"Buck up, kid," Simeon's voice whispered in her inner ear. It had the odd gravelly tone he adopted in tense moments. "Remember, I've got no fixed sensors in there, so the implants will have to do. I'm with you, and I'll give a running translation of anything the pirates say in their jabber. Okay? And from the structure of their language, the phrase they just used means something like 'front and center.'"

"Got it," she subvocalized.

They jumped back against the wall smardy when a Kolnari bossman came through, looking as if he would rather walk over them. For a moment, Channa thought it was Belazir, and then caught the few subde differences which told her he was not. Simeon's voice confirmed it Serig followed, a minute later. They both cast their eyes down, to avoid showing the raw desire to kill they shared.

"Now, scumvermin," the guard said.

"Ohhhhh, am I getting sick of hearing that word," Channa subspoke.

"You and me and Simeon-Amos both," Simeon agreed. The Bethelite had the button in his ear, but he hadn't been able to train a subvocal level that was inaudible. The Kolnari didn't hear all that well at the margins of audibility and had no reason to use sensitive hearing devices.

Belazir had set up his command post beneath a huge oak tree. He lolled at his ease on a reclining chair, a wreath of fresh wildflowers adorned his hair, dappled shade moving on his sleek skin and the priceless silks of his clothing. On one side of him was a mobile console and a table scattered with notescreens, printouts, small pieces of equipment Also some artwork which Simeon recognized, garnered from galleries and the museum.

One piece Channa did not remember and the brain could not name, a flamboyant carving in some bone or ivory of a... submarine with fangs? jet-propelled spearjish* Whatever, it had the same air of ruthless speed that a striking hawk might "Ah, your eyes light on the tunglor," Belazir said affably. As always, the sheer physicalpresence of the man struck her like a blow. "From homeworld... Kolnar."

The guard behind them reached out an arm to force them down.

"No, to one knee will do," Belazir said easily. His Standard was better, even in these few days. "Do you wish refreshment?"

He waved to his other side to the table where food and bottles of wine rested, patently supplied by the Perimeter Restaurant The young waitress was from the Perimeter, too, although there she had worn clothes.

"No, Master and God," Amos and Charma said in meek unison.

Belazir smiled and held out his hand. The waitress put a water-glass tumbler of Mart'an's famous apricotbrandy liqueur into it. He drank it off in ten long swallows and Channa knew a moment's wild hope.

Simeon's voice was sour. "No joy," he sent. "I checked with Chaundra. They metabolize ethanol so fast he'll only be mildly buzzed.** "Well," the pirate said in that voice like a bronze bell that purred. "There is business. The matter of the attack on the Divine Seed of Kolnar."

"He's not too upset, I think," Simeon told them. "Heartbeat absolutely Kolnar-normal, no pupil dilation. Got an idea the victims may have been from one of the other ships. Play it polite-firnj."

"Lord and God," Channa saii "The criminals will be found and punished."

Subvocal from Simeon: "You hit hisfurmybone with that, Happy. He's killing himself laughing mside."

Channa went on. "I've made several general broadcasts calling for obedience, Master and God."

"So you have. I notice,joo, that it is always you and not your companion... colleague?"

"Simeon-Amos is —" Channa fell silent as the Kolnari's hand indicated that Simeon-Amos should answer.

"I am the junior, Master and God," Amos said, eyes fixed on the ground.

"Look at me, Simeon-Amos." The stares met for long seconds. Then Belazir gestured again, turning his attention back to Channa. "Well and good. As we expect to hold the station in our fist for some time, these acts of stupidity must cease."

"Lying through his teeth, babe."

"You sent messages desiring audience, Channahap," Belazir went on. He rose, like a black fountain tipped with white gold, the loose sleeves floating back from his arms like wings. He looked down from his near two meters of height. "Continue."

"Master and God," she said, in a tone as empty of any but the formal semantic content as she could make it, "your troops fornicate like —" she paused to search for a word "— rotweilers."

"Big chuckle at that one, Charmie." Simeon was furious.

Belazir crossed his arms. "Why does this not seem complimentary?"

Channa looked up at him. "They bite," she said emotionlessly, covering her disgust, "all the time."

"Then the sc — the chosen ones should not resist their fete," Belazir said. "It is our custom when we meet resistance."

"They don't resist!" Channa said sharply, then managed a taut smile. "Should we bite back?"

A rustle went throijgh the line of armored troops behind Belazir and the duster of officers with feathers and jewels in their hair. The noble silenced them with a toss of his head.

"I would not recommend it," he said sardonically. "The custom to which I refer is that of enjoying the fruits of victory. A most ancient custom, surely, even you must know of it? Make another of your speeches. Outline their duties. A hard, sincere effort to please. Then they shall be caressed as they labor, not savaged."

"Master and God, when you bruise the fruit too much, it goes bad! The problem is that I have a hundred people in sickbay being sewn back together and under medication due to human bites and various other wounds. Initially, there were three hundred sick to begin with, not counting the ones who've been flogged."

"Are they injured?"

No, apart from shaking and crying and waking up with nightmares, she thought The Kolnari had a whip that did something to the nervous system. "Master and God —" however she tried, she couldn't quite keep the sarcasm out of that"— the problem involves vital work positions which are left empty. This isn't a planet It doesn't run itself. Everything has to be done without error. Fatigue leads to error, error leads to failure, and failure can lead to death. I cannot do the impossible, order me however you want"

"Now that," he said, "is the wrong tone." Suddenly he was much closer, and took her chin between thumb and forefinger. "Entirely. Do you understand, Channahap?"

"Yes," she murmured, "yes, I understand." Time seemed to slow.

He smiled. "Excellent. However, your remarks, if not the manner in which they were delivered, are reasonable. I shall give orders that my troops be... gentler with their slaves. After you have emphasized the proper attitude toward their duties."

Channa's eyes widened.

He actually laughed this time~"Yes," he assured her, "that, too, is our custom. Those of you that please us or are useful will leave this place on our ships." He watched her absorb this privilege.

"Walk with me," he sa;& putting a hand under her arm. She jerked slightly at the contact, like the touch of a live conductor.

Amos started to follow. A servo-powered gauntlet closed down on his skull, so gently that it would not have cracked an egg. A duplicate of the one that had crushed his sister's skull. Wind blew through the trees above them, making the leaves move in a dance that contrasted to the stillness of the humans below.

"A strange way to spend so much effort," Belazir said, as he nodded to the landscape around them. A chuckle passed his lips. "Preferable to expend effort and strength on this than on weapons."

"Who does he think buiU his ships and the weapons they're carrying* " Simeon whispered in her ear.

Channa shrugged in answer to both.

"Still, it is beautiful," he said. His hand traced the back of her neck, lightly enough that the pads of his fingers just touched the hairs. She shivered involuntarily.

"I am not Serig," he added, stroking the fingers down her spine and away. "This is like Earth, is it not?"

"Mosdy," Channa said. Unconsciously she tilted her head to one side away from Belazir as Simeon gave her the relevant information. "A few of the plants and organisms are from Rigel 4, but they're compatible."

"Like looking back into the past," he said. They stopped, out of sight of the tables. He looked up into the sky. "Computer," he said. "Night."

The constellations of Earth's northern hemisphere blazed out, as they had not in reality since men learned to bend electricity to light.

"Yes," t'Marid sakl, looking upward at the false sky. "Very beautiful, but it seems too much openness. As if a body might fell upward and be sucked out into limitless space."

Well, a weakness, she thought. Many spaceborn were slightly agoraphobic. That could be useful, if Belazir had been spaceborn.

She thought a smile appropriate. "The sensation is called vertigo. I've occasionally experienced it myself when planet-side. I was born and raised on a space station, so I feel more comfortable under a ceiling."

"Something of that," he admitted. "But also... Computer. Night on Kolnar. From Maridapore."

Channa gasped in shock at the change. The dark sky overhead vanished. In its place was a glowing mooncolored cloud full of colored lights from horizon to horizon. She blinked, then realized the light was not that much more brilliant than the Terran sky. Yet this phenomenon was not a sky: it was a ceilmg across heaven.

"A dozen times full Luna brightness," Simeon supplied.

Off to the north, auroras circled and moved, scrolls vaster than worlds, electric blue and white and pearl. Beneath them, on the horizon, a volcano was a glowing firestorm spout, powered by its own natural fission reactor. Something gigantic and winged slid across the alien constellations. Smaller things pursued it, diving and tearing as it fluted an intricate song of grief.

"I have never seen this sky," he said thoughtfully. "Not really. Not even a simulation as good as this." He issued a second command and the Earth night returned. "This is more restful."

"Ah ... The birds won't like it if you change day to night like this," Channa said. "You'd better set it back when you leave. Master and God," she added absently.

He looked at her in astonished amusement. "The birds won't like it?" he said. "Ghannahap, you are a wonder. The birds won't like iff*the insects will be disturbed ... does this matter?"

"We brought them here, to a totally unnatural environment If we expect them to thrive, then it's our responsibility to provide them with whatever they need. They're a part offill this," she said gesturing widely. "Without the birds and the insects, this would be sterile, a lifeless tableau. So we have to be mindful of their needs."

He nodded. "I shall leave it on night setting and dawn shall be in twelve hours. Things have changed here. Even the birds must realize it"

Channa had no reply for that bit of arrogance.

"That is the supreme law, of course," he went on, "for Earth, for Kolnar, for the universe."

She made an interrogative sound.

"Adapt! Master changing circumstance, or die unbred. The Seed — the genes, you would say — are the reality that underlies all this. Taking energy from the Dead World, growing in complexity and adaptation. All this," and, with a swift movement of his hand, he caught a dragonfly by its legs for a second, then released it, "is waves on the surface. Beneath is the Seed, seeking to replicate itself. All beings, all mind, all war and trade and art and science, mere waves on the changeless sea." He smiled kindly. "And fittest of all, of course, is the Divine Seed of Kolnar. Of that Seed, fittest is the High Clan. Which is why you long for union with it, for such immortality."

"I disagree. Lord and God."

"No, you do not Your mind may, but that is merely the vehicle of the ... gene. Watch, when we return.

Your Simeon-Amos will be enraged. Naturally enough, for he suspects the immortality you offer is to be taken from his seed." He sighed and turned back towards the tables, hidden behind a line of trees. She trotted to keep pace, although he did not seem to hurry. "Enough of pleasant idleness and ]§hilosophizing. To work!"

"Simeon, why do all my Prince Charmings turn out to be toads?" Channa subvocalized. Amos stood stiff and withdrawn beside her on the people mover as it slid down the corridor. "Is he really jealous? Under these circumstances, that's ridiculous!" ,; "/('5 also maybe involuntary. Your girl goes walking m the woods with Lucifer, chattmguup..."

"Absurd!"

"Beats me, Channa. But FU never, ribbit, turn onya. Ribbit!"

"Or turn me on, either. It's nice to know someone is still safe to be with."

Whoa! Kick me again, Channa, I think some of my ego is still unbruised.

"That is the scariest son of a bitch I've ever had the misfortune to meet," she said. Amos nodded silently.

"Simeon-Amos?"

"Yes, Channa?"

"Hold me, would you?" His arm went around her, and she melted into die firm supportive warmth of his side. "Thank you," she said.

"For what?" His tone was light "For not really being green and warty or eating flies."

"Ah, guys?" This time Simeon's voice came to both of them. "I just figured something out"

"What?" Amos said.

"Bad news about Bethel."

The Bethelite stiffened again, his face drawing in lines that showed what he might look like on his deathbed, in the currently unlikely event that he would live to die of old age.

"What?" Amos repeated, this time as a command.

"These scumbags — I'm not going to use scumvermm, even in reverse — they're planning to loot me bare and then blow me up."

Simeon was understandably upset if he was referring to the SSS-900-C as "me."

"That is bad news for you," Amos said, steeling himself for how that would also be bad news for Bethel.

"But if they do that, th^Central Worlds Navy will firid out — would find out, even if the Kolnari had pulled this hijack off the way we fooled them into thinking they had. Central Worlds'd send flotillas all through this sector and look behind every space rock. For sure, they'd inspect any inhabited system. While the Saffron system may be ferdlin' remote, it's still on the maps. And the Kolnari know that, hey* So they're sacrificing their chance of stripping Bethel in exchange for the station. Means they gotta leave both, fast. So what odds they plan on doing Bethel the same way they do me, when they go? Blow it, too, and cover any traces they hadn't time to sweep under the carpet. These guys are pigs, but they're not stupid.*1 "Yes, I see," Amos said, barely moving his lips. "Sound strategic analysis. Thank you, Simeon."

Thanks for nothing, the brain thought dismally. Amos had had the comfort of knowing die Navy would at least rescue the survivors on his homeworld, win or lose here on SSS-900-C.

"Anything we can do about that?* Channa asked as they entered the lounge.

"Not much more than what we're doing now," Simeon said. "But it's going to be a very dose run at the end. We've got to be ready, at all costs. Minutes may make the difference."

***

Keri Holen tried to read, but she'd been on the same page for some time now and still had no idea of its content. Trivia, she thought. Before her life was put in danger, all her friends and family's lives, she hadn't known what triviality was. It was anything that didn't have to do with keepinj you alive; anything that didn't have to do with winning.

"On the other hand, fretting doesn't do me any good, either," she said. Why did I volunteer* she asked herself. Well, the risk mas there anyway, and we need to get the second vims working, she thought. Not everyone was a gymnast and martial artist, either.

Frustrated, she threw the reader onto the cushion beside her and rose to pace the room. There was a soft chime and Simeon's public face bloomed on the wall screen.

"The Kolnari are in your area," he said, warning all those in the threatened sector. "Get your virus capsules in position. Don't panic. Don't argue or they will harm you. Remember, place the capsule in your mouth, bite down, try not to swallow. Good luck," he added fervently.

Keri rushed to the cabinet where she had stored her supply among other pharmaceuticals. Her hands were shaking so much the capsules flew out of the bottle like confetti when she at last got it open. Moaning, she rushed to gather them up and put them away before the Kolnari arrived. She put one in her mouth, holding it between cheek and gum.

She returned to the living area and stood watching the door, fingers twining with the tabs of her robe. She could feel her pulse beat in her lips and fingertips, she felt as though she'd been running.

The door opened.

God, she thought as she bit down on the capsule. There are four of them! The capsule dissolved with a rush of coolness. Keri smiled broadly and let the robe drop.

"Welcome to my parlor." Said the spider to the fly.

Mazkira entered the elevator and selected her destination. The mining components fabricator was a treasure of immense value to the Clan. With it, they could scavenge several crucial materials from uninhabited asteroids at need. Besides that, the scumvermin operator was a pleasure to torment, in several different ways. She grinned. Then the expression faded. She could smell him, the scent was heavy in the cage — far more than it should have been when he merely passed through several times daily.

She looked up... into the barrel of a rock-cutter and above it the grinning face of Kevin Duane.

"Eat this, bitch!" he snarled and powered up the cutter. He cut the Kolnari woman in half lengthwise and smiled as he watched the two sizzling halves crumple to the floor.

The elevator arrived at his level and he replaced the hatch cover. There was the access tunnel, just where Joat had told him it would be.

He handed Joat the rock-cutter and she raised an inquiring brow. He gave her a grin and a thumbs-up sign. Suddenly the elevator dropped out from underneath him and he was holding on by his elbows, feet scrabbling against the slick shaft walls. He inched his way in, his broad shoulders making it difficult to maneuver. Far below he could hear the elevator coming up again.

"Hurry up!" Joat said, sliding the rock-cutter down the access tunnel and turning back to pull him in by his shirt.

All she succeeded in doing was pulling it up over his head; his arms were almost immobilized by the tough febric.

"Stop," he said. "Stop it."

"Hurry up!" she cried and slid backwards to give him room. "Or thaj: elevator will smear your carcass all the way to the top of the station."

He was most of the way in now, but couldn't seem to get his feet in. He began to panic, barking his knees on the side walls of the tunnel, the space too narrow to allow him to turn or pull up his legs. In a panic, he caught at Joat's legs and yanked. Her palms squealed on die slick metal as she struggled futilely to keep her place.

The drag was just enough to get him all the way in, the side of the elevator lifted the soles of his feet gently as it passed.

Kevin dropped his head into his arms and giggled with mild hysteria.

Joat glared at him for a moment, then grinned and whispered, "Hooray! Another one for our side."

"Yes?" Belazir said, looking up from his notescreen.

It was the medico again. The Kolnari repressed an impulse to kick it. If you hit messengers, messages ceased coming. On the other hand, his rime was valuable. Especially now, with the transports here and loading round the cycle.

The thought restored his good humor. Sixty ships, a fifth part of the Clan's fleet, under his command. Not only transports, but a fighting platform and a couple of the factory ships. It was as good as having Chalku proclaim him successor. Better, since his chances of living long enough to claim it were much higher. A formal announcement might drive some brick-skull like Aragiz t1 Varak to desperation.

"Great Lord, there is... a problem."

"Mine or yours, creature?" he said, slightly impatient The loading was going so slowly.

"Great Lord, we have disabling sickness."

"What?" Suddenly he was looming over the eunuch.

"No, pleasel Don't hurt me. lUfc only old Veskis, the bonesetter. Please, my Great Lord?"

Belazir's aquiline nostrils flarett "Speak."

"Over sixty ill warriors have sought medical aid, Great Lord. We have never seen the like." It swallowed. "Great Lord, we do not know how to cure the illness!"

Belazir had just finished a large meal. Now it lay Hke curdled hot lead in his gut. Impossible. He tapped at the notescreen, accessing recent files. Yes, over thirty warriors put down or suicided for infection. Not completely unprecedented, but among the heaviest numerically of instances on record. If another threescore had reported sick, there must be many who had not "How does the illness run?" Belazir asked.

"Swiftly in some, Great Lord. Fever, loss of nervous control, debility, nausea. Others more mildly. Still others recover quickly and are whole. From the blood of those I may produce a vaccine, in tune."

"Do so," Belazir ordered, "Swiftly." In time to avoid spoiling my triumph here, he thought "Wait"

He tapped his notescreen again. Most sickness occurred among those on no fixed duty. Of those, t'Varak's ship suffered the most casualties. Belazir racked his brain for what he knew of diseases. Not much, since Kolnari were rarely bothered by disease: accident, yes. He reflected on this problem, queried the info-banks, thought again.

"Orders," he said. "Isolate those infected." Those whom they could, that is. A noble could be killed but not placed under restraint "This may.. ." He hesitated. "May be related to the disease troubling the scumvermin." Hideous, that a disease would strike the Divine Seed more strongly than mere scumvermin. "The infected scumvermin are to be avoided. Go, post the orders,** That such a scourge should arise nowy he thought, looking back at the notescreen. Loading was moving far too slowly. Chalku £ad given him a deadline; past that, they were to abandon anything remaining, kill and leave. If there was much less than he had promised, he would go from hero to goat Even if the total he did manage was more than any other Kolnari had amassed, performance and prestige would be measured against expectation.

"Time," he muttered. Time was wasting, and the margin for error with it He stood. "Computer. Kolnar, noon at Maridapore."

White-blue light flashed across the parkland, hurtful even to him in the instant before his pupils shrank to pinhead size.

Jekit nor Varak prowled the corridors. He was not in powered armor. There were not enough suits to go around and their maintenance requirements were fierce. The patrol was to enforce curfew and prevent sabotage, which was becoming a problem. He was in a flexible suit, with a comlink and a plasma rifle. The corridors in this section were darkened, which gave his IR-sensitive eyes the advantage over any scumvermin.

As if I needed it, he thought. His main enemy was tedium. The corridors were changeless and identical. Ten paces left, take a turn at random. Trot down a long length, checking that the seals on the doors were unbroken. Flatten to a wall and wait He did isometrics then, muscle pulling on muscle against the strong flexible bones of his body. Nothing much else to do; except that he tired too soon, probably because of the damnable light gravity he had been living in on this station. It would be a relief to get back to Kolnar-standard on the ship.

Although there were compensations. Keriholen, for example. Jekit's teeth clicked together as he remembered how they had taken her, he and his brothers. Many times since the first occasion.

Worth the trouble, he thought timber as an eel and tireless as a real woman. Women were scarce for commoners. The nobles took so many. He and his four brothers — they were born at one birthing—had only two wives between them, held in common, and a mere eight children.

Jekit was sweating. He wiped his face on a sleeve and resumed the pacing, trying to push such thoughts out of his mind. Not until after his watch. It was hot, whatever the gauge said. His stomach felt odd. Maybe the plundered food was bad, although the Divine Seed could eat pretty well anything organic.

Simeon watched the pirate. This Jekit was a perfect choice. Definitely had the Mark-II virus, too pigignorant to know it and he was almost asleep from boredom anyway. A little surprise would be good for his circulation.

He checked the progress of the relief party, ten soldiers and a squad leader. Plenty of witnesses, also perfect Timing was the key. They had only two guards to relieve before they reached Jekit.

Hurt my people, will you, Jekit? he thought. Okay, now let's see how you tike being on the other end of the stick.

He began whispering. The words were loud enough to be audible, but not loud enough to be understood. Just nonsense syllables pronounced in inflections similar to the Kolnari language, minute after minute, not steadily but rising and falling and stopping altogether for random intervals. Then an increase in the volume until the nonsense was a tease, tantalizingly on the edge of audibility. Add subsonics guaranteed to have the hair standing up along the spine, although Kolnari didn't have body hair.

Goosebumps, then, he decided. Jekit paced, stopped, shook his head and brought the plasma rifle to port, thumbing off the safety.

Doesn't this snardfy have any nerves ? Simeon asked himself in frustration. Then he added the refinement; things flickering atfhe edge of vision. The pirate was probably seeing things without Simeon's visual aids since the sensors said his temperature was five percent over normal and rising. Sweat poured down his fece. That was rare since the Kolnari metabolism didn't waste moisture.

Simeon constructed a less transparent image. Ah, that made him jump, Simeon thought. "Rankest!" he whispered, just loud enough to be understood.

Die, in Kolnari.

"Who's there?" Jekit called out, swinging his weapon around. "Who goes? Answer me.r Simeon had a conversation going now, male and female voices whispering vehemently. He moved the whisperers down the corridors, through chambers and halls and galleries. Now they were around the corner, now they were overhead, now right behind him.

Jekit spun, his weapon leveled. "Scumvermin!" he shouted. The warning indicator flicked as his forefinger took up the slack on the trigger key.

The squad had exited the elevator on Jekit's level and were marching towards his station. Trotting like a wolf-pack, rather; the leader was in armor, moving at the same pace. Slam-slam-slam, half a tonne pounding down at every step.

The Kolnari had his back pressed to the wall Simeon overlaid the powersuit's footfalls, turning them into drumbeats in time with the fevered warrior's own heart His head was snapping back and forth wildly, rims of white showing around the amber of his eyes.

Off to the right, around the corner from which his replacement would come, a voice called.

IJekit!" His officer called. "Turn to, idler, fool! Report"

Jekit almost moaned with relief, opening his mouth to call back. When he did he found the words matched, overlaid, neutralized by something. Shout, scream, nothing but the same blurred yammer.

"Painrod for you, seedless stothman," came the warning from his officer.

Jekit crouched and began making his way along the wall towards the voice. Halfway down the long wall, he jerked and vomited convulsively, bewildered. It had never happened to him before, that he lost his food.

Footsteps sounded from around the corner as the replacement squad advanced smartly towards him. He heard a soft hiss behind him and turned. He screamed as he looked into a shape out of homework! legend, a twenty-eyed worm with gnashing concentric mouths, thicker through the body than a man was high.

"Ancha\" he screamed and fired. Grinder. There was nothing wrong with his reflexes yet, and the spear of nuclear fire lanced through the monster.

Gotcha, Simeon thought again. He'd been pretty sure that worm program was modeled on something native to Kolnar. So its name was "grinder"! Appropriate enough.

"Grinder** vanished. Behind it was a figure in power armor, slowly topping over backwards with the whole upper pan of the torso gone. The squad behind had already gone to earth and returned fire. A line of light touched Jekit's right shoulder, and the plasma gun fell away. The blurring, blanking wall of un-sound fell away from his ears so suddenly that he could hear the slight whine as the weapon automatically cycled another deuterium pellet into the chamber. A plasma beam licked out at Jekit and his legs vanished from the knees down.

And he was still hot. His wounds did not hurt yet, insulated by shock, although he could smell the heavy fried meat odor. But his head hurt, it hurt... Tlie others were rushing forward to secure him for interrogation. It would go very badly for them if he died first Aurnght! Simeon thought Still, it should be fun listening to Jekit, the mighty warrior, explaining why he freaked like that Now, rvho's next?

Belazir and Aragiz knelt together before Pol t'Veng. She was wearing the black robe and hood of an adjudicator and, in the dim light, that left only the yellow glow of her eyes visible. Belazir knelt with grace. The t'Veng was inferior by rank and birth, but she was efficient Also a woman, of course, but that meant less these days than it had on Kolnar. Everything in space was a protected environment, like the fortress-holds. You either lived or died, generally. Aragiz knelt in quivering tension and the smell of his rage was musky, irritating to Belazir.

"I find," she said at last, "that Jerik nor Varak, free common-fighter of subclan t'Varak, opened fire on clan-kin while in hostile ground, without prior attack." That was the only excuse, and motivations or reasons mattered nothing, by Kolnari law.

"He killed: one petit-noble officer of subclan t'Marid. He destroyed: one suit of powered armor. Here is the judgment of the High Clan.

"At the next rendezvous of all units, t'Varak gens shall render to Belazir t'Marid forty hundred units of Clan credit or goods to the same value, neutrally appraised. They shall also render five breeding-age but unbred females of petit-noble or higher rank, fully educated. In addition, Belazir t'Marid may go among the concubines and wives of Aragiz t'Varak for one cycle and sow there as he wills. Aragiz t'Varak shall do likewise among Belazir t'Marid's. Judgement is rendered."

As one, they bowed low enough to touch their foreheads to the deck. A good judgement, Belazir thought. Fair, wise, and most of all, expedient. Part of the longstanding trouble was that the t'Varak gens were not as closely linked by seed as ike rest of the High Clan families. They had been landless mercenaries on homeworld, and had had the bad hick to sign on with the High Clan just before a war that ripped up half a continent and ended in headlong flight for the survivors. Technically mercenaries were not subject to the extermination-proscriptioivo'f the vanquished nobility. Like peasants and commoners, they could switch allegiance to the winning side. Technicalities did tend to get lost in the fine glow of victory, though....

Of course, Aragiz t'Varak would be unlikely to look at it in quite that way. Still, in the long term, knowing the closer relationship would reduce hostility. Hopefully.

Without word or gesture, Aragiz rose and stalked out. No style at all, Belazir thought The fine was a trifle compared to what the station was bringing in, and they both had sixty or seventy children already. He merely hoped the t'Varak intellect was training and not a taint. The lights came up, and Pol removed the hood. That changed her from adjudicator to ordinary noble once more. "Fool," she said, with no need to say exactly who. "Dolt," he agreed, and snapped his fingers. Serig entered. They setded in comfortably. "Loading is going too slowly," Belazir said. "Truth, lord," Serig answered.

"Okay," Simeon whispered in Channa's ear. "He's in position."

The loading bay at the south-polar docking tube was more crowded than it had ever before been in the station's seventy-odd years, mostly cluttered with disassembled equipment from the electronics fabricators two levels below, broken down just enough to let them be moved through the freight elevators. It would be more efficient to strip them down further and box the components, but that made them too easy to sabotage. There had been executions of stationers after Kolnari inspections showed hoy easy. Delicate electronics...

Weird, Channa thought, ostentatiously looking down at her notescreen. There had been no reprisals at all for the deaths and there had been a fair number. The Kolnari had just increased their patrols, as if taunting the stationers.

Channa turned to the pirate technician. Even weirder. You didn't think of pirates as having technicians. They looked much the same as the sleekly dangerous warriors and flamboyant nobles, but brisker.

Then again, they've kept thousands of people and hundreds of skips going for three generations—seven of theirs.

"Lord," she said in the appropriate meek tone, "here's the next load. Do you accept?"

The Kolnari looked at the fabricator. It was a spindleshaped synth-and-metal machine about three meters long and one through at the widest point; half tubing and molecular shape chambers, half modules. Both points of the spindle ended in tapped burls that fitted into a bearing race. Underneath it was a floater cradle with—apparently —six arms and a twenty-centimeter base.

The Kolnari said something in her own language to her team — women were more common among their technical class, evidently — and they went to work, plugging in their own info-systems and a portable power-feed to bring the fabricator up to standby.

"All order is,** the pirate said to her, waving her back. "Scumvermin, next bring.** The loading bay was one hundred meters by two hundred by three. Two Clan transports were docked at the outer hatches. Two-thirds of the way down the deck, the enemy had drawn a red line. On either side was a squad in power armor. Floating over them were pods of small servo-guns, antipersonnel weapons, heavy needlers that could be fired without endangering the fabric of the station. The weapons were highly dangerous to anyone not in combat armor, of course. Stationside of the line were civilians, working mostly in their own teams with a few Kolnari for supervision. Dockside of the line were only the Clan, crews. There were three checks from the initial position to the line: once while the equipment was being stripped down, a second when the stationer stevedores took charge, and a third when it was ready to go pver the line itself.

If any of the checks showed damage, the stationers in charge were flogged to death with a powered whip. Falling below quota earned ten strokes, which reduced the team's efficiency drastically but was a very potent motivator.

It was ingenious, and working far too well.

Simeon murmured again. "Yeah, they're locked in."

Channa forced herself not to look at the eyes of the Kolnari. However Simeon was doing it, it was not simple holographic projection. Maybe tightbeam on the retina....

Amos was whistling cheerfully as he swung the lifter around. God, he's even gutsier than he is pretty, Channa thought They'd volunteered for this. Too many nerves had been shattered by the holocast record of die floggings. Someone had to restore confidence. To the Kolnari, it looked like the leaders were giving an example of enthusiastic obedience. Joseph bowed low as he handed over the controller pad for the cradle. Across the back of his overall was printed Scumuermin Rule OK. One of Simeon's suggestions to build morale.

The cradle followed obediently over the red line, behind the Kolnari technicians and toward the waiting cargo bay of the transport The line divided the gravity fields; one Standard gravity at the line itself, running quickly up to 1.6 at the lowered ramp-entrance. The work party moved through the crowds and the waiting chains of lifters. There was a howl as the four light arms _ suddenly there were only four — of the cradle gave way. The Kolnari team leapt in fearlessly, but the lifter failed in a burst of sparks and boomed hollowly to the deck plates. The fabricate^ slewed out of the broken cradle and onto the bent legs of the crew chief as she heaved back at the weight ten times her own.

The pirate alarms rang like angry windchimes. Channa and the others froze. So did the damaged tech. The other Kolnari lifted the damaged fabricator and set it down on a pad of packing-fiber nearby; lifting with unison grunt of effort and walking six steps with a lowvoiced chant. They set the machine down with a mother's tender care. The tech lay with the broken bones projecting through the dark skin of her kneecaps, blood welling around them and the whites showing aU around her honey-colored eyes. The flying guns swooped in. Channa found herself looking down the business end of one, and so did each of the group that had brought the ruined machine to the edge of the Kolnari line.

Warriors followed; not the armored specialists, but crew on rotation duty. One was pulling a powered whip from his belt as he came. Channa dosed her eyes, but the first stroke never landed. She heard his voice murmur the Kolnari equivalent of, "Yes, sir."

She opened her eyes again. Amos and Joseph were rocking back on their heels as if they'd been ready to spring.

"Hequewdthebigboss," Simeon ghost-spoke through her implant. "Bela^stel^hmtockeckthern^ctionrecords.''

The Kolnari did, snapping away her notescreen, then going over to check the injured technician. Nobody had attended to her. Despite her being an enemy, Channa felt a little squeamish looking at the white splinters and the quivers of pain that ran across the fine-boned oval lace.

"She's saying it mas a regulation medium-heavy Ufter, when she looked it over," he said. "He's checking. Belazir says it's not your fault."

Sweat was running down Channa's back. She began to relax, then swore under her brej£h as the warrior drew a knife. The technician closed her eyes and tilted her head; a quick stab in the back of the neck and she was still.

"Well, that worked," she said to Simeon.

"What do you mean ? "* 'Tm not quite sure."

The fabricator would have to go back to the machine-shop, two levels up, to be repaired. The machines required to produce replacements for the damaged parts could not be disassembled until the work was done.

Belazir moved a squadron of light cruisers to a new quadrant and sat back. So, he thought.

Amazing. Channahap was fighting him to a standstill in this strategy game. She had actually won one of the earlier rounds. A very, very good player; few Kolnari senior officers could have done better, and war-game tournaments were one of the main ways they filled their leisure.

"The Channahap does well?" Serig said. He looked over his commander's shoulder into the Bride's display tank, then reran the opening moves on a smaller screen nearby. "Well, indeed."

Belazir nodded. What a woman! he thought enthusiastically. He had stopped referring to her as scumvermin to himself some time ago. The battle of delay and lies she had waged against him was just as skillful and tricky as the war games. It was a true pity she was not of the Divine Seed; an even greater pity that she would not live very many years in the environment of the Clan's ships. Outsiders rarely found the air, food, and r. water of Kolnar life-supporting. Certainly the Kolnari's own ancestors had not, until they adapted.

But I vritt enjoy her greatly while she lives.

"Now, these reports," he went on to Serig. "They read like the ravings of the insane. What do they mean?"

"An excellent question, my lord. One that I should like to ask some of these scumvermin."

"You consider this to be the result of enemy action?"

"It seems reasonable to me, my lord. Drugs to the troops affected. Or, they may know something about these phenomena."

Belazir considered his second. "Or they may know nothing. It could even be some sabotage scheme of Aragiz, difficult though that is to believe. Or a side-effect of this... illness."

"Bad for morale either way, my lord. And the illness itself may be a weapon."

He nodded. "Very well. Take five slaves, chosen at random, none critical to the station's function, and torture them."

"Only five, my lord?" Serig's soft voice expressed astonishment.

"These are an unusually soft and sensitive people," Belazir answered. "Five will be quite sufficient More would cause panic. For now, let the scumvermin as a whole remain calm and complacent and cooperative. Let them panic later at a time of our choosing. Hmm? Torture the 6ve for the information we need on this — phenomenon. If they know nothing, take others."

"Shall I broadcast that?"

"No, no, Serig. If we broadcast our ignorance, we make plain that there is something our warriors fear. If it is enemy action, they will know what we seek — or the next five."

Serig bowed from the waist. "Very good, my lord."

Belazir returned his attention to the game.

***

"Why?" Channa asked.

"You will take your hands from my desk and you will stand straight," Bdazir told her calmly, pointing a slender dagger at her. He stared at Channa until she complied.

"Two of those people are probjlbly going to die," she whispered, breathing hard. "Lord and God. They were tortured" ^!

"Of course they were. I ordered it so."

"ButaAp?"

He stood and walked slowly around the desk to stand dose behind her, then spoke softly into her ear. "We are conquerors. We do not explain our actions. This is not a game such as we play in your quarters, lovely Channa, this is reality."

She carefully folded her hands before her and lowered her eyes.

"I apologize for my impetuousness," she said humbly. "I was trained to take my duties seriously, and sometimes this makes me rash. It's why I must ask about this terrible matter. I can't believe that you enjoy doing such things." She looked at him appealingly over her shoulder. "Please don't hurt my people."

"And you lie so badly," he said. He studied her face for a moment. "My troops," he went on thoughtfully, "spoke of'things' flickering at the corners of their eyes, of Voices' murmuring things not quite heard."

"What has that got to do with us?"

He walked around her and sat on a corner of his desk. "Perhaps nothing, perhaps everything. That is what we wanted to know."

"And it never occurred to you that perhaps something in the mixture of gases that we breath might cause this effect in your people? Or that these 'things' flickeringjust out of sight might be an infestation of insects..."

"Oh no, they were, according to the reports, much too large to be mere insects."

"Some other vermin, then."

"Doubtful."

"Well, what about my first suggestion, perhaps our atmosphere requires adjustment?"

"Possible."

"Then perhaps you qpuld send some volunteers to our medical center for tests."

Belazir laughed. "No. We know that a virus is loose. However, we have no interest in a cure for it. If it causes troops to become nonfunctional, we will kill them ourselves. Unless it endangers this mission, we will take no countermeasures."

Channa gaped for a moment.

"We did not become the Divine Seed," he continued, "by pampering weakness. After in-vesting so much capital and time in training, it is, however, inconvenient to have adults die. When we return, we will spread the virus ourselves, quite deliberately, among the children of the High Clan. If this sickness is your doing, you do us a service — as do those who ambush our troops in the corridors. It reduces the ranks of imperfect Seeds."

"Ah, she is magnificent," he quoted softly to himself in his own language. "Her stride is the lightning striking. In her right hand is a sword of flame, in her left the goad of pain. Her voice is the shriek of the north wind. In her eyes flash comets, portents of wonder, and her hair is a storm at midnight. Between her thighs is the road to Paradise. I look upon her and my strength rises, yet I rage without fulfillment." He leaned closer and Channa could feel his breath on her lips.

Well, Simeon thought, that last bit rather neatly sums up my relationship with Charma. He relayed a running translation.

"You've made a real conquest, Happy."

"That—is—not —funny" Channa subvocalized.

The Kolnari touched her lighdy with the point of the dagger, then returned to his chair, leaving her shivering where she stood. He touched his tongue to the bead of blood on the steel.

"Perhaps," Belazir said, his voice amused, "I should take you with me when we go. I would give you something to fight besides boredcgn. You deserve the challenge." Then he smiled. "You may go."

Channa turned and walked away on shaking legs. When she was in the elevator, she vented her frustration in a savage tone.

"I really want to kill him, Simeon. I can see myself doing it, just what I would do, and I think I would enjoy it." She paused. "See how bad company corrupts my morals?"

"What did you think of that poem?"

"I wasn't listening."

"I think he was trying to flatter you." " 'Her voice is like the shrieking of the north wind1?"

"I thought you weren't listening?"

"Well, I caughti/wi." She laughed weakly. "Never tel a woman her voice reminds you of something shrieking. It won't win you any points."

"Important dating dp, Channa, thank you."

"Oh... I love you, Simeon. You keep me sane. And the Prince of Darkness can —" "— eat shit and die." / love you too, Channa, and you drive me crazy.

* CHAFrtRTWENTY-ONE

Another point of light flared in the holo tank.

"You have destroyed my dreadnought," Belazir said, surprise and amusement in his voice. He looked up at Channa. She was sweating heavily, strings of black hair plastered to her forehead. The Kolnari was calm as ever as he took another draught of the sparkling water flavored with metal salts.

"That makes ..." He paused to recollect. "Seventyfive wins for me and three for you. Ah, well." He dapped his hands, and attendants brought his equipment. "Enough pleasure; there is work to be done."

"Okay, people," Simeon said. The voices died down. "We've got a little time. You-know-who's sleeping the sleep of the wicked."

The screens went silent, and so did the litde dutch of men and women seated around the lounge table.

"They're going to be more or less finished in one more day-cycle," he went on.

"One?" Amos said. "They have more items marked for shipping than they could handle in one day."

"Trust me. I've been eavesdropping. They're doing that to fool us. Nearly fooled me! Only their top people know."

"How long has it been?" Patsy whispered.

"Sixteen days," Simeon said.

Doctor Chaundra swallowed. "A hundred dead. Many times that are ... injured, in various ways. We cannot endure more of this."

"We won't have to. One more day, and we're saved or we're all dead."

"Hie Navy?" Joseph said.

"They dropped a scout into the system today," Simeon replied. His image raised a hand to stem die babble. "It's heavily stealthed. I have the recognition codes, or I'd never have detected it. Yes, the flotilla is coming.

"They should be here, and soon. However, we've got to have a plan for the worst case.** He paused before he could go on. "The worst case is the Navy doesn't get here quite in time. We've got to give it our best shot. The Kolnari've got a lot of their people spread out, and their ships docked. They're planning on keeping it that way until the last minute. I've figured out a few indicators that'll tell me right down to the minute."

Channa swallowed and nodded. One of them would be Belazir coining to take her off to the Dreadful Bride.

"The battle platform will undock first. When they start that, we've got to begin our uprising! If we can cut enough of them ofFfrom their ships and keep the ships from undocking — I've got some plans on that tactic —• then they can't blow the station."

Amos nodded somberly. "The cost... the cost in lives will be very high. But there is no alternative."

"We cannot fight for long," Joseph said. "A delaying action at best. They have the weapons, armor, organization. And they need not fear damage to the station. They will use their onwatch ships to force-dock through the hull, outflank us. We have no real weapons."

"How many times have we gamed the uprising?" Amos said, rubbing his hand across his face. "Forty, fifty? Not once have we won, no matter if you or I command."

Simeon nodded. "Better to die on your feet than die on your knees," he said. Grim smiles greeted the sally.

Most of them had seen his tapes of the Warsaw Ghetto. "I can disorganize them a lot more than they expect," he went on. "We've got some weapons, too."

They all looked at the column.

"Mikesun?" he said. .

The section repcwas haggard and drawn, as you would expect from someone who had been working in cramped quarters for more than two weeks.

"I've got them unpacked and ready," he said. His hands moved into the light. "'Bout a thousand. Plus the explosives you told us to get ready."

Suddenly he had a needier in his hands. A huge chunky-looking thing, of no make any of them recognized.

"Where on ... where did you get those, Simeon?** Channa asked.

"Ah, um." Simeon sounded slightly embarrassed, she thought. "Well, you know how 1 like to collect stufE They were cheap — a ship needed some fuel bad and didn't have credit. And I just liked the thought of having my own arsenal. 'Someday we might need this kind of stuff.' I was right, wasn't I?"

"Yes, bless you," she said simply, because the relief she felt at seeing honest-to-God weapons was so intense.

Somebody swore. "Why haven't we had those before now? I've had my people attacking Kolnari patrols with their bare hands —"

"Because we couldn't let them take us seriously too soon!" Channa said sharply. "Any sort of formal weaponry would have alerted them. We had to do as much damage as we could without such assists, until the last moment. They won't be expecting us to have needlers. We'll have surprise and shock on our side."

Amos leaned forward, more warmth in his tone than was usual when he spoke to the brain." How are they to be distributed?"

"Remember when I said I'd put some other stuff that might be useful in the sealed-off sections? And Patsy and Joat've been mixing stuff around, too, through the passageways."

"With a thousand needlers -3-" Amos began, and then shrugged, oddly hopeless. Joseph nodded.

"Hmm. What make are those?" Patsy said, with a spark of her old interest "Ursinar manufacture," Simeon said. "Obscure race, big and hairy, always insisted that it was their right to arm bears." *•'

"This may only prolong the agony and delay the inevitable," Amos said. "So little against so much." Then he shook himself. "Still, it is better to die fighting."

"Hell, better to win and live," Simeon said.

"In the meantime," Amos said, standing and sweeping his eyes from screen to screen, "push them hard. They are incapable of resisting a territorial challenge from a weaker opponent — even when it would be logical to pull back. Take more risks."

Well, he takes as many as the rest of us do, Channa thought. Quite the little commander all the same. Wry amusement colored her exhaustion.

"Security monitor's locked," Joat said. "Now, your bit"

Seld went to the electronics access panel and began fiddling with its innards. Then he inserted the hedron he had prepared. The resulting picture would be distorted in the way the security computers had been since the pirate worm program went in. But they would distort the images of Joat and Seld in selective ways. Making them appear taller, much darker...

Joat went in die opposite direction, placing herself at the end of the corridor in the lookout's position.

When he had finished he joined her and tapped her shoulder. "Time," he whispered. •Just a sec." She opened her pack and withdrew a monocrystal filament dispenser. The thread was a molecule in diameter but incredibly strong. Dangerous to handle, too. Thinner than the thinnest knife-blade could ever be.

"What are you gonna do with that?" he asked puzzled. "I thought you were planting something."

"Stick around and you'll see," she said, waggling her eyebrows.

She knelt beside the wall and attached an end of the beryllium monocrystal filament to the corridor panel at about knee height Using the tiny laser that was part of the dispenser, the end was soldered into place, leaving a slight stickiness when she touched the wall. She reeled out the invisible fiber and tacked the other end to the opposite wall, keeping a careful mental image of where it was.

Seld turned pale. "You can't... you know what that stuff does!"

"Sure do," she said smugly. "Ol1 Jack-of-All-Trades is gonna give new meaning to 'cut off at the knees.' * "You can't," he said, and grabbed her arm. "They're bastards, but they're... they're sentients. You can't be maiming them like that." His voice had taken on a tinge of his father's accent again, but he was shaking with tension. Drops of sweat broke out at the edge of his reddish-brown hair. "It's evil! What are you thinking about?"

She snatched her arm from his grip. "I'm thinking about what they did. Tortured people. What they did to Patsy, and your friend Juke. I'm thinking about payback."

He licked his lips. "Not like this, I won't have anything to do with it Couldn't you just... kill them clean? C'mon,Joat?"

She pushed him back with her shoulder and tacked another line through at about waist height for a taD adult "Sim says," she went on, drawing three more lines about shin-height, "that cutting the enemy up is better than killin' 'em. Shakes them up more, and they gotta take care of them."

"If we do stuff like this, how are we different from them?"

She turned on him, snarling. '"Cause we live here and we're not doing this forfunl Or to make a nardy credit offit!"

Seld sat down abruptly against the corridor wall.

"Seld?" she said, her fage smoothing out abruptly and her voice changing. "Seld, you okay? You need your meds?"

"I'm okay. I just. .. I just don't like you as much when you're like this, Joat. And I really like you. You know?"

Sometimes I don't like me much, Joat thought. She turned away and blew out her lips in exasperation. "Don't go buckawbuckaw on me now, Seld, 'cause it's gonna get worse around here before it gets better. If it gets better." Everything always gets worse.

He raised his head from his knees. "If I'm going to die soon I want to die clean," he said. "Gimme your V-pills."

"Why?"

"Lost mine."

"Okay." They were supposed to take the pill if they came into contact with a Kolnari. Joat didn't intend to, or to live if she did. Seld pocketed the pills and stalked off toward his own escape route.

She pursed her lips and tacked a new line to the wall at the opening of the connecting corridor, at what she estimated as head-height for a Kolnari.

Then she ducked under it by a wide margin, tip-toed back toward the first line. She stopped well short of it and listened.

Come on, you gruntfudders, she thought. Rzrdling move.

They should be amazed that it was taking the first patrol so long to respond. She went to stand by the sabotaged panel and listened, hearing only the pounding of her own heart, which felt as if it wanted to tear free ofher thin chest. Then at last, her quick ears caught the sound of movement. She counted to five and began to retreat toward the second line. She entered the corridor just as she heard a shouted "Halt!" in KolnarL Perfect, she thought, all they saw was the coveraW They hadn't said halt, scumvermin, either.

A couple of shots were fired; light weapons, needles spanging off metal. The squad leader barked an order for cease fire and pursuit. Feet tapped the mesh covering of the corridor, in the distinctive long strides of the pirates.

Screams rang down the corridor, clanging and echoing in the dose space. Joat leaned forward from where she crouched and looked out around the corner. There was a malicious grin on her face, but it died at what she saw. Two of the Kolnari soldiers lay on the floor in a small pond of blood, hanging over the ultrastrong invisible wire that had sawn through their legs and opened them up from navel to backbone like a butterflied shrimp. As she watched, a body fell to the ground in two pieces, and there was so much, so much blood and guts and all the colors, and a pink-purple lung...

One Kolnari trooper reached toward her severed legs and cut her hand in half to the wrist. Two fingers flopped uselessly as she clutched her arm and screamed and screamed, not in pain or fear but sheer terror of the invisible something that had killed her.

"Oh, multi grudly," Joat whispered to herself. The sound of the words against what she saw was so out of place that she felt hysterical giggles bubbling up. Something warned her that that sort of giggling would be very difficult to stop once it started, so she backed away. Her eyes were huge saucers in her thin pale face.

At the other end of Joat's corridor was one of Simeon's hidden elevators. She tossed the wire spool out into the corridor before she entered it. Behind her there were shouts: the next enemy squad. From the ringing sounds, they tested to find the wires with the barrels of their weapons. There was a double thud as one unwary Kolnari turned too iast into the corridor and decapitated himself on the final trap.

Moving briskly, Joat exited the elevator three levels up and entered an access corridor meant for electrical repairs. She transferred tc»one of the small ventilation shafts and dragged herself quickly and efficiently to a larger open area where an array of the shafts met. She was safe here: it was one of her bases, with a pallet and some ration boxes as well as tools pilfered from Engineering, if you could call it pilfering when they handed them to you willingly. They were calling Joat the "Spirit of SSS-900-C," or Simeon's Gremlin.

Then she was violendy sick to her stomach. Servos arrived, clicking and cheeping to themselves, and cleaned up the mess.

Joat lay down, cradling her face on her arms, and wept bitterly. Long wracking sobs, like nothing she could remember.

'Joat... honey, have you been hurt?" Simeon's voice was soft and warm, like a vaguely remembered something that once held her.

She lifted a face flushed with weeping, but her lips were white.

"I'm not as tough as I thought," she said through her sobs. "I didn't think ... Shit, no! I've gotta heart like a rock. That's me, Joat the killer! Did you hear me snancing Seld for a wuss?" A cough racked her, and she wiped her eyes on the back of her hands. "He'll hate me! I hate myself! It was so —" And she threw herself down and bit the mattress. An eerie crooning wail echoed through the corridor.

"Shhh, it's all right, it's all right."

"I wanna go home!"

"Joat. Joat, honey. I'm with you. You are home. You'll always have a home with me. / don't hate you, Joat. You're not bad, honey. But sometimes things get through to the good part of you that doesn't like the tough part of you, and that's what just happened."

The servos rolled forward and tucked a blanket around her. Simeon began to croon, directing it at her ears where she hugged the blanket about her head and only tufts of hair escaped.

"IwantCharma"

I can't hold her, Simeon thought But I can smg....

"Do you call me liar to my face, Aragiz?" Belazir said.

"My people were killed," Aragiz t'Varak replied. "Security recorded Kolnari setting the trap, perhaps thinking to throw the blame on scumvermin. I knew scumvermin could not—"

"Do you give me the lie, t'Varak?"

The other captain stopped, torn between unwillingness to retract and inability to attack. Belazir was under no such constraints.

"Did it never occur to you, oh so straightforward cousin, that it might be scumvermin posing as Clan? That they are as capable of playing on our divisions as we are on theirs?"

"You call me dupe of scumvermin?"

"I say that you bare me, Lord Captain Aragiz t'Varak. You bore me beyond words, beyond bearing. Your existence makes die universe a place of tedium beyond belief!"

Aragiz's face relaxed, into a soft, welcoming smile. "When?"

"When Lord Captain Pol t'Veng's judgement is fulfilled. To the fist" Adeath-duel in die old manner, with spiked steel gloves.

"And now," Belazir went on, "get your household and all else to your ship." Quick suspicion marked the other captain's face. "Yes, 1 know you were massing your groundfighters. There is no time for feud here, t'^rak. Believe me." » The screen blanked. Serig took a step forward, an eyebrow raised. , "Lord, he is the dolt you named rum. There is nothing wrong with his reflexes, though."

"As it may be," Belazir said. "I spoke the truth. It drives me to fury to have to call that one cousin, it truly does." He shook his head. Today, we triumph, Serig. By running, yes: but triumph nonetheless. So, we —"

The dockside guards' chimes rang through the bridge. "Great Lord, we have a scumvermin female, claiming to have information for you."

Serig chuckled. There had been a fair number of scumvermin females coming to the dock and asking for Belazir. Some few he had taken himself, and passed the others on to Serig or the crew.

"No, wait," Belazir said. "Information of what?"

"A conspiracy, involving the scumvermin leadersthat-were and die prey-ship, lord."

"Send her up." Belazir looked at Serig and shrugged. "Why not?"

Waiting was swift. "I would speak with you alone, Master," the woman said, looking meaningfully at Serig.

"I am generous to women," Belazir declared. Quite true, or she would never have reached him. "So generous I did not hear you, scumvermin."

She blinked and swallowed hard, looking from one to the other.

"Why have you come?"

"The... they held me prisoner, Master and Gggg —" Even then, she could not quite bring herself to utter the blasphemy. Then Belazir looked up at her, and she felt herself huddle down behind the barrier of her skull, knowing it was not enough. So a sicatooth looked at a lamb. "— God," she completed, uncertain if it was the obscene honorific they demanded or a prayer, "I... I have information." She sfemmered, put a hand to her face. / escaped, she thought They must be really conspiring against her — against Amos, as well. Holding her from him. She whimpered slightly. She could remember his words of love, the promises — and nightmares of rejection, of failure. The brass-colored eyes were waiting.

"I am Rachel bint Damscus. I am from Bethel. I was on the ship that you were chasing. Forty of us survived the journey and took refuge on this station."

Neither of the Kolnari moved or spoke.

"So ... you are from Bethel?" Belazir leaned his head on his fist. One finger caressed his lower lip. "Turn your head. Stand. Bend. Sit once more."

Belazir turned to Serig. "Possible," he said meditatively. "Similar scumvermin race, but there are many varieties here."

"Unlikely, lord."

Belazir nodded. And in any case academic. They were nearly ready to go. If they have deceived us, what matter'? The memory of his slap in the face of the Bride's joss came back to him. Perhaps the old customs had some real strength after all....

She stared at him. There was something odd about her eyes, Belazir decided. Her lips trembled, and her fingers, but not in terror; he could always identify that. Some nerve disorder, perhaps? He leaned forward and snuffed. Not a healthy scent.

"Yes." She nodded once, sharply. "Master and God."

"Why do you tell me this? Surely you know that it is dangerous?"

The woman began to tremble with rage, and tears filled her eyes.

"She ... that black-haired, black-hearted whore seduced my betrothed! She promised him power! But she lied. He plays the fool for her, does what she tells him, sleeps in her bed ..." Her voice broke and she stopped, swallowed a few times before she could speak again. "Hie one you have been told is Simeon-Amos is truly Amos, the leader who brought us here from Bethel. The real Simeon is a shellperson, a thing they call a brain, and he is still running this station."

"A... shellperson?" Belazir t'Marid dosed his eyes for a moment "Ah! We have heard, but never seen."

Serig leaned down to him. "Lord, a sort of protein computer, no? But our worm subverted their system and holds it in our fist Would we not have known?"

"It would explain anomalies," Belazir said, chasing the elements that made him believe the impossible "And — ah! I am as great a fool as Aragiz t'Varak!"

"Surely not, lord," Serig said, surprised. "Not on your worst day. Not on my worst day. Not on the worst day of this scumvermin womb here."

"I was about to dismiss this, time being short Dismiss potentially the richest single piece of loot on the station!"

"A shellperson is so much?"

"A strategic asset," Belazir said. "Come, we will look into this. It is time, in any case."

He turned his eyes back to the scumvermin. From all he could see, she was manic-depressive, swinging from healthy, normal terror to an exalted state where she had complete confidence in his interest, in his support As if he were a player in her play...

"Mad," he said. "Yet... My vanity, perhaps, but little Channahap plays the war game far too well. An encysted brain, tied to great computers and their data banks, though?" He cocked an eyebrow at Rachel.

"I can only tell you what I have heard," the woman said, babbling in her desire to be believed. "I have been ir told that they are people who have been put into a casing as infants and that they then become like a computer." She wrung her hands and looked desperately from one to the other. "I'm telling you the truth. They are plotting against you. Master and God!"

Belazir smiled ii\poflte agreement "Of course they are." On that, at least, they were agreed. He rose. "Come, we will go and talk to them." He turned to Serig. "Have Baila tell Channahap that I will see her in her office. Tell her to have Simeon-Amos there as well."

Simeon spoke, interrupting Channa at her work station. "Channa, Belazir t'Bastard is heading this way with Rachel in tow. I don't know what's up, but he's looking both grim and pleased."

Before Channa could speak, the comm chimed and Baila's face appeared.

"Channahap," she said. "The Lord Captain t'Marid is on his way to your office. You will await him there. He commands the presence of Simeon-Amos. Obey." The screen went dark.

"Shit" Channa said, and tapped her fingers thoughtfully. "You're right, Simeon, this does not look good. I am so sick of that girl. She's driving me... crazy. Simeon?"

"You're right on the button about her state of mind, Channa. Our Rachel's crazy, not just going crazy but absolutely nuts, gonzo, a sandwich shy of a picnic, packin' a short seabag..."

"Sim!"

"Right, I'll have Chaundra draw up a case history about some kind of dementia. You brief Simeon-Amos, 111 spread the word."

"You got it. Simeon-Amos," she said over the intercom, "get in here."

"And Channa?"

"Yes?"

"I think this is it. The battle platform just started severing its stationside power leads. We've got a real opportunity to hurt them hard if we can get Belazir out of comm with his people. It could make the difference."

Channa nodded. She had bedn prepared to try an assassination on the Bride, but that, at best, was unlikely. Fear was remote: no time for it "Simeon-Amos," she began, when he entered the lounge. "Belazir's coming, with Rachel." His face froze. "Here's what we're going to do — no time for an argument-"

The crates made gentle plopping noises as they slid out of the meter-deep green water of the algae pools and stood dripping on the slotted metal of the walkways. Ships had a closed system of tubing and enclosed tanks, but this arrangement — open metal rectangles stacked like trays — was more efficient for a station. The environment systems workers moved quickly, without wasted effort or much talking. This had not been a cheerful section since their chief returned to them, but there was a stolid satisfection as the vac-covers were peeled back and the weapons went from hand to hand among the hundred or so technicians, office workers, and laborers.

Patsy Sue Coburn watched the needlers emerge, brutal and compact. She slung one over her shoulder. Ursinid weapons were submachinegun size for humans. Then she reached into the pool and retrieved her arc pistol, stripping off the plastic film.

"Wait for it," she whispered. If the Kolnari made one last swing through on their usual routes, they'd be by in half an hour or so.

The crew were crowding around the supervisors, getting a quick lesson on how to use a needier to best effect. Luckily, the weapons had simple controls: set the dial on the side to the full clockwise position and take up the trigger slack. Look down the barrel at the target and pull the trigger. Line of sight weapons with little recoil at short ranges, they should do well enough.

And they're all we've got, she reminded herself. She felt completely calm. In a way, she had been calm since she woke and saw Joan's face floating before her, like a ghost's in its pool of light. There was a feeling under that, a feeling that when she wasn't calm anymore, it was going to be very, very bad.

"Reckon I kin wait fer it," she told herself.

The others were looking at her.

'Just wait 'n till they come around," she said patiendy for the hundredth time. "Simeon'11 keep us all in touch." I hope, /purely do. "Now, when they git here, you burn 'em down. Then go down axial G-8 an' hit the bunch of'em there. ArnosTl be by about then. If not him, then me."

She nodded curtly and slung the needier further around to her back, freeing her hands for the climb up the interval ladder. The entrance to the venting system was where she would rendezvous with JoaL Not a difficult climb at first, since these were the biggest vents on the station. The circle effaces fell away below her, growing tiny amid the rectangular Escher shapes of the ponds and the huge color-coded maze of pipes for nutrient and water and waste.

Amos stood impassively behind Channa, hands clasped at his back. They dropped to a knee as Belazir entered. He took the seat before her desk, gestured to Channa to sit. The squad of soldiers began to crowd into the small office. The t'Marid snapped out an order in his own language and all but two of them withdrew.

Rachel stood beside his chair. She glared at Channa and then turned away, her fists clenched by her sides. To Amos she smiled tremulously.

Definitely, as Sim would say, a few cans short of a sixpack, Channa decided. She looks as if she's rescuing Am.

Channa folded her hands in her lap. "Master and God, to what do I owe the honor of this visit?"

Belazir smiled and indicated Rachel with his hand. "I have been given some interesting information.*' "1 have told him everything!" Rachel said spitefully.

Channa and Amos regarded her blankly, then shook their heads and turned to Belazir.; ;

"Everything?" Channa asked.

"She has told me that she and forty others survived the trip from Bethel, and that this man," he flicked his chin at Amos, "is her betrothed. She tells me that he is pretending to be Simeon and that the real Simeon is in feet a brain in a container or some such thing, who is running this station and the resistance to the High Clan."

He folded his hands and regarded her calmly. "This truth would solve certain difficulties, Channa fought not to smile, making her eyes wide with disbelief. Belazir studied her closely. Amusement was not what he had anticipated.

"Simeon-Amos," she said at last, "please inform Doctor Chaundra that Rachel has been found and ask him to come and fetch her. Advise him that he may need some form of chemical restraint."

Belazir raised an eyebrow.

Channa looked to the t'Marid for permission for Amos to comply. Belazir flicked his fingers. Amos nodded and went into his own office to make the call.

"She lies yet again, lord," Rachel said, but she fell silent at a second flick of Belazir's hand.

Channa assumed an understanding expression. "This young woman is deranged. We don't restrain her because usually she is harmless and so are her fantasies. A tragic case, very resistant to psychotherapy."

"Foul whore —" Rachel began, urgently stepping forward.

Belazir made a chopping motion with his hand. A jruard stepped forward and Rachel shut her mouth with an audible snap.

"Who is she, then?" he asked.

"We don't actually know," Channa said. "She was abandoned here, apnarendy by some transient merchanter. She had no I.D. No one came forward with any information about her. The doctor isn't sure if her insanity is the result of drugs or trauma. He says the only way to be one hundred percent sure is to do an autopsy, which obviously is out or the question. She's usually very sweet, at worst a mild nuisance. Perhaps the conditions ..." and Channa made a vague motion with her hand to suggest that the occupation might have added to her instability. Channa made herselflean back casually in her chair, appearing at ease. "Perhaps it's a sign of progress that she is this aware of, ah, current events, Master and God. She must have concocted this fentasy about Bethel from the newstapes, for example."

Rachel exploded. "She lies!" She lunged for Channa, coming up with a jerk when the guard pulled her back by her long hair. Her gorgon's mask of rage did not even register the pain. She struggled briefly and then subsided as Amos came back into the room. "Amos," she pleaded, weeping, "help me!"

He looked at her with sympathy.

"Of course, I will help you, Rachel," he said. His mellow voice rang with sincerity. "We all wish to help you." He leaned close to Channa. "The doctor is on his way, Ms. Hap."

"No!" Rachel screamed. "No! How can you do this to me? She is using you, my love! Do not betray me! Please ..." Tears began to leak down her long nose. "Please... please."

Channa's stomach twisted. She is crazy. Probably curably crazy—most were. Irritation faded before pity, and pity faded before the threat of the Kolnari putting any weight into Rachel's tale.

Amos' sympathy was achingly real "There, there," he said soothingly. "You are ill, Rachel. Daddy will call the doctor to make it right" He offered the rag doll he was carrying. "You can have Siminta with you." He pressed it infc> her hands.

For a moment Rachel's sobs stopped and she stared at him in confusion. "What?" she: said. "You are my betrothed, not myfatherl" She looked down at the doU, then dashed it to the floor and stamped her foot "Stop mocking me!"

Amos shifted uneasily. %cannot keep up with this. May I be excused until Doctor Chaundra comes?"

"It might be best," Chaima said, addressing Belazir.

The t'Marid's eyes flicked over the three of them. "Daddy?" he said dubiously, then quirked an involuntary smile.

Channa sighed. "Last week, she thought she was five years old and Simeon-Amos was her father. She would start to cry if he left the room. For some reason, she's totally fixated on him. Chaundra supposes that he resembles whoever dropped her on us. We don't know."

"Lies!" Rachel shrieked. "Lies."

"The doctor should be here by now," Amos said, clearly uncomfortable. He picked up the doll and placed it carefully on a chair. "Ah ... she will grieve later if it isn't there."

"You may go," Belazir said to him. His eyes never left Channa's.

Chaundra strode in. He walked over to the weeping girl and touched her shoulder gently. "Poor Rachel," he said soothingly, "poor little girl."

"Doctor," t'Marid said sharply. Chaundra turned and stood very straight, looking down. "This is your patient?"

"Yes, Master and God."

"I do not appreciate having my time wasted on the daydreams of this madwoman. If she is so much as seen again — no, no point. You may go. Wait You have records of her illness? I want to see them."

"Yes, Master and God, but I can't access them from this computer. Medical records are on a dosed system to protect the privacy Sf the patient"

Belazir made an impatient, dismissive gesture. "Serig," he said. "See to it then back to the Bride, continue on the matter we were planning. I will join you shortly." Serig bowed deeply.

"At your command, lord," he said, his teeth showing slightly in cold amusement "The doll, too?"

Belazir snorted. "Go, insolence.

Rachel took a deep breath and seemed to fight for dignity; the twitching lessened in her face. "They are lying, Master and God, you will see. I am telling the truth."

That ended in a squawk as Serig turned her about and pushed between her shoulderblades. She ran to avoid felling, and the door hissed open before her.

"Now," Belazir snarled. Chaundra followed.

In the strained silence that followed, Belazir and Channa studied each other.

At last Belazir spoke. "Have your man return."

Channa pressed the intercom button, "Simeon Amos, would you come in here, please?"

"This Rachel is in love with you," t'Marid observed, a hint of laughter in the yellow eyes.

"I confess," Amos said bitterly, "that I am beginning to despise the very sight of her."

The Kolnari raised an eyebrow.

"One day," Channa informed him, "she became convinced that Simeon-Amos was God and went around the station trying to convert people to worshipping him. She's been a very difficult experience for all of us, but she's been a particular strain on Simeon-Amos."

"Simeon-Amos," Belazir said, "is rather obviously the victim of a similar fixation on you, Channahap. A strong reason to believe your tale."

"Yes, Master and God," Channa said. She dosed her eyes. Simeon? she asked.

"He's halfway convinced, but still wyndering. Impatient. Channa, it's starting. No more than twenty minutes until the pirates'sound alarm." _• She opened her eyes again. "Simeon-Amos," she said. "Why don't you go see to the primary warehousing?"

He hesitated for a long second. "As you wish."

Now, Simeon commanded.

The worm raised its head from the ruins of the castle, looking out across a plain of volcanic fumaroles and blue-glowing lava. Flights of tongue-wasps patrolled there and arcs of lightning jagged over crater and canyon in patterned displays.

Thunder rumbled, A barking broke loose, louder than the thunder, and the vault of heaven split. The worm reared up, endless, longer than time, glutted with its feeding.

Simeon burst through and new skies sprang above the blasted landscape. The light changed from a pitiless white to the softer yellow of sunshine. The wasps fell, twitched, died. Three-headed and elephant-sized, the dog paced beside him. He raised the bat, struck.

The Grinder lunged and the concentric mouths damped on the end of the weapon. Then it recoiled, as the wood turned to a hoop and expanded, thrusting the rows of teeth back. It tried to shake loose, but the dog's three heads pinned its body to the earth. Wider and wider the glowing green circle swelled, until the mouths were a doorway.

A scalpel and icepick appeared in Simeon's hands. He walked into the worm's mouths and raised the tools.

"Heeeeeeere's Sim!1* he shouted. "Openuwfe."

On the auxiliary command deck of the SSS-900-C, the Kolnari tech was reaching for the rear casing of the batde computer when he noticed die telltales.

"Lord!" he cried. "The—"

At that instant, the se^-destruct charge built into the base of the computer detonated. It was not much in the way of an explosion, but much more than was required to destroy the sensitive inner workings. The designer had intended that to foil tampering. However, the flattened disk of jagged housing was more than enough to decapitate the pirate.

His companion reacted with tiger precision, scooping up his weapon and leaping for the doors. They clashed shut with a snap, and the warrior rebounded into the control chamber. It was empty save for him and there was no other exit. He pivoted, holding down the trigger of his plasma rifle and firing from the hip into the consoles.

"Naughty," a voice from the air said. The vents began to hiss. Trie Kolnari staggered at the first touch of the gas. His last act was to strip a grenade from his belt and trigger it, carefully held next to his own head.

"Damn," Simeon muttered. The mess was considerable and the equipment wasn't going to be much use for a while. Then he took the equivalent of a deep breath and concentrated. Several dozen things must be done at once.

"Let me up," Channa said, stroking Belazir's back.

"Not for a while yet," Belazir said lazily. "I have hastened as it is. There is another five minutes available." His body was dry against her sweat-slick one, but much warmer, with the higher metabolism of his breed.

"Are we staying, then?" she breathed against his ear.

"No," he replied. "You suspected?"

"That you'd take me with you, or that today would be the day to go? Both." She wiggled. have to get some stuff."

"I shall keep you well," Belazir said, then rolled away off her. "Be swift."

He lay idly on the sofa, watching her disappear into the bedroom. Memorable, he decided. Starling with her skinning out of her clothes the moment they were alone. Anticipation is the best garnish! The Kolnari consulted his interior timesense:, twenty minutes, unusually swift. Well within the day's schedule, too. He grinned to himself, stretching and tossing back strands of white-blond hair. Tomorrow stretched out before him in a road of fire and blood and gold.

"We are close to Channa's quarters?" Joseph asked.

They were leopard-crawling down the ductway; an action that was hard for one of his shoulder-breadth. Behind them Patsy was having less of a problem, since much of her volume was compressible.

"Yeah ..." Joat paused. "I haven't actually been this way, y'know. I was trying to hide from Simeon." A pause. "We're right over the main corridor to the elevator shaft. I think."

"I think I had better check," Joseph said, with a tight smile. "Are you all right, Joat-my-friend?"

"Yeah." She threw a smile back at him. "Just... I got a little shook, is all. I'm fine."

She touched the junction node and her jacker. The membrane beneath them turned transparent. Chaundra did not look up. Instead, he glanced behind him, shook his head, moved on.

Joat crawled past, then froze as two more figures came beneath. Rachel was running, but Serig caught her easily in one hand, pushed her against the corridor wall. She screamed, breathy and catching in her throat, like someone awakening from one nightmare into another.

"Don't do it, Joe, he'll kill you!" Joat cried sotto voce, lunging for the Bethelite's belt She missed and knew it would have done no good. Her hand could never have deflected the solid charging weight of the man. He was through the space and dropping to the deck before she could finish the sentence. His knives were in his hands: one long and thin, the other short and curved.

The Kolnari had his nand back to cuff Rachel again as she screamed a second time, hopelessly.

"Pirate," a voice behind them said.

The warrior threw her aside as easily as he might a sack of wool, and she thudded into the corridor watt. The same motion turned into a whirling slash with one bladed palm, a blow that would have cracked solid teakwood. Joseph was not in its path, but the long knife in his right hand was. The yellow eyes slitted in pain and a broad streak of blood arched out to spatter against the cream of the sidewall and flow sluggishly down. The Clan fighter leaped back half a dozen paces, out of reach of the blades, but also farther from the discarded equipment belt. He was naked and unarmed, and the slash in his forearm was bone-deep. He dared not even squeeze it shut with his other hand. The raw salt-copper smell of blood was strong as the wound began to ooze more sluggishly. Superfast clotting would save him... if he did not exert himself, "Come to me, pirate," Joseph said softly. "Come, see how we fought in Keriss, on the docks."

The Kolnari snarled and leaped to one side, flipped in midair and bounced off the upper wall. He was a hundred-kilo blur of muscle and bone snapping at Joseph behind a clenched fist Huddled against the wall, Rachel gave a whimper of despair, but Joseph was not there anymore. Anticipating such a tactic, he had thrown himself down on his back. Both knives were up. The pirate jackknifed in midair, but when he rolled erect, there were two more long slashes across his chest His grin was a snarl of pain as he slid forward. The long wounds were orange, the Tunneling blood a shocking deep umber against his raven-black skin. He held his arms up: one in a knuckled fist, the other open in a stiffened blade.

"Come," Joseph whispered. Rachel blinked back to full consciousness and the sight of his face chilled her. "Come to me, yes, come."

The knives glinted in either hand, splashed orangey-red now, the edges glinting in the soft glowlight as they moved in small, precise circles.

What followed was a whirling blur. It ended with one knife flying loose and Joseph crumpling back, curled around his side. The other knife still shone in defiance. The Kolnari warrior staggered and shivered for a moment, then drew back his foot for the final blow. Rachel flung herself forward, grasping blindly. Her arms dosed around the poised leg. It was like gripping a tree, no, a piece of steel machinery that hammered her aside like some giant piston-rod. But blood loss and the unexpected weight threw the pirate off-balance. He staggered forward into Joseph. For a moment they stood chest-to-chest, like embracing brothers. Long-fingered black hands clamped down on Joseph's shoulders, ready to tear the muscles of his bull-neck free by main force.

Then she saw die Bethelite's left arm moving. The right hung limp, but the left was pressed against the Kolnari's side. There was something in it. A knife-hilt, and the blade was buried up to the guard; the curved blade of theszca, whose density-enhanced edge would carve steel. It slid through ribs as the pirate's killing grip turned to a frantic push that arched him like a bow.

The two men had fought in silence, save for the panting rasp of their breath. Now the Kolnari screamed, as much in frustration as in final agony. The cry dissolved in a spray of blood as the diamond-hard sica's edge sawed open his ribcage and ground to a halt halfway through his breastbone. He flopped to the ground, voided, and died. Joseph wrenched his knife free and stooped. He forced his right hand to action, gripped the dead pirate's genitals, severed them with a slash. Then he stuffed them into the gaping mouth of the corpse and spat in the dead eyes, still open like fading amber jewels.

Blood. Rachel wipeS at her mouth, suddenly conscious of the blooct: in her mouth, her hair, over her body, spattered on corridor walls and ceiling, dimming the glowstrips, more blood than she had ever imagined could be. Joseph was coated with it, his eyes staring out of a mask ofblood, his teeth red.

She stared at the mutilated corpse. "Serig," she said. "His name was Serig."

"A dead dog's name dies on the dungheap," Joseph said in a snarl. Then he turned to her and his eyes were alive once more. He bowed, checked himself with a sharp gasp, then completed the gesture. "My lady, are you hurt?'1 he inquired solicitously.

His face, for once, was naked. Rachel gasped and swayed, looking down at the body and then at the man she had despised.

"Joseph!" she cried, clutching at his arm. "I..." Reality whirled, splintered, as if a glass surface between her and her thoughts had shattered. "Joseph," she said more softly, wonderingly. "Something has happened to me. I... I remember things that cannot be. I —" she blushed "— I remember being so cruel to you, so vicious. And, and I —" she looked up at him, shaking her head in denial even as she whispered in growing horror "— betrayed Amos to the Roman?"

He touched her cheek, a feather soft caress. "Lady, you have been ill. You were poisoned by the coldsleep drugs that we took. It is not your fault"

"Oh," she said, "oh," and threw herself into his arms, weeping. "Please forgive me," she pleaded, "I am unworthy, I am foul, but I beg you, Joseph, do not despise me. Do not leave me."

"I could never despise my lady," he said simply. He extended a hand which she grasped, though the fingers were slippery with death.

"Come, we have little time," he said. "We must get you to a place of safety, and I have much work to do this day." * "Then let us hasten, Joseph," she replied.

Joat and Patsy dropped down, halting at the sight of the body. They scanned the hall tensely, then edged nearer. Joat looked at it out,of the corner of her eyes, but the older woman stared hungrily.

The arc pistol rose, then fell helplessly.

"It's him," she whispered. "It's him. And it's been done!" Her tone was aggrieved, indignant.

Joat moved up beside her. Boy, is he ever done, she thought with her newfound squeamishness, and tried to ignore the smell. This skudgesueker worked up an awful lot of mad against himself. It was not that she regretted his death, just...

"Sorry it wasn't you?" she said, looking up at her companion.

For the first time since her rape, Patsy Sue Coburn was weeping.

"No," she said, her voice thick. "No, I'm not sorry. Not sorry he's dead, not sorry it wasn't me. Jist glad this dawg will never hurt nobody agin. I... won't have to remember doing it, now."

"Yeah, that's right," Joat said desolately, slamming the doors of memory firmly shut "C'mon, we got work to do."

They turned to Joseph and Rachel. "Let's boost her up," Joat continued. "Axial up one ought to be safe enough to stash her. Then we can get on with it"

"Simeon?" Channa said softly. "You back?" "Part of me." His voice sounded dim, although the implant's volume was always the same. "I'm dancing on a sawblade, keeping their communications down and fighting off their ships' computers. Can't keep them out of touch forever." More sharply. "You all right?" "You want to know^" she said, dressing with calm haste. < "Yeah."

"It was annoying as hell... and sort of strenuous." A moment's urchin grin. "And to tell the truth, I'd have been forever curious if I hadn't What I'd like" she said as she finished sealing her overall to the neck, "is to see his face when he realizes I'm not coming back through that door."

"I'll record it."

"And don't tell Amos."

A section of the ceiling paneling turned translucent and slid back. Joat's face showed through and then her body somersaulted down.

"There's a crawlspace we c'n get into now that leads to a bunch of air-ducts and electric-conduits. Come on."

Channa examined the hatch in the ceiling and smiled wryly. 'Just like in a holovid," she murmured.

Joat grinned. "Yeah, only a lot smaller." She looked anxiously at Channa's lean length. "You may find it a squeeze. Had to leave the others back a ways. Do you nurdly when you're cramped?"

"Is there a choice?" Channa said.

"Then you don't. Push yourself along with your hands and toes. Don't try to use your knees or you'll eventually black out from the pain."

"Do you speak as one who knows?"

"Uh-huh, I've seen it happen. Give me a boost?"

Channa braced, cupped her hands, lifted Joat towards the ceiling hatch.

"Ready." Joat's voice came down, sounding a little hollow.

"Stand back." Channa crouched down and sprang upwards, catching the sides of the hole and pulling herself straight up, arms trembling with the strain.

The crawlspace was narrow and cramped and confining. She had to breathe and move in different motions. It was wonderful & CHAplfalTWENTYTWO "Okay," Florian Gusky croaked. "Go." He coughed, his lungs and throat a mass of pain and fire. The air system had_not been designed to be occupied for two-week stays. "Go, you bastards."

Eight tugs and the mining scout In Your Dreams brought up their systems. There had been ten tugs, but Lowbau and Wong hadn't been answering on tightbeam for four days. If something had gone wrong with their life-support, neither of them had made a sound while it happened, accepting death in the silence of their powered-down ships, alone in the dark.

"Comin' home," Gus whispered.

The tugs had drifted with the other debris that cluttered the vicinity of the station. He gave silent thanks for the fact that Simeon had never been a neat housekeeper. More that Channa hadn't had time to reform him before the trouble struck. Now the energies of their drives painted half of heaven. Acceleration pushed him back into the padding, beyond what the compensators could handle. The screen ahead of him was a holo-driven schematic, with his target and approach vector marked off as a box, and the tug a blip that had to be kept inside it. Easy work for a military craft, but these tugs were designed for hard slow pulls, not whipping around. Nothing else mattered but the vector, and the load of scrap and ore trailing behind him. Through his body the drives hummed, pushed past all prudence and all hope.

His mind found time to note the bright spark that was a tuggoing up , a pulse from the engine detonation and then the brighterflash of the destabilized powerplant "Well, that ought to let 'em know we're here,** he muttered. Whiskers rasped against the feeding nozzle and the mike as his head movedfai the helmet. He knew his face must look neither sane nor pleasant The tug surged as he corrected. Tfee station filled a sidescreen, and the bristling saucer shape of the Kolnari battle platform docked to its north polar tube, like some monstrous tick swelling with blood.

"You're mme,"Gusshouted past cracked lips. '

Simeon stood in the passageway. Rock rumbled around him, the bomb exploded away from a spot above, chips stinging his eyes and going spang off his armor. The long head that battered through was scaled in sapphire and had eyes set all about it, in a bone rill that turned to spikes. The muzzle split four ways, and each segment was lined with fangs. The tongue between was a metal-tipped spear ready to strike.

He struck first, grabbing it in an armored gaundet and hauling back before the quadruple jaws could slam shut When they did, it was on their own tongue. A high whine of pain drove needles into Simeon's ears. He kept his grip on the lashing end, whipped it three times around the muzzle and tied a quick slip-knot. Then he stood back and took a double-handed grip on his glowing baseball bat. Thwak. The guardian program shivered, slumped, dissolved into metallic fragments that scurried back and forth disorganized, then decayed instantly into floating bytes.

"Next," he said, walking forward toward the ironstrapped door, which wasprobably the entrance to the CPU. "Geeze, I've got to patent this AI interface," he said, taking stance again. "It's — Boom. Oak splintered, wrought iron bent and shrieked. "— fordlin' — " Boom.

The commander of the High Clan batde platform Skull Crusher pivoted on one heel. The big circular room was half-empty; the liberty parties were only now returning.

"What?" he barked at the info-systems watch-officer. Not now. He was scheduled to undock and begin transit first, to be there when the transports came in for rendezvous with the rest of the High Clan. Just in case, but the weight of the responsibility was heavy, and this was his first independent command.

"Lord, our system is under attack!"

"The worm program?" Chindik t'Marid was a specialist in those. He had designed the standard Clan attack worm himself. He was also a game designer of note, although that was merely a hobby.

"No," the tech said. His fingers were dancing over his board. "Something's just smashing its way in."

"Aside." Chindik called up a graphic. He whisded silently. Something with enormous computational power was battering at the defenses with tremendous force, trying all the solutions. There was no indication of realspace location. His computers were spending all their capacity just keeping the enemy out. But since there was only one enemy installation in sight — "Cut the cable feeds to the station," he said. "Batde alert to all other vessels.1* "I can't cut the feeds," the tech said. "The retractors won't answer. Neither do the landline comms to the rest of the flotilla."

"Well, then — " Chindik began. Another cry stopped him.

"Detection," the sensor operator said. "Multiple detection. Powerplant signatures. Close, lord, dose. Approaching."

"Attack vectors," the tactical computer announced. "Vessel is under attack.*1 "Those aren't warships," Chindjk said in astonished dismay as he read the screen. His head whipped back and forth, reflex in a creature attacked from all sides. Then he straightened, strode back to the commander's station, and sank into the couch.

"Combat alert," he said. The chimes began to sound, wild and sweet. "Battlestarions. Deploy short-range energy weapons. Fire on any of those ... gnats as the weapons bear. Gantry?"

"Lord?" The dockside guards were looking away from the pickup. "Lord, we hear —"

"Silence! Send parties through the sidelock and blow the feeds connecting us to the scumvermin hulk."

"Lord?"

"Obey!"

The guards scattered like mercury struck with a hammer.

"Blast-broadcast," Chindik said. "Five-minute signal, all crew rally to the Crusher. Then undock."

"Lord, I've been trying to activate the decoupling procedure." The bridge was filling as the standby crew ran in and slid into their stations. "My telltales say it is working, but the visual scanner shows no activity."

"Send a party from engineering to dog it manually. Engines, prepare to maneuver."

"Lord, we're still physically linked."

"I know. We'll rip loose, and take the damage. Estimate."

"Six minutes to readiness, lord."

The weapons team were working in a blur of trained unison. "Enemy dosing. Velocities follow. Preparing to engage ... Lord, we need maneuvering room! They are too close for interceptor missiles."

"Make it three minutes, Engines." He turned back to the communications console. "Get me the commanderr "Down two decks, use the emergency shaft. Down two decks, use the emergency shaft."

Simeon's voice rang through the corridor. All up and down it, the doors of the residential apartments were opening. Stationers came out, First singly, then in groups, in scores. They ran past the working party at the corridor junction, grabbed whatever shapes were thrust into their hands: needlers, industrial torches, bundles of blasting explosive with fuses cobbled together out of calculators, handlights and spare consumer-goods chips. Their faces were set and tight, or grinning, or snarling wordlessly.

Simeon broke off another fragment of attention as Amos came up.

"Channa?" the Bethelite asked. Then, as she moved into sight from behind Joseph, he cried in relief. "Channar They had time for a single swift hug.

His eye widened slightly as he saw Joseph's body splashed with drying blood from knees to neck.

"Mostly not my own, Brother," Joseph said grinning.

"You are hurt."

"Cracked rib. It is nothing."

Amos nodded briskly. "So for, they are surprised," he said to Channa. "But that will not last." The fabric of the station quivered beneath their feet.

Belazir t'Marid stepped back from the door. The frame of the chair was bent in his hands, but only gouges showed on the surface. He dropped the shattered mass and looked around, his eyes narrowed. fool, he thought, and suppressed anger. There would be time for recriminations later. Perhaps... He retrieved his equipment belt and extracted the universal microtool. There had to be a connecting line somewhere around the entranceway. He cast a glance over his shoulder at the titanium pillar that had been beneath the tapestries.

"You will pay for this, my friend," he said. "For a very longtime." £.

"Eat shit and die, Master and God," Simeon replied. God, that felt good. I've been waiting to say that. "You screwed the pooch. You did the doo-doo, big. Ifou've got a place in the next edition ofFrom the Jaws of Victory* Belazir turned away with a smile and a shrug, going to work on the exterior access panel.

"Can you feel pain?" he said as he began slicing it open with the short-range cutting laser in the tool "I hope so. Very much." He deployed die hair-thin probe.

And I was playing below my level on the war games," Simeon added.

"Barricade at the next junction, lord."

The groundfighter's voice sounded in her headphones. Pol t'Veng filed it with the other voices filling her helmet, squeezing at them with the force of her will until they began to assume some pattern.

Takiz," she said to her second. He looked around from the six power-armored figures at the junction. Just ahead the corridor had been wrecked by a satchel-charge; the tangle of walls, tubing and die remains of the floating gun was still white-hoL Two of the suited Koinari forced their way into the narrow place and began to straighten. Metal screamed as it was deformed again. Hot gases pooled around them and the remains of die gun-crew.

"Takiz, when we're through here, take four and make another attempt at Lord Belazir's last location. Maximum effort."

That translated as "Bring him or don't come back."

"I hear and obey, Lord Pol."

"Lord Pol, we have a cleared line to the main axial corridor."

"Good," she said. Good news, the first since this started. "Reports."

"Fightingon all the docking levels, Lord. Data follows."

It did; also pickup views. One for only a second; the view from a powersqit as its wearer backed into the open port of a Clan transport. Stationers were firing from behind barricades of machinery and crates in the open space beyond. The lights were out and the view had the glassy look of light-enhancement. Softsuited crewfolk ran past the groundfighter. His plasma rifle snapped again and a makeshift breastwork exploded along with the bodies of the scumvermin behind it Then all the telltales that ran below the visual flashed red. Not good news for the occupant of that suit, since the internal temperature was now over two hundred degrees. The scene began to fog just as she could make out a bundle of plastic bricks wired together arcing toward the airlock. Then it cut out abruptly.

Bad. That was one vessel that would be undocking with extreme difficulty. She projected a schematic on the corridor wall and studied it as the information flowed in. More bad news, but at least she had a picture.

"General transmission," she said. "Lord Pol t'Veng, assuming command in the absence of Lord Belazir. Crews, report to nearest vessel. Those near the exterior, blow your way out of the pressure hull and EVA to the nearest vessel."

Many of them would be suited, and emergency dingmasks — films that protected the face somewhat, with a miniaturized recycler — were standard issue. For that matter, Koinari could endure about four minutes of vacuum if trained and prepared.

"We retreat?" someone asked, shocked.

"No, fool!" she said. The speaker was an officer with an intact company ranged behind him. It was worth the time to answer as she might herself fall, in which AnneMeCaffny&SJU. Stirling case he would need the information. "Look!" She downloaded her appraisal. "They fight to keep us here. We fight for fighting room. We have completed our mission."

"I hear and obey, lord." & "You had better," she muttered to herself Now that the blockage had been cleared, more Kolnari were gathering in the cross-corridors.

"We fight our way through to the axial corridor," she said. "You, Dittrek. Is that barricade still holding?"

"Yes, lord. I do not have enough men to rush it again."

"Blow through the access walls to either side of your position," she said. "Then blow through the connecting partitions and flank them. Quickly."

"Lord."

She turned to the others. "To the docks—follow me!"

"Now!" Gus muttered to himself. The computer did the actual release. The tug released its grapnel field and applied lateral thrust, just enough to swing him wide of the station itself.

He removed his hands from the controls and slapped the main power switch; the safest thing to do, now. There were a lot of high-velocity debris around ... including the wrecks of the other tugs. He felt a curious peace, almost as if he could sleep.

"Lord, we boost," the engine comm of Heart Crusher said. At the same moment, the weapons console gave a cry of fury.

"Kinetic slugs inbound. Prepare for impact. Inner defense batteries on auto."

"Full maneuver power. Boosting."

Chindik t'Marid prayed silently to the platform joss, making reckless promises. The big vessel lurched and rending sounds echoed through the fabric of its hull as the jammed connectors tore out, like roots parting in the earth. The most effective weapons were on the underside, and that was still pointed towards the SSS-900-C. There was nothing he could do, anyone could do, except the AI systems handling the close-in cjefense — something beyond even Kolnari reflexes.

Sprays of trajectory crossed on the screens. Absently he noted the second to last attacking vessel taking a beam. An irrelevancy now, after the huge scatter of high-velocity projectiles had been loosed against bis command. The slew of dots diminished, as the beams swept, more and more with each second as the stubby disk turned its teeth toward the sky.

Tinngggggg. Timtggggg. He waited, tense. No more contact. The rest of the incoming flotsam had been stopped, or missed, or struck the station instead.

"Damage control!"

A few lights were strobing from green to amber to red. The engines screen came on.

"Lord... the exciter coils for the FTL were hit"

"How long?"

"A week, lord. It is a dockyard job." The Roman on the bridge exchanged looks. They had just heard news of their deaths.

"You," Chindik snapped to a backup crewman. "Take that —" he indicated the joss "— and space it"

"We have Lord Pol, lord."

The doors hissed open. Belazir jumped back with a yell as the plasma rifle leveled.

"Lord!" The man seemed ready to weep with relie£ Belazir ignored him, diving for the empty suit that followed behind the warrior. For a wonder, it was his own, "Where is Serig?" Belazir barked. He had expected him to be here, or taking command. Matters should not have got so far out of hand.

With the door open, the smells and sounds of combat were obvious: deep toning sounds as explosions tore at the fabric of the station, far offchuddering ofbeam weapons, the stink of hot metal and ozone. Belazir folded the suit around him, leaving the catheters for later. If I have to piss down my leg, so be it. It came alive wi|b a jerk, and he flexed the servo-powered limbs and gauntlets with exultation.

"Lord Serig is dead, Great Ijord. Lord Pol commands. We have a link.** The news staggered Belazir for a moment. Serig dead? Then he damped the helmet. "Lord Pol?"

"Here! Report follows."-Mosdy disaster. "They came at us out of the walls, must have been hiding there since the occupation began." Belazir nodded jerkily.

"We hold the ships," Pol said crisply. "Except for one transport that has, incredibly, been overrun. They attack the docks and encircle pockets of our troops."

"Continue consolidating the pockets and punch through to the ships," he said. "Status?"

"Heart Crusher is free but her FTL is down," Pol said. "My Shark is also disengaged and I am not bringing her back. Half the transports are moving, but some with heavy damage. Dreadful Bride has nearly full crew, plus personnel from others, and is in control of her docking area and ready to boost." "Age of Darkness?"

"Still not even answering her comm," Pol said, her voice taking on emotion for the first time. "My youngest daughter against a used wiperag. Her outer info was penetrated and they did not even," she spat the word, "notice."

"No wager," Belazir said. He reached back over his shoulder and swung the punchgun rack down. It clicked into its rest along his right arm. The aiming bars lit on his faceplate as he turned and cycled for sonic and IR scan on the pillar that held the brain. Ahhh, yes. There is the interior structure, and the access hatchway. "You may assume tactical command from the Age of Darkness, Lord Pol, once you reach it. I will follow to the Bride. There is a matter to attend to here."

"Through there," Amos said. He pointed to two broken access door* across the circular open space. Most of it had been covered with kiosks, stores, restaurants and other structures until an hour ago. Now those were smoldering ruins, scattered among that were the bodies and the wreckage of the servomechs the stationers had used as their first wave. "They are back from the entrance on the second to the right*1 "We'll go through subaxial E-9 and punch across," Keri Holen replied. "That's one of the hidden sections."

She turned to her squad, a mix of station repair people with their working tools and ordinary civilians armed with whatever.

"C'mon, scumvermin," she said. "Let's go show the lords what we think of em. Follow me."

"How are we doing?" Channa said beside Amos, bobbing up and loosing a burst with her needier. Covering fire from all the stationers lashed out at the exit shafts as the assault team dodged forward. The barricade ahead of them was corytium, brought in by the handler servos, and plasma rounds had splashed off the front, or welded the ingots together and made the barrier stronger. They still had to expose themselves to shoot, if only in a crevice between two ingots.

Amos ducked down with her as another series of bolts hit the metal. They could feel the barricade shudder and tone. The inner layer was barely warm, but the temperature above flash-heated enough to make their skins tingle. The stink of hot corycium made them cough, and Channa thought how worried she would have been in ordinary times; the fumes were not healthy. Then the whole station shuddered, and the gravity fluxed sufficiently to be noticeable.

Nothing like a plasma bolt to give you a sense ofperspective, she thought.

"Not doing too wefl, my darling," Amos said absently. A team from the Perimeter Restaurant was crawling from person to person with bags of sandwiches and juice. More of the restaurant's people were back two junctions, running a triage station under the direction of one of Chaundra's meditechs. "TTiey are using the battle platform and the warship for fire support from outside, and we cannot stop them uniting their scattered groups. The groups that survived, thatjs." He sighed and smiled at her through the black smudges of powdered metal. "I cannot think of finer company than yours to travel to God with, Channa Hap," he said.

"I'm glad, too," she said. "Sorry it was this way, butgiad." He reached out to touch her shoulder. Then her face went glarid. For a moment he feared she had been hit, before he recognized the expression. She was communing with Simeon. Her throat worked. "Amos!" she burst out "They're taking Simeon out of his column!"

The Bethelite paled. Without their all-seeing commander and chief of general staff, the station was doomed, and quickly. Channa turned and began to leopard-crawl backward. He grabbed for her ankle. "There is nothing you can do," he hissed "I'm his brawn! I have to!" she cried, and kicked free. Amos looked after her and cursed.

'Joseph!'1 he said. "We have to retake main axial, at least for a moment — along the path to the central command. Take —"

The final lead connecting Simeon to the station came free. No\ Simeon cried into the darkness. The selfdestruct had been left too late. The Navy had not come, and the enemy were breaking free. When they had him on board, the station would die.

He had nothing now, nothing but the single pickup and audio circuit that were part of his inner shell. Life support was on the backups. It would keep his nutrient feeds going for days ... but a single hand could switch him into total darkness, utter isolation. Madness, death without the mercy of oblivion. No!

Belazir was still visible, leaning over the shell. He lifted off his helmet'with both hands, looming over the pickup to smile whitely. The shell surged as the powersuited warriors bent carefully and lifted, the huge weight coming up slowly as their armor whined in protest. There was a slight klinking sound as the helmet rested on the upper face of the shell itself.

"So that you should have my face for your last sight," the Kolnari chieftain said, reaching for the keypad on the shell exterior. "When you see again, you will call me Master and God . . . and you will mom it." He touched a finger to the control. "Beg, Simeon."

"Eat shit and far The Kolnari chuckled. "Not good enough," he said, and pressed the stud.

The doors to Channa's room slapped open. Channa stepped through, needier at the ready. Belazir could feel the aimpoint on his forehead.

"You wanted me again, Belazir?" she said. "Better late than never. Here I am." A slight movement waggled the muzzle. "This is set on spray. It's quite fetal. Now, away from the shell, please."

Belazir smiled at her. What a woman! he thought. / will beat her, but not too badly. "There are three of us," he said, shifting slightly. Although unfortunately I have my helmet off and these two are immobilized by the load they carry, he added to himself. "We are in armor. You can scarcely expect to frighten us with that toy alone."

Patsy Sue Coburn followed her friend out of the quarters, leveling her arc pistol. A red burn-mark welted one cheek, bleeding knees and elbows showed through the holes worn in her coverall, but there was real pleasure in her smile.

"Life's full a' surprises, ain't it?" she said as Belazir snarled silently. "Real bitch sometimes, too."

Channa tossed her head in a vain attempt to get the sweat-soaked hair out of her eyes.

"Yes," she said evenly, "I do expect to frighten you. Now, replace the shell in the main column cradle and reconnect it. Then, all of you, throw your helmets aside and move over there." She gestured towards the door to Amos' quarters. "I expect your pirates will trade a good deal for you."

"And keep your hands up," snapped a voice from above.

Kolnari heads turned to the opening in the ceiling. A head and arms protruded, far too small for an adult of their bigboned race, but the muzzle of the plasma rifle was held steadily in those slight arms. The weapon looked absurdly large for the person who controlled it, but it was braced against the interior wall and the lip of the hole, and he could see the aimpoint, a red dot that wavered over the three pirates.

"Up," the child repeated, lifting the muzzle of the weapon for emphasis.

Belazir's mind computed the angles. Good. My left hand is not irisible, he thought "You leave us little choice," he said aloud. Which was true; honor aside, he had no choice at all. Pol t'Veng or any other Kolnari noble would cheerfully let Father Chalku or their own sires be flayed alive rather than disgrace them by paying ransom, much less do so for him. He would rather be flayed than live on those terms himself "Move the shell," he said to the two troopers. "It's only three paces."

He raised his gauntleted hands, dosing his eyes and flagging positions. The deck boomed like a drum as the pirate groundfighters moved a pace in lockstep unison, the ton weights of their suits added to triple that of titanium and machinery ... and the few kilos of a body that had never seen the light of day.

Three, he counted and dropped the flash grenade. Before it hit the shell, hft was leaping backwards, and so were the two other Clan warriors. He squeezed his eyes tight and willed his pupils shut, but even so the flash was dazzling. He hit the doorframe going out, went flat, scrabbled the helmet he had snatched onto his head. The plasma rifle had crashed simultaneous with the grenade. A brief scream and the smell from inside told him it had still been on target.

He blinked open his eyes as the locking ring of the helmet clicked. The combat medsystem sprayed a mist into his eyes, but his vision was severely degraded in any case. He activated the sonic sensor, to cheep the location of things at him.

"Takiz!" he called.

"Fully functional, lord," the warrior answered. "Kintirisdead." / will beat her very severely, Belazir amended. Even with the dazzles before his eyes, he could see several arc-pistol shots snap out through the doorway, and his machine-augmented hearing picked up the telltale click of an arming plasma rifle. The walls were reinforced here, as well. It would be tricky, and he had not much time. Now he did not put it past these extraordinary scumvermin to blow the station themselves.

The comm chimed and Baila's face filled one of the chinscreens, a vague dark blur. Her voice was scratchy with interference but audible. "Great Lord," she said calmly. "Ships detected, incoming."

No! he shouted inwardly. No,1 "Lord," another voice spoke. The senior groundfighter officer. "We're holding a counterattack on the main axial, but I cannot guarantee your withdrawal Not for any period beyond now."

For perhaps ten seconds Belazir panted sharply.

"I will be there in five minutes, or not at all," he said. "Out. Takiz, follow me. We head for the docks." Thank the joss, he thought with savage irony, the northpolar doting tube is so close to here. fm blind, Channa thought. Her skin crinkled, waiting for the clamp of powered gauntlets. Beside her Patsy was shooting.

"Careful, Pats," Channa gasped. The blackness was starred with red, now, and she felt needles of pain in her forehead. Her free hand felt upward, touched her eyes. Wetness... tears, only tears. The eyes felt normal to her fingertips. For a long moment, she had feared it was something like that horrible popper Joat had made.

"I'm careful, all rant," Patsy said. "Got my shootin' iron right on the doorway. They cain't move quiet in those tin suits."

'Joat?"

"I'm all right," the girl's voice said. Her voice had a saw-edged note that denied the words. "Hurts and I can't see, though. I'm coming down."

"Don't get between me an1 the door!" Patsy said sharply.

Channa dropped to her knees and shuffled forward, hand outstretched. That touched something hot, which brought a sharp gasp of pain; next a warm wetness. She wiped her hand on the carpet and tried again. The smooth titanium-matrix surface of the shell was like a benediction. When she moved to the keypad, a smaller hand touched hers. They gripped for a moment, then pressed the key.

"Nnooooooooooooo—" The scream was piercing, but Simeon's backup speakers on his inner shell had limited volume. He stuttered, babbled, then organized his voice.

"Thhh... ank you," he said. "Channa? Joat?" Patsy came into the field of his vision. "What's happened?"

"He dropped something," Channa said. "There was a white light and we can't see."

"Flash grenade," Silicon answered. "Don't worry! It isn't permanent!" "

Channa gave a sobbing sigh of relief and heard it echoed. "How long?"

"Well... how close were you?"

"Two meters to six, and looking right at it."

"Oh." A pause. "About a day, with medication, I'm afraid," he said. At least for the person who was six meters away. About the others I'm worried. Long-term reaction was variable.

"Oh,great. They may come back in the door—"

"No, they won't. I can hear their armor moving away toward the docking tube. Lots of fighting. Look, it's the answer to my prayers to have three beautiful women hugging my shell, but could you get me reconnected? Please? It's important."

"We can't lift you back, that's for sure," Joat said.

He frowned inwardly at the shakiness in her tone, but he had no instant remedy for her.

"There's plenty of spare play in the cables," Channa said. "How did they?" Her voice trailed off tactfully.

Simeon felt himself cringing again.

"No, it's all right." Sure it is. "They cut the cable guards and then just pulled the jacks," he said. Cutting away my strength, my sight, my feeling, cutting away me. "Problem is ... they're color-coded. And the receptors may be damaged."

"I'll get them sorted out," she said as she moved out of his severely limited range of vision.

How do softshells stand only one pair of vision sensors? he wondered. Even for a few minutes, his control had been strained to the breaking point.

She returned with the cables, a double armful even with ultra-high-data-density opticals. The jacks for the leads were like a spray of fine hairs.

"Oh, oh," Simeon said.

"What do you mean, 'oh-oh,'" Channa replied.

"Everyone knows what 'oh-oh' means," Simeon said. "It means, 'I screwed the pooch.' Your hands.. .* "... are too big," she answered. "Damn."

"I can do it,** Joat said.

"You can't see, Joat"

"Neither can Channa. I'v&worked in the dark lots of times. Had to. Got that toolbelt with the micros from Engineering, too."

"They gave you one?" Simeon said, momentarily startled.

"No."

"Don't tell me," he said. "All right Someone should stand guard. I can hear if anyone's coining and give you a bearing. Patsy?"

"Surely will," Patsy said. She felt her way to the doorframe.

"You keep the slack on the cables, Channa."

"I've wanted to yank your cord for a long time anyway, Simeon," she said with an attempt at a gafiow's humor. Simeon felt his heart turn over as she smiled down at him.

"Okay, feel your way up the face of the shell, Jack-of-All-Trades and master of some." Her small hands slid upward over the smooth surface to the rounded top. "Stop," he said to prevent her fingers from tangling the hair fine wires protruding from the receptor couplings.

"You be my hands, kid, I'll be your eyes, *kay?"

She took a deep breath. "Okay, what do I do?"

"Walk the fingers of your right hand two paces forward, one pace to the left. Feel that wire?"

"Yeah."

"Follow it to the lead. Now, with your left hand..."

A minute later Simeon yelled again, this time a long high screech that sounded something like Patsy as she had at game-time rooting for the home team.

"Sorry, I'm sorry Simeon, I didn't mean to hurtcha, honest!"

"You didn't." A bugle fanfare blew through the lounge, and segued into a Sou/a march, then the Ganymede Harp Variations.

"You've bolixed his oxygen feeds," Channa said frantically, groping forwards.

"It's thecavabyl Ta-ta-tata-tara tat-teraaaa!"

"Simeon!"

"Has he gon' an* lost it?"

Aragiz t'Varak lolled, half-dreaming. A very pleasant daydream. He was back on homeworld, a territorial lord like the old recordings, and somehow Belazir t'Marid was there. Aragiz had just defeated him the old way, spectacular battles amid spouting radioactive geysers. Blasting into the stronghold with primitive fission weapons, hand-shaped plutonium triggered by black powder. Belazir groveled, begging mercy for his line, but they were led out and slaughtered before his eyes. Aragiz was just getting into the interesting post-victory part when the communications officer interrupted him.

"Detection ... Outer ring satellites. Ship signatures, inbound."

The bridge of the Age of Darkness came alert. Everyone had been waiting, nothing more to do until they undocked next cycle and escorted the transports back to rendezvous. He had brought everyone in, ready for departure. Now— "Another pullet for the plucking," Aragiz said lazily. He felt tired. Perhaps from that scumvermin boy, what was his name, Juke. A nice active squealer, not like that unpleasant one who'd gone into fits after a single kiss, back in the corridors. He'd kicked that one aside with a shudder. Not for a moment did he think that he would catch any disease, but it had been an unpleasant sight "Action stations." The soft chimes rang, eerie and ironic in their gentle harmony. "Give me a reading, and relay to flotilla command and station-side."

The sensor officer consulted the machine. "Very large mass, Great Lord. Seventy to eighty kilotons."

"Probably an ore carrier," the captain said. "Useful, if not dramatic " The Clan could always use — "Link is down," Communications said.

"Again?" Aragiz barked. He couldn't decouple from the station without clearance. That Bad Seed chugrut Belazir had been fairly dear about that. Also, running an intercept on an incoming freighter could be tricky. And his head hurt, as if he'd been knocked unconscious and recovered...

"Check climate control," he said. It was hoi. He was sweating, and he rarely did, even in combat practice at Kolnar-noon temperature.

"Yes, Great—wehavelostcommw^thfstation^sidevxitch.'* "Wto?"Aragizsatboltupright. "When?"

"Some time ago. We have been getting repeats of the last routine bailings."

TTiat made his stomach lurch, and suddenly he bent over the arm and spewed.

"Fool!" he screamed. "Alarm —" He choked on bile. What is happening tome? He tried to rise, fell back, thrashed, and slipped over the arm of the commander's couch into the spilled vomit Shouts of alarm rose from the crew. The groundlink screens flickered. One cleared to show a Kolnari face being pounded against the pickup.

The executive officer looked down at the jerking form of the captain, and took command.

"Remaining crew, prepare for boarding action. Suit up and —"

"Cancel that," a gravelly voice said.

The officer blinked, and almost shouted in gratitude. Pol t'Veng trotted in, her combat armor scored and still smoking in places, like that of the others behind her Still, she was t'Veng — "Lord Captain," he began. There was a careful protocol about subclan ship territories.

She cut him off. "Uprising. Couldn't make the Shark. stationer electronics scrambled, hostile-controlled. Emergency. Dump your system and call up the backup."

Pol glared at him, sparing the time until he submitted and saluted. Then she sank into the command couch. Inwardly, she sighed. Every time the joss seemed to throw the Clan a little luck, they were knocked back to a handful of homeless fugitives again. Every system on the ship dipped, then firmed, as the duplicate backup computers came on-line. A glance at the captain's readouts gave her the situation.

"Monitor the incoming," she said.

"Lord captain, it is a freighter. Should we not be assisting in getting the station back in the fist?"

"Shut up. You assumed it was a freighter. Check that reading again. Now!" Her voice was a bellow, its natural volume increased by the suit's system to an ear shattering volume.

"Reading... Anomalous readings, lord."

"Let me see." He keyed over to her the feeds, unfiltered data. "Youngfool, that's notanomalous—that's Fleetl"

She paused a second to free a sidearm and pump a pulse of energy into Aragiz's thrashing body. His squealing was distracting.

"Emergency decouple," she said. Besides, she had wanted to kill him for years. This one should have been culled before he walked.

"We are loading fuel!"

"Move."

He did. His hand swept the controls, and the Age of Darkness shuddered as explosive charges blasted it loose from the SSS-900-C's north docking tube. Fire blossomed out of the dockway after them, along with steam and pieces of cargo and humans. Kolnari as well as scumvermin, she supposed. ^ "Broadcast, override, High Clan seek Refuge, High Clan seek Refuge," she snapped. "Put it on loop, open Clan frequency."

The officer's eyes flared wide. That was die command to break, run and scatter, to approach the preset rendezvous points only years later and with maximum caution. Those points were in no file, no hedron, only in living brains and only a few of those. The final desperation measure to protect the Divine Seed, that it might grow again.

"Heart Crusher. Chindik t'Marid."

"Put it through."

"Lord Pol, you are receiving what I do?"

"Yes."

"Data coming in," the sensor chief said.

Pol t'Veng looked down again. The Fleet warships were coming up out of subspace like tungior broaching in the seas of Kolnar; huge masses, neutrino signatures of enormous powerplants, ripping through into the fabric of reality.

"Command frequency broadcast! Identifying following," she said. "Fleet units emerging coordinates follow, probables: destroyers, six — correction, six destroyers plus three light, one heavy cruiser and possible ... Confirmed, three assault carriers. All Clan ships, report status. Lord t'Marid, report status."

"We coordinate?" Chindick asked.

"No. You have not the insystem boost. Use the station for cover as long as you can. They will not endanger it."

"Repeat?"

"Scumvermin psychology. Go. Lord t'Marid, status."

T Marid here," the familiar voice said, harsher than she could remember. "Bride decoupling. We can cover."

"No, with respect Yours is the more valuable Seed." Especially since this skip has t'Varak's sweepings as crew. "Bride, Shark and Strangier should cover the transports."

A pause. "Agreed. Y\fciit for us with the Ancestors, Pol t'Veng." t "Guard our Seed and Clan, Belazir I'Marid," she replied.

Then her attention went back to the work at hand. A Central Worlds Space Navy medium attack group bore down on them, with a dozen times the firepower the High Clan had available here and now, given the general pathetic botchup. About equal to the whole current Clan armada, give or take a dozen factors. Pol had fought the Fleet before and had a healthy respect for their capabilities. They were dangerous scumvermin.

"Helm," she went on. "Set course. Coordinates follow." She had plugged the suit's leads into the couch. "Maximum boost"

"Lord Captain," the executive officer said. "That is a course/or the enemy fleet. What are we to do there?" With one undercrewed frigate, went without saying.

"Do?" Pol t'Veng roared out a single bark of laughter. "We die, fool!"

The commander's couch reclined, locking into combat position. "We will attempt to break through to the transports," she said. "The warships will maneuver to protect them. We fight for maximum delay. Any questions?"

"Command us, lord!"

"Prepare to engage."

"They are smashing us like eggs," Joseph said.

Amos nodded. Without Simeon, the stationers lost their advantage of superior coordination. Against professionals, he had been the only one they had had, once the Kolnari recovered their balance.

Anne McCtffrey & SM. Stirling "Simeon was a... a brave man," Amos said. And if he were realty a man, a dangerous rival, he added to himself "And very skillful. I honor his memory." Joseph nodded; they clasped hand to forearm. "Farewell, my brother."

"Fardlin* touching, really," a voirffc said in his ear.

Amos leaped upright, then ducked again frantically as a bolt spattered metal near his face.

"Simeon?" he gasped.

"No, the Ghost of Christmas Past," the brain replied. "I'm back. So," he went on, glee bubbling through his voice, "are some other people.*1 A holo formed behind the barricade: a figure in green power armor of a chunkier, more compact design than the Kolnari suits Amos was used to. In the background was the bridge of a large vessel, battle-clad figures moving about. A woman, with a man in like equipment but different insignia beside her.

"Admiral Questar-Benn," the Woman said. Remarkably, she appeared to be in late middle age but undeniably healthy and close-knit. "Commodore Tellin-Makie, of the batdecruiser Santayana."

"Oh, God is great, God is Merciful, God is One," Amos murmured through numb lips. "Bethel?"

"Don't worry. It's a big navy. We hit them as they were getting ready to leave. Reports show not much damage to the planet since you left, if you're Benisur Ben Sierra Nueva."

"Keep firing!" Joseph barked to the others at the barricade. "You can die just as dead winning as losing."

The commodore laughed shortly. "Profoundly true," he said. "Simeon, Ms. Hap, all of you, you've done a very good job. Heroic, in feet We didn't expect to find anything but bodies and wreckage."

"It was a close-run thing," Simeon said feelingly. "A damned dose-run thing." Both the officers seemed to find that amusing.

"Here's my record of the whole thing, start to finish," said Channa and the Navy officers* eyes turned. Evidently they had video of her. Amos hissed a low complaint, and three more holos joined the image of the Santayana's deck.

"We've still got a lot of t%e pirates in station," Channa said. "Should we back off?" She swallowed. "Alotof our people have been hurt"

"Negative," the admiral said, shaking her head. "Give them time to think, and sure as death and fete, one of them will find a way to blow the station. I've got a Marine regimental combat team in the transports. We'll forcedock as soon as I swat the Kolnari warships. That battle platform could be tricky."

The commodore leaned out of the sight picture and spoke to someone else. "Well, then, get the destroyers toenglobe it, then!"

"It's not over until it's over," Questar-Benn said.

"Er... not the Questar-Benn?" Simeon asked, awed.

"Not if you mean Micaya," she said dryly. "I'm the dull sister, the straight-leg." She glanced down at the data flowing in from SSS-900-C. "Bastards. Murdering sub-human mutant swine. Maybe now the inbred penny-pinching High Families incompetent corruptionists back at Central will get their thumbs out of their backsides and let us do something about Kolnar and all its little offshoots."

"Ma'am," Tellin-Makie said warningly.

"I'm not bucking for another star, Eddin," she said. "I can afford to tell the truth without a bucket of syrup on it" She looked up and out at the stationers. "Here's what we want you to do," she went on crisply.

God, Amos thought. Thank you. For victory, and for someone else to tell him what to do for a change. Leadership could get very tiring. He suspected Fate was going to send more of it his way. The prospect did not seem as attractive as it once had.

"I never understood what he meant before," Simeon said, looking out at the huge docking chamber which held only the dead, now in covered silent rows. "I thought I did, but 1 didn't."

The medics and their patients were gone, to station sickbays or to the trauma stations of the warships. Equally silent were the motionless Marine sentries who stood with weapons reversed by the Navy dead. The squad at the docking airlock snapped to attention as each shrouded body went by. The civilians looking among the stationer dead were nearly as quiet, only a few sobbing faindy.

"Understood what who meant?" Channa said, blinking behind the dark glasses that hid her bandages. She appeared detached, almost aloof, just like the two Navy commanders who stood with her and the little group of stationers.

"Wellington," Simeon said." 'Idan'tknowwhatitistolasea battle; but certainty nothing can be more painful than to gam one with the loss ofsomanyfriends.' He said that after Waterloo."

The admiral nodded. "I remember when I found that out," she said very softly. "If you've got a grain of sense, you never forget it."

"Ain't that the truth!" Patsy Sue Coburn said. Beside her, Florian Gusky put his synth-splinted arm companionably around her shoulders. She stiffened, then forced herself to put up a hand and pat it gently. "You don't forget anything. But you learn to live with it. C'mon, Gus. I do believe you owe me a drink."

Channa turned her head toward their footsteps. "Yes," she said, with a bitter smile. "We learn to live with it. If this is heroism, why do I feel like such crap?"

"Because you're here," Questar-Benn said. "Heroism is something somebody else does somewhere far away. In person, it's tragedy." Her voice sharpened. "And it could be worse, much worse, and would have been but for you. We did win. You are here. And," she went on more lighdy, "you're heroes in the media, at least Which means, by the way, you can write your own rickets."

"Tickets?" Simeon asked.

"You always wanted a warship posting, didn't you?" she said. "With this on your record..."

Simeon hesitated. Joat had been standing by Channa's side, quiet and drawn. Now the old coldness settled over her face, and she began to edge away.

Everyone's always left her, or cheated her, or hurt her, he thought "I'm not so sure," he said aloud, "that I want a military career any more."

Admiral Questar-Benn nodded vigorously. "That makes you more qualified. They shovel glory hounds out of the Academy by the job-lot and we have to spend years breaking them of such fatuous nonsense."

"Besides, I have a daughter," and his instant and totally gratifying reward was the dawning of hope on Joat's face. "Thanks, though. Maybe, someday." Some dreams don't transfer well into reality, he told himself. He could see Joat's chest lifting with the deeper breaths of self-confidence and she didn't look about to disappear on him.

"And have you soured on Senalgal?" the commodore said, turning to Channa.

"It's still a beautiful world," she said, shaking her head slowly. "But it* s not my home." She reached down to Joat beside her and, touching the girl's face with her fingertips, Amu McQffiey & 5M. Stirling felt the slightest of resistance to such fondling. Learning to trust, and to be a human being, was not something that came quickly or easily. But you had to begin somewhere or you never arrived. "Besides, Joat's my daughter, too. And I've friends here, the best there are£ Questar-Benn threw up her hands. "Simeon, you're going to be around a very long time. The offer still stands, I'll leave it on record."

"Hey, Pops," Joat said, her voice a little unsteady despite the cocky tone. "I mean^ww, Simeon."

"Great Ghu! Canjunt, of all people, not think a more suitable title than 'Pops' to call me?" Simeon demanded in a semi-indignant tone, but he would have settled for anything of a familial nature from Joat.

"Sure, but I don't think you'd like to know 'em!" She smiled her urchin grin in his image. "Any rate, I'm gonna be sixteen standard in a few years. Enlistment age. And I don't want you blaming me for screwing up your career plans. I... I'd sort of Uke to keep this from happening to somebody else, you know?" She turned to the admiral. "Think these brass-a... um, generaltype people might have a use for me?"

Questar-Benn shuddered. "I'm probably perpetrating horrors on some unsuspecting commander left to deal with you in the future, young lady, but yes. I'd be very surprised if we couldn't find a use for all of you." She swept the present company with her piercing gaze.

"Then we may take you up on that offer," Simeon said. Although he was too enervated to enjoy thoughts of revenge, no amount of emotional exhaustion could remove the need to do something about the Kolnari: next week, maybe. "But right now, I'd rather call in the gratitude as a favor, if you don't mind, Admiral," Simeon said.

"Favor? For who?"

"A friend," he said. A holo grew, of a boy about Joat's age.

Joat started violently. **Seld! They wouldn't let me see ya, said you were sick!"

The figure nodded. "You knew that. You know I've been sick a long while, Joat," he said with the incredible batience of the chronic in valid. "Only it went off the screen. I can see this," ancfne looked down at his frail, fimp body, strapped in an upright position on the bed, *1>ut I can'tfeelanything or move it, ordoanything, really."

"Oh, damn!" Joat moved a hand through the holo as if she could reverse the damage somehow.

"The navy medicos have got me hooked up to a nervesplice monitor, to keep my heart going and stuff. Simeon himself," and now he managed a proud grin, "is hacking into it"

Joat blinked. "I'm sorry," she said in a small voice. "I shouldn't've called you a wuss. I heaved my cookies afterwards, too. I guess it's my fault, hey? Expecting you to do more'n you could, should!"

"Nah," Seld on the holo said. "I was stupid, you know. You could do all those things I couldn't, and I was... hell, Joat, I was gonna end up like this anyway, sooner'r later. Grudly, but I knew it. Dad knew it, but he sort of didn't at the same time. I've had a lot of time to think about it."

Joat nodded, then narrowed her eyes. "Those caps were the final push, weren't they? Why'd you use one?" "'Cause I was so scared of seeing you get killed, Joat. You're my best friend. Besides," he went on, "that Kolnari Lord'd just belted me real hard. Then... I tell you, the ultimo grudly," and Seld rolled his eyes in disgust, "when he teserfme.solwantedsomeofmyownback."

"Yeah," and Joat nodded in approval, "you would at that!"

"That's when I had a fit. Would have happened eventually, really it would, Jo. Dad says another ten years, max."

Joat looked around at the Navy officers. "I don't Aim* McQffivy fe? SM.. Stirling think that's good enough. Can't you guys better the odds for 'm? Doesn't he deserve more than ten years?" Her hard voice cracked a little.

Questar-Benn winced and the commodore focused his eyes on something else. ^ "I never get used to this," the commodore under his breath. "What's the favor, Simeop?

Channa's head came up sharply. "Simeon? You've a suggestion?" "1 do," Simeon said in such a positive, you-should have known I would tone of voice that he commanded everyone's attention. "I've been checking around and the AtexHypatia-1033 told me about new tricks that Dr. Kennet Uhua-Sorg*s been working on. No one—yet—is able to regenerate the spinal nerve sheaths. Kenny Sorg developed a prosthesis — for himself, incidently, but it'll suitSeld'sparticularrequirements,too. Kid, you're too old to be a shellperson: you'd never psychologically adjust Kenny Soig's condition is about the same as yours and he gets around just fine," and Simeon projected a holo of a man, moving down a corridor but too smoothly to be "walking." He "walked" upright, true, but his body was framed by an slender exo-skeleton which held him erect, with his feet on a platform, similar but much thicker than the station float disks. The base ingeniously held the power supply and monitoring equipment. "I'm told, Seld, that you'll have use of your arms and the base is sophisticated enough to do as much for your body as my shell does for me. Long as you don't try slipping dirough ventilation ducts or falting headfirst out of services hatches, you should last as long as most softshells, skeleton man!"

In this instance, Simeon's rewards were many: Joat jumping up and down, gurgling with laughter while tears streamed down her face, as well as Channa's, and Seld crowed like he'd turned rooster. There were expressions of intense relief on the faces of admiral and the commodore.

"I do like to see alternative solutions," Questar-Benn said, "and we'll put a naval courier B & B ship at the disposal of Seld and his father for transfer to the Central Worlds Medstation where Dr. Sorg is currendy practicing. Is that the f$vor you wanted, Simeon?"

"The very one," fhe station replied.

"Frabjus, Skelly Seld," Joat was saying to Seld, "111 be right down and we can celebrate together," and she waved a jaunty farewell behind her as she left.

Exhausted as much by this unexpectedly felicitous outcome as the weight of problems still to be resolved, Channa sank back into her float chair.

"One more on the up side," she murmured to reassure herself. "Simeon, I'm sort of tired. Could you... ?"

The others murmured apologies and moved aside while Simeon guided her chair away.

"A moment then, Amos ben Sierra Nuevo," Questar Benn. Amos turned in surprise, shot one anxious look at Channa's disappearing figure but had no choice but to give the Admiral his attention." If you'd be good enough to accompany the Commodore and me to our quarters..."

He was as glad as they appeared to be to leave the sad ambience of the cargo bay, though only one more of his shrinking band of Bethelites lay there.

The Admiral and Commodore noted his interest in the interior of their flagship and explained as they walked through the maze, absently accepting salutes or nods as they passed details of men and women hurrying about their tasks.

None of the Central Worlds' ships had taken much damage though the battle with the desperate Kolnari warships had been fierce, if brief. The guided tour was enough to make Amos wonder anew how Guiyon had managed to get the old Exodus anywhere, much less reach SSS-900-C.

He was sighing in semi-despair for all the problems he now faced in giving his poor plundered planet even a semblance of the efficiency and expertise Central Worlds took for granted.

"Ah, yes, here we are, Benisur..." the commodore said and Amos with suitable humility corrected him to "a simple Amos, sir." "We've been Aceiving updates of aflairs on Bethel and have need of your assistance."

Five men and women were seated about the lounge, the two youngest — a man and a women in their early twenties, jumping to their feet at the entrance of Admiral, Commodore and their guest "Here he is, gentlefolk^'Questar-Benn, "Benisur ben Sierra Nuevos, aka Simeon-Amos and the putative leader of the Bethelites."

"No, no," Amos said, shaking head and hand to deny that title. He didn't want that mantle laid on his shoulders. Not now.

"As you will, young man," Questar-Benn said curtly, "but you were the leader of the dissidents as well as the defender of Bethel and we need your input." Then while Amos continued to demur, she overrode him by introducing the group. "Senior Counsellor Agrum of SPRIM, Representative Fusto of MM, Observer Nilsdotter, PAs Ferryman for SPRIM and Losh Lentel for MM. Simeon, are you here?"

"I am," Simeonsaid, his voice issuing from the comuniL He might have warned me, Amos thought sourly. BtU perhaps swiftly done is best done. He gave them a dignified greeting, hand to heart and mind. The young woman, the Observer, was both startled and charmed.

Suddenly he was seated and stewards were passing among the group with drinks and finger foods.

Perhaps, I'm merely light-headed with hunger, Amos thought, feeling the better after a sip of a sustaining hot drink and a sample from the plate of delicacies offered.

"Quite simply, ben Sierra Nuevo ... all right then, Amos," the senior counsellor began with no more to-do, "we need your help to reassure those elements of your people who managed to hide away from the Kolnari. They are terrified and not about to take the word of any strangers even when we holo-ed every surface with 'casts of the Navy taking Kolnari prisoners."

"And making themsinload all die loot they'd stored," said die beetlebrowed Representative Fusto. He looked as if he had personally overseen that operation and enjoyed it. He had a narrow face and close-set eyes in a narrow head set on shoulders much too muscular in contrast "Some of my people survived?" Amos tried not to wince for this only reinforced the inevitability of his return.

"Specific figures number the survivors as 15,000...."

The population — the former population — of this station, he thought, unable to suppress a groan.

The Observer misinterpreted it with a smile of great sadness and understanding. "Your people have been very brave and suffered terribly. We of SPRIM and MM," and she pointed to the other four, "are empowered to assist die reconstruction of your world...."

Amos groaned again. So much to be done. And his people would resent the intrusion of infidels, no matter how well intentioned.

"We cannot, of course, interfere with the government of any planet," Agrum said, clearing his throat and giving the woman an admonishing glance, "but humanitarian aid certainly fells in our jurisdiction and we are able to provide whatever supplies and materials are needed on an interim basis."

Beetle-brows Fusto gave his opposite number in SPRIM a dark look. "MM requires you to survive on your own efforts but we prevent exploitation of minority groups for any reason whatever. We prefer to establish contact with a senior government official, preferably elected by the minority in question, but you qualify — according to Simeon — as the logical and most accessible representative." for this I thank you, Simeon, Amos said, hoping that no one, especially the Observer, would hear him grind his teeth.

"Your planet got pretty well razed to subsoil," the commodore said. "'S going to take hetpto restart," and he, in turn, gave the MM official a quelling look, smiling at Amos as if to say "they mean well but they're heavy-handed." "We had to put up a transmitter," and he shrugged as if such a facility was a mere notibing, "and die engineers put up a temp at the space field—which is littered with a lot of hulls, some of which could'well be refitted for whatever lunar mining would put you back on-line mere."

A transmitter and space facility? Re-usable hulls for the craft the Kolnari had fused. Amos began to feel less despondent, though half of him resisted.

"Humanitarian aid will be sufficient to see your people through the on-coming winter," Agrum went on, "using whatever shelters your culture prefers..."

"We cannot land alter-culturals on Bethel, of course," Fusto half-interrupted, "but orbital staff is not considered by Central Worlds Authority to compromise indigenous integrity..."

"If you wish, you may request additional colonials of your own persuasion..." from Nilsdotter.

Amos turned from one speaker to the other, half dazed.

"Give the kid a break," Simeon said suddenly. "Why don't you let him read the reports so he knows what you're talking about, huh?"

"Of course," said SPRIM.

"Our intention, I assure you, Station Simeon," MM said defensively.

"Then let it be so," Admiral Questar-Benn said, smiling encouragingly at Amos as she handed him several disk files and led him to another room where he could digest the information in private.

"Not over until it's over," the Admiral remarked to the commodore as they watched the sometimes contentious delegation leave their quarters.

"And it's never over," Tellin-Makie replied, pouring them both snifters of brandy in the flag quarters. "I didn't have the heart to remind them that those aren't the only bunch of Kolnari running around loose."

"And if you leave a pair, they breed up again," she said wearily. "They know that. Which is the reason I suspect we'll have Simeon and the others on die rolls in a couple of years. The Kolnari will be a menace as long as two of them are left alive."

"The Psych people swear they can be rehabilitated."

"Rehabilitated to E equals M and C squared," she said, taking a sip. "Dam" cockroaches." Another sigh. "Maybe this little atrocity will get us some resources."

"For a while, until the general public become inured to these particular atrocities," Tellin-Makie said, "then we can go back to peeing on bonfires. It's not as if they were the only serious problem, either."

"Would that it were so. Would that it were so, my friend."

She looked at the screen, which showed an exterior view of SSS-900-C. Repair servos and suited figures were already working on some of the more urgent damage, though it would be a generation before the devastation was fully repaired. She made a mental note to have Engineering help out while the task force was on station here.

"All in all, though, I'm glad we don't have their problems, poor heroic sods," she said.

"Amen."

"Yes, yes," Joseph said eagerly when Amos finished telling him of the help promised by SPRIM and MM, up to and including a Brain Planetary manager to replace Guiyon. "Wemustreturnasquicklyaspossible."

"Yes, you and Rachel must"

"Rachel and I?" Joseph repeated, staring in sudden alarm at Amos.

ArmeMcCajfiq& SJtf. Stirling "Yes, because there is much to organize on the ground before we may accept the beneficence..."

"But it is you, Amos ben Sierra Nuevo, who must return!" Joseph's face was stricken. "Itisyour duty. Our world is but a lake of mourning. They need^ow. They need a hero—and their Prophet"

Amos paced, hands behind his back, clenching and unclenching, up and down the floor of his room in Simeon's quarters.

"They need a hero, granted, Joseph," he said, stopping in front of his friend, "but if I am a hero, then so are you!"

"Me?" Joseph laughed. "I am your henchman. Your right hand, and proud to be so. Your friend, and prouder still of that But you are the prophet, the hero, the one the people follow."

Amos took him by the shoulders. "You are my brother, as truly as if the same mother bore us."

Joseph blinked as Amos drew him into the double cheek-touch of close kin to emphasize his words. "And it is you who will return while I deal with these infidels and make certain that what charity they would foist on us will not weaken our people but allow them to become strong in such ways that no other scavenger can ever catch us unawares." Who saves the saved from the savior* he thought "And I ... I wonder," Amos went on aloud. I wonder if it is good, that the new leader is of the old Prophet's line — may God smile on him! Too many generations have the people followed the old families." He winced. "And followed them to ruin."

"You would lead us to greatness!" Joseph said forcefully. The more so if you doubted yourself less, he added to himself. "You have shown your strengths as a selfthinker, a defender of his planet, a guileful strategist..."

"History does not show many battle-leaders who had the same talent for being peace-leaders!"

"But you are of a peaceful nature until roused to defend what you hold dear," Joseph said, "even as you have seen your duty now to protect us against those who wish to protect us!" Joseph turned sternly grim now. "It is the blind face of Channa d*t hides your way."

Amos looked so fiercely at him that Joseph turned his face away, his shoulders sagging in acknowledgement.

"I also cannot abandon these here to whom we, for our very lives, owe a debt of gratitude. If, in this one instance, duty and honor are both served, let me serve it." Amos sighed deeply, torn between love and duty. "Are Simeon, Joat and Channa to be merely a chapter of my life because fourteen generations ago the Prophet fathered my many-times great granddather? We saw on Bethel what comes of that"

"Yes, Amos, in all truth we did. And you are right to wish to be indebted to all," and Joseph laid a subtle emphasis on the word, "the stationers even though the need for your special role is now over."

"Yes, that is over. In its place, I must assume several roles and do each well in all honor." Then he gave the younger man a sudden smile, the sort that had always drawn the required response from any recipient "And I give Rachel the chance to restore honor to her name."

Joseph gave him a sudden stare as fierce as the one Amos had given him. "What do you mean?"

"She was, after all, trained as an infosystems administrator. It is her duty to assist you in calling our people from their hiding places, to organize the reports that I must receive to know what is most needed. With you two side by side — that is what you wish, is it not, Joseph? Rachel by your side?"

The younger man laughed and blushed, which seemed to embarrass him more.

"You know it is what I wish but, Amos, do not blame her for what she did."

"I do not," Amos lied stoutly, "but she will need to redeem herself in her own eyes!"

"Ah, yes," said Joseph with a sigh. "She is anxious to do that. She talks to me about it," he went on in a softer voice. "She talks of you but she aldb talks of you to me."

"Then go to her, Joseph my brother, my friend. If you insist on making me wear the mantel of a leader, then I have issued an order to you. But think also of what I have told you, brother hero. You return to Bethel as my brother and my equal, not my retainer—not even first among my retainers. The time forthoae petty protocolsis past"

"I go," Joseph said. He turned on the threshold. "And you, too, have earned a litde happiness, I think. God willing, may you find it!"

Channa had insisted on returning to her brawn's quarters, pointing out that there was nothing else Chaundra or his staff could do for her in sickbay.

"I'll be much better off there," she told him, "because I know my way around. Simeon can remind me where I put things so I can find what I need. Only time will make a difference now."

Once Simeon had angled the chair float beside her satin-draped bed, she lay down, not seeing, not speaking, absorbing the most recent events. Not that she wasn't overwhelmingly relieved that Seld had been granted a reprieve. But there were so many decisions to be made, hanging in the air, over her head, where she could feel them, even if she couldn't see them. She could feel a trickle down her cheek and, with a gesture she hoped masked the real reason, she blotted the cheek on the gray satin cover.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

Because Simeon had picked exacdy the appropriate light tone, she gave him a wan smile though she wondered how he had noticed such a small thing as a tear "I've none to sell," she said, "justbits and pieces float- jug around. Like, Happy endings suck the galactic muffin. It's enough to give you a headache." "D'you have one?" Instant concern colored his voice. "No, no," she said, shaking her head on the pillow. "Look, Channa, youlwfl be all right," he said in the firm tone one uses when one is hoping against hope one's statement is correct.

She nodded once sharply, minding her temper and her manners. "Yes, I'm sure I will." Her voice was tight "I've scanned every report I could find on this kind of temporary blindness, Channa," he went, infusing his voice with confidence. I'd give anything to be able to hold you in arms and comfort you but all I've got is voice contact. Talk to me, Channa. "Worse scenario and you'll still see — through my sensors. Remember that, Channa. And I see real good and wherever I need to!"

She had stiffened and cut through his opening words in a rather shrill voice. "Simeon, spare me the... Could you do that for me?"

"Sure," he said, both surprised and testy. "But surely you knew that You've been using my senses for the last two weeks!"

Her jaw dropped and then a tremulous smile crossed her lips. "So I have, haven't I?" she said in a broken voice. After a moment's silence, she added in a contrite voice, "I owe you, and everyone else an apology, for acting like a self-pitying wuss!"

"Well, after all, you've had quite an adjustment to make."

"But I didn't have to snarl at you."

"Oh, that? I wouldn't know how to answer smartly if you didn't Don't break that habit, Charma-mine."

Her smile was stronger. "Then I certainly won't"

"Because you like the challenge, don't you? And, by and large, I'm good company."

"And so modest"

"So witty and intelligent," he reminded her.

"And so handsome."

"Do you really think so?"

"Oh yes," she said, "I especially like your dueling scar, that's a nice touch."

"Thank you," he said, gratified. ""Sfeu're the first person who's ever mentioned it I've been waiting for years for someone to ask about it. Sometimes people think it's dirt on the projector lens."

She grinned. "It goes well with the baseball cap."

He paused a moment, unsure, "Um..."

"No, really," she assured ftim, "That projection's a perfect portrait of your personality. It's not based on a chromosomal extrapolation, is it?"

"Naw," he said, putting a grin in his voice. "It's me as I want to be. I'd have hated it if an extrap of me came out with a receding chin and a big nose, so 1 never tried to find out. I'm Simeon, the self-created!"

"Wise," she agreed, "very wise."

The door opened and Amos stood on the threshold. "Channa!" he cried out in a passionate voice.

She sat bolt upright on the bed, her lips parted in surprise. "I thought you'd left."

He rushed to her side and drew her into his arms. "How can I leave you like this?" he said, stroking her hair.

Simeon cursed under his breath. Leave it to Amos to undo all his hard work. Just when fve got her cheered up and back to something near hernffrnud—forher—frame of mmd.

Channa put up a hand, found Amos' face and leaned forward to kiss him, smiling because she had caught the corner of his mouth and was working her way into a position that satisfied her.

When the long kiss ended, Amos said with a sigh, "You want me!"

No, you ass! She wants a double malt and a ticket to "Death in the Twenty-First." Would that I had hands, Oh Amos ben Sierra Nueva, to clout you up alongside the head with.

Channa didn't answer but held her head as though looking at Amos through her bandages. Amos smiled at her, the smile of a man who believes he can accomplish anything, a smile that proclaimed the beai^r to be the recipient of a miracle. " I came to ask you to come with me," he said, laughing. "You did?" she said ina dreamy tone. They kissed again, more deeply, Channa burrowed deeper into his embrace, sighing like someone relieved of a pain they did not know they suffered. "I love you, Channa," he said. "I love you, Simeon," she murmured. Amos stiffened. Channa raised her blind face to his and whispered huskily again. "I love you."

He released her and moved back. She hesitated and turned her head from side to side. "Amos? What is it? Is someone here?"

"Yes,"he said stiffly, "someone who comesbetween us," Puzzled, Channa reached out blindly with one hand, the other resting on Amos's chest. "There's no one here but us. What are you talking about?"

"Simeon," he said the name with a hiss. "For whom you have just declared your love."

Her face altered abruptly fromjoy to chagrin. "I... I..." shebegan in confusion.

"A gentleman of the Sierra Nueva does not intrude. I am in the way," Amos said, flinging off her hands and jumping to his feet. "I will leave you alone together." And he was gone.

Channa swung her legs from the bed and lunged after him. She moved with unexpected speed and before Simeon could warn her, she crashed into the wall, just beside the door. Weeping, she stepped to the right point and the door opened for her.

"Amos! Wait!" she shouted and this time Simeon opened the outside door but she paused on the threshold to get her bearings and heard, all too dearly, the elevator's dosing.

"Amos! Don't go!" she cried, and heard it engage. She stood leaning her head against the metal, sobbing gently, tears soaking the adhesive synthetic of her bandages.

Inside the descending lift, j4teios leaned his head against the wall, Channa's desperate voice echoing in his mind. Almost, but not quite louder than her whisper — "I love you, Simeon."

"Where do think you're going?" Simeon asked him. He straightened and gritted his teeth. "To the docks," he said crisply. "I>must return to Bethel!"

Simeon gave a dramatic sigh. "And who's to go between Bethel and SPRIM and MM? Who saves the saved from the savior?"

Amos was aghast at hearing his own thoughts come back at him from Simeon.

"Someone has to handle them," Simeon continued. "Rachel can. She's a trained infosystems spe..." "Rachel!" Simeon roared in surprise. "She wouldn't know how to handle them. They'd twist her up into little knots. Not that she isn't twisted right now." "They say they cannot interfere..." "They say, they say," Simeon chanted back at him. "Use your wits, Amos, and don't suggest Joseph. He's the guy you need on the planet, coaxing your people out of whatever lairs they've hidden in. No, you're the only one who can be johnny-on-the-spot here!"

"What I do now is my business," Amos said in a snarling tone. "You have no right to interfere either ..." Only then did Amos notice that the elevator had stopped moving. He crossed his arms. "So, do you mean to hold me prisoner here until Joseph, Rachel and the others have left?"

"Emotionally you've been a prisoner since you got here. Why do think I went to so much trouble to get SPRIM and MM involved with Bethel?"

"You did. But the Admiral and the Commodore..."

"Listened to what I had to tell them, which is more than you ever do. You've got to be here..."

Outrage, indignation, disgust and fury raced unchecked across Amos' fece. "So? You admit it** "Huh?" * "You admit that you only wish to make of me a sex toy," Amos cried passionately, "a surrogate for yourself with Channa!"

"I what?" Simeon's voice reverberated in the confines of the small chamber. "You are bughouse! Which is probably why it's such an interesting idea," he added in a reasonable, half-amused tone, "but you said it, I didn't. However, it's not on my behalf you've got to be here. It's Channa's. She really is in love with you, Amos. Can't you get that through your arrogant to-the-manor-born head?"

"Loves me? Loves me? Then why does she embrace me and say, I love you, Simeon?"

"And, of course, she hasn't been calling you Simeon Amos for the past intense two weeks, has she?"

"BanchutT Amos smacked his forehead with the fiat of his palm, his expression one of utter dismay.

"It sure wasn't me, or my holo, or even the shell of me she was kissing just now! Cut her a litde slack. She's been blinded, dammit! She's scared, she's exhausted, she's under pressure. Don't cut the heart out of her for a slip of the Up!"

"A slip?"

"A slip! You ego-centric rag-head selfish bastard!"

"But you love her, too!" Amos brandished his fist, glaring about him to find a target for his frustration and wrath.

"Yes, I love her. Just as much as you do. No, probably a lot more. And yes, she's in love with me a little, and I treasure that But I can't touch her, Amos. I can't hold her no matter how much I would like to. What are you worrying about?** "That she dreams of you and wonders what it would be like to be inyour arms." In the confines of the elevator Amos heard the sound of his angry jealous words echo back at him. "I think that she would Hke to close her eyes and hear your voice whisper to her as I make love to her. I will not be that fantasy for her, no$for you."

"Well, I'll tell you what / think. I think that you are a dirty-minded, fat-headed, parochial, small-minded, jealous hunk of pig fat. Just let me give you a taste of what she's going through and you stalking off and leaving her alone with it."

Simeon turned off the lights in the elevator. Amos was plunged into pitch blackness; just long enough to reach the stage of imagining lights and colors to console himself. The human eye is not meant for complete darkness. Even on an overcast night with eyes dosed there is some ambient light The darkness and motion were disorienting.

And frightening, the Bethelite admitted to himself.

"Stop it" Amos said calmly, but firmly. Simeon didn't answer. "Stop it, I said," a trace of unease creeping into his voice. An accident, who would doubt his word?

Simeon brought the elevator to a halt "It's unpleasant, isn't it?" Simeon asked quietly.

"Yes," Amos said shordy, sullenly. "Please, would you turn on the lights?"

"Channa can't," Simeon observed. "It's possible they won't come back on and she'll have to get a prostheses, one of those devices they set into your face. Yup, things could look like this to her forever."

"What do you want me to do?" Amos demanded. "I would give her my sight if 1 could."

"That's a safe offer," Simeon observed contemptuously, "she wouldn't accept such a sacrifice even if it was needed."

"Then what would you have me do?" Amos was nearly shouting now, flapping his arms hard against his sides.

"Something a lot easier. Hold her. Just put your arms around her and hold her close. You softshells need that. I never had it so I don't miss it"

Amos shifted position, silent "{ would hock my shel^if I could physically comfort her B ut I can't. I can make sure she gets what she needs from the one person she'll accept it from. And let me tell you something, lordling, even to comfort Channa, I wouldn't want to stay a softshell. You're cripples next to usl You realize that? We have senses, abilities, that you can't even begin to imagine. But yes, in this one area, I am jealous of you. Despite that, I arranged... yes, noble being that / am... arranged for you to have to stay on this station to handle all the detaik the Bethelite leader will have. So that you could also comfort the woman we both love. There I've said it aloud!

"I've done all I can, Amos," and now Simeon's voice was tinged with a helpless note. "I've been with her since she was brought to the hospital I haven't left her. When she wakes up, I wish her good morning and mine is the last voice she hears at night I'm die one who guides her safely across a room. I'm the one who tells her that what she's looking for is a litde to the right I'm the one who makes sure she gets her meals. I've put up with her bouts of temper and self-pity and I've talked her through her moments of panic I'm with her constandy. But you walk into the room — at long last I might add — and it's like I've never existed. Did you see her? She lit up like a star going nova. Andyou have the gall to walk out on her!"

Simeon turned the lights back on and Amos squinted briefly as his vision adjusted.

The door opened and Channa raised her head, halfdisbelieving she heard the sound of his step, the eagerness with which he approached her.

"Oh, Amos!" She reached out her arms tentatively toward him.

"Ah, Channa," and Amos took her hands and pulled her into the circle of his arms. This only I may do, he thought possessively, proudly and yet, because of that brief darkness, sadly, too, because Simeon would never have this. I'm sorry. Forgive me," he whispered, stroking her hair.

Channa sobbed once and tried to apologize, the words stumbling over his, but he stopped her with a kiss.

Simeon watched them enter the lounge, but decided not to follow them. This is going to be tough enough, he thought, / think I'U work up to it gradually. But wasn't it a great game I played ?

"Before... 1 came to tell you that I must stay longer on the station than we had thought," Amos said. "When I must return to Bethel..."

"Stay?" and the gladness in her face and voice reassured Arnos as no argument from Simeon ever would, how much Channa did indeed love him.

"Stay ... for now," he said, trailing caressing fingers around her lovely face. This, too, I may do that he caTtnot.

"For now?" Then a return of her deep and genuine fear caught at his heart.

"I must return to Bethel," he said slowly. "I have obligations there."

"I have them here. I can't leave Simeon or Joat," Channa said piteously.

And Amos knew that she also meant these quarters which she knew even in her blindness, and this station which was surely now as much her heart's home as Bethel was his.

"Neither can I leave my people, my planet Nor do I ask such sacrifice of you," he said, using die force of his personality to reassure her. He smiled down at her, thumbs caressing the velvety skin of her temples. She searched his face with her fingertips and smiled in response.

"But several times in every year, I must return to this station on the business of my people and my world," he went on. "That, I may in all conscience do." A wry shrug. "If my people cannot do without their prophet now and then, then I will not have taught them well. Perhaps the day will c&ne when they need no man to stand between them and God, and I will be free to raise my horses and roses in peace."

Her face lit. "And I could visit sometimes, couldn't I?" she murmured.

"With Joat," Amos said, and then in a far more persuasive and loving tone, "although it is not well for a child to be alone, without brothers and sisters..."

"Yes," she laughed as she sensed the change in his stance, falling formally to one knee but before he would speak. She held him upright with her hands.

"In a matter such as this, I should ask permission of your father," Amos said, rising and drawing her close. "But Simeon will do."

She fisted him lightly under the short ribs. "I'll speak to Simeon on my own behalf."

"We will then both address Simeon the Father. But," Amos said in her ear, after a time. "There is one condition."

"What?"

"You must never call me Simeon again." She drew her head back and nodded solemnly. He touched her chin gently. "You may, however," he went on, wishing for once that Simeon was listening, "call me Persephone."

EPILOGUE

The chills were less now, and the survivors recovering, although a quarter of the crew had died of the fever and more gone mad.

Belazir t'Marid clenched his rattling teeth against a paroxysm as he fay in the darkened bridge, while the Dreadful Bride fled outward all alone.

"Someday," he whispered

THE END