Then from the edge of the tree line, moving shapes suddenly began to make an appearance. He rubbed his eyes. There were hundreds--no, thousands of them. Slowly and curiously they poured out of the rain-soaked forest, deliberately converging on the open lock-doors of the huge, white building. Some were carrying sticks, some stones, some nothing. It was as if the mystic forces of evolution had chosen this exact moment to endow the chowls with an emotion hitherto lacking in their makeup. Call it hate; call it self-preservation; call it anything you like, it was something they hadn't had before, yet needed badly. Quickly, he bit off the half-formed cry that rose to his throat. Diane was still back in the galley. He was glad she wasn't watching. Actually there was no need for her to know about it ever. Silently he made a vow never to tell her--even as a few moments ago they'd both vowed to keep another secret: The secret that could spell the life or death of an entire planet.