A fresh shock awaited them as they reached the edge of the jungle and were about to touch the farthest of the plantation access roads. Two large shuttlecraft of peculiar multiwinged design were resting there. In landing they’d made a ruin of several neatly tended fields of weoneon and asfi.

The local airport was south of Paszex, a fact that Ryo could not reconcile with the presence in his familiar fields of the two strange ships. It was the older Bor who roughly took the controls from him and hurriedly backed the crawler into the cover of the jungle.

The action ended Ryo’s immobility, if not his confusion. “I don’t understand. Is it some kind of emergency? Is that why they didn’t set down at the port and …?”

Bor interrupted him, pragmatism assuming sway over politeness.

“Those are not Thranx, or anything else friendly. They are AAnn shuttlecraft. Don’t you recall them from Learning Time? There has to be an AAnn warship somewhere in orbit around Willow-wane.”

Bor’s words brought the segment of study back to Ryo in a rush.

Powerful, antagonistic, and crafty were the words that best described the endoskeletal space-going AAnn. Their star systems lay farther out along the galactic plane than the Thranx worlds. Though war had never been declared between the two races, occasional “mistakes” were made by individual AAnn commanders who “overstepped their orders.” Or so the AAnn apologies always insisted.

Since the Central government on Hivehom was always practical about such matters, the errors never led to fullscale combat Such isolated incidents were irritating but rarely outrageous. The Grand Council therefore chose to protest such incidents through diplomatic channels.

This policy was not much comfort to the three outraged individuals driving the crawler, an unusual state of affairs among a people normally respectful of authority.

The trio could not sympathize with diplomats, since all they could see were two invading craft that had destroyed laboriously groomed fields, and the plumes of dark black smoke that rose like mutilated ghosts above Paszex.

“We must do something.” Ryo stared helplessly through the trees. Across the fields drifted the hiss of discharging energy weapons mixed with the lighter crackle of Thranx stingers and an occasional nasty cur-rrrupmph! from explosive shells.

“What can we do?” Bor’s tone was one of calm acceptance. “We do not have—” His voice rose at the thought and his eyes gleamed like diamonds. “We do have weapons.”

Ryo’s hands pulled the largest stinger rifle from its holster. He needed all four to handle it. “Bor, you drive the crawler. Aen, you navigate and keep watch for the AAnn.”

“Pardon,” Aen objected, “but in accordance with our respective positions it would be my place to drive, Bor’s to shoot, and yours to navigate.”

“Rank is hereby superseded by circumstance.” Ryo was checking the charge on the rifle. It was full. “I order you to disregard position.”

“If you wish me to ignore position then you cannot give me an order to do so,” she argued smoothly. Bor settled the argument by plunging the crawler through the trees onto the field of cab-high asfi. They were soon submerged in ripe yellow pods just starting to droop from their green-and-black-striped stalks.