That night the slaves rejoiced.

  Every now and then, when the bosses were too busy to invent any night work, and the Resort was too packed to the gills for the humans to bother to discipline the slaves or even to keep track of them, the slaves tasted something like freedom.

  It was freedom… of a sort. If they had their choice of course they’d leave the worn-out old dirty yard, leave their slave dorm, and fly off into the misty twilit night… but that was the only thing they couldn’t do. So they made the best of it. They built up a respectable fire under the overhang of the cliff with the heaps of wood that Jet and others had brought, and they sang.

  It is quite something to hear fifty adult male Bantans sing. The music of the Tribes followed the rhythms of the cicadas; one side of the fire would begin, the other side would come in, and they’d trade off. The harmony and melody would shift around the fire from one side to the other, meandering through the ranks of bass voices, the largest of them in the back to guide the rest with their profoundly deep tones.

  It was stirring. Soon the very ground shook with it; they smiled as they sang, feeling the crates and logs under their legs humming with the harmonics in the air. It resonated in their chests like the Great Drums of the Boldofi until they could almost not breathe.

  The guests may have heard it, some of them; but the slave yard was distant and behind many buildings. If they heard it, it was afar off, a stentorian echo through the fog, and they might have wondered at the eerie archaic music rolling through the thickening night-time mists. The sea kept tempo.

  When they had sung, the slaves which had tended the kitchens that night brought out what they’d collected. As hoped, entire portions of the roast Oso Beasts had been discarded by the picky humans… all of the bones, and a good bit of the rest.

  Despite the fact that it was cooked, the Bantans devoured it. They cracked the bones with their strong jaws, they sucked out the marrow, they picked their teeth with the shards, and they stripped every last bit of flesh from them. And then to fill in the cracks they ate a bit of the manufactured ‘meat’ just to feel really full.

  Not in many months had they eaten so well, or sung for so long into the night. At last though Komo decided they’d better break it up and get to bed before they were noticed, and he ordered the fire doused.

  They were weary, because the day’s work had been especially hard, but they were happy. Most of them were even in the mood to joke and jostle, and play-fight with one another, almost as if they were friends.

  Together they went to the dorms and lay down on hard bunks made of concrete; Jet had to find his blanket which he’d torn and dragged halfway across the big room that morning. He lay down under the little window and looked up at it, seeing through its tiny portal the thickly glittering stars in the profound Bantan sky. Then he slept.

  In the night the howls of the slaughterdog troubled his dreams. He slept in fitful bursts until suddenly, around three in the morning, when the great gas giant Moorkoor was serene and full, suddenly the Resort alarm sirens went off.

  Every slave bolted awake, most leapt out bed or tried to fly before they were even conscious, slamming into the walls or their bunks or the floor when their bound wings failed to work.

  Jet gasped and felt like cold water had just been thrown over him, his eyes wide open before his brain could even catch up. Then they heard it again: the alarm sound, letting the entire property know that the slaughterdog pen had been breached.

  Curses flowed from the slaves, real fear shivering through their bodies because they all knew who it was that was going to have to capture the damned beast and get it back into its cage. When this had happened in the past it had never gone well.

  “Someone will die tonight,” muttered Gagul.

  “Shut up, Gagul,” Komo ordered, immediately taking charge. He looked out of one of the windows warily. They heard something crash and fall over at the far end of the yards, probably about where the night’s supply drop had landed.

  “It’s in the load. Probably smells food.” He took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, then turned to face the room with a look of resolve on his dark face. “Alright. Listen to me, Bantani.” His deep, loud voice filled the dorm. “We have an emergency. That thing is loose, and you know it’s going to be us who has to restrain it. Into your Teams; now.”

  They quickly did as he said, all of them afraid, but determined also to work together to survive. They also trusted Komo; he had brains.

  “What we’re going to do is this: each Team will head for an exit to the supply yard. Grab chains from the vehicle yard, I want Green Team to do that. Get the chains, get them to the others. Chain the gates. Trap it. Then once we—”

  The door to the dorm burst open and all three Taskmasters walked in, eyes wide and looking more scared than the slaves. Lorin tried to hide it behind bravado. “Alright, listen up!” he yelled. “I want all of you out there right now! Get ropes, and we’re going to wrangle this thing! We have to tie it up before it hurts one of the guests! Move it!” He had a stun rifle, and held it like he was threatening to start with them if they didn’t obey immediately.

  The slaves glanced at one another cynically but obeyed, quickly leaving the dorm and heading into the foggy night.

  They ignored Lorin’s ridiculous idea of tying it up with rope (as if they could even get close enough to it to do that) and obeyed Komo swiftly.

  Jet and the other eleven misfits from Green Team sprinted for the vehicle sheds; they knew exactly the thick, massive chains that Komo had been referring to. Jet, being smaller and swifter than most, got there first and started unhooking them and handing them out to the rest of the Team.

  Old Vorka was last; Jet refused to give him one. “No, old man. You’re the spotter. Get up high and use whistles. You remember the signals we worked out for last summer’s fire?”

  Vorka nodded, his dull eyes gleaming a little brighter with understanding. Everyone would recognize the whistles as soon as they heard it, and they’d know what to do.

  Without a word Vorka shuffled out of the shed, running as fast as he was able (a slow jog) for the loading cranes where he’d be able to see everything.

  Jet grabbed the last chain and ran for the furthest gate, figuring that the others would have gone to the nearer and easier to reach ones.

  Lorin was out in the yards with Jovaine and Kelly, the three Taskmasters spreading out a little to shout orders to the slaves, but not getting too close to the supply yards. They would always hide behind their slaves as shields.

  Pretending to obey the Taskmaster while actually getting the work done was an old art form that all of them knew well. Invariably and for every job that had ever been done at the Resort, the Taskmasters had no idea what they were doing, how to get anything practical accomplished, or what tools were actually available (and not broken).

  Obedience to them in this particular situation would almost certainly mean disaster or death. Yet if the humans didn’t also believe that the Bantani were in fact obeying them like perfect little robots they’d get angry and start tasering people.

  The trick of course was to get the best fakers in position near the Taskmasters (Team One handled this, Komo’s group) so the humans had some target Bantani to boss around. They would act like a distraction… stalling, playing dumb, obeying but having problems, and buying the others precious time. It was noble work; for Komo’s Team might also end up punished and tasered for their apparent ineptitude.

  Meanwhile the other three Teams would take care of the emergency their way — fast, efficient, before the humans got any more brilliant ideas. With any luck the beast would be contained before the humans actually knew what was going on, then they could just stun it unconscious or shoot it and all would be well.

  That, at least, was the plan.

  Jet dodged from vehicle to vehicle, then got to the gate between the yards and felt chills go down his body. He didn’t know where the thing was… he looked out into the night fearful, afraid of every looming shape.

  Just then he heard Vorka’s whistle. He used the signals which indicated that it was still in the load yard, in the west.

  Exultant that the system was working, Jet ran freely and without fear through the trash yard, then saw Team Two at the gates to the load yard. They were all hunched, moving as quietly as they could, holding the gate shut.

  He carried the heavy chain to them, taking pains that it must not clink, and handed it over, helping them to wrap it. This inevitably made noise; and as they realized they could not possibly do it and be quiet about it, they exchanged a glance which said: now, and as fast as we can.

  The biggest of the group, Molan, grabbed the chain from the others and flung it around and around the bars making horrendous racket. As he did they all heard the slaughterdog start to yowl and snarl, and charge.

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  It was coming. They could feel its heavy stampeding footsteps through the ground. They could feel its weight speeding toward them like doom. Adrenaline spiked through their blood and Molan moved even faster; just as the musky scent of the huge predator washed over them, and it’s attack scream cut through the night, he slapped the end of the chain into the clamps and the gate was secured.

  In that instant the beast slammed into the gate itself. All of its weight nearly took it down; and the sudden bulge the creature put into the fence hit two of the Bantani and threw them back ten feet.

  But the gate held. It now bulged out and was distorted, but it still stood and the chain held. The slaughterdog screamed again, backed up, threw itself at the fence again. It was going to try to batter it down.

  “Back!” Shouted Kane, Team Two’s lead.

  But it was hard to leave the gate. Even though it was rattling and shaking with the weight of the beast behind it, all of the Bantans experienced a moment where they faced it and snarled, claws ready, as if they could fight the thing alone.

  “BACK!” Kane shouted again and finally started to get through to them. They were experiencing the Chains of Thresh, the name they had given to the incredibly powerful Bantan instinct to fight to the death.

  When common sense broke through the bloodlust, they all turned and ran. Only Jet hesitated but it wasn’t because of the bloodlust.

  He turned while the others ran, looked back, sized up the yard to see what could be done. It was the trash yard… there wasn’t a lot to work with. Random junk, piles of stuff to be either burned, recycled, reused, or picked up by the local trash barge.

  The slaughterdog slammed into the gate again and metal screamed. Jet realized with a clench of his stomach, tail stiffening, that the gate was going to break with another two or three hits. He felt his mind slipping toward the bloodlust but forced it back into thinking mode.

  He looked back at the yard, at the rest of the Team fleeing… saw the exit gate wide open. “CLOSE THE GATE!” he shouted, but the rest didn’t heed him. Maybe they were in a panic… maybe they were too afraid… maybe the instinct was interfering with their minds. If anyone was going to close it, it would be him.

  Jet ran for the exit gate. He had to get it shut because that thing was coming through. As he went he kept a desperate eye out for something — anything — that could help him bar the gate and keep it shut.

  He noticed a long metal pole in the ‘reuse’ pile, and grabbed it. Better than nothing.

  Jet sprinted like he never had before in his life. He was young and sleek, faster than most, and made the gate in plenty of time to turn and force it shut. Meanwhile Vorka was desperately whistling: danger. Danger. Center and East.

  If only his people could fly… by the gods and ancestors… that was how they hunted these bastards in the wild! A Bantan that could not fly was a lamed bird, fit only to be eaten on this planet. Banta was as unforgiving as it was beautiful. In the Tribes, they would taunt the slaughterdogs by swooping down and hitting them, then swooping away. If they could fly, half the Teams would be here by now helping him…!

  He heard the far gate give way with a tortured sound as he heaved the rusty old trash gate shut, and threw down the wimpy little latch which he knew would do almost nothing to hold it. Then he thrust the pole between the gate frame and the fence frame, then for the first time in his life that he could remember, he purposefully allowed the Chains of Thresh to take him. He allowed the bloodlust to rush into him and take him over like the fire of the crackle stick, but exultant.

  With a burst of strength he didn’t know he had — and could never afterward replicate — he grabbed both ends of the pole and literally bent it into a C, then crossed the ends and twisted them together.

  Just in time. It slammed into the trash gate like a locomotive and he felt the impact as the gate bent and hit him, throwing him back.

  Jet landed flat on the hard, cold ground and his vision went black. He couldn’t breathe… he struggled desperately to both see and to breathe, but the air had been knocked out of his lungs and for a moment all he could think was that he was suffocating. He didn’t even care about the slaughterdog, or where he was, or whether anything was broken…

  …then the air came back in a great gush, a loud gasp which hurt like hell, and his black vision began to clear with a shower of white sparks behind his eyes until he began to see. He lay there panting, head spinning, then his shocked brain got itself into gear and he remembered the danger he was in. Having the wind knocked out of him had cleared his mind of the bloodlust.

  He rolled to one side (his body didn’t seem to be broken which was good) and looked at the gate just as the slaughterdog rammed into it again. The pole’s twisted form opened a little. One or two more hits and that thing would unbend it and come through. He had to move.

  He could barely get to his feet, and as he tried he fell. But he forced himself up and desperately scrambled away, knowing to the core of his being that he could not bend that pole again to close it. Whatever miraculous strength had come to him in that moment had been a one-off.

  No he had to escape. Now. Or he was dead.

  It slammed into the gate behind him as he limped away as fast as he could, trying to run. The pole shrieked against the metal, scraping metal-on-metal, but hadn’t quite given way. But one more would do it.

  As the beast backed up to ram again, Vorka whistled again and again: Danger. Danger. Danger.

  Suddenly out of nowhere a massive flying form came down out of the sky and grabbed him. No not one… two. Two fully flighted Bantani.

  They flapped hard, each grabbing an arm, and rose into the sky with desperate haste as the slaughterdog rammed into the gate a final time, and the pole snapped in half like a twig.

  It came through blood and fury and rage, mouth foaming… but Jet was just high enough that when it leapt and snapped for his tail, it couldn’t quite get him.

  Jet had bought just enough time and had stalled the slaughterdog just long enough that Teams One and Three had managed to get there, thanks to Vorka’s whistles. Komo actually had Taskmaster Kelly (gods and ancestors, that human had some balls Jet thought) on his shoulders, and Kelly had a rifle. He shot from that crazy vantage while Komo was running full-tilt, and somehow still hit the slaughterdog.

  But Jet couldn’t watch the rest of the fight progress, because he was carried up and away to the back of the actual resorts, the swimming yards full of pretty palm trees and nice gardens, where the two Bantani landed panting and whooping and laughing at cheating death.

  Jet fell to the ground when they released him, panting still, on hands and knees, and just felt the world spin.

  “Are you alright, brother?” asked one of the free Bantani.

  “Yes,” gasped Jet. “Thank you.”

  “No dog shall have one of the People, slave or not,” said the other freeman, and slapped Jet consolingly on the back gently. “You alright, kid?”

  Jet looked up at them, then in wonder at the rest of the yard. Dozens of human guests stood around staring in amazement, a few Bantani guests, and some others — like the feline Kratz.

  He felt suddenly deeply afraid. For himself, because the Taskmasters absolutely forbid the slaves to set foot in this place, or speak to the guests… and for the guests, because that thing was not yet put down.

  “Get back into the…” then he realized he couldn’t order freemen around. He turned to the two who had saved him and implored them, “please get them back into the resort! Get out of the yards, that thing is still loose!”

  The two Bantani looked at each other, realizing the slave kid was right, and that they were all standing around being idiots in their offworld naivety. It would take more than a few shots with a rifle to put a slaughterdog down, as evidenced by the sounds of battle and the snarling of the monster not far away.

  “Back!” Yelled the free Bantani, waving toward the humans and directing them to move. “Get inside! Now! Hurry!”

  As if waking from a dream, the humans and alien guests realized they were being stupid and ran for it. They remained remarkably organized, helped each other inside… people act much more reasonable in a true emergency than theater will give them credit for.

  But Jet did not follow them. He turned to the yard exit that the gardeners used, hidden behind the big trees at the edge behind the pools, and was leaving when one of his rescuers called to him.

  “Hey! Boy! Where are you going?”

  “Back,” he shouted in Dudan. “I’m not allowed here. And that thing has to be dealt with!” Before they could argue he ran through the gate, locking it behind him and praying it was small enough for the slaughterdog not to notice, and ran — limping and hurt — back toward the fight.

  He could hear that the dog was hurt, badly, and probably half-stunned. Rifle-blast sounded with its distinct sizzle and pop, echoing across the night in the mists.

  Jet couldn’t run fast… his leg was hurt, his side was aching, his lungs burned from having been bruised, but he made his way as swiftly as he could toward the back yards.

  From Vorka’s whistles, he could tell that the thing had moved into the vehicle yard near the slave quarters. As he reached the trash yard he saw how; it had actually punched right through the fence, the middle of the fence, and gone through that way. It looked like a plasma rifle had just taken a chunk out.

  Awed by the power of the beast, Jet felt a chill of caution and almost didn’t continue forward. He knew he could hide until it was all over and nobody would notice… but he would know, and that wasn’t acceptable.

  As he continued on toward the fight he heard the slaves calling back and forth to one another, it sounded like they finally had the upper hand. He heard Taskmaster Kelly’s shots, careful and well-placed. And the beast, exhausted, sounding lethargic, as the battle finally took its toll.

  He ran through the great hole in the fence just in time to see Kelly take his final shot, and the beast stumbled and slumped to the ground. Kelly was actually a fine sportsman; he hadn’t used lethal shots and he’d managed to knock the thing out without entirely killing it.

  “Now!” Shouted Kelly, gesturing to Jovaine. “While it’s out!”

  Jovaine gritted his teeth, gestured to Team One, and ran forward with the emergency cuff. While the slaughterdog twitched and tried to regain consciousness, the human threw the broad cuff band around its hind leg and cinched it, then they all breathed a sigh of relief.

  Lorin, it must be noted, was well distant from the fight. He stood on the porch of the elevated Taskmaster shed with his rifle, watching. Only once the cuff was on did he comment into his communication badge: “Good job everyone! That’s the kind of teamwork I like to see!”

  The way Jovaine and Kelly looked at him translated plainly. Just about everyone there had dreamed of seeing Lorin hung upside-down by his boots and beaten with canes.

  It was Lorin who had the controls to the cuff, which he activated. The beast immediately went completely unconscious.

  Everyone relaxed. Those who were injured checked their injury; others began to look over the damage to the Resort which, of course, the slaves would end up fixing.

  The Taskmasters left the slaves watching the creature while they headed to the front yards to fetch the big hover truck lifter which they used to offload supply pallets from their daily supply sleds.

  Jet saw old Vorka walking toward them from the direction of the crane; everyone who saw him slapped him on the back and told him the whistles had saved them all. “Good thinking, old man!” Komo congradulated.

  “It was—” Vorka began.

  Jet interrupted him. “You saved us all. Excellent work.”

  Vorka stopped a few paces from Jet to look him in the eye, seeing that the young Bantan didn’t want the recognition. He frowned a little but nodded. He would take the credit, then.

  Later, as they headed back to bed to get what little sleep was left to them, Vorka whispered to Jet as they entered the dorm. “Why don’t you want them to know it was your idea?”

  Jet smiled but didn’t answer.

  He went back to bed to get a nap before sunrise and before they began repairs on the fences. As he lay on the concrete bed with his back to the room and his face toward the wall, he felt satisfied.

  The Taskmasters and even the other slaves had begun to think of Vorka as useless… now they would respect him for a while longer. They’d treat him better, give him better food. It would help him. It might even keep him alive.