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The sun was setting by the time Jane went up the tree. She moved quickly, like a giant spider. She settled onto a limb thirty feet up and looked out toward the river.

Chaney waited at the foot of the tree, down on one knee. His head was down, his eyes closed. I could see the pale, spidery scars on his sun-darkened head where they'd augmented his "natural" ability with surgically implanted amplifiers. He was receiving telepathic images from Jane, up in the tree. The chimp's brain had likewise been "augmented."

They were a team, the man and the ape, and we were relying on them to get us to the river. Once we made it to the river, I would take over.

There were seventy of us squatting in the tall grass. We were all that was left of the 120 men who'd volunteered for this mission. It had been a long, hard day. There'd been razor-edged, heat-seeking discs and flying cats (genetically altered so that they were able to spread and flatten their ribcages and glide through the air like flying squirrels or snakes). Their teeth and claws had been tipped with poison.

Like I said: a long, hard day…

Chaney lifted his head and watched as Jane came sliding down the tree. He picked her up with his free arm (he carried his blaster in his other hand) and walked back to the Sarge. Sgt. Howard rose to meet him. The Sarge is a big man, 6'3" of solid muscle. He'd ripped the sleeves off his shirt so we could see the biceps that'd won him a bodybuilding title back before the war. He slung his blaster over one shoulder and listened to Chaney's whispered report. Then he looked around, locked onto me, and motioned me over.

I went to them. Sarge dismissed Chaney with a nod, then looked at me, his hard eyes beneath overhanging brows shadowed in the fading light. "You're up, Ellison. Take Ramirez with ya."

I nodded once and sought Ramirez among the grass, found him and jerked my head toward the river. He nodded as he rose and joined me. We moved through the tall grass to the forwardmost edge of the trees, hunkered down and put in our night-vision contact lenses.

Before long, the sun was gone; the moon had taken its place.

I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary on either side of the river- just trees, and tall grass- but that didn't mean much: we never saw them coming. The river was shallow, calm; the perfect place to cross… and the perfect place for an ambush. I didn't like the looks of it. It looked like a trap…

I turned and silently flashed a hand signal to Ramirez. The telepath looked out at the water, then back at me. Why not? he thought. The receiver in my helmet picked up the question. No go, I signed again, emphatically. He sighed and adjusted the antenna on his helmet and began to transmit. Three hundred feet behind us, another telepath was receiving and relaying the message. I picked up nothing, which meant that Ramirez was blocking me out, now.

I glared at the man. He had no business questioning my judgement. I'd been at this for nearly three years, and I'd made it this far only because I'd never gone for the "obvious." I'd questioned everything. He shifted his visor (which he'd had down to filter out the sun) and, by the light of the newborn moon, I could see the thick scars that all of the 'paths sported. His eyes looked black…

"Don't do that again," I told him. He answered without looking directly at me: "We ain't got time to sit and think about it." I didn't even bother to reply. He'd learn- or he'd be gone, before long.

That's when I heard them, coming up behind us. I whirled, bringing the blaster up. My finger froze an instant before it could press the firing button. It was our guys. They were moving forward, en masse, weapons at the ready. I shot Ramirez a look of total disbelief. He wouldn't look at me, just squatted there staring out across the water. I turned back to the others and flashed hand signals: WAIT STOP NO GO!

I saw a couple of them stop, saw a couple of others hesitate uncertainly before coming on. I wanted to warn them, to stop them, somehow- but it was already too late. I heard soft splashes as the first of them began to wade out into the water. I bent close to Ramirez and jammed the barrel of my blaster under his jaw, just below his right ear. He froze and his eyes widened.

"You son of a bitch," I hissed: "I oughtta open your head…"

That's when the screams began. I looked up and saw lightning flashing out on the water. Men were locked motionless by electricity, slowly frying where they stood in the river. I leapt from hiding and sprinted to the river's edge, slid down a muddy embankment; caught a handful of exposed roots and hung there, suspended on the edge of the water… and watched them die.

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