She reached out and squeezed Janku's hand. He virtually spasmed at the contact, but did not withdraw his hand. "Go now," she said. "The others will be hungry. See that the bars are distributed among all."

He nodded mutely and hurried down the corridor, a look of gratitude and fear in his eyes. As soon as he disappeared, Malendi returned to the nook and picked up a second basket. She paused to retrieve a half-eaten bar from beneath the cloth cover and ate it. While she chewed, her gaze roamed the rank, dripping tunnel. Near the intersection of a parallel tunnel, a misshapen milliped wriggled from a bubbling pit and scuttled off into a crevice in the adjacent rock. Suddenly, the glistening rock surface shimmied.

She gasped and pressed herself into the nook. The large serpentine shape immediately below the rock surface filled her with a gnawing sense of dread. A triangular head paused and swayed toward her direction. Fearful of the throwort's keen sense of smell, Malendi breathed shallowly and forced herself to remain absolutely still. The effort soon fatigued her and it took a supreme effort to keep her body from shaking. She shut her eyes and willed the creature to move on.

Finally, the throwort wriggled away in the direction of the other tunnel. Exhausted, Malendi sagged against the rock. Her lungs burned with each gulping breath, her rubbery legs barely able to support her weight. To divert her mind from her physical discomfort, she envisioned the creature infiltrating Vark's quarters. It would have been such a simple solution to the tyranny the surviving population endured, yet the man who had once called himself their leader seemed impervious to attack whereas so many others had died. So often did she question the justice in the apparent annihilation of her people that it had become a constant undercurrent in her mind.