Spider let the students worry about the monster, digging in his bag until he produced a small, hand-held screen. "Gilmore? You can take charge of this. It's a life-sign detector. Anything larger than a rabbit within one hundred yards will show up. If the machine knows what it is, it'll tell you. Human, animal, alien, transient... it'll identify them all. Put the gun away and concentrate on this. Stay in the middle and if anything happens you can warn us and still have time to draw a weapon."

He glanced over his shoulder. "Assistant? Do you have the maps?"