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out into the starlit gloom of the night. His trick with the crashed hang glider hadn’t fooled them. They knew he was still alive, and they were going to get him back. Alive, or otherwise.
    But if they were nearby, they were keeping quiet about it. Merrick’s enhanced hearing was alive with strange noises, but there was nothing he could identify with Trofts or Troft vehicles. His enhanced vision, both infrared and telescopic, showed nothing but small- to medium-sized animals and birds going busily about their lives.
    There were larger predators in the forest, Merrick knew, creatures of muscle, claws, and teeth that even Cobra weapons and programmed reflexes would be hard-pressed to deal with. Luckily, like the Trofts, so far they seemed to be keeping their distance.
    There was a rustling in the leaves to his left. Reflexively, Merrick tensed, his hands curling into fingertip-laser firing positions.
    But it was just Anya, shifting position in her sleep.
    Merrick exhaled a silent sigh. Not that she was supposed to be asleep. Not now. Certainly not here. She was supposed to be leading them to a secret hideout where she’d said they would find her parents, who’d allegedly been hiding out ever since their failed revolt against Muninn’s Troft overlords.
    But he and Anya had stopped to rest, and Anya had fallen asleep, and Merrick had decided that a ten-minute nap couldn’t hurt anything.
    Especially since this whole scenario was still flying a whole forest of red flags in the back of his mind.
    The idea of a hidden refuge and possible allies was certainly an alluring one. It was exactly what he and Anya needed if they were to catch their breath, regroup, and figure out their next step. They’d been sent here by Commander Ukuthi of the Balin’ekha’spmi demesne in hopes of finding out what the Trofts of the Drim’hco’plai demesne were up to in their private slave preserve. But so far the two humans hadn’t made much progress.
    The problem was that the abortive revolt her parents were supposedly on the run from had happened twelve years ago. Twelve years . Merrick couldn’t figure out why Anya assumed the hideout even existed anymore, let alone that anyone was still using it.
    In fact, the more Merrick thought about it, the more dangerously ridiculous the assumption became. If he’d been in charge of that long-ago revolt, he would have instantly abandoned any known shelter the minute the Trofts quashed the rebellion. After all, a victor’s first step in that situation was usually to root out any surviving pockets of resistance, and part of that rooting would be to drag the location of every bolt-hole from the survivors. If the Trofts knew about Anya’s refuge, even if that knowledge was over a decade old, simply strolling into it would not be a smart thing to do.
    Yet Anya, who seemed clear-headed enough in other areas, seemed to have missed that piece of logic completely. More than that, she seemed convinced that her parents would still be waiting when they arrived.
    Could it be simply a matter of her wanting her parents to be there? She’d implied that they’d run off after the revolt failed, leaving their twelve-year-old daughter and the other villagers holding the bag. She’d also admitted that she still harbored some not unreasonable resentment over the fact that she’d ended up as a slave under Commander Ukuthi’s control.
    But even the hottest angers tended to cool with time. After twelve years maybe Anya was ready to offer her parents the chance to mend fences.
    Or else she was looking for them in order to exact some sort of revenge. Merrick had known Anya barely a month, and he couldn’t begin to guess all of what was going on behind those clear blue eyes.
    He needed time to think, and he really hadn’t had any. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to let Anya sleep as long as she wanted and in the process buy himself a little more time to ponder.
    And to maybe to come up with a Plan B if and when