“Whatever he’s doing, he’s on his own,” Oakes said.

“Ohhh, no . . .” The gasp escaped her as the black figure of another Hooded Dasher, two Flatwings close behind it, took up the chase. Thomas was staggering now and the Dasher closed rapidly. In the last blink, as the Dasher stretched for the final blurring leap, it swerved abruptly aside. A mass of tentacles dropped from the air and a hylighter soared across Thomas, scooping him up.

Oakes worked the screen controls, zooming back for a general view. Someone behind them said: “Would you look at that!” It was almost a sigh.

The hills and cliffs inland from the Redoubt displayed tier upon tier of hylighters, great mobs of them gathered in a siege arc beyond the range of the Redoubt’s weapons.

“Goodbye, Raja Thomas,” Oakes said. “Too bad the hylighters got him. A Dasher would’ve ended it quickly.”

“What do the hylighters do to you?” Legata asked.

Before Oakes could answer, Lewis turned to the room and said: “All right, everybody. Show’s over. Back to work.”

“We only have evidence from some demon carcasses,” Oakes said. “They were sucked dry.”

“I . . . wish we could’ve saved him,” she said.

“He took his chances and he lost.”

Oakes reached out to the controls, his finger poised over the scan program, stopped. He stepped backward to bring the whole screen into view. The hylighter carrying Thomas had lost itself in the distant mobs. The great billowing bags now danced on the air, underlighted by the orange glow of the suns, their sail membranes rippling and filling.

Legata saw what had stopped Oakes. More hylighters were coming up, climbing higher and higher, filling in the sky.

“Ship’s eyes!” another voice behind them said. “They’re blocking out the suns!”

“Split screen,” Oakes said. “Activate all perimeter sensors.”

It took several blinks for Legata to realize he was addressing her. She flipped the switches and the screen went gray, then reformed in measured squares of the different views, a locator number under each. Hylighters englobed the sky all around the Redoubt—over the sea, over the land.

“Look there.” It was Lewis pointing to a screen showing the base of the inland cliffs. “Demons.”

They became aware then that the entire rim of cliffs, as far as the sensors could reach, writhed with life. Legata felt certain that never before had such a mass of teeth and claws and stings assembled in one place on the face of Pandora.

“What are they doing?” Oakes asked, and his voice trembled.

“They look like they’re waiting for something,” Legata said.

“Waiting for orders to attack,” Lewis said.

“Check security!” Oakes barked.