was gone, leaving me wallowing in the wallow of the deeply bummed. “He’s a big Frankenberry jerk, though.”

“Those things are so weird,” said Gazzy.

“You’re not kidding,” I agreed.

All the short soldiers that had captured us, plus a bunch more, were here in the cargo area with us. When the ramp had locked into place, the big guy had given a command. The soldiers had lined up against the wall, three rows deep, and then just stood there. I couldn’t tell if they were powered down or what.

Then Gazzy had tried to touch one and got a nasty electric shock that knocked him backward about a foot and a half.

Several of the soldiers around that one had seemed to power up then, shifting their positions and aiming their sensors at us. A couple of them had inched forward, and we all froze.

“Back away very slowly, Gazzy,” I said quietly. “To the wall, and sit down, very, very slowly.”

Still rubbing his shocked hand, Gazzy began to back up, then he jumped when a laser beam shot out and burned a hole right through the toe of his boot.

“Yow!” he said, hopping on the other foot.

“Did it get you?” I asked anxiously, keeping my eyes on the soldiers.

“No — just burned a hole through my boot. Missed my toes.”

“Okay, everyone, let’s just stay still,” I ordered. “No sudden moves. These things are clearly hair-trigger, and I don’t want any holes burned through more important stuff, like our heads.”

Fifteen minutes later, we were all ready to be diagnosed with ADD, and the sitting-still thing was not working for us. Gradually we found out that we could move, as long as we didn’t do anything suddenly and didn’t go near the soldiers.

“Fine, they can have me if they want, but why drag Akila into this?” Total said for the nineteenth time. “She didn’t do anything!”

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying for the nineteenth time not to choke him to death. “On the other hand, if they’d left her, she might be dead by now.”