She looked hurt that he did not know her face. "I am of Abro Brodaa's village." Then in spite of her shrinking her question was directed at Tejron: "Abro Brodaa has say to us--we are all one flesh. That--that----" Tejron was able to say, "That is true." And while Paul searched for other words that might affirm, comfort, explain, the soldier died. The only omasha now visible were soaring stragglers. The swarm would have found the army of Lantis--which must and would continue to advance. There was a limit to the gorging of the bat-winged beasts; they too could die on the spears. Meantime the lifeboat was gone, the boats were landing, in a moment of darkly sweet quiet which was the eye of the storm. Paul checked the giant girl Lisson from firing at the landing party. "Save ammunition." He indicated a tall blue-flowered shrub a hundred yards out in the meadow. "We wait at the edge of the woods until they pass that bush, then charge them. If they break us down here, everyone is to fight west, away from the lake--_west_. Now run down the line, pass on these two orders." Lisson sped away, her golden fur bright and unstained. "Doc--get the wounded together, have the other women and Mijok take them west, beyond Sears' group, well back in the woods. Try to find out where Abara's got to with the olifants but send a runner back (if there's time)--don't come back yourself. And keep Mijok with you. I don't want him to do any more fighting if we can help it--it's tearing him up inside." "I----" Wright checked himself, nodded, hurried back into the fortress. "Pakriaa, Abro Kamisiaa, get your soldiers at the edge of the woods." They vanished. The meadow was empty of life; the many open eyes on the beach would not see what was to come. Wright's party left the enclosure, Mijok carrying the shield. Wright could not look back nor wave, for his own arms were full, his head bent in some consoling speech. Paul was striding for the woods when Pakriaa met him and murmured in contempt, "We hide too, Commander?" He answered out of a moment of black indifference. (_Probably we all die and everything I have done is a mistake._) "Pakriaa, they may break easier if they don't see us till we charge." She shrugged, following him into the obscurity, pointedly ignoring Nisana, who came to his other side, perhaps still hating the little captain for her independence of yesterday, when Paul was chosen commander of this grotesque army.