Beastchild

vines were really humans. The Phasersystem increased his fear tenfold, fed him a host of anxiety patterns.
        The only thing to be done was exterminate the beasts. Exterminate them or be murdered ourselves…
        He found himself with a flamegun in his hands. He trained it on the vines.
        Yellow-crimson fire leapt forward, flushed into the growth.
        The beasts squealed below.
        They leaped into the open, Burning.
        They died.
        The vines did not burn: a naoli only destroyed that which had to be destroyed.
        The beasts did death dances on flaming toes, tongues lit, eyes turned to coals and then gray ashes…
        And Hulann enjoyed it. He was grinning. Laughing now… … and suddenly gagging.
        He choked, felt his stomachs contracting. The conditioning dream had not been strong enough to counteract the truth he had learned. The humans weren't vicious enemies. They were basically as peaceful as naoli. What should have been done was this: the Hunters should have been pitted against the spacers. And the normal citizens of both races should have been left to their gentle lives.
        The dreams were your last chance, Docanil said through the Phasersystem. I did not agree to the flan. But others thought you could be reached.
        Hulann said nothing. He opened the door and vomited on the sand. When both stomachs were empty, he became aware of Docanil the Hunter still speaking on the Phasersystem link.
        I am coming, Hulann.
        "Please-"
        I know where you are. I come.
        Hulann broke his Phasersystem contact. He felt seven hundred years old, in the last of his days. He was hollow, a blown glass figurine, nothing more.
        The boy returned to the car, got in. "Well?"
        Hulann shook his head.
        He started the engine.
        The shuttlecraft moved forward, down the rise into the great desert, on toward the Haven somewhere in the mountains of the west…
        Half an hour later, Docanil the Hunter brought his copter down on the same knoll where Hulann had stopped to contact him. He looked out across the plain of sand and stone and cactus, grinning. A very, wide grin. Some minutes later, he looked away, took out the maps, and looked them over. Banalog watched him trace a route for a moment, then said, "Aren't we following them?"
        "No," Docanil said.
        "But why?"
        "There is no need."
        "You think the desert will kill them?"
        "No."
        "What then?"
        "The naoli have some expensive and effective weapons systems," the Hunter said. "But none more expensive or more effective than the Region Isolator."
        Banalog felt the scales of his scalp tighten painfully.
        "The next two hundred miles was-at the beginning of the war, a major nuclear weapons stockpile for the humans. An Isolator was dropped to effectively cut the humans off from the greatest number of their warheads. It has not yet been dismantled. It will seek out any human life with its sensors, engineer a weapon, and destroy that target. The boy, if he is not dead already, will perish before nightfall."
        Banalog felt ill.
        "Then, what will Hulann do?" the Hunter mused. "I can hardly imagine. If they planned on going to the Haven, that will be impossible. He could not get in without the boy's aid. We will fly around the region affected by the Isolator. There is only one highway exit. We will wait there to see if Hulann continues his journey."
        He was grinning quite widely-for a Hunter.

Chapter Fifteen
        
        In a glass bubble laced through with fire, the gnome danced, its feet snarled in filaments of spun milk, millions of puppet strings stretching away from it into invisibility. The creature was no larger than a man's hand, but fired with the energy of multitudes. It spun and waltzed and jigged with itself, flailing its tiny arms about, leaping and frolicking this way and that until the transparent walls of its prison made it turn and twirl in a new path. As it cavorted, it cackled and gibbered, laughed at its own gems of humor, spoken in a tongue of nonsense and folly.
        The glass ball spun slowly, slowly, as if the gnome were upon a revolving stage.
        He danced more furiously than ever to a music that did not exist. He laughed and cackled and whooped explosively, stomping his tiny feet hard against the inside of his prison. He began to whirl,