Jaeko was out of breath. He called behind him, "Micky? You still back there?" Mictlan Hazaki, the horse-derived beastman, walked softly up towards his companion. He gasped, "You KNOW we can't run around here. The subterranean carnivorous plants cue in on that and pounce. That's how we lost Erin." Jaeko turned away and said casually, "What a waste of a great piece of ass. She was our pilot,too." Micky said, "Don't try to sound so casual. I know it broke you up. Besides, that 'ass' comment is mine on you." Micky was trying to be upbeat. It worked. Jaeko laughed and whispered, "Sorry. You're not my type, pony boy. You should be able to find someone, after all...you're hung like..." "...hung like a horse! Gawd. I heard that every day of my life. Twice on Sunday. There's another of those MilSciDev security robots up ahead." Micky hunched down. Jaeko said,"I'll go up a tree and act like a nut, you draw him over." Micky frowned and slid behind a tree-trunk. Jaeko leaped up into the tree canopy. Micky took a deep breath and yelled for help. After a moment, there was a crash and thrashing and then stillness. Micky sneaked out and looked around. The robot was laying still, his head split open and on fire. The jungle came to an end at the foot of the mountains, where the ground was stony. Jaeko said, "Bingo! Look what I found!" He pointed over to a nearby low peak. Micky said, "Several small ships floating over that big hole into the planet core tunnels! You think you might actually pay off that cyborg body of your's?" "Maybe. That small freighter arrived two days after we did. Those other shuttles are new! We have a chance. We need to get to them. I see one of those air-vents into the tunnels over there. That's the one with the rope we dropped down there. We could move through those tunnels...", he trailed off with a wicked grin on his face. Micky sighed, "I'm not big on taking hostages, but the MilSciDev bastards did kill Jambi and blow up our ship, leaving us a dinky shuttle that we can't pilot! Let's do it. You think the Aurora Megacorporation will still pay us for what I found out?" Jaeko shrugged. "Dunno. You did find out that this moon is NINE billion years old when the rest of this solar system is four point five billion years. We also found out that this one-time planet, not moon, was inhabited by giant aliens up to about four million years ago. It's worth SOMETHING." "Our lives if we get caught! Those government bastards deleted all mention of aliens, or geologic age from four thousand years ago, when the people of this system came here for the first time..." Micky trailed off as he leaned over the lip of the ancient, dark air-vent. "Listen," he said, holding up a hand. Jaeko jacked up his hearing. He listened intently and heard someone far below yell, "How could you get us lost? You ARE machine-life!" A male voice yelled back,"The walls moved! Even you noticed, Jeet!" Jaeko had the image of a small squirrel-derived boy that lived with the hobgoblin off the Talak River next to the town her grew up in. He acted on impluse and yelled down the shaft, "JEET! JEET! IS THAT YOU?" Micky looked shocked and alarmed. "What in HELL or Hel as cases have it? What are you doing? Have you gone crazy?" After a moment, a flashlight shone up from the darkness, one hundred and twenty feet below. "Who's up there?" Jaeko held up a hand to Micky and yelled back, "It's Jaeko! FROM TRASHTOWN! ARE YOU THE SQUIRREL-BOY FROM NARCHI'S APC?" There was a long pause. Suddenly there was a silvery Cyclops holding a Squirrel-derived man looking at them. The squirrel beastman leaped down and asked, "Did you know a rainbow hued woman...?" "TOXIC? Hell, yeah! She wanted me to give her a cookie!" Jaeko was ecstatic. Micky looked stunned at him and asked, "How do you know...?" Jaeko shrugged, "I get around. Apparently." --TO BE CONTINUED!--