"What's the problem?"

"I can't sleep."

The Grad laughed. "It's been a busy time. Which of us do you accuse of sleeping well?"

"I haven't slept since we reached the midpoint. We're in a jungle, we've got food and water, but Grad-Scientist, we're still falling!" Alfin's laugh surprised the Grad, it had a touch of hysteria in it.

Alibi didn't look good. His eyes were puffy, his breathing was irregular, he was as jumpy as tonight's dinner turkey. The Grad said, "You know as much about free-fall as I do. You learned it the same way. Are you about to run amok?"

"Feels that way. I'm not helpless. I killed a bird that was after Gayving." And for that moment his pride was showing.

The Grad mulled the problem. "I've got a bit of that scarlet fringe from the fans. You know how dangerous it is. Anyway, you don't want to sleep now."

Alfin glanced at the sky. The starstuff box was taking its sweet time, but . . . "No."

"When it's safe. And I haven't got much."

Alfin nodded and turned away. The Grad stayed where he was. He wanted solitude to nurse his jumpy stomach. He'd never set a broken bone before, and he'd had to do it without the Scientist's help .

Alibi made his way back toward Jayan and Merril and dave. He looked back once, and the Grad was looking at the sky.

He looked back again, and the Grad was gone. Jayan screamed.

The darkness and the strange, dappled shadows made them almost invisible, even to each other. "We can hide in here," Gavving said.

Minya was nodding. "Burrow deep. Stick together. What about Clave?"

"We'll have to pull him through. What looks like a good spot?"

"None of it," Jinny said. "It would hurt him."

Gavving tracked a dense cluster of branchlets back to a single spine branch. "Cut here," he told Minya.

She didn't have room to swing. She used the sword as a saw, and it took her a hundred breaths or thereabouts. Then Gavving pushed against the freed end and found that the entire cluster moved outward as a plug. He pulled himself into open air and looked about him. "MennI! Here!"

"Good," Merril called. She and Alibi towed Clave toward the opening, moving with frantic haste. The one-eyed box was too close. The occupants must be watching them by now.

They'd have to dig in fast, get lost in the deep branchlets. But- "Where's Jayan? Where's the Grad?"

"Gone," Mernil puffed. "He's gone. Something pulled him down into the thicket."

"W7zat?"

"Move it, Gavving!"

They got dave inside and pulled the plug-bush closed. Gavving saw that dave's leg had been splinted with strips of a blanket and two of Minya's arrows.

"The men on the box," Minya said, "they'll follow us."

"I know. Merril, what got the Grad? An animal?"