SHOCKBALL
           S. L. Viehl
     A Stardoc novel - 04

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                  Contents
      •   PART ONE: MATERNITY
                1: Nascent Inanity
            o

                2: Separations
            o

                3: Endamaged
            o

                4: The Inevitable
            o

                5: Dancing with Christopher
            o

      •   PART TWO: PATERNITY
                6: Leyaneyaniteh
            o

                7: Choices
            o

                8: Topside
            o

                9: Many Mistakes
            o

                10: Desperate Bargain
            o

      •   PART THREE: CONSANGUINITY
                11: Not To Be Trusted
            o

                12: Centerfield
            o
                    13: Dolts to Fix
                o

                    14: A Promise to Keep
                o

                    15: Inititation
                o

          •   PART FOUR: EQUITY
                    16: Twins
                o

                    17: Change of Course
                o

                    18: The Grandfather of All Monsters
                o

                    19: Game Sphere
                o

                    20: A Gift for Duncan
                o




   Don’t miss the other exciting SF medical thrillers by S.
L. Viehl
  StarDoc
  Beyond Varallan
  Endurance
  A ROC BOOK
  ROC
  Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Putnam Inc, 375 Hudson Street, New York, New
York 10014, U.S.A.
  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL,
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  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road,
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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
   First published by Roc, an imprint of New American
Library, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.
  First Printing, November 2001
  Copyright © S. L. Viehl, 2001
  All rights reserved
  Cover art by Alan Pollack
  Designed by Ray Lundgren
  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA
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  Printed in the United States of America
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  Some people share the changes in your
                    life;
    others change the way you live it.
  Best friends are the ones who do both.
     For the first novelist I ever met,
    the gentlest soul I’ve ever known,
    and the best friend I’ve ever had,
                  Marilyn Jordan.


                 PART ONE
                  Maternity

                   Chapter One
                                                    ^»

              Nascent Inanity
   … I will impart a knowledge of the art to my own sons
and to those of my teachers, and to disciplines bound by
a stipulation and oath…
  —Hippocrates (460?-377? B.C.)

Hippocrates never had to coach a green cutter, I thought
as I looked at the bloody mess on the table. Otherwise,
he’d have imparted his foot up a certain eager beaver’s
southern orifice.
   “You used a laser to do this? Not a hacksaw?”
  The Saksonan across from me huffed. “You’re not
amusing.”
   “Neither is this.” I gloved, masked, then scanned the
entire disaster. “Stomach is history. Ditto on both
kidneys. Large intestine is ruptured in three, make that
four, areas. Spleen is”—I used a pair of forceps to extract
and hold it up for a better look—“totaled. Nice work,
Vlaav.”
   Thousands of dermal hemangiomas swelled, making
the Saksonan appear like a bristling strawberry. “It’s not
my fault!”
  “It never is.” I dropped the tattered organ back into the
abdominal cavity. “Let’s see, cause of death would be
exsanguination, or traumatic shock induced by lack of
anesthetic.” I placed my instrument on the discard tray.
“Congratulations, Doctor. You’ve successfully murdered
your first surgical patient.”
   “You said I was doing a postmortem this morning. I
didn’t realize it was still alive until I started the abdominal
exploratory.” With an impatient, three-fingered yank,
Vlaav tore off his mask and threw it on the deck. ‘’And
this is not my first surgical patient.“
  “If you want to have more, here’s a new rule: never cut
anyone open until they are under general anesthetic, or you
make sure they’re not breathing.”
   “Dr. Torin? Dr. Irde?”
   We both turned around. Former League Lieutenant
Wonlee stood just outside the exam room with a tray of
food. He’d adapted a loosely woven garment as an
orderly’s tunic to accommodate the thousands of sharp
spines covering his body. For some odd reason, they
were all standing on end. His hands went lax, and the tray
hit the deck.
   “You butchered him,” Wonlee said in a strangled
voice.
   The Lieutenant had been a medic, once upon a time,
but he’d never done a surgical rotation. Vlaav and I were
fairly well splattered with synplasma from the death
throes, and I guess the sight of the body was, to an
inexperienced layman, rather disturbing.
   “It’s not a him, Won. It’s a training torso.” When that
didn’t sink in, I punched a console button and the
botched surgical simulation disappeared. “A dimensional,
simulated facsimile. Not a real person.”
   “Oh.” Wonlee took a deep breath, and his spines
settled back down. “What happened to it?”
  I stripped off my gloves. “Dr. Irde learned how not to
conduct an appendectomy.”
   Vlaav peeled his off at the same time. “You said to do
an autopsy. I swear on my mother’s deities.”
   “Your mom wouldn’t appreciate you swearing. And
schedule yourself for an auditory scan. Your hearing
stinks.” A strange odor reached my nose, and I glanced at
the deck. I’d smelled nicer things in a biohazard container
that hadn’t been emptied for a month. “What is that
stuff?”
   “Your dinner.” Won started cleaning up the mess.
   “The Captain said you’ve neglected to take any meal
intervals today.”
   Lately the Captain had been acting like my mother. “So
he made you come and force-feed me for a change.”
   That got me a “now, Doctor” look. “Since I was
reporting for my shift, I offered to bring it down for him.”
   I took a step back and gulped. “You programmed it,
right?”
   “No, as a matter of fact, the Captain prepared it
personally.”
   Personally. “Excuse me.” I ran.
   After I finished vomiting into the nearest disposal unit, I
sat back against the lavatory wall panel and pressed a
damp cloth against my hot face. The maniac who
constantly tortured my senses with his alien concoctions
was going to pay for this. Big time.
   The lavatory door panel slid open. “You are ill again.”
   Speak of the Captain.
  “You’re cooking again.” I took the hand he offered,
and let him pull me to my feet. Then I thumped him on the
chest, just out of principle. “So this is all your fault.”
   The Captain was a Terran, like me. He disdained a
uniform in favor of his usual black, unornamented tunic
and trousers. Some things had changed since we’d
met—like his blond hair, which he had let grow and now
wore tied back in a queue. There were all kinds of new
muscles on his long, swimmer’s body, courtesy of
training with the Hsktskt and the Jorenians.
   Other things hadn’t changed. His personality remained
as chilly as ever. So did his expression. Carved masks
had more life to them. But now it didn’t bother me. I knew
what was behind Duncan Reever’s mask.
   “You promised me you’d stay away from the prep
unit.”
   “As you assured me that you would only work
standard shifts.” He slipped an arm around my waist and
guided me to the cleanser unit. “Why are you covered in
blood this time?”
   “Simulated blood.” I bent over the basin and
vigorously cleaned my teeth and rinsed my mouth, then I
checked my reflection. Still a short, dark-haired, blue-eyed
Terran. Maybe a little thinner than usual. I splashed my
face with cold water. “Vlaav had another go at a Terran
torso on the training simulator.”
  He folded his arms and leaned against the wall beside
me. “And?”
   “And the torso lost.” I groped for a towel. “Make a
note—if I ever need surgery, don’t let him near me. You
do it.”
   “Hold still.” Reever held me by the shoulder and
blotted my face like I was a messy little kid. “You are
trembling. You must eat, wife.”
    He liked calling me that. Pleased and annoyed, I blew a
piece of damp hair out of my eyes. “You don’t run my
life, husband.”
   Two badly scarred hands cradled my face, and before
I could say another word I got thoroughly kissed. Reever
raised his head after my pulse skyrocketed and I started
wrinkling the front of his tunic.
  “How do you feel?”
   “Pregnant.” I grinned as his hand went automatically to
my abdomen, and spread over the tiny life growing in
there. His fascination with the baby aroused all kinds of
feelings in me. Not strictly of the maternal variety, either.
“Stop that. You’re befuddling me.”
  “Cherijo.” His palm made slow circles on my stomach.
“Come back to our quarters with me.”
   I wanted to. Even after two months of living with
Reever, I still hadn’t quite made up for lost time. But then
there was Vlaav. “Not now. I need to talk to my resident
about taking a refresher course in Why We Employ
Anesthesia Before We Cut.”
   “Do it tomorrow. Come back with me now.” His
mouth landed on mine again, long enough to make me
really wrinkle the front of his tunic. Against my lips, he
said, “I want to sleep with you, beloved.”
   “Oh really?” Vlaav could practice sterilizing
instruments. “Then you shouldn’t have kissed me like
that.”
  I dragged him off to our quarters.
  Several hours later, I left our sleeping platform and
went to check on the ship’s status. I didn’t want to wake
Reever, so I left off the lights and audio. I pretended I
wasn’t sick to my stomach, and covered in a glassy
sweat. But I was.
  The nightmares did that to me.
   This time I hadn’t relived the horrors of the past. No,
this bad dream had sprung from a signal I’d received from
the Sunlace earlier that day. The latest batch of test results
weren’t too promising. Squilyp, the Omorr Senior Healer
on the Jorenian ship, wanted to perform another series.
No drastic decisions about what to do could be made yet.
   Mostly because I hadn’t told Reever about the
problem.
   Guilt had made me dream about what his reaction
would be when he finally heard the news. Reever shoving
me away. Reever flying off in a shuttle. Reever leaving me
for good.
  Reever won’t leave. It was only a dream, let it go.
   According to the vidisplay, the L.T.F. Perpetua was
close to Te Abanor, our next scheduled stop. We were
halfway through our mission to return all the Catopsan
slaves to their homeworlds.
   Where’s the Sunlace? I checked the external viewer and
located the other ship off our port side. Hi, guys.
   My adopted family, HouseClan Torin, manned the
Jorenian star vessel Sunlace. My adopted big brother,
Xonea Torin, had been adamant about escorting us during
the mission. Once that was over, they’d probably go
exploring the galaxy again.
  I wasn’t sure if we’d tag along. League mercenaries
were still hunting me, and rumor had it the Hsktskt Faction
had recently put out their own bounty on me.
   That thought made me look at the third ship in our little
fleet—the Truman. My creator, Joseph Grey Veil, had
sent the unarmed, drone-piloted League vessel from Terra
as a gift for me—some sort of gesture of truce or
something. Reever and the Jorenians had thoroughly
checked it out before towing it along with us. Personally
I’d never liked Joe’s present, and regularly expressed my
desire to see someone blow it to smithereens.
   Reever was more practical. We may need to make use
of it, Cherijo.
   I cleared the screen and accessed a new file I’d been
working on since we’d escaped the Hsktskt. Being
pregnant made me realize how important it was for me to
record the facts behind the strange twists my life had
taken over the last three years.
   I want you to know the truth, lump. I spread my hand
over my still-flat abdomen. You wouldn’t be able to hear
the whole story from anyone else but me.
  I scanned through the entries I’d already made about
what had happened from the day I’d left Terra. The file
headers read like ads for one of the space operas so
popular on my homeworld.
  Promising thoracic surgeon discovers she’s a
genetically enhanced human clone.
  Clone escapes brilliant but insane scientist creator.
  Insane creator pursues runaway clone across the
galaxy.
   I’d spent my first year of independence as a trauma
physician on Kevarzangia Two, treating nonhumans. My
love affair with an alien pilot named Kao Torin had
collided with a race to cure a mysterious plague. The fight
for my own freedom came soon after, when my creator
Joseph Grey Veil had tried to reclaim me as property.
HouseClan Torin had come to the rescue, just in time for
me to watch Kao die in my arms. Worse, I’d killed him
with a transfusion of my own poisonous blood.
   I closed my eyes for a moment. Kao, I hope you
forgive me for what I did. Maybe someday I can do the
same.
  The next entries covered the year I’d served as Senior
Healer on the Sunlace. Where I still might be, if not for a
demented killer and the Allied League of Worlds. We’d
caught the killer, but the League had cornered us on Joren.
The Hsktskt had arrived on the scene to make things even
more interesting.
  I’d been oblivious to everything but saving Joren,
which meant betraying the League to the Hsktskt. Finding
out my own husband was a Hsktskt collaborator had
shattered our marriage.
   Being a slave doctor had been about as much fun. So
had enduring torture, and discovering some of the guards
were actually eating the prisoners alive. Healing and
befriending a disfigured female Hsktskt guard had nearly
salvaged my sanity. Until she’d sacrificed her life to
protect me.
   We’re almost done with this mission, I wrote in my
new file. Still I think I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to
atone for my mistakes.
   “As will I.”
   I jumped and swore. Reever had gotten out of bed and
presently stood directly behind me. His warm palms slid
over my shoulders as I frowned up at him.
   “You scared me. Cough or something next time.”
   “I apologize. What are you working on?”
  “A journal file.” I felt my cheeks burn. “It’s for the
baby. What’s this ‘as will I’ business?”
   “You are not the only one with regrets, Cherijo.”
   “You have nothing to be ashamed of. You were
great—putting your life on the line, pretending to work for
the Hsktskt while you were smuggling slaves off
Catopsa,” I said. “What have you got to feel bad about?
Even the Jorenians forgave you, and you know how they
feel about revenge.”
  He reached over, saved the entry, and deactivated the
console before swinging my chair around. “Why don’t
you write about your own victories?”
   “I am.”
  “Did you enter the data about the thousands of lives on
K-2 and millions on Joren that you saved?”
   I shook my head. “That was pure luck.”
   He took my hairbrush from the vanity unit and started
untangling my hair. He liked doing that. “Luck had nothing
to do with the destruction of the slave depot on Catopsa.”
   “That was luck and a working relationship with a
sentient crystal,” I pointed out, enjoying the soothing
sensations the long, slow strokes through my hair sent
over my scalp and down my spine.
  “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
   “Sure. I can just skip the part about how I killed Kao,
and all the Torins who died in mercenary attacks on the
Sunlace, and the League prisoners who fought the
Hsktskt after I turned their ships over to the Faction.” And
then there was the baby. “Piece of cake.”
   “The streak in your hair looks a little wider.” He traced
the silver slash that started just above my right temple with
his finger. “You have been devoting too many hours in
Medical.”
    “You won’t let me learn how to calibrate the engines.”
If I sat there much longer, I was going to melt all over the
chair. I got up. “We’ve arrived at Te Abanor.”
  “I know.”
   He always knew. Reever took the job of running the
Perpetua very seriously. I was lucky if I remembered
what shift it was. “Where are we heading once we’ve
finished this mission?”
  “We will find a new world to settle on. A place where
we can raise our children and live without fear.”
   Considering how widespread the League and Hsktskt
Faction territories were, that wasn’t going to be soon. Or
easy. I’d avoid thinking about the other problems for
now. One migraine at a time. “This Eden is located where?
On the other side of the universe?”
   “We will not have to travel that far.” Duncan picked me
up and carried me back to the platform. Like Kao, he
enjoyed carrying me around. It must be a guy thing. “You
need to get some rest.”
   “We were going to fight over names tonight,
remember?”
  He stretched out beside me and held me against him.
“You did not like the last suggestions I made.”
  I could feel his heartbeat against my cheek. “You
suggested Ggddkktt or J-byn.” I shuddered. “Why can’t
you pick out something with vowels in it?”
   “Very well, what do you think of—” he made a low,
whistling sound—“for a female, or”—he made something
that sounded suspiciously like a suppressed belch—“for a
male?”
   “I liked Ggddkktt and J-byn better. And I hate them.” I
thought about the list of baby names I’d pulled from the
computer earlier. “How about Dian-the? Or Daniel?”
  “Dian-tha means filthy water in Habarroo. Daniel is a
command to jump high in the air while screaming on
Andorrii.”
  I propped myself up with one arm. “Do they really
mean that, or are you just making that up?”
  “I will access the linguistic database, if you like.”
  “Hmmm.” I eyed him. “What does ‘Cherijo’ mean?”
   “It means nothing in any of the languages I know. I
think that is why I was initially drawn to you.”
    My name came from an acronym for Comprehensive
Human Enhancement Research I.D. “J” Organism—the
title of the experiment that had resulted in my creation.
However, Reever knew a lot of languages. I wondered if
he was telling me the truth, or Cherijo meant something
like “pond scum” in Trytinorn.
  “How about Duncan? What does that mean?”
  “In Terran Gaelic, it means dark warrior. In Svgan,
burning spear. In Loracian, ice crystal. In—
   “Okay, okay.” I ran my fingers through his shaggy
blond hair. “Dark warrior, huh?”
   “My coloring was not a consideration at the time my
parents named me.” He stroked the small of my back.
“Have you confirmed the gender of our child yet?”
   He knew I’d been having tests, but I’d passed them off
as the usual prenatal exams. “No. I don’t want to know.
That’s like opening Christmas presents in July.” I
squeezed my eyes shut. Maybe now was a good time.
“Duncan?”
  He was rubbing my stomach again. “Hmmmm?”
  “I need you to know, I…”
   “Look.” He pressed my hand under his. “Can you feel
the curve there? The child is growing.”
  There would never be a good time.
  I lifted my head as something crawled over my foot.
Saved by Reever’s ambulatory pet mold. “I really wish
you’d keep your Lok-Teel out of the bedroom.”
    He reached down and gently removed the undulating
blob from my leg, then set it on the deck. He’d brought a
couple of them from the slave depot on Catopsa, where
he’d used their ability to take on any form to conceal his
features. The moving mold had since happily adapted to
life on board the ship, reproduced and were now all over
the plact. The Lok-Teel oozed off to clean something else,
while Reever brushed my hair back from my face.
  “Better?”
    “Yes.” He was always fooling with my hair. “I have an
idea. I’ll name the baby if it’s a boy, and you name it if
it’s a girl. You have to use vowels and consonants.”
  “I agree. What is your choice?”
   “Michael. Yours?” He told me, and I smiled. “Hey,
that’s not bad. I sort of like it.”
  “Go to sleep now, Cherijo.”
    I slept, but the nightmares returned. This time I didn’t
dream of losing Reever, but of a disaster so ominous that
it destroyed everything I loved.



   “I want you to report over here before you go on this
sojourn,” Squilyp said.
  My former surgical resident, now a full-fledged doctor
and currently the Senior Healer in charge of Medical on
board the Sunlace, looked very annoyed. Squilyp was an
Omorr, so he did that very well.
  “I’m busy.”
   The white, meter-long gildrells around his oral
membrane went into icicle-mode. They made him look like
he was wearing a starched beard. “You’re being
irresponsible.”
  “Oh, like you’d know.”
  “Doctor.”
   Okay, so he was mad. He’d get over it. “This trip will
only take a few hours. We can run the final series when I
get back.”
   He thumped down the chart he’d been holding in the
spade-shaped membranes that served as his hands. “Shall
I consult with Captain Reever for his opinion on this
matter?”
  Now I got mad. “You say one word about this to him,
and I’ll tie a big knot in your face.”
  He sighed. “Cherijo, I know you are avoiding a
decision, but you cannot continue to conceal this from
your mate. He has the right to know what is happening,
and what you propose to do about it.”
   “Yeah, I know. I know.” I felt the beginnings of a
tension headache start tapping inside my temples. “Just,
give me a couple more days, okay? When I’m done with
this sojourn, I’ll have Reever bring me directly up to the
Sunlace. Then you can run as many tests as you like.”
And I could finally figure out what to do, and how to tell
Duncan.
   “I don’t know why I argue with you,” he said. “I
always lose.”
   “You’re nothing but a big softie.” He was anything but.
I smiled. “Thanks, Squid Lips.”
  With an impatient gesture, he ended the signal.
   I sat back in my chair, and read over the chart in my
hands again. Trace bilirubin levels—leftovers from blood
cell destruction—appeared in the latest sample. The
antibodies had crossed the breach and were attacking.
  “Cherijo?”
   Alunthri appeared in the doorway. Like me, the feline
Chakacat had been condemned as a nonsentient life
form—in its case, from birth. We’d met on K-2, where its
owner had subsequently died from the Core plague. I’d
freed Alunthri from domestic slavery, and Reever had
done the same when the Chakacat had tried to immigrate
to another world run by slavers. It was the gentlest
creature I’d ever known.
  “Hey, pal.” I cleared the console screen. “Haven’t seen
you around lately.”
   “My studies keep me preoccupied.” It smiled, baring
glittering small fangs. Alunthri was obsessed with all forms
of art, and recently had been working on some kind of
multispecies thesis. “You are going on the sojourn to Te
Abanor?”
  “Can’t get out of it.” Couldn’t wait to go was more like
it, but I wasn’t going to dump my problems on the
Chakacat.
   “I wish I could join you, but I am still working on data
I collected from the last world we visited.” It cocked its
bullet-shaped head to one side, making light shimmer
across its silvery pelt. “Would you mind recording any
examples of cultural self-expression for me?”
  “No problem.” It took a minute before I realized it was
waiting and added, “Vid and audio okay?”
   “Yes, thank you,” Its colorless eyes met mine, and its
pointed ears flickered. “Cherijo, is everything well? You
seem rather preoccupied yourself.”
  “Just thinking about the sojourn,” I lied.
  Alunthri seemed to accept that answer, for it thanked
me again, and then departed.
  I hadn’t been thinking about the sojourn. I was thinking
about my husband. I had two, maybe three days at the
most before we had to act. That meant I had to tell
Duncan today. Not exactly something we could chat
about on the way down to the planet.
  Later. I loved that word. I’ll do it later. I grabbed my
pack and headed for the launch bay.
   The sojourn to Te Abanor required us to take one of
the Perpetua’s shuttles down. Reever, who unlike me was
perfectly at ease with any sort of tech, manned the helm
himself.
   I strapped myself in behind him and looked over his
shoulder. “Are we there yet?”
   “No.” He gave me a bland look. “Would you prefer to
pilot the mission?”
   “Please. I’d like to get there in one piece.” Back during
my time as Senior Healer on board the Sunlace, I’d barely
passed the mandatory pilot training all crew members were
required to take. I was good with living things, medical
tech, prep units, and that was about it. “How’s the
atmosphere look?”
  “We shouldn’t encounter much turbulence. How is
your stomach?”
   “Okay, for now.” I had a container stowed under my
seat, in case that changed.
   The flight took much less time than I’d thought, and as
Reever predicted, there were only a few bumps along the
way. Te Abanor’s stratus shroud parted to reveal a
gray-and-black world that looked inhospitable from
above. Not a green speck of vegetation or geometric
outline of civilization was visible.
   “There, you see?” One of the former Catopsan slaves
pointed out the darker mottled areas along the equatorial
regions where the bulk of the Meridae civilization dwelled.
“That is the epicenter of my home throng.”
   I grinned. It might have been ugly, but home was home.
“I bet your family will be happy to see you.”
   “They will fill the skies,” the Meridae male said. He had
a homely face that was rather endearing. “I should warn
you, Doctor, our atmosphere has a lower oxygen content
than you humanoids are accustomed to.”
   I imagined everyone stepping off the shuttle and
instantly turning as blue as a Jorenian. “Exactly how low?”
   “It will be breathable, of course, but you may wish to
curtail your movements.”
  My Saksonan resident’s nubbly derma started swelling.
“Do we have breathers on board the shuttle?”
  “Calm down, Vlaav,” I said. “If the air’s too thin, we
can always hop back on the shuttle.”
  “You are always so confident of success,” he said,
sounding peeved.
   I repeated what had been hammered into my head
through four years of medtech. “We’re surgeons.
Success is the only acceptable alternative.” I caught his
pout and sighed. “Will you stop worrying about
everything? We escaped the League. We beat the Hsktskt.
We can handle a little oxygen-poor air.”
   Vlaav mumbled something about spare ventilators and
started rummaging through his medevac case.
  Reever signaled Planetary Transport as we landed a
few minutes later. I couldn’t help but notice how even
more depressing Te Abanor was when we set down.
Gray. Black. Lots of uninterrupted rock. That was it.
  Reever, Vlaav, and I gathered our equipment, then
waited until Te Abanor’s automated transport monitor
gave us final clearance to disembark. When the hull doors
parted, I noticed the change in the air at once.
   What air? my lungs argued. I fought to keep from
hyperventilating. Had to be a good example for my
nervous student cutter.
   Te Abanor’s Transport Center seemed empty, except
for some gliding forms circling overhead. I guessed they
were the natives when they spiraled down and began
landing in front of our group.
   This particular brand of Meridae were naked, drab
colored, with rounded heads covered by long, wrinkled
skin lappets. Out of hidden snouts, long extensible
tongues covered with spiny papillae nicked out.
  “Why do they look different?” I asked Reever.
  “That is a female.”
   I knew at once I would not be sharing the traditional
Jorenian kiss of welcome with any Meridae. There are
reasons I am a terrible diplomat. Papillaed tongues is one
of them.
   More Meridae arrived and landed. A distinct ammoniac
odor emanated from their bodies, which were studded
with oval bristle clusters. I saw why when one began
grooming its fur.
  Built-in hairbrushes. I could use something like that.
   What impressed me the most was the natives’ dorsal
wing. While they stood on the ground, they held the
jointed flap folded against their spines. Fully extended in
the air, the wing stretched over ten feet long, and worked
like a sail. Evidently the low gravity and air currents gave
them lift, for once they were up, all the Meridae did was
tack to or against the wind. It was obvious they loved it,
too. Our passengers were already tearing off their
borrowed tunics and taking off.
   Reever offered greetings in a high-pitched shrieking
language that made me cringe until my vocollar adjusted to
the portable database, dampened the sound, and began to
translate.
  “We greet you, honored Meridae,” my husband said.
“Duncan Reever, Captain of the Perpetua.”
   One batlike creature screeched back at Reever.
“Welcome. The Meridae offer thanks for the safe return
of our kinsmen.”
   After an exchange of a few more pleasantries, the
Meridae asked if we would care to visit the community’s
epicenter. Reever accepted the offer, which oddly
surprised the envoy.
  “Do you think this is a good idea?” I asked him.
  “They are not members of the League,” Reever said.
“Their leaders will need information about the war.”
  We were escorted by the Meridae to the epicenter, if
you could call it that. Several more landed and at some
unseen signal approached each of us. Approached as in
hopped over and extended these claw-things toward us.
  “Uh, honey?” I said to Reever with a cheerful smile as
one of the Meridae headed for me. “What are they doing?
Exactly?”
  “They’re going to fly us to the epicenter,” he replied.
“Don’t resist, you’ll insult them. He won’t hurt you.”
  I looked at my escort. Fly me to the epicenter. Not eat
me.
   The Meridae’s hind appendages had small curved
talons—the claw-things—which he gently slid under my
arms. I experienced a slight jolt as he jumped up, and
spread his wing.
  Suddenly I was flying. It wasn’t so bad after all.
   My escort seemed unaffected by my weight. I saw the
other natives had no problem carrying Reever and Vlaav,
who were much larger and heavier than me. The Meridae
were exceptionally strong, graceful, and hopefully, not
prone to clumsiness.
   We soon arrived at a group of bizarre, treelike
structures that grew from wide, thick bases to soar
hundreds of feet upward. Te Abanor’s warm orange sun
gleamed dully over the grayish-brown, lengthy branches.
They weren’t trees, judging by the lack of vegetation, and
the sculpted appearance of the bark indicated they were
Meridae-made. But from what? Soil?
   The natives gently set down our team around the base
of one of the biggest structures, where the ammoniac
smell was much stronger. I performed a discreet
enviroscan.
   “Let me know if anyone feels dizzy,” I told the others
in a low voice. The fumes were chemically similar to
ammonia, but not as dangerous. I pressed a hand against
my abdomen and swallowed hard. Throwing up would
make a lousy first impression.
   The ground beneath us was flat and consisted of
dense, nonporous rock. The aviaries couldn’t be made of
soil; there was no soil.
  Reever touched my shoulder, startling me. “Look.”
   I followed his gaze up. Above us, a huge group of the
Meridae were descending gracefully from the upper
portion of the tree-structures. They flew unlike anything
I’d ever seen on Terra—darting, floating, playfully
weaving patterns with their bodies. In a moment we were
surrounded by the winged creatures.
    One wrinkle-faced female landed close to me, and I
saw she supported a cluster of smaller, immature Meridae.
It didn’t look like being a mom was an easy job, either.
Each infant hung from her face, a skin lappet tightly
gripped between their small blunt teeth. Ouch. No wonder
their faces were stretched out.
  “That’s got to hurt,” I murmured to Reever.
  “Not at all,” the female replied.
  She was wearing a standard League wristcom and
understood every word I’d said. They were all wearing
wristcoms here. Good thing I hadn’t said something like,
“What an ugly baby.”
  After hearing some of what the former slaves had
endured, two of the Meridae led Reever off to discuss the
Hsktskt/League war with their leaders.
   Vlaav and I obtained permission to conduct a standard
sojourn survey. As I had been during my time on the
Sunlace, I was responsible for the medical and
anthropological data. Reever thought it was a good idea to
collect as much information as we could on non-League
civilizations.
  I suspected it was a ploy to keep me out of trouble.
   “What a wonderful family you have,” I said to the
female with the kids hanging from her cheeks. Apparently
that was the right thing to say, for she detached one of the
infants and offered it to me. I cuddled the baby, and only
had to gently discourage it from trying to latch on to the
only significant protrusion on my face. “No, baby, you
don’t want to bite nice Doctor Turin’s nose.”
   After that, the Meridae practically adopted us, and were
happy to describe their culture. They performed nearly
every function of life on whig, alighting on their tree
structures only for rest, prolonged nourishment, or
nursing the young.
   I learned the Meridae had no formally trained med pros
or treatment facilities. Each family unit (called “throngs”)
had a “fosterer”—usually an unmated female—who
provided all health care. They even performed complex
surgical procedures with a high success rate.
   When they learned we were physicians, they brought
up a mysterious problem with persistent ulcerations
among some of the younger males.
   “Could it be some type of plague?” Vlaav asked me,
afraid to touch the adolescent Meridae.
  “Not according to my scans.” His agitated shuffling
was wearing on my nerves. “Get a grip, will you?”
   The smell of their bodies took some getting used to,
but I found after several hours I no longer noticed it. To
deal with the ulcerations, Vlaav and I set up an impromptu
aid station and began performing routine examination
scans.
   I examined the painful raw spots on several young male
Meridae, and concluded it was likely due to excessive
grooming. They were in their first season, and acting like
love-struck teenagers do all across the galaxy. Doing
dumb things, trying to impress some desirable but
unusually fickle young female. I pointed out the betraying
marks left by the comblike bristles, and prescribed an
emollient to facilitate healing.
   “I’ll leave a supply of it with you,” I said, after I’d
treated the last of the males. “It might help if the young
lady decides who she wants to mate with. Soon.”
    One of the older females chirped, “Preening until they
bleed, the young paramours! I’d give my wing to be in
first season again.”
   “Hush, you will embarrass our visitors,” another female
said, and eyed me and Vlaav with obvious pity.
  Another one peered behind me, as if to make sure I
wasn’t hiding a wing somewhere. “How do you bear
being planet-bound?”
   They thought we were handicapped. “We’re
ground-dwellers,” I told her. “Most of us aren’t born with
wings—um, a wing.”
   Vlaav finished recording his scan data. “Haven’t you
seen other offworlders without wings?”
   “No other visitor has ever come to our epicenter,” the
older female replied. “The escort teams say it is because
they fear they will be dropped. Such ill-bred behavior!”
  Glad I hadn’t spoken up back at Transport. The
females weren’t done asking questions. On the contrary.
  “How do you secure a mate without wing?”
   “How can you hunt? Do you remain on the ground
always?”
  “Does it not hurt the bottoms of your feet?”
   In the end I had to promise to leave an in-depth report
on ground-dwelling humanoid cultures and physiologies
for them to study at their leisure.
   While discussing dietary particulars, we discovered the
only source of vegetation on Te Abanor grew in the
caverns beneath the surface. Apparently all surface flora
and topsoil had been eradicated during the volcanic
prehistory of the planet.
   The caves, however, hosted thousands of plant species
and a horde of mammals which fed on them. The Meridae
preyed on the smaller mammals, which they caught while
combing the network of caverns in organized hunting
packs. Their quarry was either consumed on wing, or
brought back to the aviaries to be divided.
   Vlaav and I politely refused their offer of a meal. It was
easy. Vlaav was a vegetarian, and I personally had treated
too many types of patients to eat the flesh of anything.
Plus my stomach was definitely upset, to the point of
knotting with cramps.
   What appetite I had disappeared when I learned
exactly how and from what the Meridae built the aviary
structures.
   “Throngs are made up of nonrelated broods, to ensure
proper breeding,” I was told. Sensible enough. Over time,
inbreeding had destroyed countless species in isolated
areas on other worlds. “When a throng reaches capacity,
a new throng is initiated, and we collect for a new aviary.”
  “Collect what?” I asked.
   “The throng members defecate in a clearing until the
proper amount of material is accumulated, shaped, and
dried.”
   Yuck. The structures were nothing more than hardened,
sculpted waste. I remembered not to make a face, and
surreptitiously scanned for contaminants. I found none;
the fecal material was extremely sanitary.
  “Would you care to ascend?” one politely offered.
   “No, thank you.” Sanitary or not, no way was I going
to stand on a pile of dried-up, decades-old Meri-dae
droppings.
   Remembering Alunthri’s request that I check into any
obscure, artistic expressions I came across, I asked about
the Meridae forms of entertainment.
  “Let us perform for you,” one throng leader offered.
And up they went.
   The Meridae danced in the air. Their movements were
unbelievably fast, intricately weaving patterns as groups
flew up. Soon the sky above us was filled with throngs,
floating, diving, winding around each other. Others
flocked to join them, until it seemed the sunlight itself
would be blocked out by their mass. My neck muscles
strained. I couldn’t have cared less.
   The crowd above parted, and each Meridae made a
brief, personal promenade. Some fluttered slowly, drifting
like a feather without aim or purpose. Others tightly
spiraled down to the surface, only to swoop up at the last
moment and soar into the heights.
   The young Meridae were particular geniuses when it
came to comical acting. A group of them began making
the oddest movements, lurching and jerking, turning their
heads, and flapping their chin lappets. I laughed until my
sides ached.
  Reever stood next to me. He wasn’t laughing, but I
could see a flicker of warmth in his eyes.
    “That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen a non- Terran
do,” I gasped, holding my ribs. “I wonder what they call
it?”
  A throng member murmured to Reever, who told me,
“An Imitation of Our Visitors.”
  Vlaav looked indignant. I tried to. It was even funnier,
now that I knew where they had gotten their material from.
We must have looked pretty strange to the Meridae, with
our walking, gesturing, and talking. I burst into laughter
again, and the throng member chirped along with me.
   The sky had gradually turned from tangerine to crimson
as the performers finished their acts and spiraled down to
perch on the aviary. Finally there was only one group left
in the air, and a noticeable hush fell over the throng.
  “Is this the grand finale?” I asked the Meridae next to
me.
  She stroked one of her face flaps. “You could say that,
Healer.”
   The group above us arranged themselves in an
almost-stationary circle, while two other Meridae occupied
the center. One was obviously a female, the other a
fledgling with a still-discernible wing wobble.
   The little one began circling the female with odd,
clumsy movements, which gradually slowed as if the
fledgling was exhausted. A male broke out of the circle
just as the small Meridae stopped flying. I started to yell
just as he caught the child in his forelimbs. The female
cradled the fledgling from the other side, and they
revolved together. The others moved in, and the entire
group huddled together around the trio.
   Then it became clear, even to my offworld eyes. The
throng comforted the male and female. The fledgling
didn’t move.
  It was a dance of death.
   I touched my stomach. Oh, lump, how am I going to
tell him?
  “Cherijo.” Reever was there beside me, and slipped his
arm around my waist. “You are upset.”
   “I’m okay.” I let him lead me a short distance from the
others. “Did you tell them what they needed to know
about the war? Are they going to get involved?”
  “That is not important. What is wrong?”
  “I’m just tired. Tell me about your meeting.” Do
anything, I thought. Keep me from crying my eyes out in
front of these people. Another stitch bit into my side and I
gasped, alarmed at how severe it felt.
  “What is it? Cherijo!” He caught me before I doubled
over, then turned his head to the side. “Dr. Irde!”
  Vlaav hurried over, agitation making his nubbly hide
pockets swell. “Dr. Torin? What happened? Are you ill?”
  Wrenching pressure began to build in my lower
abdomen. I knew what it was, but I didn’t want to say it.
“Pain. Here.” I grabbed onto Reever. “Duncan, get me—”
    That was when one of the Meridae fosterers swooped
down, and plucked me up in her talons. I screamed. Felt
the desperate hands clutch at me as Reever and Vlaav
tried to grab me back. A moment later I was soaring
straight up, far from the ground and any hope of help.
  “Please,” I said, trying not to scream. “Please, take me
back down… I need…”
   “I know what you need,” the female said. “This will
help.”
   Gravity clawed at me, making the cramps worse. I felt a
hot trickle between my thighs that quickly soaked the
crotch of my trousers. Lack of oxygen made my
eardrums press in and black spots appear before my eyes.
My hands and feet went numb.
  The baby—


                CHAPTER Two
                                               «^»

                  Separations
I came to on the floor of the launch, with Vlaav hovering
over me. I already knew from the rhythmic pains and the
blood seeping from between my legs that I was having a
miscarriage.
   “Duncan?”
  “He is taking us back to the Sunlace.” Vlaav eased a
folded tunic under my head and adjusted the thermal wrap
over me.
  I took a couple of deep breaths as the cramping got
worse. “What happened?”
  “You’re hemorrhaging. We’ll get you to Medical as
soon as we arrive.”
   I closed my eyes. My baby. “Why did that bat thing
grab me?”
   “I’m not sure. Apparently it was an attempt at some
kind of native medical treatment.” Vlaav ran a scan over
my lower abdomen. “Your uterus is contracting and there
is placental matter and amniotic fluid in the blood sample I
took.” He met my gaze. “I—I’m so sorry, Doctor.”
  “Save it.” No tears. Odd, I should have been crying my
eyes out. “Give me that scanner.”
   I fumbled with the instrument until I could run another
series on myself, and confirmed everything Vlaav had
said. The pain became a deep, tearing agony that seemed
to gouge at my spine from the inside.
   “You’re right,” I gasped the words out, and dropped
the scanner.
   Vlaav gave me a reproachful look. “Of course I was
right.”
  I controlled my breathing and panted through the next
contraction. Coming down off it made me snap at him.
“Resident, if you mope every time someone follows up on
your work, you’re never going to be happy in this job.
Right now I’m having a miscarriage—concentrate on that.
You can sulk another time.”
  Duncan left the helm as soon as we landed inside the
Sunlace’s launch bay, and lifted me up in his arms.
   “Put me down. You’re getting blood all over your
tunic,” I said as he carried me out. His arms tightened and
he walked faster. “I’m all right, get a gurney.”
   “Signal Medical,” he said to Vlaav. “Have them prepare
for her.”
   His voice had turned positively glacial. Belatedly I
realized the Meridae’s “help” must have scared him, too. I
reached up and awkwardly touched my husband’s face.
  “I’ll be okay, Duncan. But the baby”—my throat
tightened—“we’re going to lose the baby.”
  “We can have other children.” Now he looked at me,
and his eyes were anything but cold. “I will not lose you.”
   A team of nurses helped Reever get me on a trauma
berth when we reached Medical, and Vlaav and Squilyp
took over. I tried to relax as the Omorr performed the
necessary pelvic scan, but discomfort and fear made me
bite the inside of my cheek. Duncan never let go of my
hand, even when Vlaav asked him to.
  “Residual fetal tissue?” I asked.
   “Placental matter, yes.” The Omorr looked at me over
his mask. “No residual fetal tissue detected, Healer.”
  We’d talked about what we’d do, Squilyp and I, in a
worst-case scenario. This was as bad as it got, and I had
no options.
  I tried to let go of Reever’s hand. “All right, Squilyp.
Get me prepped.”
  The Omorr glanced at Reever. “Did you tell him?”
  Reever’s hand tightened on mine. “Tell me what?”
   In that moment, I could have cheerfully cut Squilyp’s
heart out with a blunt probe. “No time like the present, I
guess.” I took a deep breath and addressed my husband.
“Duncan, things started to go wrong with the baby a few
days ago. We tried a couple of drugs to stop it. But…
nothing worked.”
  His eyes never left mine. “What happens now?”
   “Squilyp is going to have to perform a dilatation and
curettage on me.” I ignored the small sound the Omorr
made. “It has to be done, to prevent infection. I’ll be
fine.”
  Reever touched my face. “I’ll go in with you.”
   “No.” I put my hand over his. “No, you can’t. It won’t
be pretty and you know how squeamish you are about
surgery.” Before he could say anything else, I closed my
eyes. “Please. Please do this for me. Please wait for me in
recovery.”
   A few minutes later, Squilyp leaned over me as I was
being wheeled into the surgical suite. “I hope you know
what you’re doing.”
  “Don’t worry about me.” The effects of the sedation
made me miss him when I swatted at him. “Worry about
being perfect, because that’s what I need you to be. Right
now.”



   The operation went off without a hitch. An hour after it
was over, I woke up in recovery, with Duncan at the side
of my berth. His coloring looked grayish, and dark
half-circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes.
  I wasn’t feeling too great myself. “Hey. Haven’t they
chased you out of here yet?”
  “You’re awake.” He stood up, and signaled for a
nurse. “How do you feel?”
  “About as good as you look.” I tried to sit up, but
some Doctor who was going to get my fist in his gildrells
had put me in full limb restraints. “Where’s my chart?”
   Squilyp came in, released me, and picked up a
syrin-press. “Shall I sedate you now, or will you behave
yourself?”
  Without a word I held out an arm.
   He put the instrument down on a tray table with a
thump—Omorr are lousy bluffers—and turned to Reever.
“Captain, would you give me a few moments alone with
your wife so I can examine her?”
  Reever hesitated, then nodded and left the room.
  As soon as the door was closed, I tried to sit up again.
“Let me up. I’ll do the scans myself.”
   “You will stay in that berth and let me scan you, or I
will go out there and tell that man exactly what happened
in surgery.”
   I scowled. “You try, and I’ll spray your face with skin
seal.”
   “Cherijo.” He heaved a sigh. “At least allow me to
perform the postop examination. There is much we have
to discuss. Particularly the reasons why you are lying to
your husband.”
   “I’m not lying. I’m just not volunteering information,” I
said through gritted teeth, then relaxed and let him scan
me. As the minutes ticked by and he remained silent, I lost
my patience. “Well? Did it work? Were there any
complications? What happened?”
  “It went much the way we anticipated. There are no
apparent complications. Your immune system has already
begun to heal the damage.” He noted something on my
chart, then caught me inching up. “Don’t even
contemplate getting out of this berth.”
  “Okay.” I dropped back against the pillows. “For
now.”
   The Omorr sat down beside my berth and took my
hand with one of his membranes. Since Squilyp’s people
practiced touch-healing, I didn’t object. But he wasn’t
interested in healing my physical injuries. “Cherijo, you
must tell him.”
    “What? What precisely do I tell him? That I’ll never be
able to carry a child full-term? That my own body will kill
any baby I try to have? That I’m a monster?” Tears
streamed down my face. “No, Squilyp. I’m not going to
tell him what we’ve done. Not now. Maybe not ever.”
   “Very well. I will respect your wishes. My advice
remains the same—tell him the truth. He will need time to
adjust to the idea.”
  I wasn’t going to think about it. I couldn’t. I wiped the
back of my hand over my eyes. “Did you determine the
gender?”
   “Yes. Female.”
  I touched my flat belly. “A girl. We had a little girl.”
Reever would have loved that.
   “Do you want to see—
  “No.” I looked over at the room console. “Signal
Xonea. I need to talk to him right away.”
   “Why?”
    “Just ask him to come down here for a minute. Tell him
it’s HouseClan business.”
   Xonea arrived a few minutes after Squilyp sent the
signal. Like all Jorenians, my ClanBrother was nearly
seven feet tall. His sapphire skin contrasted sharply with
his all-white eyes. He wore his Captain’s tunic, and had
his long black hair in its customary warrior’s knot.
   He made a handsome, if somewhat intimidating, big
brother.
   After touching my brow with his in an affectionate
manner, he sat down beside my berth and took my hands
in his. “I cannot rejoice in what has happened,
ClanSister.”
   Jorenians normally celebrated death, so it was a gesture
of sensitivity and understanding I’d never expected from
him.
   “Xonea, lock the door.” I considered how I was going
to phrase my request as he did that. When he sat back
down, looking even more worried, I gave him a wan smile.
“It’s not that bad.”
  “Nothing good ever comes of your securing access
panels.”
   “I only have one request, and you probably won’t even
have to do it. You’re my ClanBrother, the one I trust most
to carry out my wishes.”
   He knew what I was going to ask then, and got to his
feet. “I will speak to the Omorr. There must be more that
can be done—”
   “Relax, I’m not dying. I’m fine. Sit down.” I waved
him back down to his seat. “Xonea, I know HouseClan
protocol. I can do this any time. I can invoke it any time.”
   “You said you remain on the path.” His troubled
white-within-white eyes met mine. “Why do you insist on
this now?”
   I thought of my premonition of disaster, and
shuddered. “Because there are all kinds of separations on
the path, ClanBrother.”
  “I know I am in trouble when you quote journey
philosophy.”
  “You’re not in trouble. You’re simply going to be my
Speaker.” I sat up a little straighter. “Now, this is what I
want you to do.”



    Reever and Alunthri came to visit me later that day, but
I slept through most of it. When I woke up twelve hours
later, I felt as if nothing had happened.
  That was exactly how I intended to handle it, too.
  While I looked for my clothes, Squilyp hopped in.
Omorr have four limbs, but use three like arms. That left
one to get around with. My former nemesis did it with a
peculiar, dignified sort of bounce I admired.
  I certainly would have looked ridiculous if I’d been
obliged to hop instead of walk.
  “Would it kill you to rest for another forty-eight
hours?” he asked, watching me dress.
   “No, but your life expectancy would be seriously
abbreviated.” I checked my reflection in the mirror of the
wall vanity unit. I should have looked like death warmed
over, but I practically glowed with health. Courtesy of my
loathsome immune system. I went back to packing my
sojourn case. “Besides, you know you’ll be happier to
have me out of your gildrells. I’ll round up Vlaav and
we’ll head back to the Perpetua.”
   “That is the other problem I wish to discuss with you
before you leave.” Squilyp went over to close the door to
my room, and leaned back against the panel. He was tall
and rangy, and his pink derma looked great in the
white-and-blue physician’s tunic. He’d earned that,
working for me. “The Saksonan has expressed a wish to
remain on board the Sunlace and serve as a surgical
resident in Medical.”
  I whirled around. “He what!”
  “Dr. Irde wants me to take over his training.”
   “You’re pulling my leg, right?” The Omorr shook his
head. “I don’t believe it. That ungrateful little snot.” I
slammed the lid down on my case. “After all I’ve done for
him.”
  “Judging by the fervency of his request, I suspect you
have completely terrorized him.” Squilyp made an
impatient gesture. “Don’t glower like that. You have never
been successful at terrorizing me.”
   “That’s only because you’re as conceited and arrogant
as I am.” I didn’t want to admit it, but I was hurt. What
had I ever done to Vlaav, other than give him the finest
training a surgeon could ask for? “Is it because of the
simulator runs?”
  “He did not cite objections to a specific task.”
   “I only made him do two per shift, you know.” I
started to pace the deck. “My resident trainer used to
make me do four. And I didn’t yell at Vlaav when he
messed up.” Squilyp’s expression of disbelief put me on
the defensive. “Okay, so I yelled at him, but not very
often.”
  Squilyp folded his membranes. “Cherijo, I’ve served
beside you for more than a year. You are, without a
doubt, the most gifted and competent surgeon I’ve ever
worked with.”
  I arched a brow. “High praise.”
   “You are also short-tempered, demanding, and
extremely hard to measure up to. That I can also attest to
from personal exposure.”
   I scowled. “It isn’t a competition. As for you, you
know exactly how good you are, so don’t hand me that
‘I-don’t-measure-up’ waste.”
   “I measure up. Vlaav doesn’t think he will,” Squilyp
said. “As far as skill goes, it’s always a competition.
You’ve simply never been in a position to worry about
your own competency. You were the best surgeon in your
training facility on Terra, correct?”
  “Yes.”
  “And you became the best surgeon on K-2 as well?”
  I glared. “Yes.”
  “I can tell you, you were the best surgeon on the
Sunlace. You’ve always known you’d be the best,
wherever you go. You’re the epitome of confidence.”
   I threw up my hands. “But that’s part of the job! How
else are we going to have the nerve to cut people open and
rearrange their insides on a daily basis?”
   “Perhaps you’re right. I don’t know how else one can
be a surgeon. I’ll tell you what I do know: That young
Saksonan will never be half the surgeon you are.”
  “Of course he won’t!” I yelled. “He won’t train with
me!”
   “If there’s ever a chance of him coming close, he can’t
train with you. Did you know he’s gone without adequate
sleep intervals for weeks, studying your methods, trying to
emulate your techniques?”
  I had noticed how tired Vlaav had been acting lately.
Residency demanded a lot. Still, I would never have
guessed he was losing sleep, trying to please me. Trying
to imitate me. “Okay, maybe I’ve been a little too hard on
him.”
  “A little?”
   “I’ve praised him, too. A few times.” I rubbed the back
of my neck, feeling sheepish. “Not enough, apparently.”
   “He is losing confidence in himself, Cherijo. I think
he’s afraid of going back on the simulator. He puts it off,
says he can’t clear his thoughts. He must be constantly
second-guessing himself.”
   A luxury a surgeon never had time to indulge. “Squilyp,
I honestly didn’t know it was that bad.” And all my fault.
Like everything else.
   Squilyp accurately read my expression. “It’s not your
fault. He didn’t air his concerns, and I know how busy
you are. Vlaav admitted he couldn’t bring himself to ask
you about the transfer. The boy idolizes you.”
   Or was scared to death of me. That didn’t make me
feel better. It made me feel like Joseph Grey Veil. “Not
much of a role model for him, am I?”
   “Let me work with him for now. When he’s got his
focus and confidence back—”
    “No. You take over his residency from here on out.
It’s for the best.” I felt like banging my head against the
nearest hull panel. “You can use the extra hands, anyway.”
  “Have you talked to Reever yet?”
  “No.” I picked up my sojourn pack. “Don’t go behind
my back and tell him, either.”
  “I may not have to. The man is a telepath, Cherijo.”
   “I’m not telling him now.” I held up a hand when he
would have argued the point. “Stay out of this, Squilyp.
It’s personal.”
   The ship suddenly lurched, and shuddered. We
grabbed each other to keep from falling on our faces. The
ship slowly restabilized, and the Omorr hopped over to
the room console and signaled the helm.
  “Are we under attack?”
   “No, Senior Healer. We passed through a small meteor
swarm, but sustained no significant damage. Jorenian
alloys are impervious to such bombardment.” The ship’s
Operational Officer glanced at me. “We were able to
shield the Truman, but I regret to report the Perpetua was
not as fortunate.”



   I shuttled over to the now-crippled Perpetua, which
looked like it had been put through a molecular sieve. I
went directly to Medical, and walked into total chaos.
Patients were yelling, nurses were shouting, and orderlies
were running back and forth fetching supplies.
   I put two fingers in my mouth and whistled to get
everyone’s attention. The room fell silent. “Triage nurses,
report.”
   Three of my nurses came over and delivered the stats
on the injured. Most of the crew members had reported in
with only minor assorted lacerations and fractures, but at
least a dozen were going to require surgery.
   I got on the console and signaled the Sunlace.
“Squilyp, I’m going to need a full med-support team over
here. You and Vlaav, too, if you can be spared.”
  “We will shuttle over and be there in a few minutes.”
  A nurse appeared at my side. “Doctor, we’ve got a
complicated spinal injury over here you’d better look at.”
   “On my way.” I pulled on some gloves. “Surgical
team, prep and ready! Two minutes!”
   My spinal injury case turned out to be three broken
vertebra compressing the patient’s convoluted spinal
cord, according to my first scan.
   “Fifty cc’s of prednisyone,” I said, and performed a
second pass. “Looks like we’ve got three fractures
between C-eighteen to T-fourteen in the cervical.”
   The patient was unconscious, so I had to rouse her.
She was one of the Tingaleans we’d rescued from
Catopsa, and strongly resembled a large snake with six
pairs of stunted limblets.
   “Can you hear me?” I glanced at the nurse. “What’s
her name?”
  “GySikk.”
   “GySikk,” I said, and patted her leathery cheek. Slowly
her triple-lidded eyes opened. “You’ve had an injury to
your spine. I’m going to probe your abdomen and lower
body now. I want you to tell me if you can feel it touching
you.”
   “Yes.” She was slurring her words, but that was normal
for a Tingalean.
   By probing, I determined that GySikk’s legs and a third
of her trunk were paralyzed. She had trouble keeping her
second eyelids from drooping, too.
    “Upper ten limblets reactive, lower two nonreactive. All
webbing nonreactive to probe.” Another scan showed the
tissue around the fractured vertebra was swelling, despite
the corticosteroid drugs we’d administered. “Set her up
and wheel her into room one. She’ll be my first.” I leaned
over and put a hand on the Tingalean’s triangular brow
ridge. “GySikk, I’m going to operate on your spine, to
relieve the pressure and repair the broken vertebra.”
   GySikk tried to look down at her body, but the
restraints strapping her to the spinal support board didn’t
allow her to lift her head. “Will I… be paralyzed?”
   “No. Your spinal cord is intact.” I smiled down at her.
“Just relax and let us take care of you now.” I waited and
watched her vitals until the sedation kicked in, then went
to the cleanser to scrub.
  The assisting nurse popped up beside me. “Doctor,
what about her blood?”
  I thrust my hands into fresh gloves. “What about it?”
  “It’s extremely poisonous. Lethal upon skin contact.”
   I nodded and put on another pair of gloves over the
first. “Analyze a sample and set up the whole blood
synthesizer to duplicate it. And don’t spill any on
yourself.”
   Squilyp came in with Vlaav and a team of Jorenians just
as I headed for surgical suite one.
   “I’ve got a spinal cord compression I’ve got to work
first,” I called over to him. “I’ll be an hour, maybe two.”
   He nodded. “I’ll take the next one. Vlaav and Adaola
will cover triage. Go.”
   I kept my hands up and backed into the surgical suite.
The team had the Tingalean rolled over and her back
prepped and sterilized.
   “Everyone in double gloves and full face visors? Good,
let’s get moving.” I powered up the laser rig and
positioned it over the upper half of the snake-woman’s
body. “Okay, GySikk. Let’s see if we can’t get you back
up on your belly.”



   The spinal procedure went smoothly, and I was able to
repair the fractures and relieve the pressure on the
patient’s cord. If all went well with her post-op recovery,
GySikk would be slithering around the ship again in no
time.
   When I finally got a chance to access a console, I
tracked my husband down in Engineering. He was too
busy to talk, though. Once we finished treating the injured
and performed post-op rounds, I went down there to find
out how bad the situation was.
   Reever was working three consoles, accessing ship
schematics on one, consulting with the Senior Engineer on
the second, and receiving updates from work crews on
the third.
  When there was a brief lull in the madness, I leaned
over and kissed his cheek. “Captain. You’re earning your
paycheck today.”
   “I do not receive compensation for my position.” He
glanced at me. “You should be in Medical on the Sunlace
.”
  “What can I say? I got bored.” I sat down beside him
and studied the latest transmission of repair estimates.
“Whoa. Looks like the ship got slammed pretty good.”
   “The hull could be restored, if we had engines to get to
a more advanced system. We don’t. Damage from the
residual debris is our primary concern at the moment.” He
accessed one console, and brought up an interior view of
the stardrive section, which was deserted. “The drive
initiators are offline, main fuel cells have ruptured, and
radiation levels are climbing.”
  Radiation was never a good thing. “Can you get
anyone in there to purge the cells?”
   “No, the exposure would kill them in a few minutes.
It’s not coming from the cells, but from radioactive
fragments lodged in that section of the ship. Even if we
had propulsion and could land safely on Te Abanor, it
would take weeks, possibly months to remove all the
debris.”
   I doubted the Meridae would want us to expose them
to that much radiation. “Can the Lok-Teel help us out?”
   “They would try. Unfortunately, the radiation would
prove fatal to them as well.”
   I gnawed at my lower lip. “So basically the ship is
unfixable.”
   “For want of a better word, yes.” Reever sat back in
his chair and rubbed his eyes.
   “We can transport everyone over to the Sunlace
temporarily.” I looked at the upper deck, mentally tallying
the number of former slaves and crew members left on
board. “It would be cramped for a while, but the Torins
will be glad to help us out.”
  “There is another possibility.” He steepled his fingers.
“We can inspect the Truman, and see if it will serve our
needs.”
   “Bad idea. Knowing Joe, he’s got it rigged to send a
signal beacon to the nearest mercenary base the minute we
step on board.”
   “You know we have already performed several scans,
and found no weapons, beacons, or explosive devices on
the ship. The computers remain offline and can be fully
reinitialized. It appears harmless.”
   “Yeah, that bowl of porridge is just right.” His
expression didn’t change, and I rolled my eyes. “Another
joke I’ll have to explain to you someday, Goldilocks.”
   “Since the Meridae’s native resources were
incompatible with the Sunlace’s power core and dietary
needs, the Jorenians are presently running low on both fuel
and supplies now. They can’t sustain the additional
demand of extra passengers on their equipment for longer
than a few days. The only other alternative would be to
strand us on Te Abanor while the Sunlace replenishes
their supplies at the nearest non-League planet. That
would be BiTned, which is more than three weeks away.”
   Three weeks marooned on a planet with little oxygen,
animal flesh for food, and dwellings sculpted from fecal
matter. “Okay, we take a look at Joe’s gift horse.”
  “I think that would be best.”
   “Just you and me, though,” I said. “There’s no reason
to risk anyone else until we know it’s safe.”
  “It will take several days to inspect the vessel.”
  “So we’ll evacuate everyone to the Sunlace, then pack
some clothes and take Jenner with us.”



   While I assembled what we’d need for the trip in our
quarters, Reever sent a signal to the Sunlace and made
arrangements with Xonea for the evacuation, then notified
the crew. Squilyp agreed to supervise the medevac and
cover the patients while Reever and I took care of
checking out the Truman.
   I checked on Alunthri, who thankfully had been
working on the Sunlace when the meteor swarm hit, and
made sure it hadn’t been injured. “I am well, Cherijo.”
After I told it what we were going to do, it added, “I hope
you and Duncan will be careful. Your creator is a devious
individual.”
  “Don’t worry. If I see so much as a recording drone
hovering around us, I’m setting the ship on self-destruct.”
   I ended the signal and started to pack. Fifteen pounds
of silver-furred Tibetan temple cat jumped up, then
sprawled out beside my case on the sleeping platform.
Indignant blue eyes inspected me with mild hostility. I
could guess what he was thinking.
  You left me again. Alone with that blond guy who
never pets me and those disgusting blobs.
  “Hey, pal.” I gave him a thorough scratching around
both ears and under his chin. “Miss me?”
   Please. He yawned and closed his eyes. I have a full
schedule of naps to take.
    “I’ll bet.” I finished folding my garments, then went to
Reever’s side of the storage container. It still felt odd,
handling his clothes, picking up his grooming items. The
intimacies of married life. “How would you like to take a
little trip?”
  Jenner’s head lifted, and his whiskers twitched.
   About as much as I like getting wet. One of the
Lok-Teel flowed past him, and he gave it a single,
disdainful sniff. And these things.
   I saved bringing out the animal carrier for last. By now
Jenner knew exactly what it meant when that appeared.
Fortunately for me, he’d gotten too fat and lazy to run
very far or fast.
   I caught him and carried his struggling body over to the
platform. “Come on, come on, you know the drill.”
   I put a handful of dry mackerel treats in the carrier to
placate him. He immediately kicked them out through the
vent slots and yowled.
  Do you really think you can bribe me?
  “I tried.”
   I met Reever in the nearly empty launch bay, and
handed him the garment case as I climbed in the shuttle
with Jenner. Strapping the carrier in only made my poor
pet’s yowls get louder.
   “You are injured.” Reever took my hands and extended
them.
    “Just a couple of scratches. Jenner doesn’t like taking
trips.”
   He eyed my darling feline. “I will never understand your
attachment to that irate creature.”
  “You love me,” I pointed out.
  “You do not scratch me when I transport you.”
   “I don’t? You sure have a short memory.” I patted his
back in a particular place. “Everyone get off the ship all
right?”
   “Yes.” He went to the helm, and initiated the flight
shield. “Come and sit with me.”
   Normally I would have sat beside Jenner and tried
without success to soothe his shattered nerves, but I had
the feeling Reever wanted to talk about the baby. I’d been
successfully avoiding the subject since the miscarriage.
But it wasn’t just my baby, and I was sure he needed to
vent.
  Don’t think. Don’t talk. Just listen.
  Slowly I went up and strapped myself in beside him. I
also put up the mental walls that would keep my husband
from accessing all my thoughts. I’d been doing that since
the miscarriage, too.
   We flew out of the launch bay and into space before he
said anything. “I regret the loss of our child, Cherijo.”
   I stared through the view screen at the looming outlines
of the Truman. Squilyp was right, I did have an obligation
to tell him. “Duncan, how would you feel if we could
never have any more kids?”
   “I have you,” he said, as if that was all that mattered.
“We made this child. We will make other children
together.”
   For once I hated the fact I was female, and I had the
uterus. “What if I can’t? What if I can’t and you find out
I’m not enough?”
   I knew how difficult it was for Reever to express
himself emotionally. So it didn’t surprise me that the
words that came from him were slow, and drawn from a
place he was still getting acquainted with.
  “Cherijo, I have never loved anyone in my life before
you. It was not my choice to experience these emotions,
but I have them. I have come to know them very well.”
   “If it’s any comfort,” I said, feeling slightly miffed, “I
didn’t want to fall in love with you, either.”
   “So you understand how I feel. I had greatly
anticipated the birth of our daughter, and I deeply regret
her loss. But your concerns are unnecessary. We are both
young and healthy. There will be other children. I look
forward to them.”
  We were approaching the docking entrance for the
Truman’s launch bay, which was a good thing—I was
about ready to burst into tears and ruin everything.
   Not now.
   “Okay.” I wiped my eyes quickly and straightened my
tunic. “We’d better get up to Command and take a look at
Operations first.” Something strange shimmered in front
of the launch bay. “What’s that weird glow out there?”
  “It is produced by the vessel’s flightshield. The League
apparently recently developed technology that would
maintain it continuously.”
  I didn’t know much about flightshields, only that they
encased a ship in a bubble of power that allowed them to
jump to light-speed and slip in between space. Then
something he’d said registered. “Apparently? You mean
you’re not sure?”
   “The ship is unlike any the League has produced thus
far, and represents a considerable advance in star vessel
construction. Xonea’s engineers inform me they will have
to disassemble the ship itself in order to ascertain the
exact design specifications.”
  I was all for chopping it into pieces. Maybe they’d let
me watch. “Is it going to let us dock?”
   “Yes. We sent a probe and an unmanned launch
through first.” Without hesitation, Reever flew right
through the yellow glow and into the bay. He scanned the
exterior compartment and performed the routine decon
procedures before opening the hull doors. Before I could
disembark, he took me in his arms.
  “Tell me you love me.”
  That surprised me. He never asked. “I love you,
Duncan.”
  “I will not let you go, beloved.”
  I felt terrible. Guilty as sin. Because I was going to hold
him to that promise.



   The Truman was evidently the latest and finest
development in star vessels that Terra had to offer—only
the best for my creator, of course—and its dimensions
made it roughly about half the size of the Perpetua.
  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cleaner ship,” I said as
we walked down one sterile, empty corridor. The
Lok-Teel Reever had sitting on his shoulder was going to
have a rough time finding something to eat. “Or a more
boring-looking one.”
   “You are spoiled by the Jorenians’ penchant for vivid
decor,” my husband said as he swept the level ahead of us
with a proximity scanner. “Gray is perfectly acceptable as
an interior color scheme.”
  “They could have used more than one shade of it.” I
sniffed the air. All star vessels had a particular odor. The
Sunlace smelled vaguely floral. The Perpetua still reeked
faintly of pulse weapon discharge.
   But this hulk didn’t smell like anything. Pure oxygen
had more of an aroma to it. It was making me really
nervous. Could it be that new?
  What’s wrong with this thing?
  Jenner’s yowl from inside the carrier got my attention.
“Do you think it’s okay if I turn him loose now?”
   He’d already put down the Lok-Teel, which started
climbing up the nearest wall panel, searching in vain for
some dirt to eat. “Yes, let him out. He may detect
something I cannot.”
   “Hey.” I glared at my husband before I bent down to
release the carrier door. “He’s not a bloodhound, okay?”
   On one of the other ships, Jenner normally would have
taken off like a shot. Instead, he sniffed once, then arched
his back. Fur bristled. He hissed and tried to climb up the
side of my leg.
   I’d seen him do it before. “Joe must have been on
board sometime before he sent it from Terra. Jenner only
acts like this around him.” I picked up my pet and winced
as he dug his claws into my shoulder and chest and
slammed his head against my chin, over and over. “It’s
okay, pal. If nasty old Dr. Grey Veil shows up, Duncan
will shoot him in the head.”
  Reever reached for a hatch panel. “And if I don’t?”
  I took out the syrinpress I’d taken to carrying in my
pocket since leaving Catopsa. It pays to be overly prudent
where Joe’s concerned. “Then I poison him.”
   The panel opened to a cross section, and Reever made
a slow sweep with the scanner, from right to left. He
stopped about halfway into the left region and held the
scanner steady. Before I stepped over the threshold, the
sound of footsteps made both of us freeze.
   “Who’s that?” I whispered, pressing myself up against
a corridor wall.
  “It does not show as a life-form on the scanner.”
Reever activated his weapon. “Don’t move.”
  “I don’t plan to.”
   The heavy thuds got closer. Reever hid just around the
edge of the hatch opening, waiting, ready to shoot
whatever stepped through. I held my breath. Jenner hid his
face against my neck.
  “Life-forms detected.”
   A small, bipedal drone stepped through the hatch and
halted between me and Reever. It was about half my size,
encased in bright alloy, and had innumerable sensors
paving its upper chassis. Vid receptors scanned me, then
Jenner, then Reever.
  “Welcome to the Truman,” it said politely.
“Maintenance Unit Nine-Six-One. programmed to assist,
How may I serve you?”
  “God.” I slumped against the wall and put Jenner
down. Now he took off like a shot—away from
Nine-Six-One.
   Reever scanned the little drone, then powered down his
weapon. “Nine-Six-One, are you programmed to commit
harm to any life-forms?”
  “Negative.”
   “That’s not good enough,” I said. There were all kinds
of things this drone could do to us that would not be
considered harmful to any life-form, and would still
incapacitate us.
   Reever nodded. “Nine-Six-One, state your program
parameters.”
   “Caution. Fulfilling this directive will take
approximately one hundred, twenty-seven minutes. Digest
response is recommended.”
   “Please, pick the digest response,” I told Reever. I
didn’t want to stand there listening to the damn thing for
two hours.
   My husband addressed the drone again. “Delay digest
response for one quarter stanhour. Escort us to the helm.”
  The drone made an abrupt about-face. “Please follow
me.”
   The helm was in the very center of the vessel, behind a
series of protective grids and multiple reinforced
corridors.
  “Why all the security?” I asked Reever as the drone
deactivated yet another bioelectrical grid.
   “Control of this vessel was very important to whoever
designed it.”
   Control. As in who was in. “That doesn’t sound very
reassuring.”
   “Considering Hsktskt ship-to-ship technology, and the
prospect of impending war with the Faction, it is likely a
mandatory and standard design application for all new
League vessels.”
   I wasn’t quite so analytical. “Joe probably has it set up
so it can be controlled from a remote ship. That’s the only
reason he’d allow that kind of safeguard—if he had a
back door in.”
  “You are too suspicious.”
  I scoffed. “Spend a few years being chased by Joseph
Grey Veil, then come talk to me about my paranoia.”
   The Command Center was compact and efficient, and
acted as the brain for the entire vessel. Controls over all
levels and systems were at our fingertips. Only the main
computer was offline, waiting to be reinitialized.
   Reever sat down at the console, but before he touched
the keypad, 1 grabbed his hand.
  I had the strongest urge to pull him away from the
controls and run all the way back to the launch. “What if
you reboot this thing and it decides to fly straight back to
Terra?”
   “The Jorenians have already downloaded the entire
mainframe computer core via the probe we sent in, and
have extensively examined the data. There is nothing in it
that presents a danger to us.”
  “What if they missed something?”
  He squeezed my hand. “Then I will be able to see
where you grew up.”
  “Very funny.”
  Reever tapped out the required codes, and an image
popped up on the vid screen. It was my creator, Joseph
Grey Veil.
  “Hello, Cherijo.”
  “Damn, I knew it!” I slapped the console with my
hand. “He can’t even give me a present without spoiling
it.”
   Joe smiled. “As you know by now, my daughter, there
is nothing that will harm you on this ship.”
  “You lie like a floor covering,” I told the image. “And
don’t call me your daughter.”
  “It is prerecorded, Cherijo,” Reever said.
  “I don’t care. He still doesn’t get to call me his
daughter.”
   Joseph continued. “The Truman is the latest and
fastest of the new scout ships being designed and built on
Terra. There are sufficient supplies and living areas to
accommodate you and a maximum of two hundred
additional crew members. I hope you and your friends will
use it to attain the freedom you seek.”
  “He’s being too nice,” I said, stepping away from the
console. “There’s definitely a bomb on this ship, or
something.”
   He wasn’t done, either. “I have taken the liberty of
entering a special signal relay program into the mainframe
system.” The code appeared briefly below his image. “If
you are ever in need of assistance, access the
communications array, input this code and a direct relay
will be sent to me here on Terra.”
  He still expected me to come running to him for help.
After everything he’d done to me. The man’s ego knew
no bounds. “When pigs fly.”
  “Good luck, my dear.” The image vanished.
  I wasn’t his dear anything. I turned away from the
console, feeling the familiar outrage building inside my
chest. “Erase whatever code he put in the computer,
Reever.”
  “Cherijo—”
  “Do it. Now.”


             CHAPTER THREE
                                                «^»
                 Endamaged
Reever had to reinitialize the computers before he could
locate and erase the code. I stood there watching until he
did. Then he listened to the drone spout a lot of
programming directives, while I paced along the length of
the helm and brooded.
   “I’m hungry, Reever,” I lied. “Let’s go see what kind
of food this heap has to offer.” A couple of weeks on Te
Abanor with the bat people were starting to look pretty
good to me.
  The little drone thumped over and put itself in my path.
“May I escort you to the galley?”
  “Go jump out an air lock,” I said.
   Nine-Six-One started to head for the entrance panel,
when Reever stopped it and canceled my directive. When
I glared at him, he merely raised one blond eyebrow at me.
  “We can use the drones,” he said, taking my arm.
“And a meal interval would be welcome.”
   “When did you get to be so nice?” I said as he guided
me out into the corridor. “I don’t remember you being
this nice on Catopsa. Or the Sunlace. Or K-2.”
   He paused to remove the Lok-Teel from the wall panel
and put it back on his shoulder. “Would you prefer I
return to my previous persona?”
  “Which one?”
   “You accused me of having many. Corrupt, evil,
traitorous, oblivious, inhuman—”
   Anyone else would have thought he was serious. But
I’d been with him long enough to recognize Duncan’s
personal version of humor. “Cute. Very cute. No, you can
stick with being nice. I suppose I’ll get used to it
eventually.”
  “It may even influence your own personality.”
   “Ouch. That was a low blow, darling.” I pretended to
clutch my abdomen. Then I went still, thinking of the
miscarriage. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to— Sorry.”
  The little drone led us to the galley level, and went into
some rambling dissertation about the functions of the prep
units. I nudged it aside and started dialing.
   “What are you hungry for?” I asked Reever over my
shoulder, deliberately forcing a cheerful note into my
voice. “And don’t pick anything from that third planet in
the Tupko system. I can’t handle food that talks back to
me.”
   “A simple vegetarian dish will suffice.”
   The program produced two reasonably attractive
Tuscan salads, along with Jorenian morningbread and two
servers of mint tea. I checked everything first with a
scanner before I let Reever touch a single crumb, but
found no trace toxins.
   “He had to rig something on this ship. He’s not
capable of simple decent human behavior.” I cautiously
tasted my tea. It was on the weak side; I’d have to fiddle
with the unit’s preparation submenu algorithms later. “If
not the drones, the computer, or the food supplies, then
what else could he have sabotaged?”
   “Perhaps he truly meant what he said. He wanted you
to attain freedom from the Hsktskt and the League.”
    I gave him an “oh, please” look as I fed the Lok-Teel a
crust. The blob enveloped the scrap of bread and ingested
it immediately.
   “People are capable of changing, Cherijo.” He gave me
a slight smile—something he’d been working on,
practicing in the mirror for months. “You changed me.”
   “You never told me what you were like before I met
you, so I can’t exactly judge.” I sampled the salad. Not
bad. “Joe hasn’t changed. He’s just trying a new angle,
like the good little mad scientist he is.”
  “Do you want to know what my life was like before I
met you?”
   It would keep me from having to come up with dinner
conversation. After that thoughtless remark I’d made
before, I was all for that. “Sure.”
  “When I was a child, traveling with my parents, I often
considered suicide.”
   I spilled my tea, and the Lok-Teel oozed over to mop it
up. “What?”
   Duncan calmly picked up his server and took a sip. “It
seemed a logical solution. My experiences were for the
most part unpleasant, mentally and physically.”
  “Okay.” He was serious. “What changed your mind?”
   “Establishing telepathic links with other species.
Sometimes their emotions filtered through. They were all
different, and often confusing. Only one thing did they all
seem to have in common. A desire to love, and to be
loved. I didn’t understand it, until I met you.”
  “This is the part I don’t get. What’s so special about
me? Other than the fact I’m a genetic construct being
hunted by everyone on this side of the galaxy.”
   “I wasn’t sure myself at first. You are physically
attractive for a Terran, I suppose—”
  I sat back in my chair. “You suppose!”
   “And you are a skilled physician and surgeon. But it
was more than that. I have spent most of my adult life
living among and communicating with thousands of other
species. Yet all I had to do was see you, hear your voice,
and I knew I had encountered someone more unique than
any life-form I’ve ever known.”
  I was still burning over that he-supposed part. “And
you got this from just seeing me at the Trading Center on
K-2?”
   “It was not limited to that. I watched you. I could feel
the emotions emanating from you, more clearly than
anyone I’d ever met before. You immerse yourself in what
you do for others. Yet you rarely if ever give a thought to
what will benefit you personally.”
   I shifted, uncomfortable with the picture he was
painting of me. “Don’t make me out to be a saint,
Duncan. I’m not.”
   “No. You are completely dedicated to your work. You
devote yourself to healing the sick and the injured, no
matter who they are or what they have done to you, when
others would simply let them die.”
   I thought of SrrokVar, the Hsktskt physician who had
tortured me and dozens of other slaves on Catopsa as
part of his research into xenobiology. I’d mutilated and
nearly killed him with a pair of bonesetters. “Not always.”
  “You fight for freedom, for yourself and others like
you. Alunthri, the slaves on Catopsa. Even a Hsktskt
OverSeer.”
   I didn’t want to think about FurreVa. After fighting so
hard to give her a normal face and learning to become
friends in spite of our differences, losing her had been
agonizing.
   “That’s just doing the right thing,” I said. “Any decent
person tries to live their life like that.”
   “Then decent persons are rarities indeed, for you are
the only one I know.”
  “I keep telling you, you need to get out more.”
   He reached for my hand, and the light fell on the terrible
scars crisscrossing the back of his. “All of this drew me
to you, but when we linked for the first time, I felt your
emotions through you, as if they were my own. I began to
understand how empty my life was. How meaningless it
had always been, until I met you. I had finally found the
reason to live.”
  “So, that’s when you fell in love with me?”
  He shook his head. “No. That was when I decided I
was going to have you as my mate.”
   I made a face at him. “And love just happened to get in
the way later?”
  “I knew I loved you the day you limped into the
medical bay on the Sunlace, your hands broken and torn,
your leg bleeding from an open artery. And still you went
over to the cleansing unit to scrub for surgery.”
   That seemed a pretty gruesome moment to pick.
“What, the sight of all those compound fractures and
third-degree burns dragged you completely under my
spell?”
   “No.” He looked away for a moment. “Before I came
to Medical, I had been told a Healer had been blown out
into space when the buffer on level seven reformed. I
thought it was you.” He paused. “A few minutes later I
came to Medical and saw you there. Alive.”
   He’d never told me that. “God, Duncan.” I started to
shake as I remembered that day. That moment. The same
moment I’d finished reading the list of the injured and
dead, and hadn’t found his name on it. The exact moment
I’d realized I’d fallen in love with him. “You know, on the
cosmic scale of coincidences, this one blows everything
away.”
   His eyes narrowed as he looked at me. “You felt the
same? At the same time?” I nodded. “Then it is simple,
isn’t it? We were meant to be together.”
  “I suppose.” When he frowned, I winked at him.
“Gotcha back.”



   I found the quarters Joe had prepared for me about an
hour after we finished our meal. Reever gave me a
proximity scanner and a pistol, the latter of which I
promptly returned to him.
  “If there are hostile life-forms on board—”
    “Then you get to shoot them,” I finished for him. “And
if you do shoot them, make sure you don’t hit anything
important. Otherwise, you get to assist me in surgery
again.”
  He pocketed the weapon. “I will go with you.”
   “You will go work on the computers while I take a look
around,” I said in a firm, don’t-argue-with-me tone. “I’ll
take the drone with me. Nine-Six-whatever your name is,
you’ll protect me, right?”
  The little drone immediately stepped between me and
Reever. “Affirmative. Safeguard function activated. Step
away from the doctor, Captain.”
   I grinned. “You know, this little guy is starting to grow
on me.”
  Nine-Six-One dutifully protected my body and led the
way as we walked through the Truman’s sixteen levels.
  “Where’s Medical located?”
  “Medical is located on level sixteen.”
   Bottom of the ship. We were only on level eight. It
figured.
   When we passed through the two levels of crew
quarters, the little drone stopped in front of one chamber
located at the end of the last corridor.
   “Notification. Dr. Joseph Grey Veil assigned this
compartment to you, Dr. Torin. Would you care to
inspect the rooms?”
  “Not really. What’s in there?”
   The drone had to process that for a minute. “Contents
of compartment C-l, food preparation unit, entertainment
unit, communications console, personal computer terminal
console, utility storage unit, garment storage unit, sleeping
platform, lavatory—”
   “Discontinue inventory. I get the idea.” I looked at the
closed panel again. “Is there anything in there that will
harm or incapacitate me?”
    “No such item is listed on the compartment inventory
file, Dr. Torin.”
    Okay, so maybe I was a little curious. “You go in
first.”
  Nine-Six-One directed a sensor stalk at the access
panel, and the door panel slid silently open. He walked in,
and after a moment, so did I.
   I don’t know what I expected to see—maybe
something sterile and utilitarian—but certainly not my old
room back at The Grey Veils, the family mansion on
Terra.
   “God, this is… creepy.” I walked around, still in a state
of total disbelief. Everything was there—my Parrish prints,
my personal entertainment unit, my collection of archaic
jazz discs, even the clothes I’d left behind, hanging in the
garment unit.
   I went over to a shelf where I had photoscans of
Maggie and me when I was little. I picked one particular
frame up and turned it over. I’d dropped the original a few
years ago, and nicked the back of the case. There was no
scratch on this one.
   So he’d hung on to the originals and duplicated
everything. But why? Joe didn’t make sentimental
gestures. He didn’t do anything without a specific reason.
Especially where I was concerned.
  Why had the drone told me about this room?
“Nine-Six-One, were you programmed by Joseph Grey
Veil?”
  “Negative.”
  “Well, then who programmed you?”
  “Full programming was scripted by Willa Cline
Industries, auto-format download unit—”
   “Never mind.” I went over to the utility unit and opened
a door. My old medical case sat inside. Along with a pair
of boots I’d forgotten to sterilize. There was still Terran
soil caked in the treads.
  It’s not the same. It’s simulated. The real boots are
back on Terra. So is Joseph.
   “Cherijo.”
   I jumped, swiveled around, and yelled. “Will you stop
doing that!”
   My husband stood in the open doorway, and didn’t
look a bit sorry for scaring ten years off my life. “These
quarters are already occupied?”
   “Yeah. By me. Back on Terra.” I swung my hand
around. “Joe replicated everything that was in my old
room.”
   He studied the stark, colorless decor that had been the
latest trend three years ago. “It is not very appealing.”
   Three years ago.
   “He hasn’t changed a thing since I left. I just realized
that. Joe has the entire mansion redecorated every six
months, and yet this room hasn’t been altered in the
slightest degree. There’s even a copy of a pair of old
muddy boots I left behind.” I didn’t know whether to be
amused, or sick. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not sleeping here
tonight.” Or ever. “How are things going with the
computers?”
   “It will take several hours for the core to ascertain there
are no errors from initialization.” Reever held out his hand.
“Come with me. I want to show you something.”
  He took me down another eight levels, to sixteen,
where Medical was supposed to be located.
  Level sixteen was Medical. The entire deck was one
huge medical treatment facility.
   “Only the best for Cherijo,” I muttered under my breath
as I walked around. “Look at all this stuff, Reever.
Diagnostic simulators, full medsysbank array, multispecies
drug and plasma synthesizers, and if I’m not mistaken”—I
opened a panel and looked into what had to be the most
advanced surgical suite I’d ever seen—“yeah, there it is.
My own personal paradise.”
  Jenner padded in, and planted himself next to my ankle.
Absently I picked him up and started stroking him.
   Reever was busy fiddling with the database. “Your
creator knows you very well.”
   I closed the panel without going in. “My creator
doesn’t know that I’d trade all this fancy tech in a
heartbeat for a chance to be a FreeClinic trauma physician
again.”
  That seemed to surprise him. “You would return to
Kevarzangia Two?”
   “If it wouldn’t put the colony in danger, yeah, I
would.” I picked up a new style of syrinpress I’d never
seen before. “No chance of that, I’m afraid.”
   A signal came in over the main console, and Reever
acknowledged it.
   It was Xonea. “ClanBrother, ClanSister, we are reading
some minor fluctuations in the flightshield surrounding the
Truman. Are you experiencing any power loss within the
vessel?”
  “No, Xonea.” Reever frowned. “Have you located the
source of the fluctuations?”
   “It appears to be coming from the stardrive. It would
be best to run a simulation on it before we transfer your
passengers.” The screen went blank for a moment, then
Xonea’s face reappeared. Suddenly he wasn’t smiling
anymore. “Our signal is being jammed. We are reading
multiple vessels closing—
   The console went dead. Something smashed into the
side of the Truman, sending me, Jenner, and Reever
sprawling on the deck.



   We ran back to the helm, and found our three ships
were surrounded by a horde of star vessels in attack
formation. No one was firing on anyone, from what we
saw on the viewer, but the Perpetua was spinning out of
control, showing huge, new gaps in its hull.
  They wanted to be sure we couldn’t use it.
  “Thank God we got everyone off,” I said as I went to
the communications station and secured Jenner in a
storage compartment next to the unit. He didn’t like that,
naturally, but he’d have to yowl for now. “Truman to the
Sunlace. Xonea, what’s your status?”
   His signal came in, audio only. “We have sustained
damage to the Command control and ship’s Operational,
along with minor casualties on four levels. Are you and
Reever unharmed?”
   “Yes.” I looked at the viewer. “Where did all those
ships come from?”
   “We do not know. Even now they do not appear on
our scanners. Salo speculates they are using some form of
energy shunt to conceal their ships and stardrive
functions.”
  That was when our attackers overrode both our signals,
and took control of communications.
  “League Scout Ship Truman. Is Dr. Cherijo Grey Veil
on board?”
   I wasn’t going to let them fire on my family again. “I’m
here, you bastards.”
  “You are ordered to stand down and prepare to be
boarded.”
  “By whose authority?” Reever asked.
  “By the authority of—”
  Suddenly the Sunlace was firing on the biggest ship,
and I was pounding on the console. “Xonea! No!”
   The mercenaries returned fire, and we had to sit there
helplessly and watch as two more levels sustained heavy
damage.
   “Truman. We will suspend the communications block
for sixty seconds. You will advise your allies to stand
down at once, or we will destroy all your vessels and the
colony on the planet you orbit.”
   My hands started to shake. There was no way the
Meridae could defend themselves against that many ships.
When I looked at Reever, he nodded. I pressed the
console keypad again. “Xonea. Listen to me. We can’t
fight them.” I relayed the mercenary’s threats, then added,
“I invoke my Speaking.”
  There was a brief silence, then Xonea acknowledged in
a voice as cold as death, “As you wish, ClanSister.”
   I shut down the signal, then opened one to the
mercenaries. “This is Dr. Cherijo Torin. I surrender.
Come and get me.” I shut down communications and
turned to Reever. “Don’t look at me like that. Go down to
the launch bay and take the shuttle back to the Sunlace.” I
opened the storage compartment and took my disgruntled
pet out. “Take Jenner with you.”
   He only shook his head and did something that made
the engines rumble.
  I wasn’t going to lose him or Jenner. Not to
mercenaries, not like this. “Duncan, don’t you dare.”
   “They will pursue us. It will give Xonea time to
transition.” He set coordinates, and powered up the
engines.
  “You really think they’re going to chase us if we run?”
   “You are why they are here. Where you go, they will
follow. Put your harness on.”
   I put Jenner back in the compartment, which got me a
couple of good scratches in the process, then pulled the
rigging over my shoulders. “Don’t warn them. Just do it.”
  “I will, as soon as we’re clear of the planet.”
   For a few minutes Reever successfully dodged a
continuous volley of pulse fire as he maneuvered the
Truman out of orbit and away from the Sunlace and the
Perpetua. As he predicted, the mercenaries followed us. I
started digging my nails into my chair’s arm rests.
   “When did you learn to fly like this?” I asked him as
the ship went into yet another rolling maneuver.
   “When I was on Terra.” He frowned as his fingers
moved rapidly over the flight control panel. “I once
entertained the idea of becoming a transport pilot.”
   The mercenary ships were fanning out, trying to flank
us on both sides. We were still too close to the planet to
initiate the stardrive. “You never told me that.”
  “You never asked.”
   We both were jerked against our rigs as the flanking
ships began firing at us from both sides. There was no
way Reever could dodge the cross fire, so he did
something completely unexpected. He cut the engines
entirely, which made us drop back and under the pursuing
ships.
   “Good move,” I said, peering at the viewer. “Can you
initiate the stardrive from here?” No answer. “Duncan?”
   “I just tried to.” Reever sat back. “Cherijo, there is no
stardrive on this vessel.”
   “What the hell are you talking about? Of course there’s
a stardrive. It’s a star vessel.”
    “No, it’s not.” He calmly unfastened his rigging and
stood up. “I believe the reason for that is about to present
itself.”
   The little drone I’d left down in Medical came through
the helm door panel. “Simulation sequence complete.
Dimensional grid shutdown in progress.”
   I watched with wide eyes as the helm began to slowly
dissolve. Equipment, consoles, even the view screen
vanished. In a panic I grabbed Jenner and hauled him out
of what I thought had been a storage compartment. It
disappeared, too. Soon everything was gone, and we were
left standing in a large, empty compartment lined with
some kind of glowing, yellow mesh.
   I thought of the thoracic training unit, the lack of odors,
and groaned. “I don’t believe it. How could I be so
stupid? It was all a simulation.”
   “Yes.” Reever kicked aside Nine-Six-One, who had
turned into a simple recording device on rollers, also
covered with the glowing mesh. “We should exit this area
now.”
   We went out into the empty corridor. It, too, was lined
with mesh. “The shuttle. We brought the shuttle over from
the Sunlace. That’s real.”
   “I doubt we can reach it. They’re probably on board
by now.”
   He was two for two, I thought, as I heard the
thundering sound of many footsteps running toward us. “I
knew Joe’s present would turn out to be a lemon.”
  Reever turned and caught me in his arms. “Cherijo,
whatever they say or do, don’t fight them.”
  As it turned out, neither of us had a chance to fight
anything. A small panel opened on the corridor wall
beside me, and I turned a few seconds too late.
   “Reever, look out—”
   A bright, hot beam of energy burst over us. I fell to the
floor, my vision already going dark. Just before I lost
consciousness, I felt Reever’s arms close around me.



   “Dr. Grey Veil.”
  The voice was feminine. High-pitched. Cheerful. I
wanted to slug whoever owned it.
   “Can you hear me, Dr. Grey Veil?”
   Certainly I could hear her. There was no way to avoid
that kind of voice, other than puncturing my own
eardrums. It acted like a parietal drill on my skull, drilling
in to meet my huge, throbbing headache.
   “It’s time for you to wake up now.”
   Was she nuts? Some lunatic had beaten me, glued my
eyelashes together, and lined my mouth with
hundred-year-old waste. Every muscle I had felt torn and
abused. Unless I got to return the favor, I wasn’t ever
going to wake up again.
   The Truman. Why aren’t I on the Truman?
   Recalling that made me force my sticky eyelids open. A
smiling Terran female face floated above me, her features
partially obscured by light gleaming off a surgical visor
shield. Or her toothy smile. Either one could have
produced all that mega-shine.
   I could knock a few of those pretty white teeth out, I
thought. See if that helped cut the glare.
   Before I could take a swing, she slid the shield up and
out of the way. “Good, you’re awake. I’m so glad. How
are you feeling?”
   She said that like she meant every word. I spotted the
glittering, brand-new gold insignia on the collar of her
trendy physician’s tunic, and went stiff.
  Oh, God. They’d stuck me with Doctor Sunshine and
Happiness.
   “Don’t be afraid.” She patted me the way she would a
shivering dog. “You’re safe now and doing just fine.”
   Afraid? I was terrified. She was such a rookie, she still
believed it actually mattered what she looked like. I started
yelling—or tried to. “Where am I?”
   My croak made her chipper smile become more
sympathetic. “Poor thing,” she crooned, stroking my
forehead. “Don’t remember a thing, do you?”
   I remembered how to inflict severe head trauma. I took
a deep breath to tell her that, and immediately started
coughing. What was in my lungs? It felt and tasted like
someone had poured laser rig coolant into them.
  “Slow, shallow breaths now. We just took you off the
machine, and you’re still transitioning.”
  I didn’t transition—Jorenian ships did. Was I on one?
  I looked around. Monitors, berth optics, a vitals array.
Medical. I was in some kind of medical facility. Then I
remembered I’d been captured by the League. Apparently
now they were going to start experimenting on me.
  Time to exit the premises.
   She touched my face again with her soft hand. “Please,
don’t try to move or speak, Doctor. You’ve been in sleep
suspension for an entire cycle.”
   “A cycle!” Where was Duncan? And Jenner? I yanked
against my restraints and ignored the scraping sound of
my voice. “Where’s my husband? Where’s my cat?”
They had me strapped down tight. “Let me out of these
things, you stupid twit!”
    That dimmed the smile a few watts. “In due course, I
will.” She picked up a chart and made some notations on
it. Her short, honey-colored hair gleamed as she glanced
over at me. I’m Dr. Lily Risen. Call me Lily. Please, don’t
struggle. I’d hate to have to sedate you again.“
   “Again?” Call-me-Lily hadn’t even run a scan on me
yet. If she really was in charge of me, I was lucky to be
alive. “Where am I?”
   “You’re on board the L.T.F. Stephenson. We’ve just
gone into orbit above Terra. Now, relax and try to stay
calm while I take your vitals.”
  “My vitals are fine. Where is my husband and my cat?”
   She hesitated, then went over to a console and
accessed it. “Linguist Reever and the animal were brought
out of suspension yesterday and have been transferred to
the detainment area.”
  “You put my cat in jail?”
   Doctor Sunshine walked back over to my berth. “Of
course not. Once it was revived, the animal refused to be
separated from Linguist Reever.” She rubbed her forearm,
which I saw was bandaged.
  Jenner really didn’t like strangers handling him. “He’s
got some claws, doesn’t he?”
  She gave me a prim frown. “Yes.”
  That was my boy. “Are they all right?”
   “Yes. We also discovered the most extraordinary form
of mold on the ship—it appears to be ambulatory.”
   Lord, they’d even found the Lok-Teel. “That also
belongs to me. Where is it?”
   “Right over there, in a specimen container. Now, here.”
She leaned over me, holding a syrinpress. “No, don’t be
afraid. I’m going to administer the last corrective to bring
you all the way out of the suspension. It won’t hurt you.”
  “What corrective?”
   “They told me you’d be demanding,” Lily said as she
infused me at the jugular. The sting of the drug spread
through my neck, and made me arch against my bonds
again. “I know it’s a little uncomfortable. But we’ll have
you out of this chamber in a few minutes, and then you
can see your father.” She smiled again, as if expecting me
to sob or cheer or something.
    No one had bothered to brief Dr. Risen about my
relationship with my creator. Which, when I thought about
it, was terrific.
   “My father’s here? On this ship?” When she nodded, I
let my lips curl up on both sides. “That’s great news. I
can’t wait to see him. How about letting me up now?”
  “Sure. Just remember, take it slow and easy.”
  Oh, goody. Nobody had bothered to brief her about
anything.
  She released the straps holding me down. “You’re on
your honor now. Please don’t try to escape. I’d hate to
have to call security.”
  Was there anything she didn’t hate to have to do?
   “I won’t try to escape.” Try, hell, I was going to
escape. I sat up, then pushed myself off the suspension
unit. It took a minute to get my legs steady, so I took the
time to study my surroundings.
   They’d put me in a typical League medical bay. All the
berths were empty, though, and Dr. Risen was the only
med pro in sight. Excellent. One on one was a lot easier
than one on twenty.
   Even better, she’d also neglected to deactivate the
console. She’d have used her password, and she just
might be a Primary. Primary physicians had access to the
entire database. Every bit of information I’d need was
right there, waiting for me.
  Now I just had to get rid of Sunshine.
   I eyed the chart in her hands, then a dermal probe and
syrinpress. All three were easily within my reach.
Decisions, decisions.
  “Are you the Primary here?”
  “Yes. Look at me, please.” She held an optic scanner
up and checked my eyes.
   They were making airheads like her Primaries. Mother
of All Houses. “First assignment, right?”
   “Is it that obvious?” She even laughed pretty. “Yes,
this is my first offworld assignment. Takes some getting
used to, you know, working on a troop freighter, being
around all these nonhumans.”
   “Uh-huh.” There were barely discernible bags under the
makeup she’d blotted around her sparkling brown eyes.
Establish rapport, Cherijo. Lull her into thinking you’re the
Sunshine and Happiness Patient. “Must have been pretty
rough. You look a little tired.”
  “You were a very naughty patient, Doctor.” She
wagged a manicured fingernail at me. “I had to remain
awake for the entire jaunt because of you.”
   The chart. It was closest; the obvious choice. I moved
my hands into position under it and locked my fingers
together. “Why’s that?”
  “Trying to keep you in suspension was really a
challenge. You kept waking up, no matter how much
sedation I—”
   I hit the bottom of the chart as hard as I could with my
joined hands. The edge flew up, smashed into her chin,
and sent her staggering backward. Lily shrieked and
grabbed her face, but by then I had retrieved the
syrinpress, tackled her, and sat on top of her.
    “No!” She sounded funny, and struggled as I calibrated
the instrument for a hefty dose of Valumine, then pressed
it against her jugular. “What are you… ?”
   “Don’t you hate it, Lily, when someone infuses you
with something and they won’t tell you what it is?” I
smiled. “Have a nice nap.”
   I got to my feet as soon as her eyes fluttered shut, and
started stripping her down. Sunshine was a foot taller than
me, so I had to roll under the hems of her sleeves and
cuffs. I put the syrinpress and the dermal probe in the
pockets of her lab coat. On the plus side, she had small
feet, so her footgear almost fit me.
    Once I was dressed, I dragged her over to the berth,
heaved her up on it, and clapped her into the restraints. A
strip torn from the berth linens made an adequate, if not
quite fashionable, gag.
   “Don’t go anywhere now.” I checked her vitals. Yeah,
she’d be out for a couple of hours. Then I draped her to
make it look like I was still in the berth, huddled under the
linens.
   At the console, I pulled up a schematic of the ship.
According to the screen, Reever and Jenner were being
held in a compartment two levels below me. I knew just
where it was, since the Stephenson was the same class of
League ship as the Perpetua, and the layouts were almost
identical.
  I figured there would be security outside the door, so I
needed to disguise my face. I spied the Lok-Teel
undulating listlessly in its specimen container, and rubbed
my chin.
   “If you can do it for Reever, I bet you can do it for
me.” I took it out and felt it caress my fingers with warmth
and what had to be a form of mold-affection. “He did this
telepathically, right?”
   I wasn’t much of a telepath, but I had been able to
successfully communicate with the Pel on Catopsa. And
the Pel had used the Lok-Teel as housekeepers. Should
work.
  I cradled the Lok-Teel between my hands and
concentrated, forming a mental image of my own face,
masked and transformed into Dr. Risen’s features. The
Lok-Teel stopped moving for a moment, then crawled up
my arm toward my neck.
   It was unnerving at first, to sit quietly as the mold
flattened and oozed up and over my face. It worked its
way over my lips and my nostrils. I guessed my job was
to trust it, hold my breath and keep the image of the Lily’s
face—and air holes—in my mind. That, plus no
screaming.
   Slowly the Lok-Teel covered my entire head, and
enveloped all of my hair, pulling it up and flattening it
against my skull. Then I felt silky, shorter strands of hair
brushing against the thin surface of the mold coating my
cheek, and carefully got to my feet.
   A glance in a wall unit mirror made me grin. I was the
spitting image of Dr. Lily Risen—even down to the
smooth, blond hair style.
  All I had to do now was walk out of Medical at a brisk
pace, carry a stack of charts, look harried, and hope
whoever had a weapon fell for my act.
  It worked. The guard at the panel never twitched a
muscle. Once I got to the lift, I punched it and secured the
doors until I reached Reever’s level.
   More crew members passed me as I walked down the
corridor. I pretended to read a chart, and no one said a
word about how odd it was, that Lilly had suddenly
shrunk a foot. Maybe height wasn’t something everyone
noticed. A few nodded and smiled at me. Using Dr.
Risen’s face, I smiled and nodded back.
   The guards at the detainment area were big, armed, and
looked bored. They gave me the once-over.
   “What do you need?” one asked.
   “Not much.” I pitched my voice to an equally bored,
colorless pitch, hoping Dr. Risen wasn’t always as
chipper as she’d been with me. “I’m here to do the last
prisoner check before they go onplanet. Open it up for
me.”
  “He’s not in a good mood,” one of the guards said,
and jerked a thumb toward the access panel. “Broke both
arms of the last guy on shift when he took in his meal.
They just sent him over to Medical.”
   Not good. What had the other guy done to Reever?
   “Poor thing.” I made a face with Lily’s face. “I’d better
hurry up and get this over with so I can get back and take
care of him.”
   “Want me to go in with you?”
   “No, thanks. If he gets antsy with me”—I lifted the
syrinpress and waggled it—“I’ll just stick him.”
   I held my breath as the guard slowly unlocked the panel
and opened the door. Then I walked into the dark
compartment, and waited until the door closed before I
said, “Hello?”
   He was on me in two seconds. Strong arms pinned me
to the wall. Something hard with a ragged edge pressed
against my neck. “Don’t move. Don’t breathe.”
   “Gee, honey, I missed you, too.”
   “Cherijo.” Whatever he had against my neck fell to the
deck. Lights came on. Hands that had been creating
bruises now ran over me, and peeled the Lok-Teel mask
from my face. The helpful mold reformed its mass into its
neutral old self and slid down in front of my tunic. “What
did they do to you? How did you get away? I thought they
were going to transport you in a suspension unit.”
   Jenner started butting my ankles, and I bent down to
stroke him. “I don’t know, I knocked out the dimwit they
left me with, and we’re going to steal a shuttle. Let’s go.”
   “I think not.”
   Jenner hissed. If I’d been a cat, I would have joined
him. Slowly I turned my head to see my worst nightmare
standing in the open door panel, flanked by a quartet of
guards. Then I hissed anyway.
   He wasn’t very tall. Like me, he had black hair that
reflected a gray sheen in the light. No silver streak in his,
though. He had the same exotic-looking dark blue eyes.
The same slightly beaky nose.
   Understandable. I’d been created from his own DNA,
so that made us twins. If you could be twins with a man
you’d called “Dad” all your life.
  “Hello, my child,” Joseph Grey Veil said. “Welcome
home.”


              CHAPTER FOUR
                                                «^»

                The Inevitable
You should have let me stab him,” I said to Reever as
they marched us to the launch bay a short time later. I felt
a small sense of relief when I heard Jenner yowling, and
spotted his carrier stowed inside the shuttle, under the
seats. “A dermal probe to the aorta, and all our problems
would be over.”
   “There were too many guards around him.”
   “I could have gotten him in one shot.” And I would
have, except Reever had grabbed me, then the guards had
grabbed and searched both of us. So much for my
syrinpress and dermal probe. “After everything he’s done
to us, don’t I deserve the chance to hack his heart out?”
   “Killing your creator now will not improve our current
situation.” Reever looked over the interior of the shuttle,
the rigging they were putting us in, and the distance to the
helm. His mouth still bled from the tussle he’d had, trying
to get me away from Joseph’s guards. “Another, better
opportunity will present itself.”
   I thought of the Lok-Teel, which was still hidden under
my tunic. Maybe Reever was right. Not that I was going to
stop nagging at him. “Okay, but I get dibs on his heart.
Assuming he has one. Hey, cut it out,” I said to the guard
manhandling me. “I’m not talking about stabbing you.”
   “Shut up,” the Terran said. He had a blunt, ugly face
that hadn’t been improved by Reever’s fists.
  “If I throw a stick, will you go away?”
  He grabbed the front of my tunic. “You shut up or I’ll
knock you out.”
  Reever jerked against his bonds. “Let her go.”
  “Guard. Release her.”
   Joseph came in the shuttle and took a seat across from
me and Reever. At the same time, Jenner let out a low,
scary sound that make me smile. Joe had better have
secured the latch on that carrier tightly.
   The guard let go of me as if my tunic had scalded him,
turned, and bowed toward my creator. “The prisoner was
making threats against your life, sir.”
   “She generally does.” Joseph gestured for the guard to
leave, then watched me and Reever for a few minutes.
   Outwardly, my creator hadn’t changed that much in
three years. He had always looked remote, attractive, and
powerful. And short.
   Evidently he’d gotten some cosmetic work done since
I’d left him—the faint silver strands in his hair were gone,
and some minor wrinkles around his dark blue eyes had
been lasered away. His body appeared even more
muscular than it had been when I’d lived with him, but
he’d always been obsessed with developing his body.
That was his compensation for being so short.
  “How did you get the streak in your hair?” he asked
me.
   I turned to Reever. “Did you hear something? I could
have sworn I just heard something. Sounded like a… a
rodent, squeaking, didn’t it? A small, diseased rodent,
maybe?”
   Joe smiled faintly. Or sneered. It was always a toss-up.
“You cannot provoke me into anger with your childish
insults.”
   No, but I was going to try. “On second thought, it’s
not a rodent,” I said to Reever. “Could belong to a lower
order. Like slime. Slime sounds like that when it oozes out
from under a rock.”
   Joe fastened his harness as the shuttle’s engines came
online. “Evidently your natural capacity for violence has
tripled. I had to treat Dr. Risen for severe contusions. You
nearly fractured her mandible. Extensive psychological
evaluation will have to be performed on you.”
   My natural capacity? I felt a twinge of guilt at learning
I’d almost broken Lily’s jaw, but ignored it. “Then again,
slime sounds much more pleasant than that. Waste. That’s
it. Has to be unprocessed waste.”
   Stop taunting him, Cherijo. Reever slipped into my
mind without effort. He is unpredictable and we are
vulnerable like this.
   I tried to casually throw up my mental blocks, hoping
he would think I was sulking. Even now, I couldn’t risk
Reever knowing what was on my mind. You never let me
have any fun anymore.
  Reever leaned forward.
  “What are you doing?” Joe asked Reever, his gaze
bouncing between our faces.
   Reever bent down and pressed his mouth against mine,
then gave Joseph one of his blank looks. “Kissing my
wife.” He sounded almost amused.
   “She is not your wife. Marriages with nonsentients are
not recognized under Terran law.” Still, Joseph seemed
fascinated by what Reever was doing. Namely, rubbing
his cheek against my hair. “She routinely responds to your
tactile stimulation?”
   “Yes, she does.” Reever made it sound like I tore off
my garments and danced nude for him whenever he
touched me.
  Which wasn’t an unappealing idea, actually.
   “I find that quite intriguing. She demonstrated no
interest in exploring her own sensuality before she left
Terra.”
  He had no idea what I’d explored since I left Terra.
   Cherijo. Despite the blocks, Reever could tell how
angry I was getting. I looked at him. Don’t respond to it.
Ignore him.
   Oh, I’m going to respond to it, Duncan. With a blunt,
cold instrument.
  “What are your intentions, once we reach the surface?”
Reever asked my creator.
   “Due to the League’s involvement in reclaiming my
property, there will be an official hearing before
representatives of the World government.” Joe shrugged,
like that wasn’t consequential. “Cherijo will be legally
remanded to my custody, and then I will continue my
work with her.”
  He’s lying. I nuzzled my husband’s neck.
  Reever rubbed his cheek against my hair. How do you
know?
   You can hear it in his voice. He never tries that hard
to sound confident. Something’s wrong.
   Joe wasn’t finished, either. “If you will convince my
daughter to cooperate, Linguist Reever, I will recommend
the committee show lenience toward you. It is likely you
will have to serve some time on a penal colony for your
role in the Varallan disaster, but with my recommendation,
the length of your sentence could be drastically reduced.”
  Don’t, Cherijo—
   I shoved Reever out of my mind. “You think dangling
that carrot is going to work, don’t you? You son of a
bitch. He’s not like you. He won’t use me.”
   Reever stopped the rest of the stuff I planned to yell
with another kiss. You’re only giving him more
ammunition to use against you.
   I thought about biting my husband on the lip, then
sighed into his mouth. All right.
   By that time the shuttle was landing at a Terran
Transport Center. New Angeles, from the look of it. The
guards double-checked our bonds before we were
permitted to disembark.
   This was the world I’d been born on. I’d never thought
I’d see it again. Now that I was here, I couldn’t wait to get
off it.
  Soon. We’ll escape, and find a way back to the
Sun-lace. We have to.
   “How long has it been for you?” I asked Reever as we
stepped onto Terran soil. “Since you’ve been back, I
mean?”
  “Twenty-two years, six months, three days, nine hours,
and two minutes.”
  “Not long enough.”
    We went from the shuttle directly into a secured
glidebus, where they chained us to the seats on separate
sides. Joseph sat behind me. Because my hands were tied,
I ignored him.
  “When you were here, did you ever spend any time in
New Angeles?” I asked Reever as the glidebus pulled
away from the cargo-loading zone.
  “No. My school was in Paris.”
  I watched the impeccably manicured landscape whiz by
my window. “You didn’t miss much.”
   I’d never liked the tasteful, precisely sculpted scenery
surrounding the sterile structures that made up downtown
New Angeles. Not one tree had been planted too close to
another, not one stray blade of grass grew untrimmed.
Three years away from the homeworld had only increased
my aversion. What I wouldn’t have given for a walk
through a nice, uncivilized jungle, like the one surrounding
the colony on K-2.
   “The region resembles Paris a great deal.” Reever
wasn’t looking at the scenery. He was watching the
guards. “Terrans appear to embrace consistency almost
as fervently as their xenophobia.”
   “They’re picky about things like shrubbery and the
threat of genetic pollution.”
  “You are both Terran,” Joseph said suddenly.
  We turned to glance at him. I laughed. Reever only
went back to watching the guards.
   My creator leaned forward and without preliminaries
started interrogating me. “Your vitals indicate a recent
trauma involving blood loss. However, I found no
evidence of internal injuries. What caused it?”
  I wasn’t going to tell him about the baby. “I ran into a
vampire. He reminded me of you.”
  “Have your menstrual cycles been regular?”
  No topic was sacred. That was my dad. “Make
someone happy, Joe. Mind your own damn business.”
   He didn’t like me calling him “Joe.” I could tell from
the way he tightened his jaw. “You are currently ten
pounds lighter in weight than when I last had you scanned
on K-2. Explain the difference.”
   I pretended to think for a minute. “I’ve always
wondered—how many angels, do you think, could dance
on your head?”
  “Your flippancy serves no purpose. Answer the
questions.”
  “I’m kind of busy now.” I gave him a lovely smile.
“Can I ignore you some other time?”
   The glidebus came to a stop at the back of a large
federal building. More guards came on to remove me and
Reever. We were marched into a private lift and whisked
up to the top floor, where we were shoved through more
biodecon and weapon detectors.
   “They’re clean,” a guard said to the two standing in
front of a large set of double doors.
  “And healthy. And vocal,” I added.
  “Shut up,” our guard said with a growl.
  “You may proceed,” one of the door guards said, and
both stepped out of the way.
   Inside was a huge, empty assembly room occupied by
a sea of vacant chairs. In the center was a round
presentation platform, with a single table. Six Terrans of
different races sat at the table, each sporting a personal
terminal.
  Given my personal notoriety, the room should have
been packed. So it was clear—this was all going to be
under the table.
   “You didn’t extend an invitation to the general public?”
I asked my creator. “I’m so disappointed. I expected a
big, crazed homecoming mob lobbing rotten vegetables
and screaming for my blood.”
   A pulse rifle jabbed me in the back. “You will remain
silent until you are called upon by the committee.”
  “Oh, I’m getting called upon? Wonderful. I have so
much to tell them. Where do I start?”
  That got me another, harder jab. “Move.”
   All the continents had been represented, I saw as they
escorted me and Reever down to the platform. North and
South America, Africa, Asia, Euro-Common, and the
Polar Nations.
   Just one representative from each, however. It was
much easier to bribe a single rep, versus a whole
delegation.
   The North American rep, a bilious-looking male with
thinning hair, heavy body frame, and slightly protuberant
eyes, spoke first. “The committee recognizes Dr. Joseph
Grey Veil.”
  Everybody recognized Joe. He was the official Poster
Boy for Terran medicine.
    “Thank you, representative.” My creator took a file
from the briefcase he carried and stepped up to the
podium in front of the committee. “My petition has
already been presented to the committee. I have
apprehended the experimental construct, Cherijo Grey
Veil, and her accomplice, Duncan Reever. All that remains
is a petition review, and the rendering of your final
decision.”
  “Why have they been placed in restraints?” The
Euro-Common rep, an elegant Parisian female in an
immaculate tunic, looked faintly alarmed. Obviously she
was used to a much better class of experimental
construct.
   “Dr. Torin and Linguist Reever are dangerous fugitives,
representative, both of whom have long eluded the
League’s efforts to recapture them. The restraints are for
your safety, as well as theirs.”
  The Frenchwoman sniffed, as though Reever and I
were giving off a bad odor. “If that is so, sir, please move
your prisoners away from the committee platform.”
   That was okay with me. The smell of her expensive
perfume was starting to get to me.
   Joe directed the guards to sit us down on opposite
sides of the assembly area. I would have started yelling
about that, but Reever caught my eye and shook his head.
  Maybe he’d found a way out. I went to my seat quietly.
   “If you are ready to proceed, representatives, I am
prepared to answer any questions you may have regarding
the petition.”
   “I see no legal grounds to even support such a petition.
The construct represents gross negligence of World
Law,” the Asian rep pointed out at once. He was a small
man with beady eyes and a shrill voice. “According to
current legislation, she must be destroyed at once, and
you, Dr. Grey Veil, imprisoned for violating the statute
against genetic experimentation on humans.”
  I liked him. Especially if he could get Joe thrown in jail.
   “You will find a full waiver exonerating me of any
wrongdoing in your copy of the petition, representative.”
Joseph held up the page for the committee to see.
“Attached to the main file, subsection four, granted by the
World Assembly three decades ago.”
  He’d gotten his waiver thirty years ago—just before I’d
been born.
  “Thirty years ago!” The rep from the Polar Nations
echoed my thoughts with about as much shock. “That
was when the original legislation was introduced and
passed into law. Created and proposed by you yourself,
Dr. Grey Veil.”
    Which made absolutely no sense to me, either. Why
pass a law and then allow the man who’d basically written
it to immediately break it?
   “Yes.” My creator folded his hands. “It was
determined at that time to release only a portion of the
experimental data involved in composing the prohibition
against human genetic experimentation.”
   Six very powerful people nearly dropped their jaws in
their laps. I could almost hear what they were thinking:
Just who determined that!
   Joe ignored the gapes. “Ladies and gentlemen, as you
are well aware, Terrans have rightfully formulated a deep
and abiding distrust of alien life-forms. In order to
safeguard our DNA, certain measures had to be taken.
The first was enacting the GEA and preventing any
random or thoughtless experimentation here on Terra.
   “The second was to empower me to map out future
evolutionary prospects and therefore strengthen the
species against involuntary genetic pollution. The first was
made public. The second was not.”
   The South American rep’s dark face flushed. “And this
construct you’ve brought here today—you created her to
represent what lies ahead for the human race? She is
Caucasian!”
   The other members of the committee looked
uncomfortable. It had been a long time since Terrans had
openly bickered over their own skin color. Now all they
cared about was preserving the pristine condition of their
race’s DNA. They probably thought of themselves as
supremely enlightened that way.
   “She contains the genetic secrets that will permanently
safeguard our genetic heritage, representative. This
includes the heritage of all native Terran races.”
   “She is a criminal guilty of treason and murder,” a
familiar voice yelled from the back of the assembly room.
“I request permission to file a counter-petition with the
World Law committee. At once.”
   I didn’t have to turn around to see who it was, but
then, I’d spent a year dodging the man.
   “Who is this being?” the North American rep
demanded. “He is not human.” No one answered. “Why
are you here, alien?”
   “He’s depriving some poor village of their idiot,” I said
in a helpful way. That got me another rifle jab from the
guard standing behind me.
   “I represent the Allied League of Worlds,” Colonel
Patril Shropana said as he approached the committee,
followed by a long line of armed guards. His canine face
was thinner, but just as nasty as ever. “I am granted
permission to apply to this committee, through the most
recent version of the Accord Treaty. This construct must
be turned over to me immediately and executed.”
   Well, Colonel Shropana’s appearance certainly threw a
wrench in Joseph’s plans. The entire committee all tried to
speak at once, while my creator’s guards went toe-to-toe
with the Colonel’s troops. Everyone was well
armed—apparently the military guys got to bypass the
weapons scanner—and I was deciding if I should drop to
floor and hide, or stand up and add my dulcet tones to the
yelling, when I finally realized someone significant had left
the party.
  Reever. He was gone, and no one, not even me, had
noticed.
  I sat back down and forgot about protesting or getting
shot. He left me. How had he gotten out of his restraints?
Why hadn’t the guards seen him go? Where had he
gone?—all the doors were secured.
  Duncan’s smart. Maybe he’s on the floor, crawling
under something.
   I got down and ducked my head under the row of
seats. All I could see were the combat boots the guards
wore and Joseph’s handmade Italian footgear. No sign of
Reever anywhere.
  The guard yanked me back up. “Stay where I can see
you.”
  I glared at him. “You’re not as stupid as you look, are
you? You couldn’t be.”
  He looked under the seats, then over at where Reever
was supposed to be sitting. “Where is he?”
    “Search me.” I got snatched out of my seat. “Not
literally, stupid.”
  The guard dragged me over toward the platform. “Dr.
Grey Veil? Doctor!”
  Joseph made a waving gesture toward the guard and
kept arguing with Shropana.
  Reever’s just gone to get help. I wasn’t going to think
about how he’d left me on Joren, and how he’d left me a
couple of times on Catopsa. No, he’s definitely gone to
drum up some allies.
   Only we were on Terra, and no one was going to help a
man branded throughout the League as a Hsktskt
collaborator.
   “Gentlemen!” The North American rep banged his
datapad on the table a few times to get everyone’s
attention. Joseph and Shropana, who were now in each
other’s face, turned and looked furiously at the
committee. “We will debate the merits of both your
petitions. Please, put your men at ease and sit down so we
may conduct this hearing in a reasonable and orderly
fashion. Guard.” He pointed at me. “Move that prisoner
away from this platform.”
  “Sir, the other—
  “Now!” the representatives shouted.
   The guard took me back to my seat, then motioned
over four of his pals and told them about Reever. The
other guards began discreetly searching the assembly
room. There should have been more, but some of
Joseph’s men were missing.
  Out looking for Reever already? I hoped my husband
knew how to hot-wire a glidecar.
  Meanwhile, the committee debated the petitions. God,
how they debated. They talked about genetic
responsibility and the influx of undesirables to Terra and
the League’s droit du seigneur attitude toward prisoners.
   Joseph made a good argument—but that was his
specialty. “I created this construct to serve a greater
purpose than to be a sacrifice for a League Commander’s
pride. Cherijo is the schematic for all future Terran
generations.”
  “Why don’t you simply create another clone?” the
Asian rep wanted to know.
   “Before my property escaped, she destroyed thirty
years of data. She is the only source of the genetically
enhanced material left available to me for study and
replication.”
   “Don’t you lie to them!” I shot to my feet. “I didn’t
destroy anything!”
   “Dr. Grey Veil,” the Euro-Common rep waved her thin
hand toward me. “Instruct your property to remain silent,
or I will have her removed from these proceedings.”
    “You can’t seriously believe what this man says. He’s
deranged, xenophobic, and a murderer”—they stared at
me, unimpressed—“oh, I forgot, that makes him a model
citizen here, doesn’t it?”
  “Cherijo, if you value this animal”—Joseph lifted a
familiar carrier up for me to see—“then create no further
outbursts. If you do not comply, I will have the guards
shoot it.”
  I sat down and shut up.
   Shropana continued where my creator had left off. “Dr.
Grey Veil would have you believe this female is a mindless
automaton, under his control. She is not. She has
collaborated with the Hsktskt Faction and betrayed
hundreds of League members to them. She was solely
responsible for the debacle in Varallan. Countless sentient
beings are dead because of her. I assure you, I will see
that she is exterminated before she can harm anyone else.”
  I guess he’d forgotten all about that time I saved his
worthless hide.
   The committee asked Shropana and Joseph to wait as
they discussed the petitions. I could tell the Asian and
North American reps were leaning toward granting the
League’s request—they had the most to lose in tech
contracts with other worlds. But Terran concerns, I would
bet, came first.
  The decision was announced without any discussion or
emotion by the African rep.
   “The petition presented by the League is denied. The
petition presented by Dr. Grey Veil is granted. The
construct, Cherijo Grey Veil, will be remanded to the
custody of Dr. Joseph Grey Veil, to serve whatever
purposes he determines are appropriate, for the remainder
of her existence.”
  Did I know my own species, or what?



   I didn’t raise too much of a fuss when the guards
marched me back out of the building and into a private
glidecar. Hoping Reever would magically appear to snatch
me away from all this kept me quiet and alert.
  But Reever didn’t show. Worse, nobody seemed
worried about that—not even Joe.
  “Hey.” I was shoved in the back of the vehicle and
squashed between two guards. “Where are you taking
me?”
  Joe got in behind the wheel. “Home.”
  “That would take a few hundred light-years,” I said.
  I couldn’t stand not knowing anymore. “Where is my
husband?”
  “I’m not sure at the moment, but I will find him.”
  So Reever had taken off. I grinned. “I doubt it.”
  “He is in no position to help you, Cherijo.”
   “Keep telling yourself that, if it makes you happy.” I
pretended to stare at the scenery as it whizzed by, while
trying to plot my next move. Reever would come after me.
I wasn’t going to let the mistakes of the past let me doubt
that. And when he did, I needed to be ready.
  And if he doesn’t?
  I hated that sour little voice inside my head. Then I get
out of Joseph’s cage and I go find out why he didn’t.
   The massive estate I’d grown up on was located just
outside New Angeles, right over one of the prime
epicenters of the San Andreas fault. My creator had
bought the land dirt cheap, shortly before the New
Angeles Corps of Engineers had permanently stabilized
the fault. Land value had skyrocketed since then, which
left Joe sitting on a gold mine.
   Maggie had told me I’d been born on the grounds, so it
figured that Joseph had his laboratory stashed somewhere
on the estate’s nine hundred acres. Maybe somewhere up
in the mountain range just behind the house. The only
other thing up there were some Future Agers and a couple
of Indians living off the land.
   Joseph’s mansion had undergone yet another overhaul,
I saw as the glidecar pulled to a stop outside the front
entrance. Another three stories had been added, making a
towering total of seven. Instead of the stately
marble-and-glass facade that I’d hated so much when I’d
lived there, someone had completely redesigned the entire
exterior in a trendy polished alloy with sculpted faux-stone
accents.
  The sight of it made my stomach clench.
  “Let’s go.”
   The guards forced me out of the glidecar and up the
long cobblestone walk to the front entrance. We followed
Joseph inside, where the icy temperature of the air
conditioning made me realize how much I was sweating.
An automated housekeeper greeted us in a metallic voice.
   “Welcome to The Grey Veils.” It turned to me.
“Identify the female Terran, please.”
  “This is my property, Dr. Cherijo Grey Veil.”
   “Welcome, Dr. Cherijo. It has been over three
revolutions since your last occupation. Please respond for
an updated entry into the household database
voice-recognition program.”
  “This place still resembles a mausoleum.”
  “Thank you, Dr. Cherijo.”
   Joseph instructed the drone to prepare an evening meal
for two, then dismissed the guards. Once we were alone,
he lifted Jenner’s carrier and gestured for me to proceed
him to the wing I had once occupied.
  He still had my cat, so there wasn’t much I could do.
Yet.
   “I’m not staying,” I said as I trudged down the endless
hall. “So don’t get too comfortable with the living
arrangements.”
   “I have no doubt you will try to escape.” Joe ushered
me into my old room, which, like its duplicate on the
Truman, was exactly as I had left it. “You have one hour
to cleanse and rest before dinner. Then we will discuss
why escape would be unadvisable, and what the future
holds for both of us.”
  Our future was a snap to predict. I would be leaving.
He would be in traction.
   As soon as the door panel closed, I tried to reopen it,
but he’d locked me in. Then I started searching for
anything I could use as a weapon. All my medical and
sports gear had been removed. Anything made of alloy or
plas had also been confiscated. I sat down on my old
sleeping platform, and thought for a minute.
   The treasure trove.
   Joseph didn’t know what a sneaky kid I’d been. There
were always little things I’d picked up that he’d demanded
I dispose of—pretty rocks, feathers—the usual kid junk.
I’d pretended to throw them away, then had secretly
squirreled away my treasures. Even Maggie hadn’t known
about my stashed collection.
   Before I went after it, I’d have to find all the recording
drones he had planted in here and disable them. That
would take some time—probably more than an hour.
   So I’d cleanse, dress for dinner, and wait until later.
   Unlike the replicated room on the Truman, Joe had
provided me with a brand-new selection of garments.
Very attractive, feminine outfits with plenty of sparkle and
matching accessories. He must have forgotten how
uncomfortable I was in that kind of thing. Luckily I found
one of my old physician’s tunics in the back of the
storage unit, and put that on, making sure the Lok-Teel
was still secure in its hiding place.
   The door panel opened precisely an hour after Joe
locked me in, and one of the drone staff hovered outside
in the hall, evidently waiting to escort me.
   “Any chance I can reprogram you to get me out of
here?” I asked it as I walked out.
  “All input by Dr. Cherijo must have Dr. Joseph’s
approval before the unit may comply with any directives.”
  “That’s a shame.”
   Joseph stood waiting for me in the main dining room.
Dining hall, I reminded myself. My creator liked formality
almost as much as he liked experimenting on helpless
children.
  He frowned at me as I entered the cavernous room.
“Good evening.”
   “You’re still breathing. What’s good about it?” I was
starving, but wary of the food the drones had laid out for
us. “Where’s Jenner?”
   “Safe, for now. Please”—he swept a hand toward my
old place at the table, just to the right of his chair—“sit
down. You must be hungry.”
  I sat. “I’d like to have a scanner, please.”
  He took his place beside me. “You’re not feeling well?”
   “No. I want to check this food for drugs before I put it
in my mouth.”
   Amicably he reached over, took my plate, and ate some
of the fancy seafood from it. Then he handed it back to
me. “You may observe me as long as you wish, but I
assure you, the food has not been drugged.”
   Instead of eating, I handed him my crystal flute. “Try
the champagne while you’re at it.”
    He didn’t take a sip of that, but called for a drone and
had it removed. I sat and smirked until he gave me an
irritable glance.
  “You are only delaying the inevitable.”
   “The inevitable what? Lab rat tests?” I picked up my
fork and toyed with my shrimp. It wasn’t spiked, but he’d
touched it. “Why the drugs?”
  “You indicated you’d try to escape. A mild tranquilizer
would inhibit such impulsive behavior, and make what lies
ahead less stressful for you.”
   He really wouldn’t try to sedate me without a good
reason, and his idea of stress would make someone else
have a nervous breakdown. “What lies ahead?”
  “Revelations.” He ordered a carafe of plain water from
the attending drone and gestured toward my plate. “Please
eat your meal now. We will discuss my plans for your
future after dinner.”
    I accepted the water after I saw him drink some from
the same container, but I didn’t eat. How could I? I was
sitting next to a monster, the man directly responsible for
nearly every miserable moment of my life. Besides, I
couldn’t eat and listen to him at the same time—I’d throw
up. And Joe never kept quiet when he had an audience.
   He didn’t disappoint me. “The reports I’ve received
since the Hsktskt captured you at Joren have been few,
and very sporadic. A number of colonial aliens have sent
signals to Terra regarding your heroic actions on the slave
world. I will need more details about your activities since
you left me.”
   Left him. Like we were married or something.
  “Let’s see.” I made a show of thinking it over. “Not
much happened. I treated alien patients. I avoided the
League. I got married. I was away from you. I was
happy.” I tapped my finger against my cheek. “I heard
you started a war between the League and the Hsktskt.
You get that bored while I was gone?”
   “I did not initiate the hostilities between the Faction and
the League. They have been ongoing for decades.” He put
down his fork and instructed the drone to clear both our
places and bring dessert. “I merely offered my opinion
before the Fendegal XI delegation as to a possible
solution to the perpetual border disputes and colonial
attacks.”
    “Such as wiping out the entire Hsktskt civilization.
Good solution.” When the attending drone would have set
a plate of fruit in front of me, I pushed its arm away.
“When millions die as a result of your opinion, Doctor,
tell me—how are you going to feel about that?”
  “The Terran involvement in the conflict will be
marginal. The balance of the League’s forces are not
human.”
  “Don’t feel bad. A lot of people have no hearts. Of
course, everyone else besides you is a cadaver.”
   His brows rose. “It is obvious you wish to provoke an
altercation with me.”
   “Gee, you’re quick. Want to show me how fast you
can run out in front of a glide-bus?”
   “We will continue this discussion later.” He folded his
napkin, placed it on the table, and rose. “You will
accompany me now.”
  I got up, too. “Where?”
  “To my laboratory. Where you were born, Cherijo.”



   I’ll confess, I wanted to see it. The facility I’d been
created in wasn’t located on the estate, but rather under it.
Joseph took me to a lift I’d never seen before, hidden in
the back of his study, and guided me in.
   “How far down?” I asked as he closed the panel and
rapidly input a code into the panel. I watched so I could
memorize the numbers.
   “I had the lab constructed five hundred feet below the
fault line,” he said. The lift began to silently descend.
“Also, for your information, I change the access codes
daily.”
   I was glad I hadn’t eaten anything at dinner. My
stomach was starting to roll again. “A bit paranoid, don’t
you think?”
  “Where you are concerned, my child, I find
unnecessary precautions are absolutely imperative.”
  “Don’t call me your child. I’m not your child. If
anything, I’m your sister.”
   He didn’t comment on that as the lift continued to
drop. It came to a smooth stop and the panel slid open to
reveal a huge, empty white room.
  White walls. I’d had nightmares about them, I
remembered. So they were real. How many times did he
drug me and drag me down here? He went to take my
arm, and I jerked away.
  “Don’t touch me.”
   “I intend to do a great deal more than simply touch
you. But for now, I will allow you your distance. Come. I
will give you a complete tour of where you were created.”
  I stepped out of the lift. “Does it come with an Igor?”
  “I beg your pardon?”
  “The lab, Dr. Frankenstein.”
   He shook his head. “I never understood your
fascination with those ancient fictional texts. They were
poorly conceived, absolutely without the slightest
scientific foundation, and luridly composed. Although
they were not quite as bad as those disgusting romance
novels.”
   Those disgusting romance novels had kept me from
turning into him. “You never liked my taste in anything.”
   The interior temperature equaled the warmth of Joe’s
personality, a few degrees above frost formation. I
shivered. Beyond the open, empty area we were standing
in were five separate corridors lined with other door
panels.
  “Where’s the dissection room? Got your lascalpel rig
powered up?”
  His upper lip curled. “We’ll start with Central Analysis.
Follow me.”
   Central Analysis was a research scientist’s fantasyland,
fully stocked with all the latest in medical examination
tech. Some of the scanners were so new I didn’t
recognize the models. Several worktables stood ready for
human subjects, but there was a sterile, unused feel to the
room.
    I wiped up a little dust from a console with my fingertip
and examined it. “Been suffering mad scientist block
lately?”
  “I generally work in Development and Engineering.” He
pointed to another panel. “Through there.”
   I walked through the door and entered an equally
sterile, cold environment. However, here there were signs
of ongoing experiments, centrifuges spinning, culture
dishes cooking, and an entire wall of containers stuffed
with organs and other, less recognizable objects preserved
in duralyde solution.
  I nodded toward the wall. “Spare parts in case you
mess up?”
   “Some are continuing experiments in cloned organ
scaffolding. Others are failures. As were these.”
   He pressed a button on a console, and an entire section
of the opposite wall slid away. Behind it were endless
rows of glittering plas bubbles, filled with black liquid and
hooked to dozens of data cables. Each had a drone
clamped to its base, and from the flickering lights many
were still active.
   That didn’t get my attention as much as the contents of
the bubbles. Inside the murky fluid were small, pale
objects enmeshed in a web of monitor leads. They were
human. Human fetuses in various stages of development.
  Hundreds of them.
  I could feel the color draining from my face.
“Embryonic chambers, I presume?”
  “That is correct. This one”—he went over and placed a
hand on the only empty chamber—“was where I
developed you.”
    I walked toward it, morbidly fascinated. Memories
stirred with every step.
  The sea of warm, black fluid… the intricate web held
my body suspended… warm and safe…
   “How long did it take to develop me?” I asked as I got
close to the technological horror that had been, in
essence, my mother.
   “Synthetic growth hormones cut the gestational period
by a third. You were full term at twenty-seven weeks.”
  “Prematurely mature.” I touched the outer curve of the
chamber. The flexible chamber housing felt warm against
my palm. Old sensations washed over me.
   Unexpected light… ferocious pain… pulsating strands
stabbing into my tiny body… tearing at my bones and
flesh… changing me… a younger Joseph staring at me
through the plas… the fluid draining away… clawing at
myself… unable to breathe… cold… empty… blind…
  “You probably have some residual recollections of the
chamber. Tests indicated you were fully cognizant and
aware of your environment by your third month of
development.**
  “Second,” I told him, not caring if he believed me.
“Yes, I was. I remember when you took me out of here.”
  A note of eagerness entered his voice. “Tell me what
you recall.”
  “Fear. Disgust. Horror. Outrage.” I slowly took my
hand away and faced him. “I won’t let you do this again.
It’s wrong. You can’t create human beings like this.”
   “I was telling the truth, Cherijo, when I said I would not
repeat my past mistakes. Even if I wanted to, I now know
the success I achieved with you is singular. There will be
no more clones raised in embryonic chambers in this
facility.”
  I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding.
“Good.” Then I got skeptical. “What are you planning to
do to produce the next perfect human?”
  He sat down and regarded me steadily. “I’m going to
impregnate you with my own DNA.”
  “Oh, please.” I couldn’t help it. I started laughing.
“You can’t be serious.”
  “I am.”
  “You’re a geneticist, Joe. You know the damage that
can be created by analogous gene pools mixing.”
  “That can be prevented.”
   “By two nearly identical twins producing an offspring?
Get a grip. Artificially inseminating me with your own
sperm will only produce babies who have the I.Q.s of
broccoli.” I wiped my eyes with one hand. “God, I
haven’t laughed that hard in ages.”
  “In-utero adjustments will have to be made, of course.”
   He was absolutely serious. He had the talent and
knowledge to repair whatever damage came of blend-ing
our mirrored DNA. He could get me pregnant, but could
he control my immune system response?
   Of course he could. He was an expert at organ
transplant techniques. If anyone knew how to keep a body
from rejecting foreign tissue, it was Joseph Grey Veil.
   He could have prevented my miscarriage. And there
was the ultimate irony—Joseph Grey Veil likely
represented my only hope of ever having another child.
   For a moment, I entertained a revolting idea. Just for a
moment. Then it hit me: He had engineered my body to
reject my unborn children. He was directly responsible for
my miscarriage.
   “If you will look over the project specs with me, I can
show where I—”
  He never completed that sentence. I lunged at him, and
knocked him flat on his back. My first punch broke his
nose. My second drove the air from his lungs.
  “You are never going to use me again!”
   Just as I was preparing to follow through with a knee to
his groin, something grabbed me and pulled me off him. It
was one of the maintenance drones. I struggled wildly, but
couldn’t free myself of the unyielding mechanical grip
units.
  “I’m going to kill you!” I shrieked at my creator. “Your
days are numbered, I swear to God!”
   “There is no God,” Joseph said in a distinctly raw,
nasal tone. He grabbed a cloth and held it tightly against
his nose as he turned away from me and addressed
another waiting drone. “Bring in the prisoner now.”
   The drone went to the lift panel, and opened it. Two
more drones wheeled out, dragging a semiconscious man
clamped between them. He was battered and bleeding
from several small wounds.
   I took a step forward, but Joseph grabbed me by the
hair and spoke softly against my ear.
   “You can save him, you know. Cooperate, and I will let
him live.”
  I made a low, helpless sound, then called to him.
“Duncan.”
   My husband slowly lifted his head. The pain in his eyes
tore an invisible hole in my chest.
  “Continue to resist,” my creator said, “and you can
watch him bleed to death right here.”
  I didn’t bother to look at Joseph when I said, “Fine.
You win.”


               CHAPTER FIVE
                                                «^»

    Dancing with Christopher
Joseph wouldn’t let me touch Reever. He treated my
husband’s injuries, while I got to cool my heels in one of
the clear-walled treatment rooms in his Research and
Development lab. Trying to see what he did as he
sterilized and sutured Reever’s wounds made me clench
my fists. By the time he was done, blood stained the
edges of my fingernails.
   Joseph had one of the drones wheel Reever’s gurney
into the adjoining treatment room, and lock him in. Then
he came over to look in on me.
    “You made the correct choice. We will begin the new
trials tomorrow. Good night, Cherijo.”
   “Is he all right? Was anything fractured? Let me take a
look at him.”
  “I will return in six hours. Sleep well.”
  “Why don’t you answer me? What did you do to
him?” I called after him as he left the lab. “Oh, you’re
dead the minute you let me out of here.”
   One of the drones trundled over to the clear wall. “No
talking. Take your sleep interval now or you will be
sedated.”
   I had no doubt the drone would drug me if I kept
shouting, so I stalked over to the medical berth that served
as my bed, and flung myself on it. The interior lights
dimmed as the drone made another pass in front of my
cage. I wondered if it was going to sing me a lullaby.
  Cherijo?
   My mental walls snapped up as I saw Duncan lying on
the other side of the plas wall, watching me. I pushed my
berth over until it lay against the wall, like his.
  “Are you okay?”
   He shook his head and tapped his ear. The treatment
rooms were soundproof—he couldn’t hear me.
  I eased myself into the link, trying to clamp down on
my hostility. Hey. How are you feeling?
  I have had better days.
   He was blocking most of his thoughts from me, too.
From the sweat on his brow and the way he was
breathing, I could tell he was in pain. Then I dug my
hands into the berth mattress until linen tore. He didn’t
give you any analgesics.
   It doesn’t matter. I prefer to be clearheaded. He
pressed his hand against the wall. Has he harmed you?
  No. I’m okay. I matched the outline of his fingers with
mine. We’ve got some problems. The committee turned
me over to him. Unconditionally. You should have stuck
around. The only good part about it was seeing the look
on Shropana’s face when they announced it.
  I would have liked that.
   Where did you go when you snuck out of there? How
did Joe catch you?
   Reever shook his head. I didn’t escape. One of the
guards infused me with a narcotic and removed me from
the hearing. I woke up here.
  You mean he had you kidnapped?
  Did you think I would leave without you?
   No, I thought— He knew exactly what I thought. Yeah,
I did.
  You have a very poor opinion of me.
  I’m working on it. Duncan, he’s really crazy.
Seriously deranged. He told me tonight that he wants to
impregnate me with his own DNA.
   My husband’s mental blocks fell away as his thoughts
became elemental. Images of Joseph dying in various
gruesome ways filled his mind.
  Honey, have I ever told you I like the way you think?
   He curled his hand against the plas, until his knuckles
turned white. We have to get you out of here.
   Us. Us out of here. Tomorrow he’ll start testing me
again. It’ll give me a chance to get the layout of this
place, maybe find a weapon or a way out. You’d better
rest now. Those drones really did a number on you.
  The drones did not inflict my injuries.
   No, I could see that now, from the images of the
beating he was remembering. The man who’d done it had
taken prolonged, vicious pleasure in doing so.
  Joseph did this to you? It must have happened while I
was dressing for dinner.
  Yes.
   One more reason for me to dismember him in his
sleep. God, I’m sorry, Duncan. I got up and started
pacing.
   You should sleep while you can.
   I can’t. Not here.
  He intensified the link, until he gained control of my
body, and brought me back to the berth. He hadn’t taken
me over like this since we’d left Catopsa, but I let it
happen, and everything but the two of us dissolved away.
Then we were transported to a very familiar place.
   Now you can.
  Show-off. He’d created an illusion around us, to fool
my mind into believing we were back on the Perpetua, in
our bed. I couldn’t feel homicidal here. You sure like
watching me sleep.
   His mouth touched mine. Just for tonight, beloved.
   Exactly six hours after Joseph left (five hours after I fell
asleep with a luxurious sigh), a lab drone woke me up.
Not the way Joe had sent Maggie in to shake me awake,
when I was a kid. Instead the drone hit me with a shot of
static discharge. Right in the upper arm.
   “Ah!”
  I jumped off the berth and collided with a wall, then
saw the little hunk of junk at the panel.
   “What the hell did you do that for?”
  “It is 0500 hours, Dr. Cherijo, the scheduled time for
your initial examination. You will remove your garments.”
   “Go fuse yourself.” I turned and headed back to bed.
   The lab drone trundled over to Reever’s treatment
room. My husband was still asleep. “You will remove
your garments or this specimen will be disciplined.”
  Specimen. Disciplined. Two of my creator’s favorite
words.
    “I’ll do it. Get away from him.” I forgot about going
back to sleep and slipped the Lok-Teel out from under my
tunic. I formed an image of it hiding under my pillow, and
it obediently oozed out of sight. Then I went through the
motions of stripping off my clothes as I edged toward the
door.
  The drone opened the panel. I kicked it over and
bolted.
   A second, more vicious discharge knocked me off my
feet. I hit the floor, then lay there for a moment, gasping.
The drone rolled over to stop beside me.
   “Advisory: applied static discharges will increase in
severity and duration with each unauthorized action.”
  My hair was practically standing on end. “Now you tell
me.”
   “Stand and follow me, Doctor.”
   The drone led me out to Central Analysis, and
indicated a recently sterilized table. “Recline here,
Doctor.”
   “I’d prefer to stand.”
   “Recline or receive further discipline.”
   I wouldn’t be much good to Reever unconscious, so I
reclined. As soon as my back hit the table, automatic
restraints shot out of slots in the table and snapped
around my wrists and ankles.
   “Hey!” I jerked at the alloy cuffs. “I’ll cooperate, take
these things off!”
  “All input by Dr. Cherijo must have Dr. Joseph’s
approval before the unit may comply with any directives.”
The drone went to one of the consoles and activated
something. “Please remain still as the scanner passes over
you.”
  I stopped fighting the restraints as a hot, white beam
charted its way down the length of my body. Someone
had been experimenting with thermal residual
imaging—this felt much more intense than any scanner I’d
ever used.
   “No parasites or other corporeal infestations located.”
   “Record and file,” Joseph said as he walked into the
room.
   I lifted mv head. “You think I’m carrying around body
lice?” ‘
   “How many times were you required to administer
discipline to Dr. Cherijo?” he asked the drone.
   “Twice, Dr. Joseph.”
   He kept ignoring me as he went to the console. “Initiate
fluids sampling sequence.”
   Thin, hollow probes emerged from the table, and
attacked me. One stabbed into my neck. Another in my
arm. A third in between my legs.
   I felt like shrieking, but clenched my teeth. “I would
have been happy to voluntarily donate some blood and
urine to the cause. All you had to do was give me a
syrinpress and a cup.”
   “You have clearly demonstrated your unwillingness to
cooperate with me.” Joseph turned around. “My tests
require sterile samples. The probes will not harm you.”
   There were all kinds of harm. “If this is how you’re
going to run things, I’ll fight you every step of the way.”
That would almost certainly mess up his tests.
  “What will happen if I agree to remove your restraints,
and invite your cooperation?”
  I felt like snarling. “I’ll be a good girl, Daddy.”
   He pressed the keypad on the console, and the
restraints slid away. I was tempted to run—who wouldn’t
be?—but I had to do what Reever said. The opportunity
will come and we will escape.
  I just wished the opportunity would hurry up.
   Joseph spent the next several hours performing various
tests on me. Scans of every intensity and variety. More
fluid samples, scrapings from my gums, snips of my hair.
Two more probes tapped my bone marrow and spinal
fluid.
   I didn’t cooperate with him as much as I endured his
proximity, and bit my tongue. By the time he handed me a
plain patient gown to put on, I felt like I’d chewed off half
of it.
  “Is that it? Or do I have to run through a maze and find
some cheese now?”
  “Follow me.” He led me out of the Central Analysis
and down a corridor to a small room containing a large
console and one chair. “Sit down.”
  When I did, the console screen blinked on. A series of
questions appeared.
  “Answer each of the queries.”
  I read the first couple. “I did this before. For three
days on K-2, for your League buddies.”
   “These queries cover events which occurred after you
left the colony on Kevarzangia Two.”
   “What, didn’t Dhreen fill you in on all the details?”
Dhreen, the Oenrallian who’d helped me leave Terra and
escape Joseph, had been my friend—or so I’d thought.
I’d depended on him, confided in him, even gone crazy
and pulled him out of the wreckage of his crashed star
vessel. All that time, he’d been reporting back to Joseph
with details of everything I’d done.
  Finding out Dhreen was my creator’s spy had broken
my heart. If I ever saw him again, I planned to do the
same to his face.
  My creator ignored the question and walked to the
door panel. “I will return for you in one hour.”
   I turned back to the console. “Good thing I can type
fast.”
   The questions covered a hundred different topics;
everything from what I preferred to program for my meals
and how often I ate to how many times I’d had
intercourse and with what type of life-form. There was no
particular order to them, either. I amused myself by
providing some creative answers.
   Query: What three evening meal interval programs
did you select most frequently while serving in space?
My answer— 1. Vegetarian lasagna. 2. Coq au vin. 3.
Serada baked with shredded nyilophstian root.
  Query: What form of contraceptive did you employ
while entertaining a nonhuman partner? My answer— I
never entertained a nonhuman partner. I’d been too busy
having orgies with dozens of them.
  I chuckled and worked my way down the list, until I
got toward the end. Then I stopped, and sat back.
   Query: Have you become pregnant in the last two
revolutions? If the response is affirmative, please list the
date of delivery, gender of progeny, and inseminator’s
name, age, and species of origin.
   It stopped being funny. I tried to skip the query, but the
screen wouldn’t let me bypass it.
  Query: Have you become pregnant in the last two
revolutions? If the response is affirmative…
  I didn’t answer any more of the questions. The console
beeped at me. I stared at it.
  Query: Have you become pregnant…
   My fist smashed into the screen, shattering it. Sparks
flew. The console erupted into frantic beeping and
flashing. The door panel behind me slid open.
  “Why did you do that?” Joseph asked me.
  “I got tired of typing.”
   “You will repeat the exercise later.” He looked at my
bleeding hand. “Come back to the lab with me so I can
treat your wound.”
   I cradled my throbbing knuckles as I got to my feet.
“The day I need your help, the brain damage will be too
extensive to merit saving me. I’ll do it myself.”



   Reever watched me walk in, his eyes moving from my
face to my hand, then to Joseph. If looks could kill, Joe
would have been in a lot of itty-bitty pieces sprayed
against one of the interior wall panels.
   Expecting a fight over the hand, I was pleasantly
surprised when Joseph backed off and let me fix it myself.
Surprised until I noticed him making clinical observations
of my one-handed dexterity with the scanner.
  “Want to see me jump through hoops after this?”
   Joseph had no sense of humor. “Your ability to leap is
insignificant. I am conducting a scientific analysis of a
transcendent achievement in genetics.”
    “What did Thomas Love Peacock say? ‘I almost think
it is the ultimate destiny of science to exterminate the
human race.’ ” I used a dermal probe to extract a couple
of tiny plas shards from my knuckles.
  “Peacock was a foolish man.”
   “Oh, I don’t know about that.” I dropped the shards
into a specimen container, so he could analyze them. He
analyzed everything. “By the way, when did he meet
you?”
  My creator put down his datapad. “What is your
prognosis?”
   “I’ll never be able to play the violin again.” I flushed the
lacerations, then activated the suture laser. As I sealed the
deepest gash, Joseph placed a folded stack of garments
on the table beside me.
   “Change into these.”
   I didn’t see Joseph standing there waiting until I
finished dressing my hand. He had that weird look in his
eyes again. Reever was pacing back and forth, the way he
did only when he was extremely upset.
   What was going on now?
  “You want me to change.” I didn’t touch the clothes.
“Leave and I will.”
   “Your modesty is superfluous.”
   “So is your face.”
   He handed me a bunch of monitor leads. “Attach these
as is appropriate for cardiovascular monitoring.”
   “So now I run the maze and find the cheese.” I put
them down beside the clothes. “I’ll put them on. As soon
as you go.”
   Joseph’s eyebrows rose. “Will sedation be required?”
   “To put up with you? Plenty. Make it continuous.”
    He went over to Reever’s treatment room, and
addressed him for the first time. “How do you tolerate her
flippancy?”
   Reever said something in Hsktskt that I was fairly sure
didn’t mean “let’s talk about it sometime,” then he hit the
plas wall. Blood splattered in a wide arc as his knuckles
split, and the panel cracked. My creator swiftly backed
away.
   Oh, Duncan. My heart ached for him.
  “Joe, you’d better leave and let me calm him down. I
don’t think your drones could hold him right now, not
even with all the static in their discharge units.”
    “You have ten minutes.” Joseph gave my husband a
filthy look, then retreated. I heard the sound of the access
panel being secured as I went over to let Reever out. The
minute I did, he was all over me.
   “Did he hurt you?” He touched my face, my hair, then
ran his hands over me. “What did he do to your hand?”
He clasped it between his, getting his blood on my nice
clean bandage. “I am going to take him apart one limb at a
time.”
   I stood on tiptoe to press my cheek against his. “He
didn’t, I hit a console, and you’ll have to wait your turn.”
His arms came around me, and we stood like that for a
minute.
   The drones refuse to give me any information. I can’t
tolerate not knowing what is happening to you. Have
you found a way out?
    I shook my head. The whole place is crawling with
drone security. He never leaves us alone, did you notice?
I looked over at the maintenance unit sitting a few feet
away. Its sensors were active. “Let me take a look at that
hand now.” You shouldn’t pick fights with plas walls,
you know.
  He fingered the bandage wrapped around my
knuckles. Physician, heal thyself.
  Very funny.
   After I took care of his hand, which was in worse
shape than mine and required bonesetters, the maintenance
unit made Reever stay in my cell. Three other units
repaired the damage he’d done to his. I hooked up the
monitor leads and changed my tunic for the lightweight
shirt and trousers Joseph had given me.
   As soon as I was finished dressing, my creator came
back in, followed by four drones toting a funny-looking
treadmill. It reminded me of the kind of equipment
SrrokVar had used on me on Catopsa.
  “What’s that for?”
   “Test trials.” Joseph had the drones set it up and
indicated I should climb on.
  “What sort of test trials?”
  “Cardiovascular status.”
    I checked it over and noticed the vid screen positioned
at the front, and two-way feeds. “What are you going to
do? Make me watch vids of your lectures to see if I can
run and nap at the same time?”
  “It is time to begin now. Assume your position on the
treadmill.”
   I climbed on, and hooked myself up to the monitors.
The lead cables were long enough that I wouldn’t get
brought up short unless I fell off.
   Joseph started the treadmill’s track at a slow pace. I
walked. Nothing happened for a few minutes as he made
some adjustments on his consoles. Then the track started
to pick up speed, which forced me to trot.
   The screen at the front of the unit flickered on, and I
saw a vid of myself, stepping out of a junky-looking star
vessel. It was the Bestshot, Dhreen’s old ship, which had
been destroyed when he crashed on K-2. I smiled,
remembering how shocked I’d been by the first alien
world I’d ever seen. My smile faded as Dhreen joined me
on the Transport platform.
   “Wow, look, home movies. Did you pay that
two-faced, orange-haired liar to make recordings of
everything I did on his ship, too? Watching me cook must
be enthralling.”
   Joseph didn’t say anything. He was already engrossed
in the readings from his console.
    The track speed increased by increments, until I was
running. The screen began showing a series of vids of my
life on K-2.
   There were the sparse, utilitarian rooms I had occupied
in Colonial Housing. Scenes from that first night, when I’d
come home to find Jenner gone, later returned by a giant,
alien kitty cat who not only walked upright, but
talked—my pal Alunthri.
   My first couple of weeks had been rough, until I’d
made some friends and had some good times. That was
before the Core infiltrated the bodies of the colonists.
   I ran in place, mesmerized by the recordings of patients
I’d treated, meals I’d eaten, friends I’d made. Ana. Dr.
mu Cheft. Lisette. Ecla, my flowery charge nurse. It made
my heart twist. I hadn’t seen them in two years now.
   But Joe had. He’d made sure I’d go to K-2—all part of
his experiment on me—while I’d thought I’d made a clean
getaway. I’d never noticed the tiny recording drones he’d
sent to monitor me and document my activities.
   “How did you camouflage the drones, Joe? Make them
look like insects? Weave them in my clothes? What?”
   “They were attached to some of your personal
belongings. Whenever you moved, motion and heat
detectors activated the track/record function.”
  On the vid, a handsome, alien pilot appeared beside me
outside the Trading Center, and I tripped and nearly fell.
   It was Kao.
  How dare he do this to me? It wasn’t an experiment
anymore, it was some kind of sick, twisted game he
wanted to play with my head. I looked away from the
smiling image of my dead lover.
   “Shut it down.”
  He touched his console, and a mild discharge pulse hit
me, making me stumble again. “Watch the screen and
continue running.”
  I jumped off the treadmill, and got a second, far nastier
zap that made me drop to my knees. When I could
unclench my jaw, I yelled, “Shut it down!”
   Joe came to stand over me. “Get up and continue the
test, or I will have the drones fracture the linguist’s other
hand.”
   I glanced over at the treatment room. Reever looked
ready to do it himself on another wall. I couldn’t let this
get to me. I was a big girl. I could handle it.
   “Enjoy yourself, Doctor, because the payback for this
is going to be colossal.”
   I dragged myself up, waved and smiled at my husband,
then climbed back on the treadmill. The track and the
screen started up again, and I got to watch Kao and me
eating at the Trade Center as I went from a walk to a
steady run.
  Thank you for saving me from hearing all of Paul’s
EngTech tales for the fifteenth time. I would like to see
you again, Healer Grey Veil. Perhaps we might share
another meal—alone?
   I remembered how stunned I’d been, to be asked out
on a date by an alien. Especially one as good-looking as
the Jorenian pilot. What had I said? If you can find me off
duty. Until then, Kao Torin.
   Now the screen showed us saying good-bye to each
other. His white eyes crinkled as he smiled down at me.
Walk within beauty.
   He’d given me that—a walk within beauty—and much
more. As the scenes of our rather unorthodox courtship
flashed on the screen, I ran faster, harder, as if doing that
would help me escape the overwhelming regret and
heart-shattering sense of failure.
   I’d killed Kao, trying to save his life. He’d contracted
the Core pathogen early on during the epidemic on K-2,
and when he’d stopped breathing, I’d desperately infused
him with my own blood. Without testing what would
happen. My immunities had brought him back, but only
for a little while. After wiping out the Core, my blood had
poisoned Kao.
   Which, combined with what I’d done on the Sunlace
before we were captured, made me just as much of a
monster as Joe.
   Cherijo.
  I slammed up every wall I had. I’m okay, Reever. No I
wasn’t. I was running and weeping silently and almost
hyperventilating. He’s throwing more ammunition at me.
   Reever projected something into the link that made the
pain go dim and quieted my thoughts. Do you remember
the Marine Province simulation you programmed in the
environome on the Sunlace?
   The beach?
  Yes. He entered my mind, and for once didn’t complain
about the walls. Close your mind to what is happening.
Summon the image of that shoreline.
   I did, and suddenly I was running down a long stretch
of amber sand, right beside Reever. Bunches of scarlet
flowers rustled with a melodic hum in the soft, salty
breeze. I looked over at him. How do you do this?
   Does it matter?
   No, I guess not. Anything was better than being on that
treadmill. How long can you sustain this… whatever it is?
  I don’t know. He reached out, and took my hand. I’ve
never tried it for longer than an hour with you before.
  Can you do it again when he— I cut that thought
short. Do we have to run?
   No. He stopped, and so did I. On another level I was
aware I was still running, back in the lab, but it didn’t
seem to have any effect on me.
   Good. I pivoted toward the dark purple ocean, hopping
over a cluster of feather-leafed grasses as I whooped and
tore off my shirt and trousers. Come on, Duncan! Last
one in is a rotten egg!



   Reever was able to maintain the link between us for an
undetermined amount of time, until something
malfunctioned in the treadmill unit, and I was pulled off. I
left my husband in the Marine Province illusion and
returned to reality.
  A reality filled with aching leg muscles, burning lungs,
and a lab filled with smoke.
   “Hey!” I coughed, stepped away from the motionless
track, and waved my hands in front of my face. “What
happened?”
   Joseph was at the console, hammering on the
envirocontrols. The air replacement units kicked on, and a
few seconds later, the air cleared. He straightened and
turned to me. “You burned out the motor on the
treadmill.”
   “Really?” I walked in a circle, trying to stretch out my
cramped muscles. “Guess instruments of torture don’t
hold up like they used to. Maybe if you return it, they’ll
give you your credits back.”
   He came over and ran a scanner over me.
“Remarkable.” He paused to note the results on a chart,
then repeated the scan. “Did you take up long-distance
running after leaving Terra?”
  “No. Why?”
   “Because you just beat the world’s record for the forty
kilometer by ten minutes.” He shut off the scanner and
stared at me. “There is minimal muscle strain and elevated
respiratory activity, but no significant increase in your
blood pressure or heart rate.”
    I shook some sweaty hair out of my eyes. “Your
equipment must be malfunctioning. Look what happened
to the treadmill.”
   He came closer. “Apparently it is. We will repeat this
test tomorrow.”
   Reever was standing at the wall again, fists clenched.
Joe was close enough for me to smell him. He still wore
the same cologne, and too much of it, as always.
  “I’d like to take a break and have a meal with my
husband.”
   “You will not be given the opportunity to have
intercourse with him.”
   As if I’d do that, where he could monitor everything.
“I’ll try to restrain myself.”
   I walked over to the only prep unit in sight, hoping Joe
would take the hint and leave. He did. The maintenance
unit trundled over to Reever’s treatment room and opened
the door panel. When Reever would have walked out, it
blocked his path.
  “Wait here. Dr. Cherijo will bring your food to you.”
   No utensils, which meant no chance of getting my
hands on a knife to pass to Reever. There were only three
things listed on the main menu: vegetarian lasa-gna, coq au
vin, and serada baked with shredded nyi-lophstian root.
   That’ll teach me to be a smart ass. I prepared two
trays, and carried them over to the room before I
addressed the drone. “Get lost.”
  “All input by Dr. Cherijo must have Dr. Joseph’s
approval before the unit may comply with any directives.”
  “At least get out of my way.”
   I went in, and placed the trays on the table before
turning to Reever. He was watching me closely, so I
blocked most of my thoughts off behind a smooth,
impenetrable mental barrier.
   “I regret your creator reminded you of times best
forgotten.”
  I smiled sadly. “He’s just yanking my chain. Besides, I
don’t want to forget Kao. He was very important to me.”
Before he could react, I reached over and kissed him.
“Don’t. You’re not competing with his memory. I loved
him, and I love you.”
  He nodded, and sat down with me. His expression
changed slightly when he saw what I’d programmed for
him. “Serada? But how—”
  I gave him a steely-eyed look. “Don’t ask. Just eat.”
   We ate together companionably, and eventually the
drone seemed to lose interest, because it went to perform
maintenance on the ruined treadmill. Reever lingered over
his herbal tea as I cleaned up our servers.
  Why are you blocking your thoughts from me?
  I nearly dropped the dirty plates. Because I don’t want
you to know the kind of homicidal fantasies I have.
  My own are probably worse.
  They were—he’d seen more horrible things than I
had—but I wasn’t abandoning my only good excuse.
   Reever, I’ve never been completely comfortable with
the way you can access my thoughts. Right now they’re
kind of ugly. That was the truth. Do you mind so much if
I keep that away from you?
  Reever looked at the drone. He intends to kill me, you
know.
  I knew. How, I couldn’t say, but Joe would kill him,
and soon. If only I could somehow fake his death, the
way I had with the Aksellans on Catopsa…
  I looked at a drone passing by the panel. It was the
same model used in hospitals, and that gave me an idea.
  Reever, if I get one of the lab drones in here tonight,
and disable it, can you reprogram it to help us escape?
  Your creator monitors us through them.
   No, actually, I don’t think he does. He downloaded
their data banks this morning; if they were on output
monitor, he wouldn’t have bothered.
  What about the recording drones inside the lab?
  I’m going to have a sudden attack of modesty and get
Joe to agree to put up privacy screens in our rooms. The
dark will do the rest. Well?
  If you can disable it without damaging the power
supply system, I can reprogram it.
  I grinned, leaned over, and kissed him. Then we’re in
business.
   An hour later I wasn’t thinking about escaping or
disabling drones or even Reever. Joe had me hooked up
to a nervous-system analysis unit, usually reserved for
diagnosing and treating paralysis victims. I was being
bombarded with stimulation pulses sent through a tight
alloy webbing he’d wrapped me in.
  The effect was like getting stabbed by thick
needles—thousands of them—over and over.
  I hadn’t resisted until after the first preliminary test was
done, and I thought I was getting off the table.
  Joe had used restraints when I tried to roll off the table,
and told me to get comfortable.
   That had been about thirty minutes ago.
  Oh, God. I twisted in vain, trying to avoid the
continuous, red-hot pinpoints of pain. How much longer
do I have to take this?
   “Probably an hour or two,” a familiar voice said.
“Considering what he did to you when you were a
toddler, this is a walk in the park.”
   Maggie.
    Unlike the other times I’d gotten a cerebral visit from
my maternal influencer, I wasn’t overjoyed to hear her
inside my head. She’d been a part of this, and had some
other bizarre plans for me. I’d discovered during our last
little reunion that she hadn’t even been Terran, but an
alien.
   I didn’t feel like talking to a dead alien’s ghost,
especially one who had subliminally programmed herself
to pop into my synaptic recesses whenever I was under
tremendous stress.
   Get lost, Maggie.
  “Is that any way to talk to your mother?” She didn’t
sound upset, just amused.
   I gritted my teeth as the stimulation pulses increased in
strength and duration. You’re not my mother.
   “I’m the only one you ever knew.”
   You’re an alien who helped him, lied to me, got paid
for it, and died before I could find out what you’d done.
As a mother, Maggie, you stink.
   The dark well that would lead me to Maggie opened up
behind my eyes. “Come on, kiddo. Do you really want to
throw a tantrum when you could be finding out more
answers?”
  Answers? All you do is drop lousy hints and make
worse jokes.
  “This time I have the real deal for you, baby.”
    One last time. I’d let her draw me in, one last time, and
if she didn’t deliver, I’d find a way to purge her damn
subliminals out of my head.
  All right.
   I dropped into the warm, safe darkness that smelled
faintly of Maggie’s illegal tobacco and the distinctly
bawdy perfume she’d worn for special occasions.
   I landed right in the middle of my sixteenth birthday
party.
    “Cherijo, I’m so happy for you!” Muriel Foster, the
wife of one of my father’s Medtech instructors, was
holding my cheeks between her frail, arthritic hands. She
smelled of talcum and Earl Grey tea. “You’re going to be
the youngest graduate we’ve ever had— and off to your
internship tomorrow, too!” She let go and turned to her
silver-haired husband. “James, aren’t you proud of our
little doctor?”
  James Foster beamed at me, too. “I certainly am; she
shows great promise. Now all you have to do, young
woman, is follow in your father’s footsteps. You won’t
have trouble finding them, big as they are.”
   Before I could tell the Fosters what I thought of my
“father,” Maggie came up alongside me. The sight of her
low-cut, too-tight burgundy party dress made Muriel gasp,
and James’s grin widen. “Mind if I steal the birthday girl
away from you two for a minute?”
   My paid companion hustled me away to the banquet
area, and thrust a plate in my hands. “Here.You need to
eat something.”
   “Let’s skip the usual song and dance, shall we?” I
threw the plate to the floor, and suddenly the par-tygoers
vanished, leaving me alone with Maggie. “Get on with it.”
   “Hanging around those big blueberry guys has made
you real feisty, Joey girl.” She picked up an open bottle of
my father’s most expensive spicewine, and took a swig.
“Daddy’s princess mad at me because she was stupid
enough to get caught and have her butt hauled back to
Frankenstein’s lab?”
  “I don’t need this.” I knocked the bottle from her
hands and pushed her back. “You can go back to
whatever hellhole you crawled out of.”
  “Well, well.” Something like admiration gleamed in her
eyes. “Feisty and then some. My little girl, all grown up
and ready to kick ass. About time, I say. As for hell,
sweetie, I’ve been there, and to tell you the truth, it
doesn’t suck as much as you’d think.”
  She thought everything was funny. That only made me
angrier. “What do you want!”
   “I want you to serve your purpose.” She used a
reasonable tone. The same one she’d used to get me to go
along with whatever my father had wanted me to do. “The
purpose you were created specifically to undertake and
fulfill.”
   Whenever her vocabulary improved, it made me
nervous. “And that would be… ?”
   “Soooorrrry.” She patted her mouth, faking a yawn.
“Couldn’t risk corrupting the data with the subliminals I
downloaded into your head. They’re a bit too unstable to
trust. You’ll find everything you need in Joe’s house.”
  “What is it? Where is it?”
  “Discs. I put them in your little treasure box.”
  “How did you know about that?”
   “Oh, honey, you thought you were being so clever.”
She grabbed a chilled shrimp from the banquet table and
popped it in her mouth. “I had to edit the room vids every
time you pulled that little box out so Joe wouldn’t
confiscate it.”
  “When did you put them in there?”
  “The day before I was hospitalized for the last time.”
   Then she’d gone and died on me a week later. It had
broken my heart—but I was getting over it. Fast. “All
right. I’ll get them, if I can.” I tapped my foot on the
polished oak floor. “Are we done?”
   “No. We need to talk about a few more things. Like,
why you lied to Reever, and why you ever thought, even
for a moment, of letting Joseph fix your baby problem.”
   “Let’s see: Reever is none of your business. My
fertility is none of your business. End of talk. Can I go?”
   She got a wistful expression. “You really thought it’s
the only way you’d have a child? Or is it that you love him
that much?”
  “Your species must be incredibly stupid. Yes to both. I
want a child, and I really love Reever. Can I go now?”
   “What’s your hurry? The party’s just started.” She
waved a hand, and music started playing in the
background. “Do you remember Christopher Hamilton?
The son of that podiatrist who worked in the office next
to Joe’s old downtown practice? You had a crush on him
when you were… eleven, right?”
  “Twelve. So what?”
   “Poor boy came here one afternoon asking to see you.
Apparently it was a two-way crush. Joe took him into his
study, and told him you not only didn’t like him, but you
thought his overbite was repulsive.”
   “What? How come no one ever told me Chris was
here?” I was stunned. “And I loved his overbite. That was
what made him so cute.”
   “Exactly.” Maggie trailed her finger down my nose and
tapped the end once. “The kid went home, totally
crushed, so I gave Joe a piece of my mind. That’s when
your dad told me what he had planned for you. I talked
him into waiting until you’d had a chance to mature and
experience life.”
   She’d known he wanted to use me as some kind of
incubator. “Thanks. Thanks for nothing.” Nauseated, I
looked around. “How the hell do I get out of here?”
   “Joe had planned to breed you for the first time when
you turned sixteen.” Maggie patted my cheek as I gaped.
“That night, I stepped up my plan to get you off Terra.
I’m sorry that I died before I could finish making all the
arrangements. But you got away, that was the important
thing.”
  More cryptic hints. “Why are you telling me this? So
I’ll be grateful to you, and do whatever it is that’s
involved in this ‘purpose’ you keep babbling about?”
    “Didn’t you wonder why he didn’t try this before? I
kept him distracted, away from you. Believe me, baby girl,
it was not the happiest ten years of my life.”
   Maybe I didn’t want to think of her as my mother, but
it was obvious she did. She’d somehow gotten the
maternal instinct to protect, anyway.
    That didn’t make up for the rest of what she’d done.
“Okay. So I owe you one. I’ll find your discs and I’ll
listen to them and I’ll try to do whatever it is you want.
Satisfied?”
   “I’ll have to be, won’t I?” She snapped her fingers, and
a tall, black-haired boy appeared next to her. He had dark,
intense eyes, a great smile, and a very slight overbite. A
throbbing, sensual tango began to play.
   “Why is he here?”
   “So you can have a dance before you go. For old
times’ sake.”
   “To a tango?”
   “Oh, pardon me, Dr. Uptight.” The music changed to a
slow, elegant waltz.
   “Better.”
   Maggie grinned, blew me a kiss, and sauntered away.
   I turned to Christopher, who was staring all around him
with complete fascination. I refrained from sighing and
held out my hands. “Hi, Chris. Want to dance?”
    “Yeah, sure.” He gingerly took me into his arms. “This
is some dream.” He rubbed the top of his head and
chuckled. “Haven’t had hair up there since I graduated
medtech. Wow, I’m a kid again.”
   “It’s just a dream,” I told him. Not that I was en-tirely
sure it was. “So what have you been up to for the last,
what, fifteen years, Chris?”
  He slowly moved me around the floor. “I took over my
dad’s practice. Married my high school sweetheart, Jenny.
We’ve got two girls, and one on the way.”
  More babies that might have been mine.
“Congratulations. You’re happy, aren’t you?”
  “Sure. I’m really lucky to have Jenny and the girls.” He
hugged me closer. “I never forgot you, though.”
   “Oh?” At twelve I thought I had been pretty
forgettable.
   “You broke my heart. At least, I thought you had. I
didn’t figure out what your dad had done until my oldest
girl got her first crush. The boy came to ask me if he
could take her on a date.”
  “Uh-oh. I bet that brought out your paternal side.”
   “And then some. Surprised me when I thought about
doing the same thing to him, just to keep her safe.” He
twirled me around, and grinned. “That was when all the
pieces fell together.”
  “Did you? Chase off your daughter’s boyfriend, I
mean?”
  “No. I remembered how awful I felt, gritted my teeth,
and let them go to a movie.”
  I laughed and kissed his cheek. “You really are a great
guy, Chris.”
  “Thanks, and just for the record, Cherijo—your father
was a genuine asshole.”
  “News flash: He still is.”
   “Are you okay now?” At my blank look, he added, “I
saw the report on the vid, when they brought you and that
linguist guy back to Terra. All I could think was, that’s the
girl I could have married instead of Jenny.”
  “Lucky escape, huh?”
   “No. I love my wife and my kids, but I’ll wonder what
it would have been like for you and me. We could have
had something terrific together.”
  Just before he faded away, he bent down, and kissed
me on the cheek. Suddenly I understood why the people
we love but can’t have are almost as wonderful as the
ones we get.
  “Yeah, I think you were right.”
   The darkness came up so suddenly that one moment I
was doing a graceful pivot, and the next I was standing
alone, completely blind.
  “What the— Maggie?” I tried to turn around, but I was
paralyzed. “Maggie, stop it!”
  “One more thing, Cherijo. You must never let him
know what you did on the Sunlace.”
  She knew. “I’m not going to tell Duncan anything.”
  “You should tell Duncan everything. He loves you.”
She appeared in front of me, in her elegant, alien body.
“But if Joseph finds out, Duncan will die, and you will
never leave Terra again.”



                PART TWO
                 Paternity

                 CHAPTER Six
                                               «^»

               Leyaneyaniteh
Joseph had to inject me with stimulants to rouse me from
my semi-comatose state, or so he informed me as the lab
drone peeled the stimulation webbing off me. There were
no wounds from the prolonged session, but the memory
of pain made my muscles slow to respond. That,
combined with the abuse from the forty-kilometer run
from the day before, made me promptly keel over.
   He helped me up. “You withstood the trial well,
Cherijo. I was correct in my predictions of your nerve
tolerances. I think it is safe to assume my other
estimations will be as accurate.”
   “Don’t be so humble. You’re not that great.” I swayed
on my feet. “Could I get some sleep now? I’m really tired.
And a privacy screen would be nice, too. I’m sick of all
the drones watching me undress.”
   The whine in my voice was artificial, but very
convincing. Joseph instructed the lab drone to give me
what I needed, and said his usual good night to me. He
felt brave enough to touch me, and caressed my cheek
with his cold hand.
  “Sleep well, daughter.”
  The man still thought of me as his child. He really was
pond scum, minus the pond.
   The drone obligingly draped the walls of my treatment
room with privacy screens, then turned out the lights.
Reever had been moved back to his own room, now that
the plas wall had been replaced, and lay apparently asleep.
A few moments after the lights went out, he groaned
softly.
  “Reever?” I sat up and looked through the dividing
panel. “Are you okay?” All I got was another groan.
“Maintenance unit?”
   “No talking. Take your sleep interval now or you will
be sedated.”
   “Linguist Reever is ill. Service emergency medical
override protocol, priority one, directive file S.O.P.
four-two-seven.” I crossed my fingers, hoping Joseph
hadn’t removed that directive from the unit’s database. It
was part of the original factory programming package, and
consequently no one ever thought about erasing it when
creating new command sub-menus.
  It clicked and hummed for a moment, then said,
“Service emergency medical override protocol initiated.
What are your instructions, Doctor?”
   I went right to the door panel. “Provide me access to
the patient, and assistance.” The drone let me out, then
escorted me into Reever’s room. My husband had curled
over in a fetal position, and was shaking violently.
“Reever, what is it? What’s wrong?”
  All he did was groan again.
  The lab drone went to the edge of the berth. “Inquiry:
Should Dr. Joseph be signaled to attend to this patient?”
  “No, that’s not necessary,” I said, and pulled the
power supply board out of the back of the unit. It went
completely dead. “Please help me get him on his back,” I
continued, for the benefit of the recording drones.
   Reever allowed me to roll him over, and while I
blocked the view of the maintenance drone, pulled the
unit’s panel and began reprogramming it.
   Everything was looking great, until all the lights went
out.
  “Is it the power grid?”
   “We’re not going to wait to find out.” Reever grabbed
my hand, pushed the unit out of the way, and hauled me
to the door.
   Someone bumped into us. Someone short and wearing
strange garments. Too short to be Joseph. Another
drone?
  “You the patcher and the code talker?” a high-pitched
voice whispered.
  “Who wants to know?” I whispered back.
   “Come to spring you two out of here.” The intruder
turned on an optic emitter and swung it toward one of the
corridor access panels. “This way.”
  I started out the door panel, but Reever held me back.
“Who are you?”
   “Milass.” His voice bordered on shrill. “I hov’ with the
alien underground. Caught word of your troubles, craved
to help.”
   The alien underground? “I’ve never heard of that,” I
said.
  Reever stepped in front of me. “Nor have I.”
   “Not like we advertise, get it?” He spoke an odd variety
of inner-city slang, one I hadn’t heard in three years.
  “Can you speak stanTerran?”
   Milass made an impatient sound. “You two crave
strolling out of here, or not? The junkers will be on us in a
blip.”
  I wasn’t taking another step without my cat or the
Lok-Teel. “Reever, get Jenner.”
   While I retrieved the Lok-Teel from my cell, Reever
managed to smash open the plas unit Joe had imprisoned
Jenner in. He leaped up in my arms and stared at our
rescuer. He didn’t hiss, but the fur on the back of his neck
stood on end.
  “He’s okay, pal.” I stroked him, not sure if I was
comforting the cat or lying to myself.
  A small, square hand gestured for us to follow him.
“We got to stroll, now”
  I looked at my husband, who hesitated another
moment, then nodded.
   We followed our diminutive rescuer into one of the
corridors and down past a number of equipment storage
areas. Emergency lights illuminated everything with a
blood-red glow. At the very end of the corridor was a wall
panel with a small, square hole.
  Milass pointed to it. “That way.”
   Reever crawled in first. I put Jenner in, then followed.
Behind me, Milass got in, then sealed it. That plunged the
narrow crawl space into total darkness.
   We crawled forward, but not for long. Reever pulled
himself out into a larger area, and turned to grab Jenner
and help me. When the smell hit my sensitive nose, I
stopped at the very edge.
  “What is that stench?”
  Beyond me appeared to be some kind of tunnel with
smooth, perfectly rounded walls. Someone had strung a
couple of optic emitters along the very top of the tunnel.
A stream of sluggish mud covered the bottom of it.
  “Take my hands, Cherijo.”
  I held on to my husband’s hands and pushed myself
out of the crawl space. And stepped into something that
was definitely not mud. “Where are we?”
  “Old sewer pipes,” Milass said as he emerged. “We
got to hike through it to get to Leyaneyaniteh.”
  That wasn’t anywhere I’d been in New Angeles.
“Le-what?”
  “It means, ‘The Place of the Reared Under the
Ground,’ ” Reever said.
  Our rescuer climbed down and walked toward us.
“You got word on my tribe, code talker?”
   I saw his garments had been fashioned from some sort
of animal hide, and covered with primitive symmetrical
symbols. He looked as though he’d stepped out of a
history text.
  “I understand your root language.”
  Code talker. A name for linguists who’d used obscure
languages as encryption devices during the old wars. How
did I know? Joseph had dragged me over to the Four
Mountains reservation to watch him make his annual
address as the official shaman for the Native Nations of
North America. Sometimes I’d slipped out of the tribal
assembly hall and wandered around the adjacent museum
building.
   “You’re an Indian,” I said. I concentrated for a
moment, rolling the word around in my head. The only
Indians for miles around were the ones up in the canyons,
beyond the mountain range. “Navajo?”
  “No.”
   When he stepped into the circle of light, I saw he
wasn’t a young boy, but a very short, thin man. Milass
had the typical bowed calves and dark coloring of the
Navajo, so I didn’t think he was telling the truth. He wore
his long brown hair loose, with some white feathers
hanging from a single thin braid by his right temple. The
feathers contrasted sharply with the livid burn scars
marring his face and neck. He might be child-size, but he
looked like a guy nobody messed with.
  “You’re tasty looking,” he said, giving me a leer.
  “You’re not,” I said.
  “We’ll spout later.” He started down through the
conduit. “Move your gear.”
   I looked at Reever, saw how my cat was struggling to
get out of his arms. “Give me him, he’s scared.”
   Reever handed me Jenner, and I propped my frightened
cat against my shoulder. He sank his claws into me, and
shivered.
  “It’s okay, pal.”
   I continued to murmur wordless sounds of comfort as
we worked our way farther into the archaic sewer system.
When I saw the rats lining either side of the conduit, I
realized Jenner wasn’t frightened as much as he was
hungry.
   “You can’t eat those things,” I told him. “Look where
they live.”
   Reever put his arm around me when we turned into a
cross section and had to climb up into another, smaller
pipe. This one had several inches of waste at the bottom,
and I made a face.
    “That has to be at least two hundred years old. So why
is it still wet?”
   My husband took my arm. “It’s below the water table.”
   I cringed as my footgear became saturated. “Lovely.”
    We slogged through a series of waste-lined conduits
for some time, until we reached a man-made breach in the
pipes. Milass led us through that into a much larger tunnel,
filled with what appeared to be an ancient transport
system.
   I studied the alloy rails, huge, decaying transport
vehicles that resembled glidebuses, and heard the faint
hum of electricity. The little Indian went up to the first of
them and wrenched open a door. A shower of rust flakes
rained down around him. Hinges squealed and groaned.
  “I never saw anything like this when I lived on Terra,”
Reever said in a low voice.
   Me neither. “Have any idea what it could be? Besides
junk, I mean?”
   “Apparently some type of primitive electrical
conveyance system. It might be what was once called a
‘subway,’ a system of underground transport.”
  I could think of half a dozen archaeologists who would
have fainted at the sight of an intact subway system.
“Can’t be. Subways haven’t been used in about five
hundred years.”
   Milass came over to us, clearly impatient to go. “It’s
solid. Let’s jam.”
   We entered the long, box-shaped transport and sat
down on two of the cracked, stained seats. Reever was
utterly fascinated and started touching everything.
  “This pole is aluminum,” he said, then felt the seat.
“And this feels a little like unrefined plas.”
   “Plastic,” I said as I watched our rescuer. He’d gone to
the front compartment and was sitting at some kind of
console.
   “If this is a subway transport, it is too old to be
functional.”
   “I wouldn’t put credits on that.” I watched as Milass
activated the power system, and the entire car shook.
“Grab something, Reever.”
    Metal whined, electricity crackled, and the transport
shuddered and groaned as it began to slowly move on the
rails.
   Reever got that rapt look on his face, the one he had
whenever he was updating a linguistic database or
crossbreeding some kind of rare flower. “Incredible.”
   “Uh-huh.” It might be incredible, but it was also five
hundred years old, or worse. I held on and prayed the
thing wouldn’t collapse on us.
    It didn’t. It gathered velocity until we were doing about
half the normal speed of a glidecar, and rattled along the
tunnel railway. Someone must have spent considerable
time and effort maintaining this ancient system. Still, every
couple of seconds there was a new whine, hiss, or bump.
I started to sweat when I saw the rivets in one of the old
aluminum panels beginning to give way.
  After an hour of this joyride, I called to Milass, “How
much farther?”
  “Almost there,” he yelled back.
  I closed my eyes as we finally decelerated. “There is a
God and He listens to me.”
    When the transport came to a full stop, I got to the
door and out of there. In the pitch-black tunnel outside, I
opened my mouth to give the little man a piece of my
mind, when he took out a small black device and pointed
it at the wall.
   The wall slid to one side, revealing yet another
tunnel—this one much smaller and hacked out of solid
stone. Tiny optic emitters sparkled, casting a faint glow.
   Milass glanced back at us, then waved his arm and
stepped down into the tunnel.
   Things weren’t adding up. Indians involved with an
alien underground. Transport systems that shouldn’t exist
but still worked. Stone walls moving like door panels by
remote control.
  “Reever, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
   “We have no choice but to go on. Unless you prefer to
return to the estate and try to find an alternative escape
route.”
    “So what’s a bad feeling or two?” I stepped down into
the tunnel. The air at once became cleaner and cooler, and
I took a deep breath. Jenner perked up and struggled to
get down again. “Not yet, pal. Pardon me, but how much
farther is it?”
   “We’re near getting. Wait.” He held up a hand as he
pointed his device at a red optic light set in one side of the
tunnel. Something beeped, and the light turned from red to
green.
   “What’s that?” I asked, looking back as we passed it.
   “Watch.” He used his remote again, switching the light
back to red, then picked up a pebble and tossed it. A
bioelectrical field snapped and crackled, bouncing the
pebble back at us. At the same time, half a dozen thin,
sharp-tipped silver rods shot out of the top of the tunnel
and buried themselves in the floor.
   “A containment field. And… spears. Very nice.”
  “The buzz keeps meddlers out. The chuks clinch they
don’t get another go.” He was already walking away.
“Grip your animal and stay near.”
  “Absolutely.” Seeing as I didn’t have a handy-dandy
remote device myself.
   We passed at least a dozen more traps that Milass had
to disarm, emphasizing that wherever we were going
needed lots of security. From the slope of the tunnel and
the temperature drop I judged we were descending even
farther beneath the ground. The deeper we went, the more
optic emitters I saw. Then other tunnel openings began to
appear.
  “This place reminds me of Catopsa,” I said to Reever.
“All it needs is some hostile lizards and killer tul crystals.”
   Strange pictographs also started appearing on the walls
of the tunnels. They ranged from abstract circular designs
to more elaborate primitive symbols. Some strongly
resembled the patterns in the Navajo wool rugs my creator
collected. We also heard sounds of other footsteps, faint,
clanging noises, and from one tunnel opening, drumming
and low-pitched chanting.
   The little man took a final turn and lead us out into a
huge, natural cavern. It was so enormous and unexpected
that I yelped. Dozens of dark eyes turned to look at us for
a moment, then paid no more attention.
   It was exactly as if a small Indian village had been
dropped into the center of the earth. There was a big fire
burning in the center of the cave. Men crouched near it in
small groups, talking and drinking from small pottery
servers. Women sat near them, some of them weaving on
huge looms. Children ran around, some of them naked,
and played games with sticks and balls. Some thirty small,
rounded huts built of mud and wood lined the walls of the
cavern.
   I’d been to reservations and museums. I’d seen the
way even the most conservative Native Americans lived.
None of them had ever tried recreating a historic habitat
like this. “This is impossible.”
  “No.” Milass’s scarred face lit up with a satisfied smile.
“This is Leyaneyaniteh.”



   While I stood there gaping along with Reever, our
rescuer strode away and walked around the cavern. He
didn’t do anything for about ten minutes.
  “I don’t care what he says. They’re Navajo,” I said to
Reever.
  “How do you know?”
   “The Navajo consider it rude to barge in and say hi the
minute they arrive somewhere. They like to wait and give
people time to finish whatever it is they’re doing before
they interrupt them.”
   Once Milass judged the time to be right, he strode
casually to the center of the cavern and climbed up on a
big, flat boulder there. By then everyone had finished or
set aside whatever they were working on and gave him
their full attention.
   “Got in, got out, got ’em here.” The Indian pointed to
us, then smacked his little hand against his chest and made
a pushing-away gesture. “Junkers never stuck a sensor on
me.”
  Everyone in the cavern made a high, trilling sound,
something like a cross between laughter and cheering.
   He strutted around the top of the rock, detailing our
escape. Then he said, “The chief gifts you two more to
connect—she’s a patcher, and he’s a code talker.”
   From my rusty grasp of the man’s patois, and my even
scantier knowledge of Indian customs, I thought he was
saying we were going to join the tribe. “Reever, did you
get that?”
  “Yes. He thinks we’re going to join them.”
   “I didn’t say anything about joining them.” I scanned
the faces around us. Most of them weren’t completely
human. “Did you?”
  “No.”
   I started edging back toward the tunnel we had come
from. “I mentioned my bad feeling, too, right?”
  “Yes.” Reever stopped me. “Wait, we should hear
what he has to say.”
  I waited. That was my first mistake.
   Milass climbed down from the rock, and headed
straight toward us, flanked by two bigger men.
  “Nice cave.” I looked around again for the exit. “So,
can you take us up to the surface now?”
  “Spill and spout on that later.”
   Later. In Indian terms, that could mean anytime, from
this evening to next year. “May we speak with your
chief?”
   Milass tapped his chest. “I’m the chiefs secondario.”
He gestured toward the biggest man. “Kegide, the chief’s
other arm.”
   More like his other army. Trytinorn females would have
fallen in love with Kegide, who stood nearly seven feet tall
and had to weigh close to four hundred pounds. Lighter
skin and short-cropped black hair should have made him
seem less menacing than Milass, but it didn’t. His
expression seemed a little vacant, and his mild brown eyes
wandered. He didn’t say anything at all.
  “Hok, the chiefs shoulder-talker.”
   Hok’s title must have meant advisor, but he really did
only reach Reever’s shoulder. Not because he was short,
but due to the contorted condition of his body. The hump
on Hok’s back must have been due to a severe spinal
injury, or an untreated case of scoliosis. To add to his
problems, he also had scars all over the lower half of his
face. It looked like he’d been born with a cleft palate, and
someone had done a terrible job on the oral
reconstruction.
  Hok wore his dark hair in a long braid that hung over
one hunched shoulder, and he had shrewd, black eyes.
Not that it was easy to catch his gaze. He seemed
mesmerized by the ground.
  “Cherijo Torin,” I said. “My husband, Duncan Reever.
May we speak with your chief now?”
   “Come.” Milass pointed to the fire burning in the center
of the cave. “The chief craves you break and chew with
us. Spout our tales together.”
   Considering how much he’d helped us, I couldn’t see
refusing his hospitality. “All right.”
  That was my second, and worst mistake.
   When we were seated on woven mats near the fire,
Milass directed some of the women tending it to bring us
food and drink. Reever and I were handed servers of
strong, dark tea and handmade bread stuffed with some
kind of cheese.
    I cautiously tasted the tea and bread, and smiled. “This
is delicious, thank you,” I said to the woman who’d given
it to me. She merely gave me a strange look and wandered
away.
  The little Indian man sat down beside me and nudged
me with his arm. The contact made me jump. “You’re a
body patcher, like the Shaman, solid?”
   “I’m a thoracic surgeon.” I nibbled on the bread, trying
to figure out how these people had established an
underground village. “Why are you people living like
this?”
   Milass explained a little about it. From what I grasped
of his speech patterns, the Night Horse Clan was formed
from Navajo refugees and half-Navajo, half-alien fugitives,
some ten years ago. They’d bought land here after leaving
the reservation, and had discovered the tunnels by
accident. The hybrid fugitives decided to move
underground to prevent being deported. Their human
family members divided their time, living above ground
part of the year, and moving into the cavern in the winter
months.
  “We got back the Diné ways,” the little man said.
“Here we do like the old ones.”
   Diné was what the Navajo called themselves. “I
thought you said you aren’t Navajo.”
  “We are not. We are Night Horse.”
   Jenner, whom I’d been holding with one arm, sniffed at
the bread in my other hand. Absently I broke off a piece
for him and put him down between me and Reever.
  “What made you decide to leave the Navajo reservation
and form your own tribe?” Reever asked.
   Milass scowled. “Whiteskin laws. The people hang on
them now. Whiteskin law say all brids taboo, have to go
from Dinéteh, go from Terra. Rico fetched the brids and
their kin away, fetched them here.”
  “The way you ‘fetched’ us here?” I asked.
  The little man shrugged. “Some. They crave it now.”
  “You solid, patcher? Decent?”
   The beautiful voice asking me that came from Hok, and
for a moment, all I could do was stare. Finally I realized
how rude I was being, and nodded. “Yeah, I’m a pretty
decent patcher.”
   “Crave a new mug, Hok?” Milass said. His squeal of
laughter was as mean as his eyes. “No patcher decent
enough do that.” He laughed, and Kegide grinned.
   “You’d be amazed what I can do,” I told Milass, angry
that they’d ridiculed him. An image of Furre-Va’s
beautifully reconstructed face, and me pulling a berth linen
over it, made me bite my tongue.
  But the little twerp wasn’t done.
  “Bet this hairball do the job,” he said, and held Jenner
up by the scruff of the neck. “What you spout, Hok?
Crave a good scratchin’, better up your mug some?”
  I got to my feet. “Put him down.”
   “Snap your lip, patcher.” The little man shook my poor
cat. “I ain’t marring him.”
   I wasn’t going to wait and see if he meant at all or yet.
I grabbed Jenner from Milass, pressed him against my
chest, and ran. For about ten feet, until someone literally
picked me up off mine.
  Kegide grinned down at me as he carried me
suspended between his huge hands back to the fire.
   “Milass making fun,” Hok said to me as Kegide gently
put me back down between him and Reever. “No grief,
patcher.”
   I looked at my husband, who was staring at the
hunchback, evidently fascinated by his melodic voice. So
I elbowed him.
  “Thanks for helping me rescue Jenner,” I said, heavy
on the sarcasm.
  “You get wrathful easy, little patcher,” Milass said.
“Your animal ain’t marred.”
   “We’d like to make arrangements to leave Terra,”
Reever said. “Do you have any contacts with
interplanetary transportation?”
   “We’ll spout on that tomorrow. Come.” Milass rose to
his feet. So did the other men. “I’ll guide you to your
night hogan.”



   We were both so tired we fell asleep as soon as we
were shown our “night hogan,” one of the little
mud-and-stick huts at the back of the cavern. It felt good
to curl up with Reever and Jenner. All we had to do was
get back to the Sunlace, and I’d be a happy girl.
   One of the Night Horse women came in to wake us the
next morning, and brought some water to wash with and
two servers of their eye-opening tea. I assumed it was
morning, anyway. The cavern remained lit only by dozens
of optic emitters.
  We must be a good mile underground.
   Reever waited until the silent woman departed before
he spoke to me. “I am getting the impression the chief
does not wish us to leave.”
  “From what?”
   “If they meant only to help us escape your creator, why
are they keeping us here?”
   “Indian hospitality, I guess. Don’t be a pessimist.” I
splashed my face and dried it off with the edge of my
tunic. Almost as an afterthought, I replaced the Lok-Teel
in its accustomed spot under the tunic. “They’ll probably
make us honorary Horses or whatever, then take us to the
surface.”
   Jenner refused to budge from the blankets we’d slept
on, so Reever and I went out by ourselves to the center
cooking fire. This morning it looked like the entire tribe
was gathered around it, sitting cross-legged, heads
bowed. Hok stood off to one side, chanting something
that sounded religious.
   I stopped. I didn’t know much about Indians, but I
knew they took their rituals and religious practices very,
very seriously. “Maybe we should wait until they’re
done.”
   “Cherijo, Duncan.” Hok gestured for us to join them,
then continued his low, haunting chant.
   We sat down on the outer fringes of the group.
Someone passed us a cup made out of hard clay, and
made hand motions for us to drink from it. I pretended to
take a sip, and wrinkled my nose. Ugh. Whatever it was, it
smelled like wet, burnt wood.
   Reever made a similar pantomime before passing it
along. “Ashes,” he murmured against my ear. “Mixed with
water.”
  “Maybe they ran out of tea,” I whispered back.
   Hok finished his chant, and I nearly jumped out of my
skin when the entire tribe yelled “Ayi!”, then got to their
feet and walked away from the fire. Reever and I got up,
too, but Hok waved us to come closer and sit with him.
Milass and Kegide took positions behind us.
   I could feel Milass staring at the back of my head as I
spoke to Hok. “Thank you very much for letting us stay
overnight, and your generous hospitality. But we really
need to get out of here before someone comes looking for
us.”
   “No heat, patcher. Gunboys never find Leyaneyaniteh
.” He handed me something, and I saw it was two
wristcoms. Milass and Kegide wore them, too. “Clap it
on. Make it simple for us to spout.”
   Reever only shook his head when I handed one to him.
“I don’t need it.”
  Of course he didn’t. The man only spoke about a
million languages. I put mine on and adjusted it. “So, what
do we need to talk about?”
  Hok’s voice came through the wristcom very clearly,
unfortunately. “Our chief wishes you to stay here.”
   If Reever said, “I told you so,” I was going to smack
him. “Why? You don’t even know who we are. We could
be mass murderers.”
   “I know what you are,” he said. “Not all of my tribe
hides underground. We have many hogans up in the
canyons. We have vid equipment.”
   So Hok knew we were fugitives. “Are you going to turn
us in?”
  “No. Some of our tribe play for the New Angeles
Gliders. We need you to help them.”
   “The Gliders?” I was totally confused for a minute,
until I placed the name. “You mean they play shock-ball?”
He nodded. “You want to help them, make them quit.”
  “That would be unacceptable to our chief.”
  “Okay. What’s the problem with your players?”
   “Their appearance.” Hok traced a circle in the air
around his own face. “As long as a player can run and
kick, the junta doesn’t ask a lot of questions. The problem
is with the random commission inspections. They require
physical alterations to better pass as full Terrans.”
  Physical alterations as in surgery, I assumed. “Why
me?”
   “Our team physician says you’re the best cutter he
knows. You’re blood, too. You owe it to your people to
help them.”
   “You are not my wife’s people,” Reever said, very
calm and cold. “The fact that Cherijo has Navajo ancestry
doesn’t obligate her to provide her services to your tribe.”
  “You’re not blood, whiteskin,” Milass said, dismissing
him with a flick of his hand.
   They meant to keep us here. But that couldn’t happen.
We had to get back on the surface and get off Terra as
quickly as possible, before Joseph found us again. I
didn’t need the additional headache of escaping our
rescuers. But there were only two of us, and a whole tribe
of them.
  Panic made me surge to my feet. “I’m flattered by your
invitation, but I have to refuse. You’ll find someone else
to help you out. We really need to leave now.”
   “You’ll do what you’re told,” Milass said. “All the
blood follow the chiefs orders.” He clamped a hand on
my wrist.
  “Let her go,” Reever said.
   Milass pushed me aside, and pulled out a knife. “You
don’t challenge me. I’m secondario here. My words come
from the chief’s mouth.”
   “Then you should both shut up.” My husband
produced a blade similar to Milass’s. He must have stolen
it—Reever always liked to be armed, for some reason.
   “Wait.” I stepped between them. “We can talk about
this, work something out.”
  “Cherijo, get out of the way,” my husband said.
  Milass shifted the knife back and forth between his
hands. “Hide behind your woman while you can,
whiteskin.”
  I looked at Hok. “Don’t let him do this.”
  Hok only motioned to Kegide, who strode over, picked
me up like a doll, and hauled me to the sidelines.
   Milass jumped forward and slashed at Reever, who
circled back and around the fire. The Night Horse silently
gathered to watch. Kegide held on to me, and didn’t make
a sound, not even when I kicked him repeatedly in the
shins.
   I shrieked when Milass’s blade caught Reever’s
shoulder, and left a gash that saturated the front of his
tunic with blood.
   “Reever!” I twisted around and yelled at Hok. “Stop
this!”
   My husband instantly went on the attack, using his
blade with precise, calculated sweeps. He cut Milass on
the forearm, chest, and forehead before the Indian could
even react.
  “Yield,” Reever said, but Milass only wiped the blood
out of his eye and slashed back.
   It took a few more of those soundless, rolling moves
Reever knew how to make, but in the end Milass ended up
flat on his back on the cave floor, bleeding from a dozen
shallow wounds.
   “I prevail.” Reever wrenched the Indian’s knife from
his limp hand. Hok came over and dragged Milass to his
feet. A tribesman I hadn’t seen before joined them,
steadying Milass and speaking to him in a low voice.
  Kegide put me down as Reever started to walk toward
me. Milass came up behind him, and thumped my
husband on the back. “Good fight. Too bad you lost.”
   Reever went still. Kegide finally turned me loose, and I
ran over to him. His face had gone pale and glassy with
sweat.
   “What’s wrong? Did he…” My voice trailed off as I
glanced down. There was a knife sticking out of Reever’s
side. Milass was still holding the hilt and turning it, slowly.
   I didn’t think, I punched. Milass staggered backward
and crumpled. Then I had to grab Reevei as he dropped
to his knees. He pressed his knife into my numb hand.
   “Use . . this…”
   “Oh God.” I was sobbing, clutching at him. “Hold on.”
Gently I lowered him to the ground. The tall one came to
stand over us, and I brandished Reever’s blade. “Back
off.”
   “I am Rico, chief of the Night Horse.”
  A cold, invisible finger ran down my spine. I shot up
and held the knife to his throat. “You’re going to transport
my husband to a hospital. Now.”
    “You may make use of our medical alcove.”
Apparently unconcerned that I was ready to slit his throat,
Rico snapped his fingers. Two men appeared, carrying a
litter. Before I could blink, he added, “When you agree to
join us.”
   So the fight had been a setup. I pressed the edge of the
knife in, until a trickle of red ran along the blade. “You
should be more concerned with your jugular.”
   “You have much to worry about, too.”
   I felt twin sharp pricks on either side of me. Kegide
loomed on my right, Hok on my left. Another tribesman
crouched next to Reever, and held a blade to his throat.
   Rico simply looked amused. “The whiteskin will
assuredly bleed to death before I do. Decide.”
   “Okay.” I let go of the knife and let it fall to the cave
floor. “I’ll do whatever you want.”



   I’d never operated on someone I loved before. The
closest I’d come was taking care of Kao, before he’d
died, and the surgery I’d performed on Dhreen, when his
ship had crashed on K-2. Now, running beside the
makeshift gurney Kegide and Hok were carrying Reever
on, I faced a surgeon’s worst nightmare.
   What if I botch the job?
   What if I can’t stop the bleeding?
   What if he dies on my table?
  I wasn’t perfect. Every doctor made mistakes. Now
Reaver’s life was in my hands, and one error on my part
could snuff it out. Just like that.
  I could hardly think about it. Him, dying. Life without
Reever was… unimaginable.
  Squilyp’s voice rang out in my had. You’ve simply
never been in a position to worry about your own
competency.
   Well, I was now. I wondered what the Omorr would
say about that. What Vlaav Irde would say, if he knew
how frightened I was?
   You are always so confident of success.
  I recalled my reply to what he’d said, and cringed at
my own arrogance. We’re surgeons. Success is the only
acceptable alternative.
   I had to shut down the voices, and the doubts, or I’d
freeze up. I knew that; I’d seen it happen to other
surgeons. Reever wasn’t going to die. I didn’t fumble
instruments, I didn’t make mistakes. I was the best. I’d
find the damage and fix everything, and the man I loved
would live.
   And if he didn’t, then I’d deal with that, too.
  Reever regained consciousness for a moment and
squeezed my hand. I know… you will… my beloved…
  Reading my thoughts again. “Stop that.” I couldn’t let
him know how frightened I was. “I bet you’re just
congratulating yourself for marrying a surgeon.”
   Hok gave me an odd look, and I realized I’d spoken
aloud.
   I laced my fingers through Reever’s. It’ll be okay. I’ve
done plenty of kidney work in the past. Relax and let me
take care of you, okay?
  It is… difficult…
  I knew Reever didn’t even like watching surgery—it
made him physically ill. Trust me, please.
   He slid back into unconsciousness, just as we crossed
over the threshold of a man-made alcove in the rock wall
and into a makeshift treatment room. There were no air
replacement units; it was cluttered with junk, and
everything was filthy.
  As soon as I met their “cutter,” I was going to kill him.
   I directed the men to carefully set Reever down on the
floor, and grabbed the first scanner I saw.
   “You.” I pointed to Kegide. “You’re officially my
assistant for the next hour. Clean that refuse off the exam
table.”
  Kegide looked at me, then at Hok, puzzled.
   “He doesn’t understand,” Hok said, and tapped the
side of his head. “He’s not right here.”
  “Great. Then you’re elected.”
   Hok shrugged and began to move the dusty boxes
from the ancient exam table. I leaned over Reever and
scanned the wound site. The blade had penetrated his
kidney, which lay skewered on the end like a choice tidbit.
  “Looks like you’ll be running on one from now on.”
Automatically I scanned the opposite side of his
abdomen, saw the readings, and swore. Reever didn’t
have a second kidney to spare. I felt like slapping him.
“Damn it, what did you do with the other one?”
   There were no scars to indicate he’d had prior
surgery—I knew that, just from living with him. His vitals
were weakening, though he hadn’t lost much blood. If I’d
pulled the knife out back in the cave, he might have bled
out before I could have gotten him prepped. I looked over
at Hok, who had stripped off the stained linens and was
wiping down the table with a strong-smelling liquid
antiseptic.
   “I need to operate on him. Get me whoever can handle
assisting me, an air replacement unit, sterile field
generators, full-spread thoracic setup, a lascalpel rig, and
a whole blood synthesizer.” Hok merely stared at me. “Do
you have a brain problem, too?”
    “Our cutter can assist you. We don’t have many
instruments and no laser array. Our synthesizer isn’t very
reliable, but you’re welcome to use it. What is a sterile
field?”
  I could have screamed. “You people actually expected
me to work on your athletes? Under these conditions?”
   Hok shrugged. “Our cutter never complains.”
   “Your cutter never graduated medtech. He should be
locked up.”
   A tall, thin Caucasian male walked in. His physician’s
tunic was covered with stains and had a shabby, frayed
look to it. His close-set eyes widened when he saw me.
  I imagined mine were doing the same thing. He had the
same long, oily hair and cheesy smile that he’d sported
when we were in school.
   “Heard Milass cut him a whiteskin.” He grinned.
“Cherijo Grey Veil. So the psycho little dwarf pulled it off
after all.”
  “Wendell.” I could have wept, but I was too angry. “
You’re their cutter.”
   Wendell Florine was quite possibly the most inept
medical student I’d ever had the misfortune to brush
shoulders with at medtech. He was a drunk and a gambler,
and had cruised through classes relying on his dubious
personal charms and his father’s money to obtain passing
grades. He’d nearly killed a patient in our last year of
internship.
   I turned to Hok. “You assist me.”
   “Don’t be a bitch, Cherijo.” Still grinning, Wendell
shuffled over to the exam table. “Quasimodo here doesn’t
know a clamp from a rib spreader. I’ll give you a hand.
It’s what the chief wants me to do, anyway.” He cocked
his head to one side as he looked at Reever’s wound.
“What did he hit? The liver?”
  I turned to Hok again. “You’re assisting me.”


             CHAPTER SEVEN
                                                «^»

                      Choices
Wendell objected again, long enough to give Hok a
chance to escape, so I ended up stuck with him. It took a
few minutes to stabilize Reever enough to put him under.
Instead of intravenous sedatives, I had to resort to inhalant
chemicals to knock him out.
   “Liquid antiseptic. Liquid anesthetics. What kind of a
slaughterhouse do you run here?” I slammed down the
container of inhalant. “This stuff is completely unreliable.”
   “It’s all we could get.” Wendell looked around. “What
did you do with all my books?”
   “For God’s sake, he could wake up in the middle of
the procedure—what are you talking about, books?”
   “They were in boxes on the table.” Wendell yawned.
“Stop complaining about the inhalant, will you? If he
regains consciousness, I’ll just pour more over his mask.”
  “Go scrub,” I told him. “Before I douse you with some
myself.”
   I catheterized Reever, infused him with an
auto-transfuser, which would pump the blood he was
losing back into his body, then laid out the instruments to
soak in a pan of antiseptic. I eyed the stacked boxes lining
the walls of the alcove.
  “You’ve really got books in here?”
   “Couldn’t get my hands on a medsysbank. A couple of
the Indians found some kind of old storage vault when
they built this place. I got all the medical volumes out of
there.”
  “You’ve been treating patients using books.” It was
unheard of. “Real books, made of paper?”
  “Yeah. Down here, you work with what you can get.”
  “Uh-huh. And these books are how old?”
    “Couple of centuries. They survived in pretty good
condition, actually. And some of the procedures and
illustrations in them are just hilarious.”
  I closed my eyes for a moment. A practicing physician
who had never made it to residency, treating patients using
ancient texts he thought were funny. It was a wonder he
hadn’t wiped out the entire tribe.
   The old-fashioned titanium scalpels Wendell had
unearthed for me gleamed, cold and menacing. I’d been
trained to cut with a blade as well as a laser, and once I’d
even been forced to resort to using a chunk of razor-sharp
tooth to perform surgery.
  But this was Reever. I wanted only the best for him.
And I’d ended up stuck with the worst.
   Quickly, I scrubbed up beside Wendell, who was
whistling as he leisurely used an old brush on his grubby
nails.
   “Tell me, Florine, how did you end up down here with
these Indians?” I asked him. It was better than beating him
over the head with a torso brace.
   “I met Rico through the shockball junta. I, uh, owed
them a bit of creds for some games I bet on.”
  “Why didn’t your father bail you out?”
  Wendell assumed a pained expression. “Dad sort of
got tired of my hobbies. We parted ways a few years ago.
When Rico came to me, we got to talking, and he said he
needed a cutter. Said he’d pay off all my debt chips if I
worked for him. So here I am.”
  “Rico got a raw deal,” I muttered, but Wendell heard
me.
   “Well, not all of us can be top of the class,
slave-until-you-drop Cherijo the Goddess Grey Veil, you
know.”
  I ruined my sterile scrub by grabbing the front of
Wendell’s none-too-clean tunic and pulling him close.
“Listen. That’s my husband on the table over there.
You’re going to be top of the class today, or I’ll excise
your lungs with a rusty spoon, minus inhalant. Got it?”
  “Sure. Sorry.” He glanced over at Reever as I let go of
him. “You positive you want to do this yourself?”
   “You’re not touching him.” I scrubbed again, furious at
myself for wasting precious moments on someone as
slimy and self-interested as Wendell. “Hurry up. I want to
get started.”
   We went to the table and I cut Reever’s tunic off, then
sterilized his abdomen.
  Wendell noticed the knife, still buried in Reever’s side,
and scanned the wound. “We’re doing a, uh,
nephrectomy, are we?”
   “No, you idiot.” I checked the infuser lines, then
Reever’s pupils. “He only has one kidney, we can’t cut it
out.”
   “The renal trauma looks bad—his ureter has been
severed, and there’s extensive damage to the cal— cal—”
  “Calyces.”
  “Right. And the glomer— glomer—”
  “Glomeruli.”
  “That’s it. Are you sure you can repair it?”
  I glared at him over my mask.
   “Stupid question, right.” He took position by the
instrument tray.
  I held out my gloved hand. “Scalpel.”
   My hand shook a little as I placed the sharp edge of the
instrument against Reever’s skin. Blood welled up as the
tip sank in.
   Oh, God. I was cutting open my husband’s body. Not
a patient, not an anonymous collection of organs to be
repaired. Reever. I was cutting into Reever with a knife.
  I can do this.
   The trembling disappeared, and I made the long,
straight incision.
   “Uh, Cherijo, shouldn’t you remove the weapon from
the wound before you do that?”
  “Shut up, Wendell. This isn’t a teaching class.”
  If I’d had a scope, I could have repaired most of the
damage without cutting Reever open. As it was, I laid
open the tough inner muscles of his abdominal cavity and
spread his ribs out of the way.
   The kidney itself lay tucked under his liver, a tiny organ
only five inches long. It appeared in worse shape than I
thought; it should have been enlarged to make up for the
missing kidney. Instead, it appeared to be slightly
withered.
   “The renal artery’s been nicked. Suture laser—” I
closed my eyes. There were no lasers. “Suture silk.”
  “We’ve got Vicrol synthetic or PDS. Take your pick.”
   “What? That stuff hasn’t been used since the turn of
the century.”
   Wendell smirked. “PDS lasts longer, but has double
the absorption rate and doesn’t handle as well. I
recommend the Vicrol.”
  “Good idea.” I took the needle from him and started
sewing. “Save the PDS for your mouth.”
    “Don’t be mean.” Wendell leaned over, blocking the
overhead emitter. “Wow. I’ve never seen such small
stitches.”
  “Get out of my light, you moron.”
  “Sorry.”
   “Suction.” I repaired the artery, which was fed directly
from the aorta, and then gingerly extracted the knife. I
threw it across the room, heard it slam into the wall. Too
bad Milass hadn’t been standing there. “Pack the entry
wound with sponges. Have you at least got a cauterizer?”
  Wendell held up the small instrument. “Voilá.”
   “Take care of those small bleeders.” I started
inspecting the glomerular filtering units and the medulla.
The organ was literally ruined. With any other patient, I
would have performed a nephrectomy and yanked the
kidney out. As it was, I had to patch what was left
together and hope it would hold out until I got Reever to a
hospital and on hemodialysis.
   That meant I had to go back to Joe. Maybe he’d find
us first. Which was fine. I’d do whatever I had to, to keep
Reever alive.
  Wendell swore, and dropped the cauterizing tool.
“Sorry.”
  I looked over, saw the mess Wendell was making of
the simple job. The thin thread of my patience finally
snapped, and I tossed the bloody probe in my hand into
the tray. “Get out.”
  “Excuse me?”
  “You heard me. You’re done. Get out of here.”
  “But, Cherijo—”
  “Get out!” I shrieked, and Wendell ran.
  I took several deep breaths, then looked down at
Reever’s face. He was still out, thank God. I added a little
more fluid to his mask, then went back to work.
   Two hours later, I finished closing, and put the
Lok-Teel on the table to clean up the blood. Wearily, I
stripped out of my gear and sat down beside my husband.
The monitor showed his vitals were low, but steady.
  “Well, honey, we made it.” I rested my forehead
against his motionless arm, and wept for a long, long time.
   Even after the tears finally stopped, I couldn’t get rid of
the ache in my heart. The only kidney Reever had left
wouldn’t last very long, even with the repairs. I might have
bought him a few weeks, but in the end it was inevitable:
He was headed for complete renal failure.
   I had two choices: put him on dialysis, or come up with
a transplant organ. If I didn’t do one or the other, Reever
would die.



  After the surgery, I spent the rest of the day monitoring
him. Kegide brought me food I didn’t eat, and lingered.
  The way he stared at me got on my nerves, fast.
“What?”
   He didn’t answer, but pressed his hand against his
throat.
   Maybe he had laryngitis, and wanted something for it. I
scanned him, and was surprised to find he had no vocal
cords. They hadn’t been surgically removed, so Kegide
must have been mute from birth. What had Hok said? Not
right up here.
  A second scan showed distinct developmental
malformations in several sections of the brain. Mute and
cerebrally handicapped. He probably had the mentality of
a small child.
  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
  Kegide picked up the clay pot of the stew he’d brought
me, and placed it in my hands.
  “Thanks, but I’m not hungry.” I gave it back to him.
“You can eat it, if you want.”
  He sat down and polished off the stew. As he did,
Milass walked in.
  “The chief wishes to see you. Come with me.”
   “Your chief can drop dead. And you can go sit on a
knife.”
  “You might be tasty looking, but you have a foul
mouth.” Milass went toe to toe with me, his eyes level with
mine. “If you were my woman, I’d poison your food.”
  “If I were your woman, I’d eat it.” I stepped in front of
Reever. “I can’t leave him alone right now. He’s still in
danger.”
  “Kegide. Go fetch Burrow Owl to sit with him.” Kegide
lumbered out, while Milass looked at Reever over my
shoulder. “You did a good job on him. He should be
dead.”
   I could have happily buried a scalpel in his kidney at
that moment. “So should you.”
   “You have a discourteous mouth, patcher.” He put a
heavy hand on my shoulder, and squeezed. Bones shifted
under his grip, but I didn’t twitch an eyelash. I wouldn’t
give him the satisfaction. “Take care what comes out of it,
or I will see you squirming on the end of my blade.”
   “Do you know how many people I’ve cut open since I
picked up my first blade?” I leaned in and lowered my
voice to a whisper. “Thousands.”
  Kegide came in then with one of the women, and
Milass shoved me away. “You come to the chief’s fire.
He waits for you.” Then he stalked out.
   I spoke with Burrow Owl, who had only a rudimentary
knowledge of first aid, but seemed agreeable and
understood what to watch on the monitors. “If anything
fluctuates, send Kegide to get me at once.”
  I went out into the tunnel and back to the central cave.
Rico was standing with Hok and a group of other men by
the fire. A beautiful young girl was clinging to the chief’s
side.
   It was easy to see why. Rico had the commanding
presence of a chief, and wore his primitive garments with
ease and style. A thong pulled his long black hair back
from strong, defined features. He didn’t smile much, but
when he did, it was as potent as a slap.
   He looked over, saw me, and said something to the girl
before gesturing for me to approach. She sauntered off,
but not before giving me a dirty look.
   “You sent your psycho dwarf for me?” I asked,
planting my hands on my hips.
   “These are the players you must fix,” Rico said,
waving a hand toward the dozen or so men. All of them
showed obvious external indicators of their hybrid
blood—some more blatantly than others.
   It was unusual to see so many half-Terrans, given the
GEA, but not a surprise. Most of the galactic humanoid
races had proved to be cross-fertile. It had stunned
twenty-second-century Terran scientists, who had always
snottily insisted it to be impossible. Until they’d gotten
hold of some alien DNA and found out just how wrong
they were.
   Now they debated whether Terrans had, like other
humanoid species, descended from an original founding
race. Popular opinion was an unwavering no, but what
could you expect from a species that had once thought
their world was as flat as a pancake and the center of the
universe?
   I looked over the group. There were facial corrections
to be made, pigment and other dermal mutations to be
altered, and in a few cases, some major reconstructive
work. All of which I couldn’t do with the limited quantity
of medical supplies and instruments the tribe had.
   “I’ll need better equipment, numerous pharmaceuticals,
and someone with medical training to assist me in
surgery.”
  “Wendell—”
  I lowered my eyebrows. “Not Wendell.”
  “Very well. Talk to my advisor.” Rico thumped Hok
on the back. I saw the wince before the hunchback could
conceal it. “He will get you whatever you need.” With
that, he went after his girlfriend, who giggled and threw her
arms around his neck. He disappeared with her into the
largest of the lodges.
  Must be pretty nice to be the chief around here.
    I turned to Hok. “Have you got something to make a
list with?”
   “Just tell me. I’ll remember.” At my skeptical glance, he
gave me a twisted smile. “I am a hataali, patcher. I can
remember songs that take three days to sing. I assure you
I will do the same with whatever you tell me.”
   I gave him the list. He made no comments about my
demands, but shook his head when I got to the dialysis
rig. “That will not be needed.”
  “How the hell do you know what I need?”
    “I worked as an orderly in a hospital on the reservation.
You don’t need to perform any kidney operations on our
tribe.”
  “If my husband dies, I’m not going to operate on
anyone. Get the damn rig.”
    “There aren’t many to be had anymore. Organ cloning
is the treatment of choice.” He gave me a thoughtful look.
“I can get you the components to make one.”
  “Fine. What about nurses?”
  “A few of the women have practical knowledge.”
  Practical knowledge. They probably smeared patients
with colored clay and rattled things over them. “Not good
enough. What about you? You said you worked in a
hospital.”
  “I sterilized equipment.” He actually blushed. “I have
had no training.”
   Again with the training. Was I ever going to be in a
situation where I had competent help? “You’re the
brightest one I’ve met down here so far. I’ll train you
myself.”
  “If the chief permits it.”
   I glowered. “The chief will permit it, or he and I are
going to have another little chat.”
   I went back to Medical, dismissed Kegide and the
Indian woman, and performed another series of scans on
Reever. He was running a low-grade fever, but roused as
soon as I tried to wake him.
   “Hello, wife.”
   “Hi, yourself, husband.” I adjusted his infuser and
injected a standard antibiotic, to deal with the budding
infection. “How do you feel?”
   “Sleepy.” He looked around. “Where am I?”
  “In my new medical facility. One room, no equipment,
and the supplies are at least a century old. Sort of reminds
me of the FreeClinic on K-2.” He tried to touch his side,
but I caught his hand. “No messing with my suture site.”
   “Were you able to repair the damage?”
  “Mostly,” I lied. “Want to tell me what happened to
your other kidney?”
   “According to my parents, I was born with only one.”
   “That explains why you don’t have any surgical scars.”
I paused, wondering exactly how much I should tell him.
I’d been in a similar situation before, with Kao. But with
his sensitive Jorenian physiology, he’d already known he
was dying.
  I couldn’t keep Reever in the dark. He had a right to
know.
   “Duncan, I was able to temporarily fix the damage, but
your kidney will eventually stop functioning. Hok is getting
me what I need to set up a dialysis rig for you, and once I
find a replacement organ, I’ll perform a transplant
procedure.”
   “If you don’t?”
   “Then you’ll die.”
   He curled his hand around mine. “I have much to live
for. Do what you can.” Then he drifted off to sleep.
  I shut off the light emitters, sat beside him, and felt
something brush against my legs.
   Jenner. I picked him up and held him on my lap. He
sniffed at Reever’s hand, then nudged mine.
   “He’s okay,” I told my cat as I scratched gently around
his ears. It didn’t sound like I was deluding myself. “He’s
going to be fine.”



  I set up an adjoining alcove in the tunnel as an
outpatient treatment room, and started working on the first
hybrid.
   Small Fox didn’t quite live up to his name. He was a
walking hulk who played as a frontline blocker, and used
his massive torso to keep other linemen from attacking the
center kicker. None of that made any sense to me, but I
wasn’t much of a shockball fan.
   Small Fox’s problem was the genetic heritage his alien
father had passed along to him. Namely, an extreme case
of hypertrichosis, resulting from an abnormal androgen
production level, stimulated by his alien DNA. Small
Fox’s body was, quite literally, covered with hair. If that
wasn’t bad enough, the hair was bright green in color.
  “No one ever called you the Jolly Green Giant?”
  “Not after I passed three hundred pounds.”
  “Hmmm.” I ran a bioanalysis on a hair sample. It was
copious, it was green, but it was plain human hair. “How
have you managed to conceal your condition so far?”
  “I shave before every game,” Small Fox told me, and
winced as he rubbed the grassy stubble on his face.
“Twice a day, every day.”
   I used a small vat of depilatory cream to de-hair him
this time, then prescribed a daily dose of an
androgen-suppressant compound.
   “If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to use electri-stim on
the follicles directly.” Which would take about forever.
“Report back to me in a week and let me know how
you’re doing.”
   A second player presented a more complex problem
for treatment: leg bones that curved inward, which often
made him trip when running upright, like a human, instead
of on all fours, like his alien equine parent. Protruding
bony knobs at his knees and ankles didn’t help.
  I trimmed away the protrusions, which served no
purpose, and dressed the sites. If he’d been a child, I
could have operated on his legs to correct the abnormality
of the tibia and fibula. Since the bones were ossified, I’d
have to approach it from a physical therapy angle.
   I prepared a couple of weight packs, and showed him
how to stretch the tight muscles with some simple
exercises. “Once those patches heal, work on your legs
with these, every day. Get them loosened up, and you’ll
be able to keep your balance with your legs spread farther
apart.”
   He hobbled out, and I went to check on Reever. The
fever had improved, but he wasn’t ready to go waltzing
yet. I’d get him up and walk him tomorrow, I decided.
   My next patient was waiting for me when I went back
to the treatment room. Thousands of small, dark purple
discolorations covered his face, hands, forearms, neck,
ankles, and feet.
  “Hi, there. Who are you?”
  He folded his arms and glared at me. “Spotted Dog.”
  “Great name.”
   The rest of his body appeared unaffected, and although
he had an unusual arrangement of genitalia, without the
discolorations, he’d easily pass for Terran.
   “If you were a lot older, I’d say these were age spots.”
I circled around him, trying to figure out why his torso
only had a couple of spots here and there. “Do they pop
up anywhere else?”
  “Sometimes on my legs, and chest. They go away in
winter months.”
   I stepped back and studied him. Of course.
Everywhere his garments covered him, his skin was
relalively normal. The discolorations occurred only on the
parts of his body that were constantly exposed to the
elements. I took a blood sample to be sure.
   “Okay, Spotted Dog. You’ve got a serious case of
anaphylactoid purpura, also known as Schönlein-Henoch
purpura. The spots are caused by inflammation of the
blood vessels beneath the skin.”
  “What does that to me?”
  “I don’t know yet, but whatever it is, it’s environmental
and you’re highly allergic to it. Did your alien parent have
any kind of a severe physical reaction while on Terra?”
  “My father had to take Mother back to her homeworld.
She had trouble breathing. They left me behind with my
Terran grandparents.”
   Since he didn’t sound too happy talking about it, I let it
go. “I’m going to start you on a series of shots. We’ll
determine what exactly is irritating your derma, then come
up with a counteragent. That should get rid of the spots.”
  That was all the patients I was sent for the day. I went
back to sit with Reever, and Hok limped in, carrying a
heavy box of Pharmaceuticals.
  “Your drugs, Doctor.”
   I checked through the collection, which according to
the labels had been taken from a dozen different area
hospitals. “Where did you get these?”
  “Does it matter?”
   “No. Why didn’t you report here today? I could have
used some help moving some of this junk out of here.”
   “The chief needed me elsewhere.” He shuffled toward
the door.
   “Tell the chief I need you tomorrow.” His limp seemed
more pronounced today, and I frowned. “Are you in
pain? Do you want me to check you out?”
   “No. I am only tired.” He paused at the alcove’s
entrance. “I’ll bring you the components for the dialysis
rig tomorrow.”
  “Good. Be ready to start your training, too.”



  Hok delivered boxes of supplies and equipment to
Medical every day after that, and generally stayed a few
hours to assist me. Remembering how I’d screwed up
with Vlaav, I took great pains to be a kinder teacher.
   I started to move Wendell’s books out into the tunnel,
then one of the boxes fell over and I picked up a perfectly
preserved volume on surgical theory. I knew I shouldn’t
have wasted time with it, but my curiosity got the better of
me. Then I started sorting through the books and pulling
out a few reference volumes. Nothing I could really use,
but as reading material, they were utterly fascinating.
  Hok and I built the dialysis rig together, and set it up
beside Reever’s makeshift berth. Signs of kidney failure
were already beginning to show in his daily scans, and I
knew it was only a matter of time before I had to put him
on the rig.
   Milass and Kegide also made regular visits. I had the
feeling the secondario only came to make sure I was
working and to report back to Rico on my progress with
the hybrids.
   Kegide brought me things—food most of the time, but
sometimes pretty crystals, pebbles, and one time a small
brown feather he tried to stick in my hair.
   At first I thought he meant to pet me, the way he did
the cat, and grabbed his big paw. “Uh-uh. No scratching
behind my ears.”
   “He wants you to wear the feather,” Hok told me, then
took it from Kegide’s hand and tucked it in his tunic. “No,
brother. She does not want it.”
   “I can wear a feather in my hair, if it makes him happy.”
I’d have to sterilize it first, though.
   Hok snorted. “You have shown no desire to be a part
of the blood. Why would you lower yourself to emulate
our ways?”
  He’d made other, similarly snide comments over the
past week, and I was getting sick of it.
   “Look, pal. Unlike you and Man Mountain here, I was
never allowed more than a brief and largely superficial
exposure to my ancestral cultures. But just because I was
raised like a ‘whiteskin’ doesn’t mean I hold them, or
your culture, in contempt.”
   “Is this the truth?” Hok swept a hand out toward the
tunnel. “I see you among the blood, but you do not speak
to them outside of this room. You eat our food and sleep
under our protection and hear our songs, but you never
offer thanks for any of them. You watch us with your
whiteskin eyes, but you do not see who we are.”
    “Huh?” The laugh I couldn’t help. “Wait a minute. I
don’t recall being invited to any of your conversations,
ceremonies, or whatever you call these little nighttime
soirees.” I planted my hands on my hips. “And, in case
it’s slipped your mind, my husband and I were brought
here, and are being held here, against our will. I don’t
think we’re going to be grateful to you for kidnapping and
imprisoning us. Ever.”
   “If you condescended to learn more about the blood,
perhaps you would agree to stay voluntarily.”
  Kegide gave me one of his beseeching looks. The same
way he did whenever I was bordering on a knife fight with
Milass.
   Some of what Hok said made sense. It’s hard to be
righteous when you haven’t considered the other guy’s
point of view. Not that I’d ever consider staying here,
when all I wanted was to get back to the Sunlace. “Okay.
When’s the next dancing or singing thing?”
  “Tonight we will celebrate a new marriage among us.
You and Nilch’i’ are welcome to join us.”
  A wedding. And I had nothing to wear. “Nilch’i’?”
   “That is what they are calling your husband. It means
‘the wind,’ for the way he moves when he fights with a
blade.”
  “How is Chief Rico going to feel about me and The
Wind showing up at this wedding?”
  Hok gave me a twisted smile. “Who do you think
wants you there the most?”
   I wasn’t going to touch that remark with a ten-foot
dermal probe. “What time, and which hogan?”
  “We are going above, to the canyons. I will come for
you when it’s time.”


             CHAPTER EIGHT
                                               «^»

                     Topside
I don’t want to try to escape tonight,” I told Reever as I
helped him dress. Since I’d destroyed his tunic prepping
him for surgery, I’d borrowed some clothing for him from
Kegide. “You’re too weak to go running around the
mountains in the dark.”
   “I can make the journey.”
   I told him what Hok had mentioned—that teams of
men—whiteskins—had sporadically been spotted in the
general area above the tunnels. Then I added, “They have
to be working for Joe.”
   “Joseph will not capture us. I will be fine.”
   “You will be dead if you don’t listen to me. We’ll just
see how you get from this cavern up to the surface, and
plan to make our own trip when you’re feeling better.”
   “Cherijo.” He put his hands on mine and stopped me
from lacing up the front of the decorated, animal-hide shirt
I’d put on him. “You could go without me.”
    I could have—that was the terrible thing about it. I
wanted to get off Terra and back to the Sunlace so badly
it actually tempted me.
  I tugged on the laces. “Sorry, that would violate my
marriage contract. Times like these, that little ‘until death
do us part’ clause kicks in.”
   “We have no such marriage contract.”
   “Well, whatever the Jorenian or Hsktskt equivalent is,
then.” I used a piece of suture silk to tie back his hair.
“You need a haircut.”
   He fingered my braid, which was so long now the end
reached past my hips. “So do you.”
   Once I finished his outfit, I started putting on mine.
One of the women had brought me a two-piece dress
called a biil to wear, and it took a minute to calculate
exactly what draped and knotted over that. I liked the bold
stripes and diamond patterns woven into the garments,
which were both lightweight and warm.
   “There.” I turned around slowly. “How do I look?”
   “Like an Indian.”
   “Then I must have it on right.”
   Hok met us in the tunnel. He seemed to approve of my
costume, then asked me the strangest question. “Doctor,
are you having your menstrual cycle now?”
   “No, I’m not.” Not exactly something I’d ever
expected to be asked, outside of an examination room.
But then, Joe had wanted to know the same thing. Was I
that cranky? “Why?”
   “Women who are actively menstruating are considered
unclean and are not permitted to attend a wedding
ceremony.”
   Religious taboos. I will never understand them. “That’s
really silly, you know.”
  He gave me his equivalent of a shrug. “That is our
way.”
   I thought Hok would take us out to the central cavern,
but instead he led us through the labyrinth of tunnels out
to the old subway station.
   “Why is everyone waiting?” I asked as we joined the
others leaving the tunnels and walking toward the old
transport system. “Don’t tell me you’ve got this thing
running up to the surface.”
   “We use the lift,” Hok said, and guided us around the
rusting transports to a raised platform.
    “The lift?” Then I saw something sliding back down
the strange arrangement of mechanisms and machinery at
the other end of the platform, and blinked. “That’s the
lift?”
  Hok nodded.
   Somehow the tribe had cannibalized one of the subway
transports, and rigged it on pulleys to slide up what had
been some kind of mechanical stairway. When the empty
transport came to the bottom of the stairway, it filled with
people, who grabbed the main cables, which had been run
straight through the transport, and pulled. By pulling the
cables, they hauled the huge rusting box up the stairway.
   “Just out of curiosity, how many people have to be in
the lift to be able to pull it to the top?”
  “At least ten.”
   Which is why they went up in groups, and had no
problem with me and Reever seeing how they traveled to
the surface. There was no way we could do it by
ourselves.
   Two more groups went up before we had our turn
pulling the lift to the surface. Even with twenty-five of us,
it wasn’t easy. Reever kept giving me very intense looks. I
knew what he was thinking—this probably would be our
only chance to escape, unless we figured out how to get
back to Joe’s lab.
   While I knew if we tried, given his condition, the
attempt might kill Reever.



   The lift connected at the top of the stairway to a huge
mechanical clamp, which allowed us to release the cables
and get out before the transport was lowered back down.
The last group to come up, Hok told me, would keep the
transport locked in place until we returned from the
wedding.
    We got out onto another platform which led up a short
flight of regular stairs. Sunlight filled my eyes as I emerged
from there to the surface.
   I was momentarily distracted by how wonderful it felt,
simply to be outside again. The sun was just about to set
behind the mountains, and although the temperature was
on the cool side, just being able to stand without millions
of tons of rock over my head was sheer pleasure. I lifted
my face and closed my eyes, relishing the last touch of
sunlight against my skin.
   “I miss the warmth on my face, too,” Hok said,
startling me.
   Anyone who would rather live in a cave than on the
surface, in my opinion, was crazy. “You don’t have to.”
   He just gave another of his shrugs and started hobbling
over the path that cut through the narrow canyon in front
of us, toward a cluster of boulders. Reever took my hand
and we followed him at a discreet distance. I checked
behind us to see Kegide and some of the other Night
Horse men bringing up the rear.
   “We have to go now,” Reever said in a barely audible
tone.
   “They’re watching us.”
   “Later, then. At the first opportunity.”
   I scanned the surrounding area. Rocks, brush, scrub
pine, and dirt. I hadn’t done much exploring of the region
around my birthplace, but I knew there were thousands of
canyons and trails in these mountains.
   We had no food, no water, and no survival equipment.
It was late autumn and that meant heavy frost. Even if we
could steal what we needed from the surface community,
we had no idea of where we were. We could be a mile
away from The Grey Veils, or a hundred miles.
   It didn’t present much danger to me. Besides being
hardened after a year of slavery, I knew it would take a lot
more than temperature and starvation to kill me.
   I could get off this miserable world and get back to
the Sunlace. But I can’t leave Reever behind.
  There were also Joseph’s search teams to reckon with.
   “We can’t. I don’t know where we are. You’re too
weak, and I don’t have so much as a single lousy bandage
on me. We’ll die of exposure if we try.”
  His eyes, which had become a colorless, chilly gray,
met mine. “We have to try.”
   “No, we have to live. We can do this when we’re better
prepared.”
    The path abruptly shrank and Reever and I were forced
to squeeze single file between the boulders. Beyond them
a wide, flat expanse of land stretched out, hemmed in on
all four sides by sheer vertical rock cliffs.
   A cluster of larger hogans identical to the ones
underground had been built in the center of the canyon. I
could see the immediate appeal of the location— evidently
the only way to get to it was through the concealed trail
between the boulders, or from the air.
   These people were Navajo, or at least descended from
Navajos, but again they’d broken with tradition. From
what I remembered seeing on the Four Mountains
reservation, the traditionalists preferred to live far apart
from each other over wide tracts of land. Here the hogans
had been erected close together, and the sense of a tightly
bound community was very strong.
  Like a cult, I thought uneasily.
   Corrals occupied by horses, sheep, and other animals
lay behind each hogan, and there were signs of crops
growing in small cleared areas beyond the village. Hok and
the others headed for a specific hogan, at the far end of
the community. Then, just before we arrived at our
destination, everyone stopped and pretended to study the
ground for several minutes.
  “Definitely Navajo,” I said to Reever.
   The bride’s family eventually came out of the hogan
and greeted us. No hybrids here. Dressed in brilliantly
colored, handwoven garments, our smiling hosts greeted
and spoke with every guest individually, leisurely working
their way through the crowd. Hok introduced me and
Reever as whiteskin friends of the tribe.
  The bride’s mother, who had the rather menacing name
Veda Wolfkiller, gave me the once-over. “You don’t look
much whiteskin to me.”
   “I’m only half-white,” I said, repeating the lie Joe had
told me since childhood. In reality, I had no idea if I had
any Caucasian blood at all.
  “What is the other half of you?”
  I tried to keep a straight face. “Some Navajo. Mostly
Apache.”
  “Apache?” Veda’s eyebrows rose. “We know some
Apache families. Perhaps they share blood with you.
What is the name of your mother’s clan?”
   Before I could try to explain my way out of that one,
the bridegroom’s party arrived. Veda promptly excused
herself and returned to the hogan. Hok stayed with me and
Reever to explain what was happening.
   First the bridegroom’s family presented the dowry gift
to the bride’s family. This consisted of traditional
gifts—rugs, blankets, silver jewelry, baskets, pottery, and
a saddle—all beautifully worked and obviously precious.
The groom and his family immediately went into another,
larger hogan, to sit down by the fire, while the bride and
her family sorted through the gifts.
   I nudged Reever. “How come I never got any wedding
presents like that when I married you?”
   “Conventional Hsktskt union celebrations include
sacrificing a warm-blooded animal. The newly united pair
must drink the blood for luck.”
  I cringed. “That’s a good reason.”
   Veda Wolfkiller emerged from the hogan, carrying a
beautifully woven basket, inside which was an equally
elaborate clay pot. It held special ceremonial corn mush,
Hok told me. She was followed by other female family
members, bearing platters of food. They walked through
the village to a large, obviously recently constructed
hogan. Hok told us to follow them inside.
   Bundles of dried corn cobs and beautifully patterned
wool rugs lined the walls of the hogan. It was crowded,
and a little stuffy, but Reever and I found a place out of
the way by the door. As we watched, Veda handed her
basket to her daughter, and embraced her. The bride then
joined her groom on the opposite side of the fire, and with
great formality presented him with the mush. Once that
was done, she sat down on his right.
  “Now the ceremony begins,” Hok said in a low voice.
  My scalp prickled, and I felt a low, distinct sense of
awareness hum over my nerves. Although I hadn’t seen
him yet, Rico had to be somewhere close by, and he
was… preoccupied?
    My new empathic warning system proved to be right as
Rico, dressed in an elaborate Navajo costume, abruptly
walked through the entrance to the Hogan. He carried a
wicker jug and a strange-shaped vegetable over to the
wedding couple. As he approached them, everyone fell
silent.
   “Is that a squash?” I asked Hok in a whisper. Seemed
like an odd wedding gift.
  “No, a gourd ladle for the water in the jug.”
   Rico handed the gourd ladle to the bride, then poured
water from the wicker jug into it. The bride turned and
poured the water from the ladle over her groom’s hands.
She then handed him the ladle, and he repeated the same
process with Rico for her.
  “Now he will take out his bag of corn pollen,” Hok told
me.
  “You people sure have a thing for corn,” I said.
  Rico removed a small bag, from which he pinched
some pollen and squatted down to sprinkle it over the
basket of mush. He did this from right to left, then up and
down. After that, he made a circle of pollen around the
basket, then tucked the bag away.
   I made a mental note to test Spotted Dog for pollen
allergies.
  The chief stood and addressed the tribe. “If any here
have protest to the turning of the basket, speak it now.”
   Hok anticipated my question and said, “It’s symbolic
of turning the minds of the bride and groom toward each
other.”
   No one had any protests to make, so Rico turned the
basket of mush. “Take a pinch of the corn mush at the
edge, where the pollen ends at the east,” he told the
groom.
   The groom took it, and put it in his mouth. The bride
did the same. They continued by taking pinches of pollen
from the pattern sprinkled around the basket, and eating
that. When they were finished, there were sudden, startling
shouts of approval from the tribe.
  I couldn’t help smiling. “That means they’re married
now?”
  “Yes.”
   I looked at Reever and remembered the daylong ritual
he’d made me go through on Catopsa. “The Hsktskt
could learn a thing or two from these people.”
   Rico called for everyone to begin the feast, and Hok
went with us to the tables set up along the back wall of the
hogan. We were handed enormous plates of food and
servers of hot tea, and smiled at by everyone.
   “They seem pretty happy, don’t they?” I said in a low
tone to Reever when we sat back down. “I guess no one
cries at Navajo weddings.”
  “Not every culture considers marriage a tragedy,”
Reever said.
   Hok left us there, and we listened to some of the
bride’s family talking about another wedding being
planned. Veda, I noticed, was missing. When I asked
where she was, so I could thank her for allowing us to
attend, one of the bride’s brothers explained the custom
of the mother-in-law leaving after the presentation of the
bridal corn mush.
   “It is so she can avoid looking upon her daughter’s
husband,” he told me. “It is bad manners for her to stay,
just as it would be impolite of my sister’s husband to
enter our mother’s hogan.”
  “Why?”
  The man shrugged. “It prevents trouble in the family.”
   The feast was delicious, and I was happy to see Reever
eating well. Once everyone was done, one of the groom’s
relatives stood up and made a speech. He thanked the
bride’s family for the food and their reception, and the gift
of their daughter.
   When he was done, Rico stood over the bride and
groom, and started instructing them on how they should
conduct themselves as man and wife, including what they
needed to do on their sleeping mat. The latter was put in
such frank terms that I was appalled.
   “Whiteskins never talk about proper conduct in the
making of children,” the bride’s brother said, when he saw
my wide eyes. “That is why we think so many never stay
together.”
   The Night Horse had no problem with Rico’s candid
instructions, and joyously accompanied the bridal couple
to their new lodge.
   That left me and Reever and Hok standing in the
ceremonial hogan. “They will stay in there together for
four days and nights,” Hok said. “We will go back to
Leyaneyaniteh now.”
  “May we have a moment alone?” Reever asked him.
  Hok nodded and limped out.
   “Don’t,” I said, as soon as we were alone. “You’re
already exhausted, and we still have a long walk ahead of
us. We’ll find another way out of this, when you’ve
recovered.”
   He brushed his lips over my hair, then my nose. Then
he hugged me, hard enough to displace a few vertebra. “I
could distract them while you go.”
   “I’m not leaving. I’m never leaving you.” I was
instantly, irrationally furious. Bad enough I had to deal
with my own desperation, but did he have to keep pushing
me away? “Don’t ever ask me to do that again.”
  He sighed. “We’ll go back.”



   Once we returned with the Night Horse to the
underground tunnels, I took Reever to Medical and
performed a thorough scan.
   “I’m fine.”
  “You’re not.” I went to get a syrinpress, and found my
wrist clamped by his hand.
   “Come with me.”
   I went, mostly because I didn’t want to fight with him
anymore. Then I saw his eyes as he hauled me into the
hogan we’d been given in the central cavern. They weren’t
cold and gray any longer.
   “You’re in no shape to do this,” I said as soon as he
let go of me. “You’ve already pushed yourself too hard
tonight. I should have you on continuous monitor in
Medical. Your incision hasn’t healed yet, and your
kidney—”
   “My kidney will be fine.” He closed the door flap and
reached for me. “I have other concerns.”
   “Oh? Like what?”
  “I’m not sure what the source of this perpetual ache is.
Perhaps you should examine me.”
   He wasn’t angry—he was teasing me.
   By the light of the small fire in the center of the hogan, I
could just make out the muscles flexing as he pulled off
his borrowed shirt. For the first time since his surgery, I
didn’t use my physician’s eye to inspect him. Tonight I
could relax for a few hours and be a woman.
   His woman.
   I moved closer and placed a hand in the center of his
bare chest. “Something wrong with your heart?”
   “Here.” He pressed my fingers against his skin, rubbing
them over the strong, steady pulse beating there. “It
sometimes aches.”
  “Angina attacks. Hmmm, not a good sign in a man
your age.” I leaned forward and kissed the smooth skin.
“What else hurts?”
  “My hands.” He moved them up my arms, over my
shoulders. “They feel heavy. Empty.”
   “Could be osteoarthritis setting in.” I took his wrists
and moved his hands down, until I could slide them under
the hem of my tunic. “Try to keep them warm. Anything
else?”
  His eyes became glittering slits as he pulled my tunic
over my head and dropped it behind me, then stared
down at my breasts. “My… mouth. It aches, too.”
  “You’ve been depriving yourself again.” I lifted a hand
and traced the firm line that never seemed to bend.
“Maybe you’re just a little hungry.”
   “Hungry.” He bent down, pulling me up off my feet at
the same time. “Yes. That’s it. I’m hungry.” His warm
breath touched my lips. “For you.”
    More like starving, I thought, my neck arching back
under the force of his kiss. But he shouldn’t have been
lifting me. I wiggled out of his grasp, backed up to our
sleeping mat, and held out my hand.
  “Come to me, Duncan.”
   The firelight made small, jumping shadows that passed
over his face, briefly illuminating, then hiding the beads of
sweat on his brow. He came toward me, then paused and
pressed a hand to his side.
   The physician in my head mentally kicked me in the
libido. “Maybe continuing your, um, deprivation is the
best.”
  “Give me a moment. It will pass.”
   No, it wouldn’t. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was
in pain. With a silent, admittedly selfish groan, I resigned
myself to another couple of nights of chaste cuddling.
  I lifted my outstretched hand and faked smothering a
yawn. “You know, I’m really tired. How about a rain
check on this?”
   “You are a terrible liar.” Reever eased down beside me
and took my hand. His breathing sounded rapid and
shallow, and his skin temperature felt icy. “Im sorry,
Cherijo.”
  “You can make it up to me when you feel better.” I
pulled a blanket over us and warmed him with my body.
“Go to sleep, Duncan.”
  He fell asleep in my arms.
   I wasn’t so fortunate. Reever had a way of arousing all
the basic feelings in me, and they weren’t going to let me
get off that easy. Eventually I extricated myself from his
embrace, rose from the mat, and wandered out in the
cave. Everyone was still asleep, but someone had left a
pot of tea warming beside the banked fire. I poured
myself a cup, and sat down.
   Hok had been very canny, to invite me to the wedding.
No doubt all part of his campaign to have me voluntarily
join the Night Horse. It was even logical, in a sense. I
needed sanctuary. The tribe needed a doctor.
   What would it be like, if I had no other choice but to
stay with them? Would they allow me and Reever to live
on the surface? Could we make a place for ourselves with
these people? My ancestors had once lived like this, and
for the first time in my life I understood the allure of a
simple, uncomplicated existence.
   Like the wedding ceremony. A “whiteskin” couple in
my former social sphere would have spent thousands of
credits on a huge, elaborate service held in some pristine
religious shrine. Compared to the Navajos’ simple
bonding act of sharing food and gifts, a traditional
Caucasian wedding seemed almost sterile.
   Then I thought of what I had left behind, and all the
attraction abruptly faded. These weren’t my people, this
wasn’t my world. I needed to get off it, to get back to my
real family.
   Something made the back of my neck tingle, then a
long shadow fell over me.
  “You do not sleep tonight, little patcher?”
  I put aside the cup. “No, chief, I was only thirsty.”
  “Stay. I wish to speak with you.”
   That was the very last thing I wanted to do, but I
couldn’t think of a plausible reason to go—not counting
this bizarre, unwelcome awareness I had of him.
   He sat beside me. “What did you think of our
ceremony?”
  Might as well be honest. “It was lovely.”
   “You have done well with my players. Small Fox no
longer must shave before and after the games. Blood
Warrior’s legs grow straighter. And Spotted Dog now
seeks a new name.”
   “My success rate isn’t one hundred percent.” I thought
of the one player I had sent back to Rico untreated.
Removing the hard layer of keratin plaque covering Black
Otter’s entire body would have killed him.
  “You do what can be done. That pleases me very
much. I am glad you have joined us.”
   “I haven’t joined anything. I can’t live in a cave
forever.”
  “Why not?”
   “I don’t know, I guess I’ve been spoiled by the little
comforts, like running water and automated waste
disposal.”
  “You will grow accustomed to our ways.” He chuckled
and put his arm around me. I felt him tug at my braid.
“You should wear your hair like our women do.”
   He was suggesting hairstyles, while putting his hands
on me and radiating what felt like intense, focused desire. I
didn’t think it was due to the fact he wanted to see me
look like an Indian maiden. Reever lay sleeping just a
couple of yards away. If he woke up—
  “I’m not a member of the tribe.”
  “You have been made welcome, haven’t you?”
  “I have my own people, my own clan.”
  “Tell me about them.”
   I told Rico how the Jorenians had saved me from being
abducted by the League from K-2. He asked about the
year I’d spent serving on the Sunlace, and what my visit
to Joren had been like.
  When I was done, he said, “They are not your blood.”
   “No.” I thought of Joe, and Maggie. “But they are my
family.”
  “We are your family now.”
   I stared at him. I’d never really looked at his face
before, never noticed that his eyes weren’t brown or
black, but dark blue. He had the Navajo bone structure,
and the dark skin and hair, but I’d bet there was some
Caucasian blood in his veins. The narrowness of his face,
the long chin, and his height indicated that.
    He was without a doubt the handsomest man in the
tribe. I could acknowledge that much without violating my
commitment to Reever.
   He yanked on my braid again. “Loosen it for me.”
   “Why?”
   Rico’s gaze wandered over my face, then went south.
“I have never seen you with your hair down.”
   He had never seen a lot of other things, either. The
trouble I was in abruptly quadrupled. I felt like slugging
him, but I suspected one shout from Rico and I’d find
myself nailed to the nearest hogan door.
   I’d try to be diplomatic. “That’s getting a little too
personal.”
   He moved closer, until his mouth hovered just above
my ear. “When I get personal with you, patcher, you will
know it.” Then he grabbed my braid and started
unraveling it himself.
   The hell with diplomacy. “Please don’t.”
   He ignored that, and put his other hand on my arm to
keep me from moving away. I thought frantically, and
recalled what Hok had said about attending the wedding
ceremony.
  “Wait. I just started my menstrual cycle; it’s what woke
me up.”
  He took his arm away as if I’d scalded him. “You’re
unclean.”
   “Yes.” Thank you, Hok, for your ridiculous taboos.
  Rico got up and turned his back on me. “Return to
your hogan.”
   I did, and nearly broke the speed of light.
  After I fastened the door covering and curled back up
beside Reever, I listened. If the chief left the fire, I didn’t
hear him go.
   Finally I fell asleep, and dreamed of the Night Horse
ceremony. This time I was the bride bearing the basket of
corn mush. I set it down in front of my dark groom, and
took my place at his side. When he turned to me, he was
smiling.
   He was also Rico.



   A lifetime of using synthesizer units had spoiled me,
and as a result I’d never given much thought to the
alternative methods of food preparation. Not until I woke
up the next morning, went out to the central fire, and got
to see some of the Night Horse women preparing one of
their communal stews.
   A long tray of vegetables sat on a flat boulder that
doubled as a kind of worktable. One woman deftly
plucked potatoes, onions, and carrots from the tray and
sliced them up for the pot.
   Her companion was chopping something else—
something that lay in a small, bloody pile next to her. It
took a moment for me to realize she’d skinned and was
dicing up a dozen or so small animals. Rabbits. Birds.
Squirrels. And last but not least, what appeared to be
several large, plump rats.
  “Good morning,” I said, when they looked at me. I
pointed to one small corpse. “Are those rats?”
   They looked at each other, then giggled. Of course,
they were rats. Was I blind?
   I thought of the few times I’d sampled one of their
stews, and shuddered. Better to find out late than never.
“Did I mention I’m a vegetarian?”
  That just made them giggle harder.
   A small, furtive shadow crept up to the pile of bodies,
and the woman preparing them went still. A moment later,
she seized and held up a small, clawing animal. “Look,
sister. This will add spice to the broth.”
   “Wait!” I grabbed her hand before she could slice its
throat open. “You can’t eat that. That’s a cat.”
  “Yes, patcher, we know what it is.”
  “It was just hungry. You can’t kill it for being hungry.”
  “I will kill it so our tribe does not go hungry,” she told
me, the way she would a not-too-bright child.
   “It’s awfully scrawny. Would you mind giving it to me
instead?”
   The two women eyed each other. The younger said,
“Whiteskins keep useless animals as pets and waste food
on them. That is not the way of the People.”
  I thought desperately of how I could convince them.
“A cat is not a useless animal. They hunt rats, and will
bring them as offerings to the humans who care for them.
Think of all the stew you’ll be able to make.”
   “Ayi, is this true?” Both women seemed intrigued by
the idea, and I realized that rat must figure prominently on
their menu.
   I didn’t think throwing up was going to support my
case, so I nodded and held out my hands. “Please.”
  “Very well, you may have it.”
  I took the cat from the woman’s impersonal grip, and
hugged it against my chest. The small feline curled up
against me, yowling and shivering. “Thank you.”
   It was filthy and full of fleas and in need of some
immediate medical attention, so I took it to my medical
alcove. Jenner followed me, griping for me to notice him,
until he saw what I put down on the exam table. He
jumped up to have a sniff, and nearly got his face clawed.
   I’d never had Jenner neutered, so his interest was only
natural. “Back off, Romeo. She doesn’t want to make
friends right now.”
   I scanned her thoroughly. She was female, domestic
shorthair, and fully developed. She was also full of
parasites inside and out, malnourished, and had a dozen
infected bites in her scraggly black fur. Apparently the rats
fought back.
  “Well, Miss Juliet, you look like you’ve been through a
couple of catastrophes.”
  Juliet bit my thumb to let me know what she thought of
my opinion. Jenner cried plaintively at my feet.
   I hated sedating her, but it would make the worming
and wound treatment easier on both of us. Once I rid her
small body of all the pests, I carefully cleaned out and
sutured the gashes. She’d lost part of an ear some time
ago, and it had healed raggedly, so I fixed that, too.
   Then I sat and held her until she came out of the
sedation. She was already used to my stroking hands
when she opened her wary green eyes, and sniffed at me.
  “Hi, there.” Jenner was pacing around my ankles.
  “Want to say hello to your new boyfriend now?” Juliet
peered over my lap at her anxious suitor, sneezed once,
and curled up against my chest. “Well, pal, it looks like
this one is going to take some convincing.”
  “I know how he feels.” Reever stood in the entrance,
arms folded, watching me.
  “Nothing worth having comes along easily,” I pointed
out, miffed. Then I noticed how pale he was. “You
okay?”
  “I feel somewhat tired.”
  “Don’t eat the stew they make here anymore, okay?”
  “Why?”
   Reever probably wouldn’t object to rabbit, bird, and
rat with vegetables, given his weird food preferences.
However, I had to kiss him, and I did. “Trust me. Just
don’t.”
   Juliet had fallen asleep again, so I carried her over to
the makeshift cat bed I’d improvised out of the supply
container, and carefully set her down in it. Then I grabbed
my scanner and waved Reever over to the table. “You’re
next.”
   I told him about how I’d saved Juliet as I went through
the renal series, and saw my repair work was still holding
up. We might even have as long as a month before things
got critical. I thought of what would happen if his kidney
failed, and what had nearly happened with Rico the night
before.
  “Reever, we have to get out of here.”
  “I’ve done some discreet exploring.”
  “What? As weak as you are?”
   “I did not go far. The outlet tunnels are rigged with
proximity beacons and trip sensors. It’s possible I can
disable them, but without a map, I doubt we can negotiate
our way out once we’re past them.”
   “I don’t think they use maps.” I saw a hulking form
hovering outside the entrance, and lifted a finger to my
lips. “Come in, Kegide.”
   Kegide went immediately over to Juliet’s container, and
peered down at her. Jenner joined him, and he cautiously
stroked my pet. For once, His Majesty let him without
making a fuss, and Kegide grinned at me like a kid who’d
been given a treat.
  “How many pets do you plan to acquire while we’re
here?” Reever asked me.
   “Don’t look so peeved.” I patted his cheek. “Just be
glad I’m not a rodent lover.”
  “Why did you leave me last night?”
   I went over to the table and started cleaning up the
mess I’d made from treating Juliet. It was the only way to
keep Reever from seeing the guilt on my face. “No
reason. I couldn’t sleep.”
  “What did he do to you?”
   My hands stilled. “He talked to me. I told him about the
Jorenians. That’s all.”
  “Is it?”
  I tried to think of a way to reassure him. Then I turned,
and saw Reever was gone.



   Juliet gradually healed, but she never completely lost
her scraggly appearance. Jenner didn’t care. He fell, and
fell hard. Wherever she went, he followed. And wherever
they went, Kegide wasn’t far behind. I often found the
three of them playing a game of chase-the-suture-silk in
the tunnel outside Medical. Once Juliet was back to her
old self, she and her two boyfriends began going out
regularly and hunting rats in the tunnels.
   How did I know that? From the pile of fresh kills laid at
the door of our hogan every morning.
   The Night Horse women were impressed by the
contributions Juliet and Jenner brought for the cooking
pot, and praised both animals frequently. They graciously
ignored the fact that Kegide constantly stole from their
stores to feed his small companions.
   Reever and I never discussed what had happened that
night after the wedding ceremony. I tried a few times to
talk to him about it, but he always changed the subject. By
unspoken agreement we never brought it up again. He
became distant, and it started eating at me, like a wound
that wouldn’t heal.
   I kept hearing rumors of men searching the surface
regions above the tunnels. Hok informed me they’d even
inspected the Night Horse village, looking for us.
  Joseph wasn’t giving up. I suspected he never would.
  Kegide showed up one morning after I’d treated
Spotted Dog (now called Handsome Runner) with his
weekly allergen suppressant, and gestured for me to come
with him and the cats. Puzzled, I grabbed the impromptu
medical case I’d thrown together, and followed him into
one of the outlet tunnels.
   I stopped just short of the proximity beacon. I liked
Kegide, but there was no way I was getting a bunch of
spikes punched through me for him. “Kegide, we can’t go
any farther here.”
   Kegide did something on the wall, and the lights winked
out. Then he showed me it was safe by walking through
the trip sensor. With a sigh, I trailed after him.
    The tunnel he took me into from there was part of the
old sewer system Rico had originally brought us through.
I recognized it from the smell.
   I suppressed my excitement and trudged along,
pretending to be miffed, and memorized our path. Was he
taking me to the subway? Another access hatch to the
surface? Why?
   We didn’t go to the subway or the surface. Instead, we
entered a cross-section that had once held some kind of
equipment, long ago rusted away. Salvaged panels and
other junk had been used to make a small, dilapidated
shack. I smelled a fire, and heard someone coughing
inside it.
  “Hello?”
  Kegide stuck his head inside the shack, then stepped
back as an emaciated figure trudged out. The man was
one of the Night Horse hybrids, judging by his coloring
and dress, but he looked awful.
  “What do you want, whiteskin?” he asked me.
  “I’m a patcher. Are you ill? Do you need help?” He just
shook his head and went back in the shack. The salvaged
panel that served as a door slammed shut.
   “Okay.” I turned to Kegide. “Now what do I do?”
Kegide gave me a beseeching look and gestured for me to
go inside.
   “He didn’t exactly put out a welcome mat,” I said, then
sighed as Kegide kept waving his big hands at the shack.
“Yes, I’ll go in. But you’re coming with me.” I tightened
my grip on my bag and went in.


              CHAPTER NINE
                                               «^»

               Many Mistakes
It was hard to see at first, what with the smoke and the
gloom. When my eyes adjusted, I saw the sick man and a
dozen more hybrids lying on the floor of the shack, curled
up on filthy sleeping mats. They were all asleep or
unconscious, and from the condition of their bodies, they
hadn’t been interested in or capable of keeping up with
their personal hygiene. A shallow hole dug in one corner
of the shack had been used as a cesspit. The stench from
that alone made my eyes water.
   “How long have they been like this?” I asked Kegide,
before I remembered he couldn’t answer me. I walked
around and performed a brief visual exam of each of the
shack’s occupants.
   Some of the hybrids were coughing, others were in a
sludgy, semicomatose state. Once I’d made sure they
were all still alive, I knelt beside the man who had come
out of the shack.
   His hair had fallen out in patches and his skin looked
almost gray in tone. Both eyelids and the lymph nodes
under his jaw were swollen. Thick, gray patches of tissue
surrounded his mouth. Two open chancre sores glistened,
raw and red, on his lips. The other exposed areas of his
body were covered with a crop of pale red rash spots.
  Whatever he had, it was potentially contagious.
“Kegide, go outside.”
    I scanned my patient, and found an odd, spiral-shaped
bacterium rampant in his bloodstream. I didn’t recognize
it, but a weird sense of déjà vu came over me.
  Where have I seen this bug before?
  The scanner was unable to identify the spirochete as
well, which was really bad.
  I went to the door of the shack and stuck my head out.
The Man Mountain was sitting a few feet away playing
with some stones. “Kegide. Don’t go anywhere.”
  He nodded.
   I went back to my patient, who opened his eyes and
said something nasty.
  “I’m here to help,” I said, hoping I could. “Tell me
what’s happened to you and the others here. How long
have you been like this?”
  “Weeks. Maybe months.”
  “And the others?”
  “The same. It is why we’re here.”
  Not good. “How is the sickness affecting you?”
   “I have aches in my head and my bones all the time.
I’m tired, but I can’t sleep or eat much. Fever gets bad at
night.”
  I looked at the other hybrids, spotted more hair loss
and open sores. “Do they have the same symptoms?”
  “Yeah.” The man rolled over and covered his face with
one arm. “Now go away.”
   I took the opportunity to extract a blood sample
instead, and left the shack to analyze it with my scanner.
Being away from the smell cleared my head, and I took
several slow, deep breaths as I watched the results of the
analysis scroll onto the scanner’s display.
  “Barbiturates?” That made absolutely no sense.
   The amount of barbiturate in his bloodstream was
almost as potentially fatal as the infection he was suffering
from. “How did he get hold of drugs like that?”
  Kegide stopped rolling the pebbles he was playing with
and looked at me, bewildered.
  “Did Wendell see these people?” I asked him.
  Kegide nodded.
   “That stupid, negligent, homicidal maniac—I’m going
to strangle him.” I marched back inside and crouched
down beside my patient. “Who gave you the drugs? Was
it Wendell Florine? Was it the whiteskin patcher?”
  The man rolled back over, and looked at me for a
moment. Then the swollen lids closed over the filmy black
eyes. “Go away.”



   I didn’t go away. I scanned and examined every
occupant of the shack. The strange spirochete was
present in all their bloodstreams. Most were in various
stages of barbiturate poisoning as well.
   A search of the shack turned up an ample supply of the
drug they had been taking, hidden in a pouch tucked
under one of the sleeping mats. I took the old-fashioned
oral concentrates with me when I finished my rounds. A
few of the hybrids noticed and protested, but no one was
strong enough to stop me.
  Outside, Kegide slowly rose to his feet and gave me a
hopeful look.
   “I’m going to need to go back to Medical, then return
here. Right now.”
   The big man silently guided me back through the tunnel
system to the alcove. I walked in to find Reever sitting on
the exam table, one of my scanners in his hand.
   “What do you think you’re doing?” I took the scanner
away from him and checked the display. He’d keyed it for
a kidney sweep. “Checking up on my work?”
  “No.” He watched as I went over to the scope and put
one of the blood samples I’d taken into the analyzer.
“Where have you been?”
    “Looking at some new patients.” I peered in the scope
at the spirochete. If it had progressed to the bloodstream
and lymphatic system, there was little hope of localized
treatment. “Very sick patients. Kegide took me to them.
They’re suffering from some kind of bacterial infection,
complicated by barbiturate addiction.”
   Again I had the feeling I’d viewed the nasty little
spirochete before, but when? Where?
  Judging from the location of the chancres, the
bacterium had likely entered the body through the mucous
membranes, or through the skin. That meant close body
contact or body fluid exchanges.
   Yet without a diagnostic array, there was literally no
way for me to identify the anonymous spirochete. And
until I knew what was causing the disease, I couldn’t
prescribe treatment.
  “All I need is a medical database. One lousy diagnostic
unit. This is so frustrating.”
  “My sentiments exactly.”
   I turned around to see Wendell lounging beside Reever
on the exam table. “Kegide took me out into the sewer
pipes to see some very sick people. Have you seen
them?”
   “In the sewer?” Wendell pursed his lips and looked
thoughtful, then shook his head. “Can’t say that I have.”
   He was lying. I could feel it. “Well, you can come with
me when I go back. There are about a dozen of them, and
they’ve been infected by a bacterial pathogen. I’ll need
help nailing down what they’ve got.”
   “The great Dr. Grey Veil needs my help? Never thought
I’d see the day.” Wendell gave me an insulting grin. “Well,
Doctor, if they’re infected, that means they’re contagious.
I’m not going near that shack.”
  I put aside the second slide I was preparing and walked
over to him. “I didn’t say anything about a shack.”
   Wendell blinked, then recovered quickly. “I’m sure
that’s all they could scrape together out there—”
  Reever put a hand on Wendell’s arm. “A small piece of
advice. Don’t lie to her. She dislikes it intensely.”
  I folded my arms. “Well?”
   Wendell shoved his hands in his tunic pockets and
shuffled his feet. “Okay, so I’ve seen them. I don’t know
what it is. There’s nothing you can do for them but leave
them alone.”
   “Ah, but I have to, Wendell,” I said, very softly. “I
took an oath.”
   “I didn’t.” He pushed off the table and tried to walk
out.
   A cold knot formed in my stomach as I blocked his
path. “You’ve done more than see them, haven’t you?
You tried to treat them.”
  He flung out his arms. “So what if I did? I’m the only
person down here who can do anything. You know what
they do when someone gets sick? They sing. That’s their
idea of treatment.”
   “While yours was, what? Giving them a little something
for the pain?” I didn’t wait for him to answer me. I already
knew. “What were you thinking, you moron?”
   “I did what I could.”
   “You gave them these.” I threw the pouch of
barbiturates at him. Pills pelted his face, chest, and
scattered all over the stone floor. “Sedatives. For a
bacterial infection!”
  “I didn’t know what it was!” he shouted back. “I’ve
never seen anything like it!”
  “Yeah? Guess what? You not only didn’t help them,
you turned them into drug addicts!”
   “Cherijo. Dr. Florine.”
   I whirled on Reever. “Don’t you dare call this quack a
doctor!” Then I started back in on Wendell. “I can’t
believe you didn’t run a blood analysis. A simple blood
analysis, Wendell. Go look in the scope— there are so
many spirochetes on that slide they’re practically crawling
up the magnifier!”
   “I thought it was cholera.”
   I had a handful of his tunic in my fist before he could
blink. “And you’d treat cholera with barbiturates? They
shouldn’t have kicked you out of medtech, they should
have thrown you in prison!”
   “Calm down, Cherijo.” Playing the peacemaker, Reever
stepped between us and made me let go of Wendell.
“This is not going to solve the problem. Both of you must
set aside your differences if you’re going to save these
people.”
   “Here’s an idea—keep him away from anything that
breathes,” I suggested. “That should up the survival rate
considerably.”
   “Okay, so I didn’t know what to do. You think you’re
so perfect.” Wendell sneered at me. “If you’re such a
magnificent cutter, then why is everyone topside hunting
for you? How many patients have you killed?”
   “Cherijo.” My husband started looking a little worried.
“Don’t.”
   “Reever, get out of my face.” When he did, I got in
Wendell’s. “You pathetic excuse for a floor sweeper.
Don’t you try to shrug this one off the way you did back
in school. Those people are barbiturate dependent now.
You did that to them. On top of the goddamned
pathogen!”
  “I’m not going to take any more of this waste from
you, you sanctimonious little bitch.”
  Wendell walked out, and when I would have gone after
him, Reever stopped me.
  “Let me go.”
  “Hitting him will solve nothing.”
  I scowled. “It would make me feel better.”
  “If you’re feeling that aggressive, why don’t you take it
out on me?”
   “You haven’t committed malpractice.” I glared at him.
“Oh, come on, Duncan. You can’t possibly be on his
side.”
   “You might have found out more information about the
infected hybrids if you hadn’t attacked his competency.”
   “He has zero competency.” I went back to the
analyzer. “And the day I need help from that jerk, I’m
calling it quits.”
   Hok showed up a short time later, and I vented my
spleen on him. Or tried to. He stood silent and impassive
as I ranted about the contagion and Wendell’s gross
negligence. Then he refused to get me my diagnostic
equipment.
   “What?” I stopped packing my case and turned on
him. “Are you out of your mind? Those people are
suffering. They need treatment, now.”
   “It is not a decision I can make. You must get
permission from the chief first.”
  “Stuff the chief. I want that equipment.”
   “I will take you to him and see if he will grant your
request. That is all I can do.”
  I made Reever, who was not my favorite person at the
moment, stay in the alcove while I went to deal with Rico.
Along the way, my temper subsided, and I noticed once
more how badly Hok hobbled.
  “What caused your physical problems? Are they
congenital birth defects?”
  He gave me a twisted smile. “I don’t know.”
   I speculated. It could have been Treacher-Collins or
Pierre Robin syndrome; he had some of the clinical signs.
In addition to the clumsy repair of the cleft palate, he had
the abnormal jaw and facial distortions.
   “It looks like someone tried to do soft-tissue and
osteomic transfers to build up your nose.” Whoever had
done it had given him separate but uneven nostrils, and
they didn’t work. “You have to breathe through your
mouth, right?”
  “Yes.”
   “Choanal atresia, then. You don’t have eyelashes or
eyebrows, and your ears have some of the macrostomia
associated with the defect.” I was starting to get angry
again. “Whoever worked on you should be shot, Hok.”
  “Hawk.”
  “Excuse me?”
   “My name is Hawk, not Hok.” He clearly enunciated
the difference for me.
  “Oh. Sorry.” I studied his face again. “Who did the
work?”
  “A doctor on the reservation did the first operation,
when I was a baby. Wendell gave me my nose.”
   Dr. Disaster strikes again. He was lucky it wasn’t on
the side of his head. “Do yourself a favor, Hawk. Stay
away from Wendell.”
   “I have no complaints about what he did. Children no
longer run away screaming when they see my face now.”
He gave me a twisted smile. “Most of the time.”
  “I could help, if you’ll let me.”
  He shook his head. “Thank you, but I’m content with
how I look.”
  “That’s fine for your face, but what about your back?
The scoliosis distorting your spine is only going to get
worse. You could suffer partial paralysis as a result.”
  “I will manage.”
   We entered the central cavern. Rico was nowhere in
sight, but Hawk sent one of the women to summon him.
We sat down by the speaking rock, and I absently made
us both a server of tea.
  “Ahe’ee zer ch’il gohwéhé,” he said.
  “Which means?”
  “Thank you for the tea.”
   “You’re welcome. Tell me something. How did Rico
convince all these people to live underground? I thought
Indians liked the wide, open spaces.”
   “We do.” His stark, beautiful voice was amused. “But
those who came here were not permitted to enjoy them.
The clans living among the Four Mountains rejected or
exiled all of us. Rico came to our hogans and spoke to us
about forming a new tribe.”
  “And that’s it? You guys just went with him?”
   “You do not know the chief well. The Navajo call him
Nohoilpi—He Who Wins Men, the Divine Gambler. He
offered protection to the hybrids who were facing
deportation, and their human families. He challenged us to
build a place for ourselves, hidden in the earth, as told in
the old legends of the Leyaneyani, brother of Whirlwind
and Knife Boy. We came here, made this place, became
the Night Horse.”
  The Divine Gambler? Knife Boy? Was he kidding?
   “So basically you all moved into a cave because of
some old story Rico told you?” He nodded. “Didn’t any
of the hybrids ever consider immigrating to their alien
parents’ homeworlds instead? And why are you here?
You’re not one of them.”
  “You whiteskins ask so many questions.”
  “You Indians do some really weird stuff.”
  “We remind you of who you are, beneath the skin.”
  “I’m not one of you.” I took a sip of my tea, which
was getting cold. “I don’t belong here. You know that.”
  “I know you are here now.”
   “Not by choice. You know that’s wrong. You could
help me and Reever a great deal just by getting us out of
here.” I thought of Joseph, and tried a not-so-subtle
threat. “Those men who searched the village— they’ll be
back. Eventually they’ll find a way down here. They’ll
notify the authorities about you. Help us, and you’ll be
protecting your tribe.”
  “No.” He got awkwardly to his feet. “I do not betray
my chief.”
  “Glad I am to hear it, my friend,” Rico said from
behind us, making me spill lukewarm tea down the front of
my tunic. “Doctor. You wished to speak to me?”
   Hawk limped away. Everyone else in the cavern found
something else to do or look at. That left me to handle the
chief.
   “Yes, I do. You have a real problem that needs taking
care of, right away.”
  Rico crouched beside me and offered me a colorful
square of linen. “Tell me about this… problem I have.”
   After I mopped up the tea with that, I related how I’d
found the hybrids in the outer sewer system, and what I’d
discovered from examining them. I explained what a
spirochete was, how it was responsible for the symptoms,
and presented my request for a diagnostic unit in order to
find a cure. I used simple, nonclinical terms as much as
possible.
   He listened at first, but by the time I got to the part
about the equipment I needed, I had the feeling he’d lost
interest.
   I speeded up my delivery. “The bottom line here is, I
have to identify this bacteria first, then I can treat the
infected patients. I’ll have to check the other members of
your tribe, and temporarily isolate anyone who tests
positive for the spirochete. We can have it under control
immediately, and hopefully once we find out what it is,
and how to treat it, have it completely cleared up in a few
weeks.”
    Rico, who had been watching Hawk hobbling on the
other side of the cave, picked up a small stone and tossed
it into the fire. “No.”
  I wasn’t sure what part of that he was objecting to. “I
beg your pardon?”
   “No, you will not get the equipment, treat the infected,
test the tribe, or isolate anyone.”
   “Maybe I didn’t explain this right. The hybrids living in
the sewer system are very sick. The sickness they have is
highly contagious. I’m positive there are others here
who—
  “You do not have to repeat your words, patcher. I
heard and understood every one of them.”
  “Then what’s your objection?”
   “It is simple.” Rico stood up. I did, too. “The outcasts
you examined are unclean and worthless to me. They are
cursed.”
   “But—but— ‘ I shook my head, trying to process this
bizarre reaction. ”Chief, you don’t understand. They’re
not unclean or cursed, they’re sick. They need medicine.
They may have infected other members of the tribe, who
aren’t showing signs of sickness yet.“
  “They will perish. If any more of the Night Horse
become cursed, they will be cast out and perish, too.”
   “You can’t do that,” I said, getting angry. “It’s not
their fault. You can’t simply ignore them.”
  “That is our way,” he said.
   “Your way? Your way?” My voice climbed several
octaves. “Is it your way to allow innocent people to die
from a preventable illness? Or is that why you had
Wendell keep them drugged? So they wouldn’t bother
you? So you don’t have to look at them?”
  Rico’s attention wandered away from me, and fixed on
someone entering the cavern. “Wendell. Join us.”
  Wendell came over, looking a little nervous. “Chief.
Doctor.”
  “Dr. Torin tells me she’s been taken among the
unclean. She tells me you gave them drugs.”
  Wendell blanched. “It was only to keep them quiet,
Chief.”
  “You’re a real humanitarian, Wendell.” I was mad, but
something was starting to worry me. Something was
wrong. Wendell had gone completely white. And Rico,
Rico was radiating something very peculiar. He should
have been angry, but he wasn’t. He was happy. At least,
something like happiness.
   “Wendell makes many mistakes, Doctor.” Rico
stepped forward, and tapped his hand against Wendell’s
cheek. “Many, many mistakes. Like bartering with the
unclean.”
  I felt sick. “You sold them the drugs?”
    “Chief.” Now Wendell sounded desperate. He even got
on his knees. “I only took a few things. They didn’t need
all that silver anymore.”
   “What are you planning to do with it, Wendell?” Rico
asked.
   “Let me go topside. I can get a good price for the
stuff, start over somewhere else.” He held up his hands in
entreaty. “I won’t tell anyone about this place. I swear.”
   I got disgusted at once. “You deliberately addicted
those people to barbiturates, just so you could get out of
here?”
   “They needed it for the pain. There was nothing else I
could do for them anyway.” He gave me a filthy look.
“You’d do the same thing, if you had the chance. You
want out of here as much as I do.” He turned back to the
chief. “I have to get out of here. I can’t stand it anymore.”
   “I will let you go, Wendell,” Rico said in a gentle,
reassuring way. Then he grabbed Wendell by the hair, and
before I could stop him, whipped out a knife and cut his
throat.
  The blood hit me first.
   “No!” I caught Wendell as he fell, and jammed my
hands around the throat wound, applying direct pressure.
More blood from the jugular and the carotid arteries
sprayed directly in my face. I looked desperately at Rico.
“Help me!”
   The chief reached down, wiped the blood from his
knife onto the sleeve of Wendell’s tunic, then straightened.
   I kept yelling. No one came to help me. I tried to lift
Wendell myself, but slipped in the blood. By then it was
everywhere. I tried to drag him, until I saw Rico still
standing there, watching my futile efforts.
   “Help me get him to Medical. There’s time. I can save
him.”
  “No.”
   Rico leaned over then and did something that I would
have nightmares about for weeks after. He licked some of
the blood from my cheek.
   As Wendell’s life drained out between my fingers, the
chief of the Night Horse smiled at me, and then simply
walked away.



   I managed to drag Wendell toward the nearest hogan,
but whoever was inside quickly shut the door covering. I
yelled for help, for anyone to help me. Every door I could
see was closed. Everyone had disappeared inside the
hogans, and they weren’t coming out.
  Why wouldn’t anyone help me?
   I changed direction and dragged Wendell toward the
tunnels. I kept shouting until I was hoarse. No one came
out. He was too heavy for me to pick up, but I tried that a
couple of times, too.
   Wendell went into full cardiac arrest near the entrance
to the tunnels, staring up at me, his face filled with horror
and disbelief. When I heard that last, choked breath leave
his lungs, I dropped his arms, knelt beside him, and
performed CPR. When that failed to bring him back, I just
sat there with him.
   I don’t know how much time passed. All I could seem
to do was sit there on the cold stone floor and look at
him. Bleeding to death made him look whiter than ever.
  “Cherijo.”
   Reever was there, lifting me up, wiping my face with
something. I looked at him, but I didn’t really focus on his
face. All I could see was Wendell, lying there, dead.
  Hands were running over me. “Did he hurt you? Are
you cut anywhere?”
  I focused on my husband’s face. I guess all the blood
made it hard to tell. “No. It’s his. I’m… I’m fine.”
   Reever knelt and checked Wendell’s pulse. I’d taught
him that. With a little work, my husband might make a
decent medic one day. If he ever got over being so
squeamish.
  “He’s dead.”
  I looked down. “Yeah. He’s dead.”
  “Did you do this to him?”
   That got to me, when nothing else would have. Still, I
felt frozen and disconnected as I returned the favor. “Do
you think I could have slit his throat?”
  “No. Who did it?”
  I saw Rico’s smile, heard the soft pleasure in his voice,
and then the terrible slash of the knife.
   “Rico.” I started to shake, and wrapped my arms
around myself. “Right here. Right in front of me. One
stroke, severed both arteries. Then he”—I swallowed
bile—“then he licked some of Wendell’s blood off my
face.”
   Reever pulled me up against him and started rubbing
his hands up and down my back. “It’s all right, beloved.”
   “I couldn’t carry him. I tried to. The blood made my
hands slippery and he was too heavy. I yelled for help, but
no one came. No one would help me. I had to drag him.
He was too heavy. He stopped breathing.” I lifted my eyes
to look into his. “I tried, Reever, but I couldn’t save him.
Why did he do it? Why wouldn’t anyone help me save
him? Why did they leave us alone like that?”
   “You did what you could.” He guided me away from
the body. “Come with me now.”
   A woman stepped out of the tunnels—the young,
beautiful woman who had been hanging all over Rico
before. She didn’t look very pretty now, not with that
smirk on her face.
   The girlfriend came toward me. “You need to wash,
patcher. You stink of whiteskin.”
  “Move out of the way,” Reever said.
  “You know who I am, whiteskin?” She turned her
smirk on Reever. “I’m Ilona Red Faun. I belong to Rico.”
  The girlfriend was jealous.
  “Congratulations,” Reever said. “Move out of the
way.”
  She hit me in the chest instead. “You stay away from
Rico, patcher. He’s mine. He wants to put his mouth on a
woman, he comes to me. Only me.”
   As I rubbed the sore spot on my sternum, I stared at
her, unable to make sense of what she was doing. She was
upset? About that? “I’ll be sure to send him to you the
next time he wants to lick body fluids off someone’s
face.”
  Reever got me around her and took me back to
Medical. There he helped me wash my face and hair. I
pulled off my bloodstained tunic and threw it to the floor.
The shock faded, and became something else.
   “Where’s the suture laser?” I looked around.
  “There are at least a hundred people around him.
You’d be dead before you could activate it.”
   I took a couple of deep breaths. “He cut Wendell’s
throat for nothing. Nothing.”
  He held me by the arms and made me look at him.
“Killing Rico won’t change that.”
   “Reever, we’ve got to—” I saw someone walk past the
alcove and blinked. “And now I’m hallucinating.”
  I pulled out of his grip and hurried out into the tunnel.
No sign of anyone, either direction. But I couldn’t have
been mistaken. Not about him.
   “What is it?”
  “I just saw a ghost,” I said, and leaned back against the
wall. I closed my eyes for a moment, hoping it had been
some crazy figment of my imagination. “I saw Dhreen.”
   “Cherijo.”
   Reever sounded odd. I opened my eyes, and saw him
starting to slide to the floor. “Oh God, no.”



   Judging by the levels of phosphates, urea, and
creatinine in Reever’s bloodstream, his kidney had begun
to fail. I had no choice but to put him on the jury-rigged
dialysis array to keep him alive.
   I’d already surgically prepped an arteriovenous fistula,
the artificial junction between an artery and vein in his right
leg, to facilitate removing and returning his blood supply.
   I would never admit it to Reever, but I was almost glad
this had happened. If it hadn’t, I don’t know how else I
would have dealt with witnessing Wendell’s murder.
   “Get comfortable, you’re going to be doing this three
times a week until we find you a new kidney. You’re also
going on a new diet. No more splurging on the sodium
and potassium, got it?”
   As I hooked him up to the machine, I explained how
the rig’s dialyzer filtered the toxic substances out of his
blood.
   He watched his blood flow through the tubing into the
rig. “How long will this work?”
   “Forever.” I smiled down at him. “Okay, not forever.
But long enough. All I have to do is find a donor organ
that matches your tissue type.”
   “That will be difficult, given our present
circumstances.”
   “I’d give you one of mine, if I could.” I thought of
Kao—I couldn’t help it—and blinked hard. “I wouldn’t
recommend it, though.”
   “How are you feeling?” he asked me.
   Why lie? “Scared.”
  “Can you tell me what happened with Rico, before he
murdered Wendell?”
 I told him everything, including my part in seeing that
Wendell got killed by telling the chief about the drugs.
  He thought it over for a while. I kept busy by making
unnecessary adjustments on the rig. “It’s not your fault,
Cherijo.”
  “I know.” Or I should have known. “But why would
Rico pretend these people are cursed?”
   “It may not be a pretense. Such superstitions are
common among primitive cultures. Many Terran races
believed sickness resulted from divine malediction.”
    “These are modern Terrans who have chosen to live
this way. When they belonged to the Four Mountains
tribe, they were regularly examined and treated by
state-funded physicians. That’s the law, even on the
reservation. They know better.”
   “Perhaps they have chosen to forget.”
   “It doesn’t matter. I’ll find a way to treat them. I have
to go back—they’ll be suffering from barbiturate
withdrawal.”
   “You can’t go alone.”
   “I’ll take Kegide with me.” Before he could argue, I
held up one hand. “Don’t give me a hard time about it.
You need to stay here. Besides, it’s not like he’s going to
say anything to Rico.”
   By the time I tracked down Kegide and made him
understand what I wanted to do, I had to stop back at the
alcove and take Reever off the rig. Who immediately
insisted on going with us.
    “This isn’t going to be pleasant,” I told him. “You’re
still weak and tired.”
    “I feel better.” He picked up the Lok-Teel and propped
it on his shoulder. “I’m coming with you.”
   Kegide led us back to the exiles’ hogan. I could hear
the groans and cries from a hundred yards away, and took
out a syrinpress.
   “I’m going to infuse them with mild opiate to help with
the withdrawal symptoms, then I’ll do the penicillin
screens. They’re going to have a hard time of it for the
next couple days.” And I still didn’t know if the penicillin
would do anything to rid them of the infection.
   I went inside the hogan, and saw most of my patients
were considerably more animated now. Feverish, covered
in sweat, and experiencing delirium tremors.
   Reever put down the Lok-Teel, who went right to work
cleaning up the mess.
   I handed Reever and Kegide the gloves and masks I’d
brought. “I need you to help me hold them down.”
   It was an unpleasant business. Some of the hybrids spit
and snarled, and tried to attack us. They were too weak to
do much more than make noise. Others wept and pleaded
for the drug they believed kept them from suffering.
    “Your body has become dependent on it. It isn’t
helping you anymore,” I tried to explain to one, fairly lucid
young woman. “You’d have to keep taking more and
more of it to keep the pain from coming back. In the end,
it would kill you.”
  She clawed at me, suddenly furious. “Then let me die!”
   Out of the fourteen patients I examined, only one
showed a mild dermal reaction to the penicillin screen. If I
could find a way to culture the spirochete and see how it
reacted to penicillin, then I could possibly use it to treat
them. After I took more blood samples, we gave them bed
baths and made them as comfortable as possible.
   I checked all three of us to make sure we hadn’t been
infected with the spirochete before sending Kegide back
for food. He returned with a large pot of stew and a jug of
water, but no one wanted to eat or drink.
  “Try.” I spooned some of the stew into one young
man’s mouth. “You need to eat something.”
  “We are cursed by the gods,” he said, knocking my
hand away. “Leave us alone to die.”
   “The curse thing again.” I stood up and addressed all
of my new patients. “Listen up. I know you’ve been told
you were cursed. That’s superstitious nonsense. You’ve
been infected with a disease that comes from bacteria.”
  “What kind of disease?” he demanded,
  I had no choice but to admit, “I don’t know yet.”
   Someone screamed with weak fury. “You are torturing
us!”
   “Okay, I’m torturing you. Good reason to rest, and get
better, right? Then you can come after me for doing this
to you.”
   I collected my supplies and told them I’d be back to
check on them as soon as I could. We left, followed by
the sound of more shrieks and curses.
    “It’s so nice to be appreciated for your work.” I ran a
tired hand over the back of my neck.
  Reever was holding the Lok-Teel, who appeared to be
gorged. “How long will it take until they recover?”
   “Physically—a couple of days. Psychologically the
addiction and the belief in the curse have done a lot of
damage. It’ll take longer to fix that.” I looked at my Man
Mountain. “Kegide, I need to come here again. Can you
bring me back tomorrow?”
  The big man shook his head.
  “Rico will be suspicious if you disappear too often.”
   Reever glanced back at the hogan. “When you come
here, I want to be with you.”
   “You’re not a doctor.” I wished I could get Hawk to
come with me, but I suspected he’d not only refuse, but
he’d also tell Rico about it. Then someone else’s throat
might get slit. Like mine.
   We went back through a different tunnel, and I noticed
a large recessed area filled with books. It must have been
the vault Wendell had told me about, the one filled with
books—
  I halted. “The books. That’s it.” Kegide motioned for
me to keep walking. “I know, I’m coming.”
   I quickened my pace and we made it back to Medical
in record time. I went immediately to the box of books I’d
been reading and started digging through the volumes.
   “Bacterial Metabolism Studies. Epidemiology in
North America. Synthetic and Natural Antibodies.” I
took a few more out and set them all to one side. “It had
to be in one of these.”
   I carried the pile of books over to the exam table. They
were charming to look at, but heavy. Then I grabbed the
first one and skimmed through the pages.
  Reever peered down at it. “Wendell’s books?”
   “Uh-huh.” I tucked a piece of loose hair behind my ear
and flipped through most of the first chapter. “I knew I’d
seen that bug somewhere before. It was in one of these.
I’m sure of it.”
    It took about three hours to find the photographic
illustration of the spirochete. Unfortunately the wood-pulp
page was crumbling, and it was impossible to make out
the name of the bacteria in the caption or the text. Nor did
the photograph exactly match the bacteria I was seeing in
the outcasts’ blood samples.
  “Not identical, but close. They have to be related.”
   I read what was left of the page, which detailed the
antiquated methods of dealing with outbreaks of sexually
transmitted diseases. Latex prophylactics. Ir-regular blood
screens. Even abstinence was recommended as an
effective method of control.
   “Abstinence?” I snorted. “No wonder someone
invented cascade innoculants.”
   Despite that rather criminal naivete, the doctors had
been intelligent enough to realize that STDs were passed
through body fluid exchanges. My patients had been both
male and female. It was reasonable to assume my
spirochete had been transmitted the same way.
   I flipped through another half dozen pages, until I
found the description of the tests performed to identify
the various kinds of STDs. One of them, the rapid plasma
reagin series, remained in use by a few remote clinics who
couldn’t support a regular laboratory array. I’d seen it
done in a village in Asia once.
   Working off the hope that the test could prove helpful,
I ran the RPR series on the blood sample. Results
returned a host of antibodies responding to the bacterial
invasion. These particular antibodies were ones I did
recognize.
   “Mother of All Houses.” I stepped back from the
scope.
  “What is it?”
   “It can’t be.” I ran a fluorescent treponemal antibody
absorption test anyway. It confirmed the RPR’s positive
screening.
   I went over to the unoccupied treatment table and sat
down on the edge, trying to understand what I’d just
determined. I knew exactly what the spirochete was now.
Any first-year medtech student who’d paid attention
during their history classes would have recognized it.
  At the tame time, it wasn’t possible. It couldn’t exist.
   “Cherijo?” All this time, Reever had been sitting quietly
off in the corner, watching me. “Did you find something?”
   “Yeah. I found treponema pallidum.” I looked at
Reever, then shook my head. “It’s right over there, under
the scope. I don’t believe it, but it’s there.”
  Reever went over to the scope to have a look.
“Treponema pallidum is the name of this disease?”
  “It’s the name of a bacterium that caused a disease.
One that was eradicated from Terra during the
twenty-second century.” When he glanced my way, I
gestured at the scope. “What you’re looking at, Reever,
doesn’t exist.” And, with the slight change in its
appearance, may have mutated.
   “It seems very active for a nonexistent microorganism.”
   I went to the med supply containers and checked my
stores. I had enough penicillin to deal with the outbreak,
as long as it was confined to those dozen hybrids. I’d
need to get my hands on doxycycline or tetracycline now;
it was possible some of the patients would have stronger
allergic reactions to the treatment, which would take about
two weeks. As long as the mutation didn’t mean the
bacterium was antibiotic resistant.
   “How contagious is it?”
   “Remember the Core?”
   He lifted his head from the magnifier. “That bad.”
   “Almost.”
   I recalled what I knew about the archaic disease. The
symptoms differed from one person to the next; the
bacteria often created “carriers” who showed little sign of
the infection, but were highly contagious. Others would
come down with severe symptoms almost at once. If the
outcasts had been infected and active with any other
member of the tribe before being exiled to that shack, this
bug would spread like wildfire.
    “I have to find a way to run tests on everyone in the
tribe.”
   Reever sat down beside me. “This infection—is it
terminal? Will you need a quarantine?”
    “No, it isn’t fatal, as long as we catch it in the primary
and secondary stages. As for a quarantine”—I laughed
once—“the only way I can do that is to keep everyone
from having sex, which, given Rico’s attitude and the
tribe’s superstitions, is also highly unlikely.”
  He picked up the book I’d been reading. “Urethri-tis.
AIDS. Gonorrhoea. Herpes Simplex. What are they?”
   “STDs. See there”—I pointed to a section in the
text—“they used to call them ‘venereal diseases.’ ”
   “Which one of these does treponema pallidum cause?”
   “Syphilis.”


                 CHAPTER TEN
                                                «^»

           Desperate Bargain
My worries about mutation proved to be unjustified. Most
of the hybrids showed an immediate response to penicillin
therapy, and after fourteen days, the outcasts’ blood
tested negative for syphilis on the RPR. That left only the
drug addiction to deal with.
   Wendell, I learned, had been selling them barbiturates
for weeks. The mild opiate I gave them only took the edge
off the worst of the withdrawal symptoms. Gradually they
stopped having the tremors and night sweats, but the
psychological dependency was still presenting a problem.
  Reever came in very handy in that department.
   He accompanied me on all my surreptitious visits to the
sewer shack, and started talking with the patients waiting
for me to examine them. He used their native language,
and at first I was too busy to adjust my wristcom to pick
up whatever it was he said. Most of his conversations
remained one-sided; the hybrids were good at ignoring
people they didn’t like.
  Slowly, some of the outcasts started responding to
Reever. First they swore at him. Then they pleaded.
  Slowly, they talked, and finally, they listened.
   By the beginning of the third week, the hybrids began
gathering in a circle with Reever as soon as we arrived. I
walked around scanning them from behind while he talked.
He used a lot of hand gestures, and sometimes spoke
without stopping for a good hour.
   One day he made everyone laugh. That was when I
adjusted my wristcom and started listening in.
   He was telling them all about our adventures. Stories
that came from our captivity on Catopsa, the systems we
had traveled through on the Sunlace, and the devastating
plague on K-2.
   I liked listening to Reever. I never realized how
differently he had experienced everything, until he
described the first time we met.
   “I had finished my work translating for the morning’s
new arrivals, and went to the Training Center to see an old
friend. Ana Hansen, a woman I respect and worked with,
came to see my friend as well. With Ana was this very
small Terran. If it had not been for the physician’s tunic
she wore, I would have thought her a child. I could not
stop looking at her.”
   One of the outcasts eyed me skeptically. “Because of
her beauty, Nilch’i’?”
  “No, only because she was the smallest Terran I had
ever seen.”
  Everyone looked at me then, and a couple of the
women giggled.
   I sniffed. “I’m not that small.”
   “As she walked by me, I felt an immediate connection
to her. As if she were a telepath, like me, reaching out to
me. Then a vision came to me. A vision that would come
true.”
   Visions were very important to Native Americans, and
the Night Horse outcasts proved no different. They leaned
forward and made gestures with their hands for him to
continue the story, eager to hear all about Reever’s vision.
   I remembered that. Reever, standing beneath a gnorra
tree, surrounded by white light. Holding a woman’s wrists
in his hands, in front of his face. Although I hadn’t
realized it at the time, they were my own wrists…
  “Ana introduced her to my old friend. Their meeting
was not congenial.”
   That was an understatement. Lisette Dubois had been
six feet tall, blond, beautiful—and completely hostile. “It
wasn’t my fault she didn’t like me.”
   Reever glanced at me. “Lisette was always
self-conscious about her height. Small, feminine women
intimidated her.”
   “Feminine? Me?”
   “I realized I had better defuse the situation, so I
interrupted the meeting.”
  “You asked Ana if the Council had instituted a Health
Board,” I said.
   “It was a joke.”
    “You have a terrible sense of humor. No one ever gets
it.”
   He went back to his story. “Ana introduced us, and
told me that Cherijo was a newly transferred physician.
Lisette wanted me to leave, but I thought I had better find
out more about this strange Terran woman.”
   I snorted. “You asked me when I planned to leave, if I
remember correctly. You also asked if I was Asian, and
said a couple other rude things.”
   “No more than you did. You acted very secretive.” To
the outcasts, he said, “She considers her maternal
ancestry to be of little value.”
  Everyone gave me a condemning look. The Night
Horse, like the Navajo, were a matriarchal society.
   “Hey, I didn’t know, okay?” I gestured toward my
husband. “Then he said on some planet in a system two
light-years away from that one, I’d be ritually sacrificed
for having blue eyes.”
  “Is this true, Reever?”
   “Quite true. I meant it as a warning—to remind her that
she was a stranger on an alien world.”
  “He’s so helpful that way,” I said.
  “Before I left the Trading Center, I looked back at her.
That was when I had my second vision.”
  I perked up at that. “What second vision?”
   He reached over and traced the line of silver in my hair.
“Of watching you, with this streak in your hair, and our
child in your arms.”
   “Nice.” Boy, that one hurt. “I hate to break this up, but
story time is over. We’d better get back before we’re
missed.”
   The men clamored for more. Then one of the women
touched my stomach.
  “Changing Woman brought forth the People from her
own body. Yours will be a very special child, loved by all,
sought by many.”
  I didn’t say a word; I just nodded and walked out.
  We weren’t as lucky as we had been in the past, for
Milass was waiting at the alcove with a couple of the
hybrid players I’d worked on.
  “Where have you been, woman?” He pushed me into a
wall. “These men are hurt and in need.”
  Reever rolled in front of me before I could stop him,
and shoved Milass back. “Keep your hands off her.”
   Milass jerked a blade from his belt. “You should have
killed me when you had the chance, whiteskin.”
  “No!” I grabbed Reever’s arm, but he shook me off.
“You can’t fight him. Not in your condition.”
   “I will not fight him.” Reever made it sound like he
intended a lot worse.
   “Come then, what do you wait for? Your woman’s
permission?”
   I noticed the players watching both men. “Stop him. Or
I won’t lift a finger to help any of you again.”
   “Secondario.” One of them was brave enough to step
forward. “We are needed in the arena.”
   The little twerp ignored him. “She will do as she’s
told.”
  That’s when Hawk limped into the middle of things.
“Milass. There is no need for violence. He protects his
woman. It is the way. Let her treat the players’ wounds
now.”
   For a tense couple of seconds, nobody moved. Then
Milass sheathed his knife. Reever didn’t back down, but
he didn’t lunge, either. The chief’s secondario said
something really vile and stalked off.
   I heaved a sigh of relief. “I’m starting to like this way
thing.” When Hawk would have kept going down the
tunnel, I blocked his path. “Oh, no you don’t. I’ll need a
hand with this.”
   Both of the hybrids had just returned from a shock-ball
match; both were sporting multiple contusions, minor
stress fractures in their forearms and calves, and localized
thrombosis. I didn’t figure out why until I saw the burns
on their hands and feet.
   “You guys got a couple of penalties, right?” One of
them nodded, and I swore. “Testosterone. It should be
outlawed. Hawk, I need two infusers, fifty milligrams
sodium bicarb, twenty-five grams mamutanol per liter,
line-push.”
  Reever came over to watch as I finished the scans,
supervised the infuser applications and showed Hawk
how to start cleaning the worst of the gashes. “What do
hormones have to do with these injuries?”
   “You men have too many of them. Here, Duncan, you
help us with these splints. Hawk, if I don’t get some
decent bonesetters soon, I’m going to break your legs.”



   A couple of hours later, Hawk asked if he could look
over their charts as I was hooking Reever up to the
dialysis rig.
  “Why? Think I messed up?”
  “No. I am only curious.”
  “Curiosity is good.” I handed him the charts. “Would
have been nice if you’d helped me when Rico cut
Wendell’s throat open.”
  “I cannot go against my chief.” He gave me a faintly
guilty look. “No matter how much I wish to.”
   I went over to the container and started my weekly
inventory of supplies. I had to keep a close eye on the
antibiotics stock. As it was, I’d used nearly a quarter of it
treating the hybrids. Another thing to bug Hawk about.
   “Patcher, I don’t understand.” He showed me one of
the charts. “You put here the fractures were caused by
muscle contractions. Bones cannot be broken by
muscles.”
   “Sure, they can.” I counted my syrinpresses and
frowned; one was gone. “Alternating current passing
through the body cycles, and with each cycle, the muscles
contract. If you’ve got voltage higher than one kilowatt,
and sufficient duration, the jolts can fracture every bone in
your body. We won’t even discuss distal soft-tissue
ischemia, entry- and exit-point thermal injuries, spinal cord
damage, rhabdomyolysis, myoglobi-nuria, cardiac and
pulmonary arrest. Both your players were hit five or six
times, and at least once with maximum jolts.”
   “I see.” Looking even more bewildered, he went back
to studying the charts.
  Reever looked interested, too. “It sounds as if they
were almost electrocuted.”
   “They almost were.” I recalled Reever hadn’t spent
much time on Terra. “These players were all penalized
during the game. The sphere they use to score points is
controlled by a computer system, which monitors the
plays. Whoever commits an illegal motion while in contact
with it triggers the computer to register a penalty. The
player then gets a nice, automatic bio-electrical shock.”
  “It sounds barbaric.”
  “Yeah, but it packs the arenas, I’m told.”
  “I was at the game,” Hawk said suddenly. “I saw what
happened to them. They knew what they were doing.”
   “Which makes them idiots, as well as injured,” I said.
Hawk shrugged. “The Night Horse won.” Damn men and
their damn stupid games. “The Night Horse are going to
end up crispy little piles of ash if they keep getting that
many penalties per man.”
   “I will so inform the chief,” Hawk said, then departed
without another word.



   Two weeks passed without incident, during which I got
a lot of work done. I continued follow-up maintenance on
the hybrid players, finished the last of the antibiotic
therapy with the outcasts, and even got Juliet fattened up a
bit.
   I also spent considerable time trying to figure out how
to get out of Leyaneyaniteh. Kegide willingly escorted me
around the outer tunnels, but he refused to disarm any
other traps or proximity fields. He didn’t understand any
of my arguments as to why he should help me and Reever
escape, so there was nothing I could do about that.
   Joseph had intensified his efforts to find us, and we
often heard distant, muffled sounds of glidetrucks taking
off and landing on the surface. The village had been
searched again, according to Hawk, and this time the
inhabitants questioned at length.
   I couldn’t worry about Joe. My immediate problem
was Reever’s kidney, which had now completely shut
down. The dialysis rig was proving only about
eighty-percent effective, so he became more tired and
weaker as the days passed. The toxic buildup in his blood
was inevitable. So was the end of my patience.
   “If I could just take you to an organ transplant center
for a couple of hours, I could fix this.” I sat down by the
table where he lay quietly watching the machine finish its
three-hour cycle. It was late, but I preferred to do his
dialysis at night, while the tribe slept, so we wouldn’t be
interrupted. “A donor bank, a surgical suite, and a nurse.
That’s all I’d need.”
  “Don’t get upset. You’ve done all you can.”
   I laughed, once. “Oh, sure. I’m the creation of the man
who pioneered organ transplantation research in this
century, and I can’t… even— Wait a minute.” I got up
and looked at the vault of stone above us. “The lab. All
we have to do is get on the subway and go back to the
lab.”
  “You want to go back to The Grey Veils?”
   “Yeah.” To save his life, I had to do something he’d
never agree to. Which meant inventing a cover plan he’d
buy. “I must be brain dead, why didn’t I think of it
before? Joe has an entire wall of cloned organs, growing
on artificial scaffolds.”
   “He may not have one that is a tissue match.” He’d
picked up a little too much medical knowledge, hanging
around me. “No problem. I’ll just get the equipment I
need and bring it back here so I can clone one for you
myself.”
   “Do you believe the Night Horse chief or your creator
will allow you to access the facility and help yourself?”
   “I don’t tell Rico, and we don’t let Joe catch us. I can
get us into the mansion undetected, and get what I need.”
He didn’t know I could never transport all the tech
necessary to clone his kidney, even with ten subway
systems running. “All I have to do is convince Kegide to
guide us back there.”
   “You don’t need Kegide.” Reever sat up as I
disconnected his leg shunt from the machine. “The
outcasts will do it.”
  “How do you know they can? Or will?” He gave me a
mild look. “They told me all the Night Horse know how to
operate the subway. They are also very grateful for what
you’ve done for them.”
  “Then by all means, let’s capitalize on their gratitude.”
  Reever was weaker than I thought, and had to lean on
me to make it the last hundred yards into the sewer pipe.
Before we reached the shack, one of the men came out.
   “We heard your footsteps.” He stared at Reever. “
Nilch’i’, you are ill. What is wrong?”
   “Nilch’i’ needs help,” I said, and explained the
situation.
  The outcast stroked his chin. “If the chief discovers we
have done this, he will kill us all.”
   “Then we’d better be quiet, and hurry, don’t you
think?”
  The man disappeared into the shack without another
word. Just as I was getting ready to give up hope, he
emerged with three more men and a makeshift litter.
  “Put him on here. We will carry him for you.”
   I helped Reever stretch out, and wrapped a blanket one
of the men handed me around him. “I need to get into the
underground research facility, where Rico found us. Can
you take us on the subway, and guide us there?”
  “Yes. But you must return to the tunnels before
morning comes.”
  “I can do that.” I was starting to believe my own story.
   The outcasts carried Reever through the sewer system
up to the subway platform. From there, only two of the
men went with us on the old transport. We had to travel
nearly an hour before we reached the sewer system
beneath my creator’s estate.
   The men carried Reever to the same access panel
Milass had brought us through, and helped me get him in.
I refused to let them accompany us inside.
  “Is there another place you and the other hybrids can
go to, where Rico won’t find you?”
  The outcasts nodded. “You are not coming back, are
you?”
   I couldn’t keep them in the dark any longer. “No. He’ll
die without this surgery tonight. I’m sorry.”
   The hybrid smiled slightly. “You lie for him, not
yourself. We will make ourselves safe. Walk the rainbow,
patcher.”



   I figured Joseph hadn’t reprogrammed the lab and
maintenance drones to deal with me voluntarily returning
to the facility, so when the first one approached, I tried
using the old medical priority access command
imperative.
   “Unable to comply. That command series has been
deleted.”
   Well, he’d been smart enough to figure out how I’d
overridden the system the last time. I was prepared for
that, though, and squeezed Reever’s arm.
   “Emergency surgical procedure, initiate assistance to
surgeon Dr. Cherijo. This file supersedes all contradictory
submenu commands,” he said, exactly the way we’d
rehearsed it.
   “Identify for voice analysis.”
   I’d scored another point; Joseph hadn’t bothered to
create a voice-print file for Reever in the facility database.
  “Identity: Duncan Reever, chief of Surgical Services,
New Angeles Medical Center.”
   What Reever had done was make himself, in essence,
my creator’s old boss. The old hospital hierarchy files
kicked in, and the drone responded exactly as I’d hoped.
   “Thank you, Dr. Reever. Emergency surgical
procedure file does not exist. Create, or cancel?”
   “Create.”
  The drones were now under Reever’s complete voice
control.
   “Emergency surgical procedure new directive: All
commands issued by Dr. Cherijo equal commands issued
by Dr. Reever. Supersede all contradictory submenu
command directives and acknowledge.”
   “New directive acknowledged.”
   At last I could say something. “Prepare for organ
transplantation procedure in Development and
Engineering.” Reever started to sag, and I tucked his arm
over my shoulders. “Move your rollers!”
   I managed to support most of his weight and helped
him over to the berth nearest the organ specimen wall. He
collapsed and slipped into unconsciousness. After I
checked his vitals, which were terrible, I ran to the
console. Since the new commands enabled me access to
Joe’s full database, I keyed up the organ stock inventory
in a few seconds.
   “Okay, colon, heart, intestine large, intestine small—
There, kidney stock available.” I ran my finger down the
screen, following the column of tissue types. Then I input
an inquiry, and got the final answer.
   No match available.
  I ground a few molars together. “Always has to be a
challenge, doesn’t it?”
   I input another inquiry, this time for the cellular sample
stock inventory. I got lucky. Joseph had stored a sample
of kidney cells that matched Reever’s tissue type.
   I pulled the sample, examined it, and loaded it onto an
organ scaffold. “Begin whole kidney formation process.
Extrapolate approximate length of time for cloning full
organ for transplantation purposes, and display.”
   “It takes four weeks,” Joseph said behind me.
   I went motionless.
   “Where have you been, daughter?”
  “We took a long walk through the mountains.” I took a
deep breath. “He doesn’t have four weeks. He doesn’t
have four hours.”
   “You should have taken that into consideration before
attempting this larceny.”
  He was calling me a thief. If that didn’t ice the cake.
“Transplantation isn’t my specialty.”
  Reever, who’d suddenly woken up, jerked into a sitting
position. “Run!”
   “I can’t.” I went over to the table and made him recline,
then saw his eyes. Icebergs were warmer. “Don’t look at
me like that.”
  “You knew. You knew he wouldn’t catch us here.”
   “I was pretty sure he still kept the floor sensors armed.
That’s how he caught me sneaking out a few times during
secondary school.” I turned to my creator, who was
recoding the door panel. “Don’t bother. We’re not going
anywhere. We need your help.”
   Joe smiled slowly. “You must allow me time to
properly appreciate this moment.”
  “Gloat next week. He’s in critical condition.” I put a
hand on Reever’s forearm when he tried to sit up again.
“Stay put and act like you’re in critical condition, please.”
   My creator made a leisurely survey, then started curling
his upper lip again. “Why should I help you? He means
nothing to me.”
   “Because if you do save him, and release him when
he’s healed, you get me.” I wondered if I should have him
sign something. “Along with my full and voluntary
cooperation, and use of my body for whatever twisted,
sick experiments you can think up, for the remainder of
my existence.”
  Reever made a harsh sound. “No. I won’t let you.”
   “Lay back down, or I’ll sedate you.” I turned to my
creator. “Well?”
  Joe’s smile got wider. “I agree.”



   Reever argued with me until the very last moment
before we started, when I infused him with Valumine.
“You could have escaped. You don’t have to sacrifice
yourself for me.”
  I snapped on my gloves and peered over the edge of
my mask at him. “Too late.”
  He fought to keep his eyes open. “Cherijo, you despise
him. Don’t trade your soul for my life.”
   “What if it were me on the table, dying, and you were
the one he wanted? Wouldn’t you do the same thing?”
  “Yes.” He closed his eyes. “But—”
  “No buts.”
  I’d never operated side by side with Joseph. He’d
observed many of the procedures I’d performed as a
medical student, but only so he could tear apart my
technique once I got off shift and came home. Now we
stood on opposite sides of our patient. The man I loved.
The rival he hated.
  Joe leaned over the table. “Are you ready?”
   “Wait.” I went to the monitors and double-checked the
leads. “I want to make this crystal clear before we start. If
you try anything, mess up anything while we’re working
on him, I’ll know.”
  “Obviously, you will.”
   “I’ll also have a laser and several sharp instruments
close at hand.” I nodded toward the setup trays. “You’ve
seen me perform an emergency colostomy, haven’t you?
Imagine how it would feel without anesthetic.”
  “I took the same oath you did. I also gave you my
word. I will not harm him.”
   “Good. I hate eviscerating people. So much noise, so
much mess.” I checked Reever’s brain waves. He was
sleeping peacefully. “Since we don’t have a donor organ,
and we can’t clone a new one in time, what are you going
to do?”
   “You should have kept up with your research journals.”
Joseph powered up the laser rig. “I’ve developed new
procedures since you left Terra.”
   “Gee, I thought you were too busy chasing me around
the galaxy to get any serious research done.” I held out
my hand. “I’ll open him up.”
   He held on to the lascalpel. He really was afraid of me.
I enjoyed seeing that.
  “Don’t get your gown in a knot. I gave you my word.”
  “You’ve lived with alien barbarians for three years. I’m
not convinced I can trust you.”
  “The aliens use swords, not lasers. Just relax.”
  “Why do you want to open him up?”
   Now he was starting to get on my nerves. “Look, the
repair work is yours, the grunt work is mine. Hand it
over.”
  He reluctantly gave the instrument to me. “Very well.”
   I waved it in front of me. “See? I’m not burning your
face off with it. Much as I’m tempted.”
   I made the initial incision, over the freshly healed scar
of his previous operation, and clamped back the tissues to
reveal a kidney that was, for all intents and purposes,
dead.
   “Damn. How bad?”
   He scanned the organ. “It’s eighty-one-percent
nonfunctional. Necrotic tissue is present, though the
amount is negligible. You’re fortunate you decided to
return when you did. Another couple of hours and the
organ would have been unsalvageable.” He paused for a
moment, lining up the scope. “How did you get out of the
lab?”
   So he hadn’t found the access hatch. “We tiptoed.”
  “You said you’d been in the mountains. The closest
mountain range is over sixty kilometers from the estate.”
   “No wonder my feet hurt.”
   He held out a gloved hand. “Lascalpel.”
   I didn’t want to give it back to him, so it hit his palm
with a little extra, unnecessary force.
   Joe ignored that and looked through the scope. “It
appears you repaired the original trauma and restored
systemic circulation. However, the cellular damage was
too extensive for the organ to continue functioning. The
other kidney is missing. Removed?”
  “He doesn’t know. It could be a birth defect, or it was
excised during infancy.” Though how that could have
happened without leaving a scar, I had no idea.
   “Interesting. The remaining kidney should be enlarged.”
He carefully entered the organ with a scope probe and
surveyed the interior. “You must have worked on him at
some kind of medical facility. Which one?”
  “Oh, I did that in the mountains, too. Amazing what
you can accomplish with a sharp stick, a few vines, and
some moss.”
   He held out his hand again. “Hypercellular injector.”
   I glanced at the tray. “The what?”
   “The long instrument to the immediate left of the suture
laser.”
   I picked up what looked like a syrinpress that had been
miniaturized, with a few dozen infusion ports added to the
tip. “What’s it do?”
    Dark blue eyes narrowed above the edge of his mask.
“Do you want me to teach you this procedure, or perform
it?”
  “I want you to tell me how many patients survived it.”
  “All of them.”
  I slapped it in his hand. “Remember what I said.”
   Whatever Joe was doing was fine, delicate work. He
stayed in the organ and on the scope for the next two
hours. Occasionally I had to apply suction and take care
of a few bleeders, but otherwise I was made to feel about
as useful as a structural post.
   “There.” Finally Joe pushed the scope away and tossed
the bloodied injector onto the discard tray. “I’ve repaired
the vascular occlusions, and seeded the organ with
hypercellular implants. The new cells will restructure the
kidney, and replace the dysfunctional tissue.”
  I wasn’t going to take his word for it. “I want to see
what you did on the scope.”
  He stepped aside. “As you wish.”
   I upped the magnification and studied the work he’d
done on Reever’s kidney. New, pink organ cells were
already beginning to flush the gray surface of the organ.
“It looks almost like cancer.”
   “It operates with a similar replication and replacement
process, at a far more rapid and efficient growth rate. Like
carcinogenic cells, the organic hypercells will replace
existing tissue and reinstate organ function without further
treatment.”
  “Will he need anti-rejection therapy?”
   “No. The cells rebuild themselves by utilizing existing
systemic material. His body will not attack it.”
  “Congratulations, Doctor.” I pushed the scope aside
and grabbed the lascalpel. “I’ll close, and monitor.”
   “You may, until this evening. The drones will care for
him while you will change for dinner, and our night
together.”
  Oh, yes. Our night together.
   I spent the next six hours monitoring Reever, scanning
the site and witnessing the gradual reformation of his
kidney. The hypercells replicated and replaced the
damaged tissue with astonishing speed. It was probably
the most miraculous process I’d ever seen, outside of the
development of a human fetus. Once again, Joseph had
found a way to radically change Terran medicine for all
time. He’d also saved Reever.
  I had no problem dealing with that. Joseph owed me.
   As Reever’s condition continued to improve, I turned
my attention to what I had to do tonight. Pulling off the
rest of my plan presented some problems. It was all going
to be very tricky. I’d also have to leave Reever alone for
several hours. A couple thousand variables were involved.
  Anything might happen.
   Reever stirred, then gradually came out of the
anesthetic. He immediately tried to reach for me, so I took
his hand. “Cherijo.”
   “Hey, blue eyes.” I stroked the blond hair away from
his brow. He was still pretty groggy. “How many wives
do you see?”
  “One.” His voice rasped on the word. “Joseph?”
  “He’s up in the mansion. Don’t worry about him.”
  He tried to lift his head from the berth, then grimaced
and closed his eyes. “What happened?”
   “I talked old Joe into helping us out. He’s invented a
new way to handle organ damage. He injects replacement
cells into the organ, and they replicate and rebuild it.
You’ll have a brand-new kidney in a few hours.”
  “Complications?”
  “All kinds of them.” I rolled my eyes. “None that will
bother your kidney, I hope.”
  He didn’t appreciate my joke. “What does he want?”
   “Something he’s not going to get. No, don’t try to sit
up. Look at me.” I checked his pupils. At this rate, he was
going to be ambulatory in a few hours, so I removed the
restraints. “You stay here and rest. I have to go and deal
with him now.”
  He didn’t like hearing that, either. “Stay with me.”
  “I wish I could. Duncan, you know I have to put an
end to this. Trust me, I won’t resort to violence.” Unless I
had to. “I’m going to try to reason with him. If he doesn’t
cooperate, I’ll drug him. Then we’re getting out of here
and leaving Terra. Sound good to you?”
   From his expression, I could tell he wanted to argue
with me. “Be careful.”
  “I will.” I kissed him. “Rest now.”
   The lift was open and waiting for me. So was Joseph,
just outside the door panel up in the house. He took my
arm.
   “I meant what I said,” I told him. Not yanking out of
his grip took some effort. “I’ll cooperate.”
   “Forgive me if I find your sudden acquiescence
suspect.”
   Normally Joe was completely oblivious to anything but
his own schemes, but occasionally he anticipated me.
Time to do my song and dance.
   “Look at it this way. Even if I wanted to walk out of
here, Reever is in no shape to be moved. I’m not going to
trade his life for my freedom. Besides, is there any
possible way for me to get out of this fortress now?”
  “I did not think so, until you escaped the last time.”
   “You taught me a lot of things, Joe. One of them was
how to keep my word.” I didn’t mention the fine art of
lying through my teeth I’d picked up since leaving Terra.
“I want Reever alive, and out of here.”
  “We shall see.”
   He took me to my room, where one of the
housekeeping drones stood waiting with more impractical
garments.
   “I haven’t had a decent shower in a few weeks,” I said,
and pretended to scratch my scalp. “Mind if I clean up
before the experiments begin again?”
   He gave me a vaguely alarmed look. “Do a dermal
parasitic scan before you cleanse. You have thirty
minutes.”
  I waited until he left, then tried to dismiss the
housekeeping drone. It ignored me completely, which
made it very easy to disable. A server of water dumped
over it shorted the control panel long enough for me to
yank the power core. “One down, two to go.”
   I retrieved my treasure box, and as promised, Maggie’s
cache of discs were hidden inside. I turned on the cleanser
unit to full stream and let it cloud up the lavatory before
going in there. I had to hide the discs on me, which took a
silk scarf and some creative tucking and draping.
   The dress Joe wanted me to wear was fully and
conservatively cut, thank God, so the scarf didn’t look
out of place. I unbraided my hair and let it get damp, then
stepped out of the fog back into the bathroom.
   A study of my reflection made me adjust a few folds.
Whatever was on the discs, there was no way I was letting
Joseph get his hands on them. “Okay. Best I can do.” I
went to the console and did what I needed to do there.
“Time to ruin Daddy’s entire night.”
   Knowing my creator, he’d be waiting in the formal
dining room for me, so that’s where I headed. I’d
watched him input the access code to the lift, so I knew I
could get back down into the facility. All I had to do was
disable him long enough to get Reever on a gurney, up
and out of the mansion, and into a glidecar.
  Piece of cake.
    Joseph had changed into his party tuxedo, a
sober-looking affair that made him look like a penguin. I
refrained from pointing that out as I took my place at the
table. Might as well give him a few minutes to savor the
triumph I was about to take away from him.
   “You remembered how I like your hair,” he said,
surprising me.
  It was down so it hid the bulges in the scarf around my
neck. “I’m glad you like it. What’s for dinner?”
  “Summer quail with raisin-oyster stuffing.”
  “Oh, boy.” I controlled a wince. “My favorite.”
   The kitchen drone delivered our meal in short order,
and I spent a few minutes pushing quail around my plate
while Joe lectured me on his new transplantation
techniques. If I closed my eyes, I could have gone back in
time three years, and found myself doing the same thing,
only pushing bits of lobster while he gave me a
mini-seminar on bowel resections.
  “Tell me something,” I said, interrupting his oration.
“What would you do if you found out I’m sterile?”
   “You’re not.” He cut up his quail the same way he
operated on Reever—with precise, absolute accuracy. As
he sampled the meat, I finally recognized the gruesome
side to our profession. “You were ovulating the day I
brought you here.”
  Ovulating, yes. Able to reproduce, no. Why had he
missed that? “What about my immune system?”
   “I’ve taken that into consideration. After my personal
insemination, specific genetic adjustments, and a regime of
immuno-suppressants should protect the fetus for the
duration of your pregnancy.”
   “Really.” I gave up the pretense of eating and drank
some of the red wine he’d poured for me. A California
merlot, one of his favorites. It resembled congealed blood
in color, and old sterilizer solution in taste. “Far as I
know, my immune system will render anything inert and
useless. You’d better go with the in vitro method.”
   He actually reached out and put his hand on mine. “I
do not plan to use artificial insemination.”
   I dragged my hand away. “I doubt you could implant a
gestating zygote…” I stopped, and reconsidered his
statement. “When you said personally impregnate me, you
mean personally! As in having intercourse?”
  “Yes.”
  I dropped my fork. I tried to say something. Nothing
came out. I took a deep drink of the lousy merlot.
  “I didn’t create you simply to be the perfect physician
and human.” He placed his utensils down and flattened his
hands against the table. Like he was bracing himself.
   I needed some bracing, too, and quickly downed the
rest of the merlot. “You—”
  “I created you to be my wife.”



              PART THREE
              Consanguinity
            CHAPTER ELEVEN
                                                  «^»

            Not To Be Trusted
Everything I had never understood about my creator for
the last twenty-nine years abruptly snapped into stunning,
nauseating clarity. I must have sat there in silence for a full
five minutes as I saw my entire existence turn upside
down.
   He’d made me to be his wife.
   I’d misjudged the motives behind everything he’d
done. He’d programmed me genetically. He’d taught me
to obey him. He’d isolated me from other men. He’d
convinced me to take up his profession. He’d instilled in
me some, if not all, of the values he held sacred.
   Not because he’d wanted to be a good father.
   When I’d left him, he let me go only so far. He had
allowed me my alien experience on K-2, to test my
immune system and to instill in me the hatred of
non-humans he had. Only it had gone all wrong. I’d
become fascinated with aliens. I’d even fallen in love with
one. I’d refused to come back to him.
   Of course he’d come after me with a vengeance. Not
because he was being a good father, or he considered me
a lab rat.
   He’d made himself a mate, and he wanted her back.
   Panic set in. I shoved my chair back away from the
table and got up. “You’re sick.”
   He came after me. Slowly, with great poise and dignity.
   “I have been training you to take your place at my side
since you were born. You are an accomplished surgeon
who can understand and share in my work. You have
been brought up to appreciate the finer aspects of Terran
existence, unsullied by alien cultural pollutants. You were
physically engineered to be an attractive female and a
highly responsive partner.”
   He’d tinkered with that? “Stop. Stay away from me.”
   He did stop. “I designed you to be the perfect woman
for me. This is your destiny, Cherijo.”
   “You made me so you could mate with yourself,” I
said, and saw him extend a hand. “Don’t touch me.
Unless you want to pull back a bloody stump.”
   “Think of what we will do together.” He smiled a little
as he watched my face. “As husband and wife, we will
produce the children who will chart the genetic future of
the human race. We will continue my research and resolve
the threat to our way of life. It will be an incredible journey
for both of us.”
   He was completely insane. “Incest is still against the
law.”
   “You’re not my daughter, or my sister. Only a sentient
being qualifies as such, under Terran law.”
   “So you made sure I wouldn’t meet the specifications.”
   “Naturally, there will be no officially recognized union
between us. I have no need for the bonds of marriage.
You are my property.”
   “Your own little brood mare.”
   “You cannot become pregnant with an alien’s child.
Only a Terran can breed with you. That is why the World
Government consented to my proposal thirty years ago.
You and I will have children who cannot be corrupted by
alien DNA. Their children, like you, will be unable to
crossbreed, thus preserving our heritage forever.”
   I’d always known my creator was brilliant, and
narcissistic, but this went way beyond the worst
megalomania. Somehow, he’d convinced himself that he
was God, and it was time to rewrite Genesis.
   Even scarier, he might just pull it off.
  “I see.” I centered my weight on my feet. The calm
Xonea had taught me to seek inside myself settled over
me. You had to be calm to beat the daylights out of
someone. “Is that all you have planned for me and the
human race?”
  “We can discuss it in more detail, as long as you
cooperate. If you resist, I will have the drones attend to
your linguist friend.” He took my cold hand in his. “Shall I
signal them now?”
   We stood like that for a minute. Joseph had rarely
touched me when I was a child. Now I had the final puzzle
piece. And I could use it.
  “You’re in love with me.”
  He jerked, then tightened his fingers.
   “That’s why you never bothered getting married.” Hard
to fake the bewildered wonder in my voice, but I
managed. “It was always me, wasn’t it?”
   “My only personal inconvenience was waiting for you
to mature.” More sure of me now, he led me back to the
table. “I felt the result merited the effort. No other man
could match your intellect, potential, or talent. No other
woman would suit me, for the same reasons. In time, you
will come to understand.”
  I’d walk into the backwash of a starshuttle discharge
vent first. Time. I needed to buy a little more time. I
waited as he pulled out my chair, then I sat down.
   “Why didn’t you raise me to regard you as a lover
instead of a father? You could have saved yourself ten,
maybe twenty years of frustration. Not to mention all
those inconvenient explanations to your colleagues and
friends.”
   “I am not a pedophile.” He said that as though it made
everything all better, and took his seat. “I required a valid
reason to be involved in every facet of your childhood
and adolescence, both in public and private situations. I’d
hoped you’d naturally gravitate toward me as you went
through puberty, but when it became apparent you
preferred to pour your passion into your work, I was
willing to delay the inevitable.” He offered me another
glass of merlot.
   “No, thank you.” After this night, I’d never be able to
drink wine again. He wanted to talk clinical, we’d talk
clinical. “What about my psychological reaction to the
prospect of incest?”
   “The potential damage was an acceptable risk. You’re
a highly intelligent woman. Once I explained my rationale,
I felt confident you would accept the change in our
relationship. You accepted everything else I required of
you.”
   That I had, idiot that I’d been. Why hadn’t I ever
picked up on this? “But the blackmail sure comes in
handy, doesn’t it?”
  “It does.” He finished his quail. “You have been
controlling your temper admirably. What I have to say to
you now will be difficult for you to accept, but it is
important to start out with complete understanding.”
  If he thought it was going to be tough to listen to, I was
positive I didn’t want to hear it. I needed just a few more
minutes. “Knock yourself out.”
   “You have an emotional attachment to the linguist,
which I would not have permitted, had you been living
here. I had no control over your choices after you left
Kevarzangia Two, much to my regret, but I anticipated
this happening. As a result, congress with me initially may
be unpleasant for you at first. Until such time as you feel
willing to participate, I will provide you with tranquilizers.”
   He was going to drug me before he raped me. Only Joe
could make that sound logical. I refused the dessert
offered by the serving drone. “You can’t drug me into
submission forever.”
   “You will adjust in time. Loss of control and ability to
surrender to a familial authority figure is a common sexual
fantasy among otherwise dominant women.”
  He’d even managed to make rape sound respectable.
“You have the research to back that up?”
   He nodded, then frowned. “Your hatred of me was a
concern, at first. I failed to take into account your
penchant for independence and competitiveness. All that
will be corrected as our relationship progresses to the next
level.”
   “So you think eventually I’ll kick off my footgear,
incubate your child, and take up permanent residence in
the food prep area?” A faint odor reached my nose, and I
sniffed. “Just like that?”
   “One area we will need to work on is your irreverent
speech patterns. I tolerated them when Margaret was alive,
but they are extremely annoying.”
  “Why not cut out my vocal cords? Then you don’t
have to listen to anything.” My internal time clock and the
smell said it was just about time, so I got to my feet. “Can
we cut to the chase?”
  “I suggest—”
   Whatever he was going to suggest fell to the wayside as
the household thermal sensors went off. Several staff
drones rushed in, displays blinking, alarms chiming.
   “Dr. Joseph, a room console in the east wing was
cross-wired, and set fire to the bed linens draped over it.”
  My creator gave me a furious look. “You gave me your
word.”
  “I told you I’d cooperate.” I studied the deplorable
condition of my fingernails. “I didn’t say a thing about
avoiding arson.”
   “Keep her here. Send all maintenance drones to put out
the blaze.” Joe put down his wineglass and gave me his
famous disappointed look. “I’ll deal with the linguist
myself.”
   I picked up a knife from the table. “No, you won’t.” I
could have disabled him. I certainly would have, if twenty
screaming, knife-carrying Indians hadn’t burst into the
dining room at that exact moment.



  Two worlds collided right in front of my eyes.
   Faces smeared with colored pigments, bare chests
gleaming under the chandelier optics, the Indians charged
at me, Joseph, and the drones like the front line at a
shockball game. Chairs went flying and smashed against
the embossed floral wall coverings. The long dining room
table was upended, and the remnants of our meal
scattered.
   They got to me first. I didn’t resist when someone’s
strong arm snatched me off my feet and I was carried to
an out-of-the-way corner. By then I’d realized it was the
Night Horse players I’d treated, evidently sent to rescue
me.
   Polished metallic drones tried to fend them off, with
static discharges, which didn’t even faze the
shockball-hardened athletes. The drones ended up hitting
the walls and being reduced to jumbles of components.
  I peered around Small Fox’s arm to see what had
happened to Joseph. He was already gagged and tied to a
chair. The Indians circled around him, jabbing at him with
their knives and screaming insults.
  Then the dark man walked in, and everyone fell silent.
   “How is it one of the blood lives like a whiteskin, alone
in an enormous hogan filled with objects obtained by his
greed?”
   Rico bent down and picked up a piece of quail from
the floor. He sniffed at it, then tossed it back down.
   “He eats the whiteskins’ food.” He came over to
Joseph and inspected him. “He cuts his hair and wears the
whiteskins’ clothes. This is not the way.”
  “He is not blood,” Small Fox muttered.
   “But he says he is.” The chief bent over my creator,
who was staring at him, wide-eyed. “He takes the blood
for his own.”
   Joseph strained against his bonds, his gaze bouncing
from Rico’s face to mine. He looked quite
uncharacteristically terrified.
   Rico, in contrast, seemed almost serene as he pulled a
blade from his belt and tested the edge. “His life should
belong to those he has wronged.”
    I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to see the chief
slit another throat, but I couldn’t think of a single good
reason to stop him from killing Joe.
  Things got even more complicated when Rico strode
over and held it out to me. “Here. His life is yours.”
   I took the knife. So it would be my decision. Killing
him would solve a lot of problems. Nearly all of mine. It
would keep him from wreaking havoc on the future of the
human race. Then I thought of the hypercellular
procedure, and the fact Joseph had never been able to
recreate me.
  I handed the knife back to the chief. “No.”
   “He is the one who hunts you.” With a single jab, Rico
buried the knife in the highly polished surface of the dining
room table. “End it now, or you will look over your
shoulder forever.”
  I shook my head. “Thanks, but I have to leave. I’m
going to get Reever.” I started for the lab.
  “You’re coming with us.” The chief nodded to Milass
and Hawk, who grabbed my arms.
    My heart started pounding out of control. I couldn’t
leave Reever here. Joe would dissect him alive, an inch at
a time, out of spite. “If you want me as your cutter, my
husband goes with us.”
  Rico mulled this over for a moment. “If he comes
back, he comes as one of us.”
   “Fine.” Reever wouldn’t care if he had to pretend to
join the tribe.
   I walked over to my creator. He was still struggling,
trying to free himself. I bent over so my words were for
him alone.
   “Before I go, I want to thank you for saving Reever. I
love him. My life would have very little meaning without
him. We have the rest of our lives to be together. You
made that possible.” I moved around so he could look
into my eyes, so he could see my hatred and disgust.
“That’s the only reason I’m not using that blade on you.”
  On the way to the lab, a few more drones got in the
way. The players mowed them down. Once we stepped
onto the lift and descended into the research facility, the
men began congratulating each other and comparing
whatever they’d swiped from the mansion.
   “You should have killed him.”
   I looked at the small man behind me. Milass had
painted his entire face black, and was wearing Joseph’s
dinner jacket. “There are plenty of people in that
category.”
   The little twerp grinned, his small teeth white against the
paint. “Any time you wish, woman.”
    We got off the lift, to be greeted by the thermal sensors
triggering an alarm. A virtual barricade of maintenance
drones rushed toward the lift. It took the Indians a little
longer to plow through this line. At one point, I picked up
a dismembered extensor unit and started hammering on a
couple myself.
  Felt pretty good to be beating the components out of
something.
   I led the Night Horse through the resulting pile of
fizzling bodies to the lab and Reever. The sight of the
malformed fetuses in the embryonic chambers seemed to
mesmerize the Indians, who shuffled back and muttered
some things to each other.
   Reever, who was semiconscious, was still too weak to
travel under his own power. “We’ll need to rig a litter to
carry him. I also need to take some equipment and
supplies with me.” Including all the antibiotics I could get
my hands on.
  “This place smells of whiteskin trickery,” Milass said.
“We should take nothing from here.”
   I ignored him and finished redressing Reever’s torso
brace. Only when I went into Research and Development
to load up a medical case did the little twerp get nasty.
   “No.” He appropriated the case and flung it across the
lab. “You will not bring evil spirits into Leyaneyaniteh.”
   “Get lost.” When he didn’t, I looked for Rico. He had
followed us in and was over by the embryonic chambers,
studying one of the specimens. “Chief? I need to take
these supplies for Medical. Call off your deranged
midget.”
  The chief regarded me, then his secondario. “Why do
you object, Milass?”
   My nemesis spat on the spotless floor. “She will curse
us with the Shaman’s trickery.”
  “Make an effort and don’t be stupid for once.” I
showed Rico the syrinpress units and surgical supplies.
“These are things we need down there.”
  “Take what you can carry, patcher,” Rico said at last.
   That wasn’t going to be much. I cleaned out Joseph’s
stocks of antibiotics and confiscated some lightweight
instruments. One of the hybrids had some mild cardiac
damage from the syphilis infection, so I added a couple of
biomechanical replacement units to my pack, in the event
his condition worsened.
   The thermal sensors above us stopped blaring. A
different alarm went off in their place.
   “That’s the security grid. Joseph must have gotten
loose. Area authorities will be here any minute now.” I saw
Rico pick up a suture laser, and hurried over to him. “Put
that down, it’s dangerous.”
  He pointed the laser at one of the embryonic chambers,
and activated it. The narrow beam cut through the
malleable outer housing and duralyde began to pour out
through the tear. There was a sickening plop when the
occupant of the chamber slid out and hit the floor.
    “Stop it.” I tried to take the laser from him, but he
shoved me away and used the beam on another chamber.
I felt his anger again. It slapped at me with an icy hand.
“Why are you doing that? You’re killing them!”
  Rico stared at me for a moment. “They are better off
dead.”
  The other Indians covered their mouths and noses and
backed away as the smell of the embryonic fluid hit them.
Milass dragged me out of the lab, and kept me from going
back in after the chief.
   The specimens were too small to survive on their own.
Even though I knew Joseph had created them, and meant
to experiment on them, I could have never destroyed them
like that, in cold blood. “He doesn’t have to kill them!”
   “He is the chief,” Small Fox said, tugging me away
from Milass. “Come, help us with the litter.”
   My eyes burned and my hands shook as I helped the
men rig a litter for Reever. The smell of the duralyde
followed the chief as he emerged from the lab a few
minutes later.
  “Did you rupture all of them?” I asked.
  He gave me the suture laser. “Yes.”
  “Why?”
   He washed his hands at the cleanser. “They were filled
with evil.”
  Oh, that made perfect sense. “You’re a murderer.”
  “Yes.” He dried his hands. “I am.”
   I didn’t talk to him after that. We got Reever back
through the wall panel, and into the tunnels. It was a close
thing, though. I could hear security forces running through
the corridors of the research facility just after Hawk
closed the panel.
   “They’ve never found this access pipe?” I asked Hawk
as we made our way into the sewer system.
  He didn’t answer me. Guess he was mad.
  Everyone was quiet on the long trip back on the
subway transport. I sat by Reever and kept him on
continuous scan. Milass played guard and sat watching
me.
  Rico manned the controls, but the faint smell of
duralyde drifted back. It made me want to vomit. Why
had he done it?
   The subway came to a halt, and we entered the tunnels.
I watched carefully as Rico disabled the traps, memorizing
their location this time. I had no intention of exchanging
one kind of captivity for another. As soon as Reever had
healed, we were getting out.
   As soon as we emerged from the sewer system, Milass
latched on to my arm.
  “Chief?”
  Rico looked at me.
  “I’m not trying to escape. Tell him to get off me.”
   “You told the old man you’d do what he wanted,
didn’t you?” Rico asked me. “And then you set his house
on fire and stole his medicine. Hold on to her, Milass.”
   The secondario gave me a nasty smile and tightened his
grip.
   I set up a berth for my husband in the medical alcove
and got him hooked up on a monitor. Renal function had
been nearly completely restored, but he was still very
weak. I was about to perform a second scan series when
Milass grabbed me by the back of the tunic and hauled me
out into the tunnel.
   Rico stood waiting, arms folded. The rest of the raiding
party formed a ring around us.
  I looked at all of them. “Problem?”
  “You were welcomed into our tribe, and yet you
deceived us.”
   “I’m sorry about that.” I didn’t have time for this
shame-on-you stuff. “Excuse me, I have a patient to take
care of.”
   Milass forced me down on my knees instead. “Look at
the chief, woman.”
  “Okay.” I looked up at him. “And?”
  “You are not to be trusted.”
   “Obviously.” I thought of Wendell, and put a clamp on
my temper. “I’m sorry we left without permission, and
I’m grateful that you helped us escape again. You have to
understand, this isn’t our home. We want to be free, the
same way your tribe chose to leave the reservations and
live here. We don’t belong here.”
  “You belong to me,” he said.
   Milass hit me, so fast and hard it sent me sprawling at
his feet.
   Rico moved to stand over me. “If you attempt to
escape again, I will have the linguist’s life.”
  I spat out some blood and pushed myself up. “I
understand.”
  The chief cocked his head to one side. “Do you?”
   Milass drove his foot into my side, and bone cracked.
The explosion of pain made my vision double, made me
curl over and groan. He kicked me two more times.
  “If you lie to me again,” Rico said through the haze of
agony surrounding me, “I will cut out your tongue. Do
you understand that?”
  His little demon hauled me up, and I clutched my
abdomen, trying to protect my rib cage. The dark man
was waiting for an answer, I saw, and managed a nod.
    Milass drew back his fist, and clipped me across the
jaw. I didn’t go anywhere that time, because the
secondario had his fist wrapped in my hair. Some of it
separated from my scalp. Blood pooled in my mouth and
trickled out the sides.
   “You will be under guard until I feel better about you,
patcher.” Rico reached out one finger, and smeared my
own blood over my lips. “Remember what I have said.”
   Milass let go of me, and I went down. Hitting the stone
floor of the tunnel was almost as bad as taking the beating.
Rico and the men left, but two stayed behind to take up
positions on either side of the alcove entrance.
  I stayed where I was for a while. Some time later,
hands touched me.
  “Don’t.” I would have shivered from the cold, but it
hurt too much.
  “You can’t stay like this.” It was Hawk.
  “Ribs.” Hopefully he wouldn’t want a comprehensive
explanation of what was wrong with them.
   Hawk didn’t try to pick me up, which was a small
blessing. “How can I help you?”
  A brand-new rib cage would have been nice.
“Syrinpress.”
   He nobbled away. I turned on my back and rode new
waves of torment. When I felt his touch again, I squinted
at him. “Got it?”
  “Yes.” He showed it to me.
  “Morphinol. Ten cc’s. Hip.”
  “I’ve never given an infusion before.”
  Even an overdose would be better than this misery.
“Try.”
   He calibrated the syrinpress, then tugged down the
waist of my trousers and infused me at the hip. Then he
sat beside me, wiped the sweat from my face, and
checked my pulse. “Is it working?”
   “Yes.” I could feel the burning grip on my abdomen
easing a few degrees. I knew my body would quickly
absorb the effects of the painkiller, but with luck it would
buy me enough time to get up and into some sort of
brace.
  When I could take a breath without screaming, I held
out a hand. “Hold on.”
   Hawk didn’t pull, but provided the anchor I needed.
Even so, getting to my feet nearly did me in. As soon as I
was vertical, I started moving. Scalding arrows sliced
through my lungs with every breath.
  Hawk held on to my hands and kept me balanced.
“How bad are your ribs?”
   “Broken.” I got to the exam table. Getting up on it was
out of the question. Sweat seeped down the sides of my
face as I rested, my hands gripping the edge. I had to pant
each subsequent word.
  “Hawk. Get. The. Scanner.”
  Everything became dark and fuzzy, and I focused on
my breathing. Short, controlled breaths cleared my head,
while the morphinol blurred a little more of the pain. I
heard Hawk activate the scanner, felt him moving around
my back.
  “Four of them are broken, patcher.”
  “Bone chips? Bleeding?”
   “The fractures display clean. There are no signs of
internal hemorrhaging.”
   That took care of my two biggest concerns. Now, how
to deal with the broken ribs? I didn’t have any torso
braces, and I couldn’t have him knock me out. Reever
had to be monitored, and Hawk wasn’t up to that. “Get
scissors. Bandage. Players’ tape.”
  He brought a pair of surgical shears, a large dressing
pad, and a roll of dermal adhesive to the table. “These?”
   “Yes.” I panted for a minute. “Cut off tunic.” I gritted
my teeth as he did that, then glanced down. The skin over
my ribs was broken in a few places. Angry-looking
bruises spread huge dark circles where Milass’s boot had
landed. “Clean. Bandage. Wrap.”
   He gently cleansed the lacerations, dried them, and
taped the dressing in place. Then he began wrapping my
torso with the tape. By then the morphinol was starting to
back off, and it was a little like having my ribs broken all
over again.
  “Okay.” After he had applied four layers, I held out my
hand. “That’s good. Thanks.”
  He put away the supplies, then came over and studied
me. “Your jaw is bruised.”
  “Just sore.” I carefully walked over to Reever’s berth.
“Thanks.”
  “Don’t thank me. You disobeyed the chief.”
  Shame on you, Cherijo. “So?”
  “He might kill you if you cross him again.”
   I stopped, and turned my head. “He’d better, next
time.”



  My ribs healed, but other things didn’t.
  Disobeying the chief and escaping from the
underground instantly made me persona non grata with the
tribe. The players I treated remained silent and kept their
visits brief. The few times I went out into the central
cavern, everyone pretended not to see me, or went into
their hogans so they wouldn’t have to.
   A leper would have been more popular.
   I don’t know why it bothered me so much—after all,
Reever and I’d been kidnapped twice by these people,
and Reever nearly killed—but it did. I missed seeing the
warm smiles, accepting the offers to share a meal, listening
to the laughter of the children. From what I knew about
Indian culture, it would be a long time, if ever, before they
forgave me.
   I missed Hawk more than anyone. After he’d helped
me with my broken ribs, he stayed away from Medical,
and took care to avoid me everywhere else. Sometimes I
heard him singing in one of the hogans, but I was no
longer invited to share in their ceremonials.
   That, combined with Joseph’s disgusting revelations,
sent me spiraling down into a state of constant
depression.
   Reever handled everything much better than I had, but I
attributed that to the fact that he was used to being treated
like a leper. His recovery proved rapid and without any
complications. He would have made Terran medical
history, if I could have told anyone about it.
   “I feel fine,” he said as I tried to bully him back onto
the berth less than a week after Joe had performed the
hypercell procedure. “I cannot remain on my back any
longer.”
  “Oh, really?” I’d been sleeping badly, so my temper
was in short supply. “You had major surgery, twice, and I
nearly lost you. You’ll stay on your back as long as I tell
you to. Got it?”
   “You’ve been having nightmares again, haven’t you?”
  I turned away from the berth. “Take off your tunic. I
want to inspect the incision site.”
  “You did that this morning.” He didn’t touch his tunic.
“Why are you avoiding my gaze?”
  “I’m busy.” I prepared a syrinpress with the vitamin
booster I’d been giving him while he was on dialysis, then
realized he didn’t need it anymore and tossed the
instrument aside. “Okay, I haven’t been sleeping very
well. This place is making me claustrophobic.” And the
thought of Joseph and what he’d told me had done
wonders, too.
  “Link with me.”
  I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead against the
wall. “No, I don’t feel like it.”
  Why?
   I was so tired I had to struggle to get my mental walls
up. It’s not polite to invade someone’s mind without their
permission. I thought we’d agreed on that.
  He’d seen something; I could feel it as he withdrew.
   “What happened between you and Joseph after my
surgery?”
   “Same old thing. He wants to get me pregnant, to
produce more clones, et cetera.”
   “No. More than that. You smelled of wine. You never
drink.”
   I could still taste that horrible merlot. “He doesn’t want
to be my daddy anymore, Duncan. He never did. Just let it
go.”
  “I am not letting it go.” He turned me around. “What
does he want?”
  My temper, never a steady thing these days, blew. “A
wife! Okay? He wants a wife!”
  For the second time in as many weeks, I had actually
shocked Duncan Reever. “He admitted this to you?”
    “Sure, he told me. Why wouldn’t he? I’d just agreed to
let him do anything he wanted to me. What better time to
break the news that he made me to be his perfect
woman.”
  My husband seemed very troubled. “I had no idea.”
   “Me either, but he figured with time, and some
sedation, I’d accept it.” Which sometimes happened in
my nightmares, which was why I wasn’t sleeping.
“According to Joe, I’m too smart to let incest get in the
way of true love.”
  His hands cradled my face. “This was not your doing,
Cherijo.”
   “You know what really gets me the most? All those
years he watched me, and the whole time he was
thinking—” I wrenched away and drove my fist into the
nearest solid object. I ended up with bleeding, throbbing
knuckles, and a slightly dented exam table. The pain
didn’t make me feel any better. “I never saw it coming.
Why didn’t I see it, Duncan?”
   “You don’t think the way he does.” Reever took my
hand and wrapped it in a piece of linen. “There is no
perversion in you.”
   “You know what? I never liked him. He was a lousy
father. But he was the only father I’ve ever known. He’s
the reason I became a surgeon, and not just because of
the genetics.”
   He tied the ends of the linen and tucked them under the
outer folds. “You were a child. You wanted him to be
proud of you.”
    “I respected him. I tried to love him. I can’t remember
a time when I didn’t want to please him.” Why was this
making me teary eyed? I hated the warped bastard. “He
knew that. He planned it that way. Told me he thought
acting like my dad would make everything easier.”
   Reever didn’t try to touch me again, but let me wander
away from him. “We cannot choose our parents. What
they do to us is totally without our permission—whether
we are cherished, or abused. We can only hope to learn
from their actions so we may be better parents when the
time comes.”
  That didn’t make things better. It made me want to tear
out my hair and dissolve into hysterics. “Shut up,
Duncan.”
    “You have never faced the loss of our child. Perhaps it
is time you did. It is a tragedy we will carry with us
forever, but we will have others.”
  “No, we won’t.” He’d given me the perfect
opportunity to tell him, and I was disgusted enough with
myself to do it this time. “My immune system will destroy
any baby I become pregnant with. Squilyp suspected as
much, but we couldn’t confirm it until after I had the
miscarriage.”
  “Why didn’t you tell me?”
  “Because after I lost our baby, Duncan, I forced
Squilyp into performing a tubal ligation on me. No more
miscarriages. I’m sterile now.”
  “This is what you’ve been hiding.”
  As much I was going to torture him with for the
moment. “Yes.” I saw his eyes change, and clamped
down on the overwhelming despair inside me. “Now you
know. Don’t worry, Duncan. You’ll find someone else to
have those babies with.”
  I ran, and the guards at the entrance silently followed
me.
  Reever didn’t.



  I had to return to Medical eventually—my two shadows
would only let me go so far, and no farther. When they
marched me back, Reever was gone. I checked my hand,
went over my charts, and brooded. If I’d had a couple of
nurses and some jaspkerry tea, I could have closed my
eyes and pretended I was back on the Sunlace.
  Reever didn’t show up that night or the next morning,
but Hawk did. He came in during one of my procedures, a
small vid unit under his arm.
  “Why are you here?” I was in the middle of working on
Small Fox’s back, half of which I had successfully
denuded by electrastim. “Strain your throat or
something?”
   “You will want to watch this.” He put the portable unit
on the makeshift worktable where I kept my charts.
  I told Small Fox I’d kill some more of his follicles later.
After he dressed and left, I inspected the unit. “Where did
you get this?”
   “Veda Wolfkiller sent it down to us. She saw and
recorded the original broadcast,” he said, and
programmed it for replay.
   The news recording began with their lead story—
Joseph Grey Veil, walking down the steps of a familiar
federal building. Drone reporters went berserk as soon as
he emerged.
  “Dr. Grey Veil, how have the authorities responded to
the break-in at your estate?”
  “Will you state the events surrounding the abduction of
your property?”
   “Have there been any leads in identifying the
perpetrators?”
   Joe paused and stared into the drones’ recording
devices. He seemed a little upset. “Officials have assured
me they are continuing their pursuit of the individuals who
burglarized my home. I have no information on the
whereabouts of my property or the identity of the
criminals. I am making a public appeal for all Terrans to
assist in the investigation and help me recover the
experimental subject who was taken from my research
facility.”
   “You reported the criminals were renegade Indians. Do
you think they have a grudge against you for your role in
removing non-Indian residents from the Four Mountains
reservation?”
  I looked at Hawk. “He did what?”
  “Watch,” was all Hawk said.
   “The Cultural Standards I helped develop during my
office as Official Shaman to the Native American Nations
have nothing to do with this outrage. My property was
stolen, and I want it returned.”
   “League Colonel Patril Shropana claims your clone was
directly responsible for the loss of life during the Varallan
incident. Would you care to comment?”
  Joe started to say something, but a familiar figure
pushed in front of him and started spouting League law.
   “My appeal to the World Government Committee has
been taken under advisement. We will hunt down this
criminal female and bring her to justice.”
   For a moment, Joseph and Patril gave each other ugly
looks, then went their separate ways, still pursued by the
media. Hawk reached over and switched off the vid.
   “They search for you—the Shaman, and now the
League forces as well. The entire property surrounding the
estate has been combed every day. Joseph Grey Veil has
not yet found the tunnels, but we think it will be soon.”
  “I see.” I regarded Hawk. “Why didn’t anyone tell me
Joseph had you kicked off the Four Mountains
reservation? Why the fairy tale about Rico’s exodus?”
   He just gave me that inscrutable Indian stare.
   Oh, I forgot. I was still the resident leper. “Fine. I’ve
seen the vid. Go away.”
  “Rico has summoned you to the sweat lodge. You will
come with me now.”
  “No, she won’t.” Reever stood in the doorway. He
sounded exhausted and none too happy.
  Hawk shuffled around to address him. “She is in no
danger.”
   “He had four of her ribs broken the last time he saw
her.” He wiped his face on his sleeve. Why was he so
dirty and sweaty? “She is not going anywhere near him.”
  Hawk made an impatient gesture. “If she does not
come now, he will come to her and do worse.”
   I wasn’t risking more of my ribs or Reever getting into
another knife fight. Besides, the last thing I wanted to do
was hang around and hear what he had to say about my
big confession.
   “I’ll be fine.” I picked up my medical case and
followed Hawk out of the alcove. When I passed Reever,
he put out an arm to block my exit.
   “I will be waiting for you.”
  “Sure.” Maybe I’d stay in this sweat lodge for a few
weeks.
   I followed Hawk out to the central cavern. My position
allowed me a good view of his distorted spine. I’d never
seen a case of scoliosis outside of a dimensional training
unit, but Hawk’s spine had such a marked curvature that
only surgery involving extensive bone grafting would
straighten it.
  “I wish you’d reconsider letting me take a look at your
back.” When he didn’t respond to that, I sighed.
   “Okay. Why don’t you tell what a sweat lodge is,
then?”
  “A place we use for sweat baths, to purify the mind
and body.”
   “Bathing in sweat doesn’t make you pure.” I shuddered
at the thought. “It makes you stink.”
  “It cleanses the mind and the body, and balances the
soul.” When I would have said more, he shook his head.
“You have never experienced it. Wait and see for
yourself.”
   I could reserve my opinion, but no amount of waiting
and seeing was going to convince me sweat did anything
but smell.
   Hawk led me past the central fire and to a small, domed
structure set far back into one corner of the cave. Some
kind of mud had been used to seal the spaces between the
stacks of flat rock and arched boughs forming the outside
of the sweat lodge.
  “What’s in there?”
  “Darkness, heated stones, steam, and fire.”
  Oh, brother. “How about I wait outside?”
   “It is nothing to fear.” He gave me a twisted smile.
“The sweat lodge is like the womb of a mother. Within is
darkness, like the time before birth, before learning and
knowing. The heated stones are the approach of life, and
the hissing steam the power of creation. The fire is the
undying light of eternity.”
  “Very poetic.” I folded my arms. “I’d still like to wait
outside.”
   “Go on.” He pulled back some kind of a small, tightly
woven hatch and gave me a little push. “They’re waiting
for you.”
   Inside the extremely hot, smoky, humid interior was a
circle of men sitting around a pile of rocks stacked over a
low fire in a shallow pit. They were all stripped down to
the skin. One of the men was shaking a wet bundle of
straw over the hot stones.
   The dark man sat at the head of the circle. His
shadowed face lifted, and he stared directly at me. I
wrapped my arms around my waist and waited.
   “Patcher.” Rico pointed to an empty place at the foot
of the circle. “Sit. We have things to speak of.”
   I sat. The man sitting next to me was passed a
decorated pipe, and the smell coming from it made me
suspicious. Some sort of drug, I thought, judging by the
enlarged condition of his pupils. Maybe a hallucinogen.
When he passed it to me, I handed it to the next man
without sampling it.
   Milass addressed me next. “Woman, the chief wishes
to know why the Shaman persists.”
  I drew a blank. “What Shaman?”
  He pointed in the general direction of the sewer/
subway passages. “The one called Old Joe.”
  “Dr. Grey Veil believes I’m his property.”
  “Why?”
   The smoke was starting to get to me, and I smothered a
cough behind my hand. Explaining that I was a virtually
immortal clone wasn’t the prudent thing to do. I had no
idea how the Night Horse felt about genetic engineering.
“He tested some of his medical theories on me.”
  “Which theories?”
  “Improvements on my immune system and brain
development.”
   Rico leaned over and murmured something to Milass,
who nodded and muttered something back. They did that
for a couple of minutes.
   “Excuse me.” The lack of oxygen made me
lightheaded. “Can I go now?”
  “No,” Milass said at once. “You will answer other
questions.”
  “Okay. As long as I don’t pass out first.”
   The subsequent questions Milass asked me had nothing
to do with genetic engineering. He wanted to know about
my childhood, what schools I had at-tended, and details
of my life at The Grey Veils. I answered each briefly.
  Then, unexpectedly, Milass said, “The League
commander says you are a murderer.”
  “Maybe I am.”
  Milass smiled sourly. “Both the Shaman and the
League offer a great reward for your recovery. Perhaps
we should take advantage of it.”
  “Perhaps you should.” I got to my feet. “May I go
now?”
  “No,” Rico said to Milass.
  The psycho dwarf pointed to the ground. “Sit.”
  I sat.
   Milass continued to question me about my youth. It
seemed a little ludicrous, to be sitting there talking about
entertainment privileges and meal schedules with a bunch
of drugged, naked men, but I dutifully reeled off the facts.
With each sentence, I became aware of how closely
everyone was listening.
   Why? What did my childhood have to do with Joe and
the League hunting me?
  At last Milass stopped and abruptly gestured to the
hogan’s entrance. “You go now.”
  “May I ask a question before I do?”
  Rico nodded. Milass gave me the go-ahead.
   “I saw an alien man in the tunnels. His name is Dhreen;
he’s from Oenrall. Do you know him?”
   Milass consulted with Rico, then said, “Yes. He has
sanctuary here.”
  He was probably spying for Joseph. But if he was, why
hadn’t Joseph stormed this place? “Why does the Night
Horse provide sanctuary to an alien male?”
  Rico muttered something to Milass.
   “We do not explain ourselves to liars.” The little twerp
grinned and pointed to the door. “Leave.”


           CHAPTER TWELVE
                                                «^»

                   Centerfield
I emerged from the sweat lodge more confused than when
I had gone in. My tunic was soaked with sweat, and I
smelled of whatever they had been smoking in that pipe. I
needed a thorough cleansing, a cool drink, and a place to
hide and think things over.
   Why was Rico so interested in my past? Why not ask
me himself? Was having Milass as his mouthpiece
supposed to impress me? Intimidate me? I didn’t get it.
  My guards took up their positions on either side of me,
and I gave up the idea of hiding out somewhere. Might as
well go back and face the music.
   All thoughts of Rico and bathing and confronting
Reever disappeared when I heard a woman laughing from
the alcove and walked in to find Reever sitting on the
exam table, apparently talking with a young Indian woman.
She had her hand on his chest, her fingers playing with the
lace of his shirt.
   I wondered how she’d look after an amputation to the
elbow. “Having fun, you two?”
  She turned, and I saw it was Rico’s girlfriend, Ilona
something. The same woman who’d hit me after the chief
had murdered Wendell.
   Since I wasn’t zoned out with hysterical shock this
time, I noted all the usual reasons to loathe her— she was
absolutely gorgeous. Long, glossy black hair, golden skin,
and exotic dark brown eyes. She had wrapped herself in
a biil woven in a scarlet-and-white pattern that set off her
coloring beautifully.
  Suddenly I felt grubby.
  Ilona sniffed the air. “Do you never wash, patcher?”
   Very grubby. “Maybe I’d have more time if I didn’t
have to deal with people loitering around Medical.” I went
to the cleanser unit and started unfastening my tunic.
When I felt the Indian woman watching me, I pulled a
privacy screen between me and them.
   I took my time cleaning up, while Ilona continued her
conversation with Reever as if I were invisible. She did
most of the talking, going on about her last visit topside
and how Rico was going to raise a new hogan for them up
there as soon as the shockball season concluded.
Harmless stuff, but it was the way she said it—in that
breathy, female voice, punctuated with coy little
giggles—that really got under my skin.
   Finally I was clean, and dressed. I shoved aside the
screen, startling Ilona, who merely frowned at me and then
kept going on about some rug she was weaving. Evidently
she planned to stay here all day and chatter, and Reever
wasn’t doing anything to discourage her.
  “I hate to interrupt this fascinating conversation, but
could you excuse us?” I said to Ilona. “I need to talk to
my husband.”
   “I came to hear about Nilch’i’s recent dance with
death.” She gave Reever a brilliant smile. “Tales of daring
intrigue me.”
   “Yeah?” Something green and ferocious snarled inside
me. “Here’s what happened: His kidney failed and I cut
him open and fixed it. That’s the whole story, so run
along now.”
     She didn’t. “You take all his fire from him.”
   Keeping the peace until I could figure a way to get me
and Reever out of here was important. More important
than knocking her on her backside. “I keep him warm
enough, Red Face.”
     Her pretty mouth became a thin, tight line. “Red Faun
.”
     “Whatever.” I gestured to the entrance. “Good-bye.”
   She sauntered over, tossing her head so her hair swung
like a black silk curtain. “The chief utters your name too
often. I grow tired of hearing it.”
   “Really.” I showed her some teeth. “Does the chief
also mention he’s keeping me and my husband as
prisoners here?”
   “Now that the whiteskin patcher is dead, Rico says we
need you.” She spat on the floor. “I say the blood needs
no part of a lying snake.”
  The tribe had once compared me to a goddess. Now I
was a snake. Why couldn’t I make normal friends, like
everyone else? “Instead of flirting with my husband, why
don’t you have a little chat with your boyfriend, see what
you can do to get us out of here.”
  That made her mad, judging by the way she shoved me
back. She called me something, too—something that my
wristcom refused to translate.
  I returned the favor. “Look, Pocahantas, do whatever
you want. Just leave.”
   A moment later we were down on the stone floor, her
on top of me. She got in one good left to my chin before I
rolled her off my newly healed ribs and slammed her into a
storage container. Before things could get worse, strong
hands yanked us apart.
   “Let me go,” I muttered, twisting to free myself from
the restraining grip. “I’m not going to hurt her. A lot.”
   Reever was pulling Ilona up from the floor, helping her
regain her balance, and totally ignoring me. “Are you all
right?” he asked her.
    “Hey. Hey.” I pushed at the hands gripping me. “Damn
it, let go!”
  Odd-shaped fingers clamped down harder on my
shoulders. “That’s enough, Doc.”
  I froze, then shook the loose hair out of my face so I
could see. This time I definitely wasn’t hallucinating.
“Hello, Dhreen. Take your damn hands off me.”
   My Oenrallian ex-friend hauled me over to the cleansing
unit instead. Reever, I saw, was leaving with Ilona.
  Had I really been afraid to face my husband? Now I
was ready to rip his lungs out through his nose. “Reever,
don’t you go anywhere.”
  “Settle down, Doc.” To my husband, Dhreen said,
“You’d better give me a few minutes with her.”
   As my husband led her out of the alcove, Ilona fired
her parting shot. “I am not done with you, snake.”
  “Come and see me anytime, Red Face. Anytime.”
  As soon as they disappeared, I twisted out from under
Dhreen’s spoon-shaped fingers on my arms and whirled
on him. “You can get out, too.”
  He only grinned and thrust his hands in his trouser
pockets. “Not content to see me again, Doc?”
   “I’d hoped to be spared the pleasure.” I pushed my
hair back and refastened the clip holding it off my face.
   Two years hadn’t changed Dhreen, who still looked
like an oversized kid. Oenrallians didn’t appear to age until
mid-life, which for them was around one hundred and fifty
revolutions. He still sported his mane of blazing orange
hair, out of which sprouted two red nubs that weren’t
horns, but his version of ears. He wasn’t wearing the usual
pilot’s flight suit, but his gaudy purple tunic and trousers
suited him just as well.
  “It’s been an extended interval, hasn’t it?” He was
giving me the once-over. “You haven’t changed at all.”
   “Spare me the ‘gosh, it’s good to see you’ speech.” I
stripped the exam table and remade it. “What are you
doing here? Didn’t Joseph have another spy mission lined
up for you?”
   “We need to talk about that.”
    I dumped the dirty linens in the sterilizer unit. “I heard
all I wanted to hear the last time I saw you.”
   That had been on the Perpetua, after I had turned the
League fleet over to the Hsktskt. When Joseph had
revealed he’d hired Dhreen to take me to K-2, become my
friend, and report back to him on my activities.
   “You only heard Grey Veil’s side of it—not mine.”
   I cleaned out the lines on the infuser rig, using
compressed air. The flatulent noise expressed my opinion
better than I ever could.
   “There were just intentions for what I did.”
   I ran out of things to clean, and walked to the entrance
of the alcove. Or tried to. He caught my sleeve.
   “Stop disregarding me, Cherijo.”
   “Ignoring.” I couldn’t help correcting the way he
slaughtered the Terran language. “I’m ignoring you, you
stupid jerk.”
   “I didn’t do it for compensation.”
   “How noble of you. Excuse me, the waste level is
getting intolerable in here.”
  That didn’t shake him off. “I was hopeless. I’d already
gone to the League and everyone else I could think of.
They all declined to aid me.”
  “Uh-huh.” I studied my nails, which were as usual in
deplorable condition. Maybe I should just surgically
remove them and save myself the grief. “Are you done
now?”
   “I didn’t want to hurt you. We were friends.”
   “Yes, we were.” That got to me, when nothing else
would have. “So you can imagine my shock when I found
out you worked for Joseph. It’s not the first time you’ve
sold someone out. We both know that.”
   Dhreen winced at my reference, but then, he should
have. He’d transported me from Terra to K-2, and served
with me on board the Sunlace, acting like nothing more
than a good friend. In reality he’d been hired by Joseph to
do just that—be my friend, follow me around, and report
back on what I did. I’d only found out when the League
cornered us in Varallan, and Joseph had openly gloated
over it.
   I smiled at his discomfort. “You know, you really
shouldn’t keep doing this. Betraying people, I mean. I’m
nice. The next victim may decide to separate you from
your genitals.”
  “I didn’t have a choice. He promised to help my
people.”
   “Fascinating as I’m sure that particular story is going to
be, I’ll pass on hearing it. Now, I want you out of here.
Now.”
   “Doc—” He let go of me. “Fine. Maybe, like you say, I
deserve it. But I didn’t pretend to be your friend to get
close to you. I’ve never had a friend, before you.”
  “Treat the next one better,” was my suggestion as I
watched him go. “If anyone is ever stupid enough to trust
you again.”



   I didn’t allow myself to think about Joseph, Dhreen, or
how I was going to get out of Rico’s underground prison.
Over the following weeks, my focus was making sure
nothing went wrong with Reever’s kidney, scanning my
patients for syphilis (so far I’d found no new cases
among the Night Horse), and finding a way to elude my
guards so I could track down the outcasts. I could escape
later.
    One of the players I treated told me Joseph had several
Elders from the Night Horse village detained and brought
to New Angeles for questioning. To add insult to injury,
the League had set up a command post just outside the
village.
   Reever disappeared for long stretches of time, generally
at night. Ilona started hanging out at Medical, hoping to
catch him on one of his infrequent visits.
  She harassed me. I ignored both of them for the most
part.
   Then there were days I didn’t.
   “There is no reason for you to be hostile toward
Ilona,” Reever said, after preventing another tussle and
sending his new groupie out of Medical.
   “I see.” I thought about punching him, but started his
weekly exam instead. “Take off your tunic.” I looked over
his compact musculature, and an awful image of him
naked with Ilona on an exam table coalesced in my head.
“Why are you defending her?”
   “Ilona is young and only wants attention.”
   She wasn’t the only one. “You’d better watch your
step, Reever. Her boyfriend likes to play with knives.” I
finished my scan of his torso and handed him back his
tunic. “And please remember, I’m fresh out of ways to
repair kidneys.” I looked at the entrance, and saw the
guards were talking. Without much effort I projected a
link. Have you found out anything on the outcasts?
   He shook his head.
  If Rico had found them, I know one of us would have
heard about it. They may have already left the tunnels
and gone up to the surface. Hopefully, Joseph and the
League wouldn’t find them.
    They still need a hiding place, he reminded me. Many
of them will never pass as full-blooded Terrans. They’re
still down here. I’ve seen signs out in the sewers.
  Why are you still going out there? You don’t know if
Rico’s set up new traps. And what if you get caught?
   He pulled something from his trouser pocket—a
remote device, identical to the one the chief had used to
disarm the traps. I darted a glance toward the entrance and
made him put it back.
   How did you get that?
   He picked up the Lok-Teel, and concentrated on it for
a minute. It formed a mask in his hand. A mask of Rico’s
face.
  Very clever. I folded my arms. Doing that on Catopsa
nearly got you executed. What if he misses it?
   The outcasts are our only allies here; we will need
their assistance if we are to escape. I will return the
device tonight. He plumped up the berth linens and
arranged them to appear as though someone was sleeping
under them. I need you to make the tribe think I am ill
and staying here for the day.
  What if someone decides to peek under the linens?
  You will keep them from doing so.
  I rolled my eyes. I always get the easy part. All right, I
can probably drop a few comments about you getting a
nasty head cold, and how I’ve isolated you in here so it
won’t spread around the tribe. I’ll go out to the central
cavern now, to get the guards away from the entrance.
How long do I keep this up?
  I need at least three hours.
   I hadn’t left the alcove since the day before yesterday,
which gave me an excellent excuse to stomp out of there,
grumbling about claustrophobia, Reever’s fictitious head
cold, and having no help. Right on cue, my two shadows
followed me out to the central cavern. I surreptitiously
checked my wristcom. Three hours. He’d better not lose
track of time wandering around out there.
   Once I reached the center cooking fire, I made myself a
cup of tea from the perennial clay pot warming in the
ashes, and sat down beside the speaking rock. One of the
older women was sitting with a couple of the teenagers,
telling them some kind of story about a coyote.
   “—and when the Dove maidens saw Coyote’s fine
wolf-skin quiver and the circles he had painted on his
face, they honored him as someone of consequence and
hearkened to his many lies. Coyote told them the Dove
people needed no longer hunt, for with a thought he,
Coyote, could make any animal lay down and die. When
their hunters returned at dusk, the Dove maidens hurried
into the village and told them of this wondrous visitor and
what he had promised—”
   “You enjoy hearing tales about the Trickster?” Hawk
asked behind me, making me jerk in surprise.
   “About as much as I like you sneaking up on me like
that.” I said it without heat, though, because I was glad to
see him. Until I saw his skin tone, which was almost
pasty. “Are you feeling okay?”
  “I am well.” Awkwardly, he lowered himself down
beside me. “I have been occupied with performing the
Blessing Way.”
  “What’s that?”
  “A chant way, used to ensure good luck, good health,
and blessings for good hope.”
  “Right.” I’d never understand religion. “You’re not
doing this for sick people I should be seeing in Medical, I
hope.”
   “No.” He stretched out his legs, and for the first time I
saw the faintly distorted shape of his musculature. “It is
customary for us to perform the Blessing Way twice per
revolution. The rite ensures good hope at any stage of life
for all who wish to be sung over.” He massaged one of
his calves absently.
  “Are your legs bothering you?”
  He looked into the fire. “Sometimes.”
   “If you’d let me have a look at your back, I bet we can
fix that, and a whole lot of other problems.”
   He laughed once. “Thank you, patcher, but no. I am
used to this body. Changing it will not make me happy.”
  “You’d be surprised.” I decided not to push, finished
my tea, and rose to my feet. “I have to make my rounds.
Want to join me?”
   Since most of the tribe was still avoiding me, I’d gotten
into the habit of visiting the various hogans to check on
my current cases, and two pregnant women who were
both in their third trimesters. Hawk agreed, and hobbled
after me as I got started.
  Many Belts, my first mom-to-be, was doing fine.
   She’d put on a few pounds, but according to my
scanner it was mostly baby. The fetus had dropped, and a
quick pelvic scan showed her cervix already three
centimeters dilated.
   “Another week, I think.” I checked her vitals and
recorded them on my data pad, while the anxious father
hovered at my elbow. “Want to see your son?”
   He nodded, then grinned when I showed him the
interuterine scan on the display. “He has two arms, and
two legs, Many Belts,” he said to his wife.
  Already an experienced mother of twin girls, Many
Belts rolled her eyes at me. “Better than to see four of
each, I think.”
   Kegide was hovering outside the hogan of the younger
pregnant woman, and made some urgent gestures I
couldn’t quite interpret.
   “What does he want?” I asked Hawk.
   “I do not know, but I will go with him.” The
hunchback took Kegide’s outstretched hand and let the
big man lead him away.
   My second mom wasn’t doing so well. She had a
vaginal infection, and was showing signs of first-stage
toxemia. I infused her with mild antibiotics and told her
mother, who had come down from the surface to care for
her, to keep a close eye on her fever.
   The older woman wanted to know if evil spirits had
possessed her daughter, which led to a long discussion to
simplify the prenatal complications and dispel both
women’s fears. By the time I was done, I had passed the
three-hour mark. I couldn’t stall the guards much longer. I
stepped out of the hogan and bumped directly into Milass.
   “Excuse me.” I tried to go around him, but he just
sidestepped to compensate. “What?”
   “Where is your gutless whiteskin mate?”
   “Sick with a head cold in Medical. Why?”
   “He was seen leaving your hogan last night.” He turned
around and headed for the tunnels.
   I hurried after him. “Someone must be mixed up.
Reever didn’t go anywhere.” I caught up to him. “He’s
very ill and contagious.”
   Milass ignored me and kept going.
   If Reever wasn’t back, this could get ugly. I increased
my pace until I passed Milass, and hurried to Medical
ahead of him. When I got there, I saw the lump of linens
on the berth, and my heart sank.
   Milass strode in and headed for the berth. I put myself
between him and it. “He’s sleeping. Come back another
time.”
   That got me pushed to one side. “Why are you so
alarmed, patcher? Are you hiding something here? Or is
something missing?” With a big, nasty grin, he ripped the
top linen from the berth.
   Reever pushed himself up and blinked. “What is it?” he
said, in an appropriately hoarse voice.
  Milass muttered something and stalked out.
   I sagged against the side of the berth. “God, that was
close.” Then I saw the two round bumps sticking up in
Reever’s light hair, and groaned.
   Dhreen pulled the edge of the Lok-Teel mask down
from his right eye, and winked at me, then stretched back
out and promptly went to sleep.



  I took my guards on another stroll, and came back after
another hour of meaningless wandering. Dhreen was gone.
Reever and Hawk were standing in the tunnel outside
Medical, talking in low voices.
  “Problem?” I asked, giving my husband a hard look.
   “News has come. Black Otter was hurt in the game
today.” Hawk nodded toward the tunnel. “Before we
could bring him here, the referees had him taken to a
whiteskin hospital.”
   Damn, I hadn’t been able to solve his skin problem.
“They’ll know he’s a hybrid as soon as they take his
uniform off.”
   “Yes. It is possible we may recover him before he is
deported, but he cannot play on the team again.” He
turned to Reever. “We will begin training tomorrow.”
  “Training for what?”
   “Nilchi’i” has been chosen to replace Black Otter as
centerfield runback.“
   “What?” I didn’t wait for an answer. “No. I positively
forbid it.” Hawk didn’t say a word. “He’s just had major
surgery, damn it!”
   “It is what the chief orders. Identity chips are being
arranged. As soon as we have them, he will join the team.”
  Hawk left. Reever didn’t say anything. Not that I would
have noticed—I was too busy throwing a temper tantrum.
   “He’s nuts! That’s what he is. How can he expect you
to go out there and play that demented game for him?
You’ll be electrocuted the minute you step on the field!”
   That made him raise an eyebrow. “I think I can avoid
incurring any penalties, Cherijo.”
   I stopped pacing. “Don’t you start overproducing
testosterone on me now, Reever. That kidney may be
healed, but it’s still fragile. Those reformation cells are still
taking hold.” I kicked a stone. “Why doesn’t he get one
of his own people to replace Black Otter? Why does it
have to be you?”
   “Perhaps he’d rather sacrifice someone who doesn’t
belong to the tribe.”
   I’d had enough of what Rico wanted sacrificed. “We’ll
just see about that.”



   I tried to talk to the chief. I sent a dozen requests
through my guards and Hawk to be granted an
“audience.”
   Rico ignored me.
   When my efforts at being diplomatic failed, I tried the
direct approach, and went to confront him. As soon as I
got within ten feet of the chief’s hogan, my guards politely
but firmly steered me away.
   “You may not go there. The chief does not wish to
speak with you.”
    “Is that right? Well, the chief can go to hell!” I shouted
at the hogan, hoping he’d hear me. All that got me was a
fast march back to the medical alcove, and after that I
wasn’t allowed even within yelling distance of Rico’s
hogan.
   In the meantime, Kegide arrived every morning to
collect Reever, and led him off to the surface and the
practice field outside the village, to train. According to
what Reever told me, there were men in the village who
were veterans of the game, and they scrimmaged against
the Night Horse players during each practice session.
   “Apparently the goal of the runback is to keep the
sphere in motion while crossing the length of the playing
field, until an attempt can be made to kick the sphere into
the touchzone. Each successful touch-in awards the
runback’s team four points.”
  “How thrilling. Hold still.” I cleaned a laceration on his
shoulder and dressed it. “If all you have to do is kick the
damn thing, why are you getting so banged up every
day?”
   “Kegide plays the position of blockback. He attempts
to prevent me from crossing the field, kicking the sphere
into the touchzone, and also tries to take the sphere away
from me.”
  “This involves knocking you down, right?”
  “Yes.”
  “God.” I saw the slight curl on one side of his mouth.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
  “I have never participated in a cooperative athletic
competition before.” He shrugged. “It is interesting.”
  “Uh-huh.” I pulled his tunic back down and swatted
him on the arm. “Stop being so interested. Your kidney is
more important than your success at team sports.”
   It was frustrating. Since I wasn’t allowed to attend the
practice sessions, all I could do was scan him and treat
whatever wounds he received when he returned from the
surface. At first, Reever got battered pretty regularly.
Gradually he began showing up with fewer injuries, and
then hardly any at all. My insistence on scanning him was
virtually unnecessary.
   What really bothered me was when he started getting
interested in the game.
   “I was able to score three times today,” he said after a
couple of weeks of this nonsense. “Defense prevented the
village team from scoring any points at all.” He looked
down at my scanner’s display. “I have found a very
effective running pattern. No one was able to successfully
tackle me.”
   “You’re becoming such a jock.” And I hated it, but I
didn’t say that. “Stay right where you are. I’m not done
checking your spinal cord.”
   “I am fine.” He pulled his tunic over his head. “I am
looking forward to playing at the professional arena
tomorrow.”
  Men. Give them a chance to compete as athletes, and
even the brightest of them turned into instant
Neanderthals.
  “Not without this.” I went to my worktable and brought
back the special torso brace I’d made for him. It wasn’t
much, but it would provide some protection for his
abdomen. “Wear it under your uniform.”
   He fingered the padded material, which I’d reinforced
with sheets of flexible plas. “If the officials permit it.”
    I could care less about the rules. “Don’t let them see
it.”
  He looked at me oddly for a momem. “Cherijo, if
something happens to me, I want you to leave this place
immediately.”
   “Oh, sure, no problem, seeing as I can come and go as
I please.”
  “Find the outcasts. They will help you.”
   “I have two mothers about to give birth, and a syphilis
carrier to track down. Plus, the minute I appear on the
surface, Joseph’s men will grab me,” I reminded him.
“We’re stuck here for the moment. Don’t worry, nothing
will happen to you.”
  I hoped.



   Things happened to Reever after he started playing
professional arena shockball. It wasn’t as easy as the
scrimmages with the surface villagers, and he always came
back from every game with muscle strains, tears, bruises,
and cuts. I started laying out therapeutic packs as a matter
of course.
   In direct relation to his injuries, his enthusiasm for the
sport seemed to grow. I found I had to constantly bite my
tongue or I ended up showering him with acidic sarcasm
about the supposed allure of professional competition.
   In the meantime, I kept trying to get to Rico, but he
refused to see me.
   One day Reever came back with five other players
needing treatment. They were all in bad shape. He walked
in with three of them, carrying the other two. I performed
a quick visual and had the two unconscious men put on
berths first.
  “Multiple fractures, deep tissue thermal injuries, blood
clots all over the place.” I scanned the other player, then
tossed down the instrument in disgust and started the
infuser lines. “How many penalties did they take, Reever?”
   “One had six. The other, seven. We’re all burned. Take
a look at him first.” He pushed another player toward me.
“He was penalized while at the bottom of a pileup. The
sphere malfunctioned in his hands. It took several minutes
to reset the computer.”
   “God. Look at this mess.” I relived an old nightmare
from my past as I carefully scanned the player’s broken,
charred fingers. “Sit down over there before you pass
out.” I turned and yelled at the guards. “Get Hawk in here,
now. I need some help.”



   Several hours later, I finished wrapping the burns on
Reever’s hands and feet, and looked over the other
players, now resting comfortably. “I’ve never seen injuries
this bad before. What went wrong at the game?”
   He pulled off his jersey, which had a huge number
fourteen on each side, and the name Nilchi’i’ emblazoned
across the back of the shoulder yoke. “The Gliders are
trying to progress to the semifinals for the playoffs, and
the teams challenging them are much harder to beat. Rico
does not want the team to lose. He ordered the plays to be
run, knowing we would be penalized.”
  “Why didn’t you just refuse to play?”
   “I did at first.” Reever looked at his bandages. “Milass
told me that if I did not run the plays, he would come
back here and use his knife to blind you.”
  I got indignant. “And you believed him?”
  “I wasn’t going to take a chance.”
   “That is good, whiteskin. Because I would have carved
her eyes from her head.”
   We both turned around to see Milass standing in the
entrance.
  “Come to see the damage you’ve done?” I asked,
gesturing to the unconscious men. “They’re going to be
out of action for a couple of weeks.”
  “If they are truly men, they will survive.”
   Suddenly, something clicked. “You were a player.
That’s how you got those burn scars on your face.” Fury
surged through me. “Is that why you’re forcing these men
to nearly kill themselves every time they play this stupid
game? So they can be as homely as you are?”
  “They will bear their scars, as I do.”
   I wanted to lunge at him, but Reever had a hold on my
arm. “You’ll be bearing a few more by the time I get
through with you, you little twerp.”
  “Any time, patcher.” He plucked out a blade and
waggled it at me, like a taunt. “Come to see me any time.”



   I made Reever and the other patients comfortable, then
pulled Hawk out into the tunnel.
   “I’m not going to stand by and keep treating these
players for self-inflicted wounds. You get me to Rico so I
can tell him that personally.”
  “No.”
   I wanted to break some of my knuckles on the nearest
stone wall. Instead, I took a couple of slow, deep breaths.
Control. That was what I needed. Control and a couple of
fully charged pulse rifles.
  “Hawk. You’ve worked Medical long enough to know
how serious this situation is. These men are risking their
health, and possibly their lives, to win a game that is
meaningless.”
   “It means a great deal more than you understand.”
Hawk looked at my expression and lifted one warped
shoulder. “There is much more at stake in playing for the
junta than mere victory. The Night Horse are the only
Native Americans competing professionally. We represent
a lost ideal, we fight for ethnic recognition.”
   “So weave more rugs. Stage more ceremonials. Sing
more chants. Whatever,” I said, throwing out my hands.
“Anything would be better than forcing these men to court
electrocution just for the sake of putting some numbers on
a four-story vid screen.”
   “They are not forced to play, patcher. They do it
willingly, for our chief, for our people.”
   “Your chief doesn’t give a damn about anyone but
himself.”
   “On the contrary.” Hawk looked up, and the inten-sity
of his gaze made me take a step back. “Rico has
prevented hundreds of our people from being deported.
He created Leyaneyaniteh for their sake, not his own. He
preserves a way of life that has been otherwise reduced to
a few paragraphs in the databases of museums.”
   “That doesn’t give him the right to ask these men to
deliberately injure themselves in these games.”
   A strange smile curved his scarred mouth. “They are
happy to do it. Suffering for the good of the tribe is a
noble thing. It is an expected thing.” He looked back into
the alcove. “I will help you finish making the chart
notations, but I will not speak any further on this.”
  “Fine.”
   We went back to the patients, and completed the
tedious task of recording the individual case particulars on
their charts. Hawk moved over to Reever, who was
watching both of us.
  “Your woman does not understand the ways of men,”
Hawk said.
   “You would be surprised what she knows,” Reever
said, then he made a long, trilling sound.
  “No whistling.” I turned around. “You’re going to…
Hawk?”
  Hawk was pressed back against a console, his face
completely blanched. He stared at Reever with utter
horror.
  Reever sat up, and trilled something else. This time it
was a bunch of different sounds, all mixed together.
   The hunchback nearly fell flat on his face as he
stumbled for the entrance.
   I watched him go, then turned to my husband. “Now
what’s this all about? What did you do, mess up one of
his chants?”
  Reever stared at the entrance with a thoughtful
expression. “Something like that.”
         CHAPTER THIRTEEN
                                                 «^»

                   Dolts to Fix
I thought being shunned, kept prisoner, under guard, and
having to treat my husband and the other shock-ball
players for self-inflicted injuries was bad enough.
    Silly me.
   The next game was scheduled a week later, and no one
was permitted to remain on the injured roster. I was told
to put support casts on the players with bone fractures,
and protective dressings on everyone’s burns. Except
their hands—I found out junta rules prohibited players
from insulating their hands with anything. The hard way,
of course.
   “Bandages won’t insulate them against the sphere,” I
argued with Milass, when he came into Medical carrying
the bundle of dressings he’d removed from the players.
“Those burns are still healing.”
  “They are Night Horse. They will play without them.”
He dropped the ripped bandages at my feet. “They need
none of your whiteskin coddling.”
   “How about nerve damage? Do they need that?” I
yelled after him as he stalked out.
   I lectured Reever on being careful until he left the
alcove to join the other players going to the arena.
  Then I sat down to wait, until my guards came to get
me. By the arms.
   “You are to attend the games,” one of them said when I
asked what the hell they thought they were doing.
   I tried to twist free. “No thanks.”
   “It is not a request, patcher.” One of them shoved a
medical case into my hands, then pushed me ahead of
them.
   “Yeah. It never is.”
   I hadn’t been out of the tunnel since escaping from
Joseph, so emerging into the sunlight took a few minutes’
adjustment. We weren’t at the surface village— that route
hadn’t been used since Joseph and the League had taken
up permanent residency there—but in the middle of a park
of some kind.
   By the time I got my bearings, the Night Horse were
hustling me across the manicured grounds toward a
glidebus parked on an access road. On the side of the bus
was a stylized mural of a shockball player with
black-feathered wings sprouting out of the back of his
jersey.
  “Who’s that? Vulture Man?” I asked, pointing to the
bus.
  “He is the Glider.”
  So that’s where the team got their name from. “What is
he? Some kind of Indian hero?”
   One of the guards chuckled. “No, patcher. The Glider
is very real. He has been seen flying through the mountains
for years. Many whiteskin have tried to capture him, but
without success.”
  “He must be an alien, avoiding deportation.”
   “The Glider is a great figure of legend among the
junta.”
  “I still think he looks like a big vulture.”
  They made me get on the bus and walk past seats filled
with Night Horse players dressed in bulky protective gear.
   I was shoved into the seat beside Reever. “What’s
going on? Why do they want me at the game?”
   He put a hand over mine. I don’t know. I heard Milass
tell the men to go and get you. He was angry. If you see
Rico, don’t antagonize him.
  That’s going to be hard.
   The glidebus pulled out onto the empty road and
started heading toward the dense cluster of ground and
hover-buildings I recognized as downtown New Angeles.
   I’d say this is a great time to try to escape, if we had
the cats with us. There was no way I was leaving Jenner
and Juliet behind. Not with knowing how casual the Night
Horse were about what went into their tribal cooking pot.
  We will be even more closely guarded than we are
below.
   The glidebus pulled into a restricted area behind New
Angeles arena and the players silently filed out. Waiting
outside the doors to the team locker room were a pair of
junta officials. One of them noticed me and put a hand up
to stop me from entering.
   “No fems in the locker room.”
   “She’s the team patcher,” Milass told the official,
sticking out his chest and trying to look taller. “She’s
come to observe the game and make recommendations to
our chief on how to reduce penalties.”
  “Here’s one,” I said. “Stop letting them play this idiotic
game.”
   Both officials stared at me as if I’d told them to let the
players run around the field naked.
   “Cherijo,” Reever said behind me, in a familiar warning
tone.
   “A good joke, patcher.” Milass wrapped his hand
around my upper arm. “She’s amusing, isn’t she?”
   “Not as much as you are, trying to walk around on
your toes like that. Have you ever considered putting lifts
in your footgear?”
   The officials laughed and waved us through. I thought
Milass might just fracture my humerus before we got
inside. When the door closed, he flung me against a row
of storage units.
   “Not another word out of you.”
   I swung out with the medical case, and rammed it into
his groin. He folded over with a groan. “Keep your hands
to yourself, or I’ll do a lot more than talk.”
  Milass slowly straightened. “You’ll die in my hands
one day, bitch.”
   Reever didn’t like hearing that. I could tell by the way
he moved into that strange, alert sort of stance he did right
before he wiped up the floor with someone.
   Don’t antagonize Rico’s little pet rattlesnake, I
thought. “Are we done now?” I asked Milass. “Or do you
want to dance some more?”
  He looked at Reever, then me. “The chief is waiting for
you.” The secondario pointed toward the other end of the
locker room. “That way.”
  I needed to talk to Rico. Badly. “All right. Let’s go.”
  “Cherijo—”
  “I’ll be fine. See you later.”
   I kept my case between me and Milass and followed
him out to a lift panel. Once inside, I looked out through
the viewer panel at the tiers of the arena, which were
rapidly filling up with eager fans, and wondered where
Rico’s seats were. “What does the chief want to see me
about?”
  “He will tell you.”
  “Want me to ask him about that footgear for you?”
  That got me slammed face first into a wall panel, and
made the lift rock slightly. “Insult me again, woman.”
Milass said against my neck. “I am enjoying it.”
   “Try this instead.” I stomped on his instep, then drove
an elbow into his stomach. He staggered back and hit the
opposite panel. I turned around and rubbed my bruised
cheek. “Have you ever considered therapy? The
extensive, mental kind?”
  Before he could hit me again, the lift stopped and the
door panels slid open.
   We weren’t in the stands, but at the entrance to a
private arena box. I’d only seen one before, when one of
Joseph’s colleagues had invited us to his to watch a game.
My creator had been so disgusted by the so-called sport
that we’d left after the first fifteen minutes of play, and
never repeated the experience.
   That was one of the few times I’d ever agreed with my
creator—shockball was stupid, pointless, and barbaric.
   The box was three times the size of the one I
remembered, with luxurious furnishings set up
stadium-style, with rows of chairs equipped with personal
vid screens. You could watch the game on the wall-length
viewer in front of the chairs, too. It was programmed to
display the field at eye level.
  Terrans liked to see pointless, barbaric stupidity on a
wide screen.
   No one would go hungry or thirsty while watching,
either—tables crammed with platters of gourmet food
lined the walls banquet-style. A waiter, dressed in a
modified Glider uniform, stood at a well-stocked bar. A
second waiter, this one a drone, made a slow circle
around the box, offering a tray of canapes and another of
champagne.
   But this box didn’t belong to a wealthy doctor. There
were very familiar woven rugs hanging on every wall.
Bundles of multicolored corn in decorated baskets formed
a huge centerpiece on a main banquet table. Traditional
Navajo music played softly in the background.
  How did the Night Horse rate a box like this? Then I
spotted the only other two occupants of the room.
   The chief and Ilona sat in front of a huge screen, which
projected the image of the center of the playing field
below us. They weren’t wearing the clothes I’d gotten
used to seeing them in. In fact, if you ignored the braids
and the dark skin, Rico and Ilona could have passed for a
pair of wealthy Caucasians, dressed in their best party
clothes.
   All I could do was stand there and gape.
   The dark man turned his head, smiled, and rose to his
feet. “Dr. Torin, welcome. Come and join us for a drink.”
He went to the drone and took a pair of flutes from the
champagne tray.
   Ilona pouted as I walked over and accepted a flute of
champagne from her boyfriend. He wore the very latest
trend, a four-piece black suit in an optic illusionary motif
of red checks. Joseph had a couple of the same suits,
minus the blinding pattern.
   “Nice place you have here.” I gestured around me with
the champagne glass. “It’s good to be the chief of the
Night Horse, huh?”
   He laughed. “This is nothing more than what is
allocated for the owner of a participating team.”
   I spilled some champagne on my footgear. “You own
the Gliders?”
  “Come, sit down with me. Ilona will give us a few
minutes to talk, won’t you, my beautiful one?”
   His beautiful one scowled, got up, and flounced out of
the room without another word.
   I sat down gingerly on the expensively upholstered
chair Rico indicated. Real fabric. “How does an Indian
who lives in a cave and runs an alien underground afford
to buy a professional shockball franchise?”
   “Night Horse players donated their salaries to our tribal
fund, until we could purchase the team.”
   We watched the last minutes of the pregame show
through the viewer. Two thousand gyrating women in
micro-mini skirts danced and waved various glittery
accessories to the music from dueling drone bands on
either side of the field. Around the top of the arena, huge
vid screens projected holoimages of cartoon animals in
shockball uniforms getting electrocuted by fumbling
oversized spheres in various comical plays.
   Even more ludicrous was the sight of what had to be
two hundred thousand fans filling every available seat,
nook, and cranny of the arena. Nearly all of them were
wearing modified team jerseys and other ridiculous
paraphernalia related to the sport—black plas-foam wings
on their heads for the Gliders, and twin foam stardrive
housings for the opposing team. Some had even painted
their faces with team colors.
  And I’d thought the Indians were prehistoric.
  “Why didn’t anyone ever mention that your people
owned this team?”
  “We do not discuss our tribal concerns with
outsiders.”
   That put me in my place. So much for being of the
blood. “Must have taken the players a long time to
accumulate the money.”
   “Only a few years. After the Native American
Remuneration Act, Indians entering into any free
enterprise qualify for matching federal funds.” He sat
down next to me and sipped his champagne. “Not all
whiteskin laws work toward our detriment.”
   So Rico really owned the Gliders. That totally blew
away my perception of the poor, ignorant, deprived
renegades. And from the smugness he was radiating, he
was enjoying my reaction.
   I went to check the time on my wristcom, then saw I’d
left it in Medical. Rico was, on his own, speaking
stanTerran. Very educated, erudite stanTerran.
  Suddenly, I wasn’t sure anything I’d seen or heard
over the past months was the authentic package.
   I refrained from commenting on the amazing
improvement in his personal situation and speech patterns,
and watched as the dancers cleared off the field, making
way for the two straight lines of players from each team. I
stood up automatically for the World Government
Anthem. Rico didn’t.
   As the last notes of “Our Terra, Unified” faded away,
the fans cheered so loudly that the viewer panel vibrated
from the decibels. I sat back down and handed my
untouched flute to the passing drone.
  “Why am I here, Chief?”
   “I thought you would enjoy watching your husband
play. He has become one of the most popular members of
our team.”
   I could see that for myself. Hundreds of fans in the
arena wore the Gliders’ number-fourteen jersey, and there
was a swelling chant of “Nilch’i’! Nilch’i’!” already
echoing around the field.
  “I’d rather talk to you about these injuries the players
have been receiving.”
   “Later. We have a real chance at making the playoffs
for the World Game.” He continued, talking about the
team’s performance since something called the
“preseason.”
   I tuned him out after the first sentence and glanced
back at the lift, the only exit from the private box. The
demonic dwarf stood in front of it, stuffing his face with
the tray of caviar-topped toast triangles he’d taken from
the drone. He caught my eye and snarled, his teeth black
from the fish eggs. So much for slipping out when I
wouldn’t be noticed.
   “Reever’s kidney isn’t going to take much
punishment,” I said to Rico, when he finally ran out of
game stats. “Some of the other players should be benched
for the rest of the season.”
  “Nilchi’i’ tells me he is fully recovered.”
   The Wind was going to get himself smacked, if he
didn’t stop trying to be Super Terran. “Who’s the doctor,
me or him?”
  “You are a woman.” He flicked some fingers at me.
“You do not understand what drives a man to win.”
  I could feel the heat creeping up my face. Stay cool,
Cherijo. “I understand what ruptures an internal organ.”
   “There are other, more important matters for you to
attend to.” He leaned forward, getting close to my face.
“You have been punished long enough, I think. You
belong to us now. Accept it, patcher. I can make your life
much more pleasant.”
   The sudden, inexplicable perception smashed over me,
much stronger than before. I wondered for the first time if
he was doing something deliberately to drag me in like
this—hypnosis, maybe? I bit down on the inside of my
cheek until I tasted blood. Slowly the assault on my
synaptic functions faded back to a faint, nonthreatening
buzz.
   “Don’t do me any favors, Chief,” I said. “I like my life
tough.”
   I saw Reever trot out onto the field, carrying his helmet.
Seeing his number-fourteen jersey made the crowd cheer.
My throat tightened when he joined the double rows of
players and took position directly in the center. Some
buzzer went off and the players tightened the straps on
their helmets before crouching over in a distance-runner’s
stance.
  “Is it starting now?”
  “Yes.”
   On the field, nine players from each team lined up
facing each other. The computerized game sphere popped
out of a heavily shielded box at the top of the arena and
dropped down to hover between the lines. It shimmered
and tiny rainbows flickered around it.
   I recalled reading a psych text about some long and
painstaking research on what colors and textures most
appealed to the senses. The resulting data had ended up
determining the design of modern sports equipment, like
the shockball game sphere. I could see the attraction.
Even I felt like reaching out and grabbing it.
    When everyone was in position, a drone official rolled
down the length of the gap between the lines, then turned
near the sidelines and fired a small, ornate pistol into the
air.
   Every fan in the arena shrieked as the two sides
descended on the sphere, their arms folded in front of
their jerseys, legs kicking at each other and the sphere.
Someone got it out of the middle and went down on his
knees, cradling the sphere between them. It was Reever.
   “We have won the starting offense driveline,” Rico
said.
   “Yipee.” I watched a couple of the players slap Reever
on the back as they helped him to his feet. The chant of “
Nilch’i’! Nilch’i’!” got a lot louder. I winced as one of the
opposition spit on Reever’s face mask. “Oh, isn’t that
against the rules?”
   “No. Spitting on another player is a time-honored
tradition.”
  Well, what did I expect? I was on Terra, after all.
   From there the game wasn’t difficult to follow. The
Gliders tried to kick and bounce the sphere down the field
toward a small silver box being guarded by two of their
opponents, armed with sticks with wide, padded ends.
The other team, dubiously named the Nu-York
StarDrivers, tried to stop them by throwing their bodies to
block the sphere during passes, and colliding with the
players kicking the sphere.
  One of the Night Horse, not Reever, acquired a penalty
on the second play. The sphere rose from the ground,
hovered over the teams, then dropped and landed in the
hands of one of the players.
  “How does this penalty thing work?”
   “The sphere is linked to a remote computer. It records
any illegal motion and penalizes the players immediately
after the play is done.”
  “How does it know which player made the illegal
motion?”
   “It reads the sensor grid under the playing field. The
grid identifies the offender by the transmitter implanted in
his helmet.”
   I hissed in a breath as the man suffered a hard jolt of
bioelectrical energy, which knocked him off his feet. The
crowd, naturally, began cheering.
  “What did he do to deserve that?”
   “Watch the arena vid.”
   On the small screen by my chair, the view of the field
was temporarily blacked out, and the penalty displayed.
“Illegal use of hands?”
  “Junta rules specify the players are not to touch the
sphere with their upper bodies.”
  “How do they know he used his hands? I didn’t see
him grab it.”
   “He probably didn’t do anything more than brush it
with a few of his fingers. The sphere is highly sensitive. It
will register any contact, no matter how insignificant.”
   As the game went on, the level of excitement in the
arena peaked. Grown men and women began leaping up
and down in front of their seats, screaming at the players
on the field. The viewer panel never stopped vibrating,
and I couldn’t imagine how noisy it was, outside our
insulated box.
   There were amusing moments. One young woman
rushed onto the field and had to be hauled off by official
drones. Despite her expensive business suit and carefully
groomed hair, she acted like some kind of crazed
psychiatric patient, screaming obscenities at the visiting
team as she frantically waved a small flag bearing the
home team’s emblems.
   To watch apparently intelligent beings embarrass
themselves with such juvenile enthusiasm for what had to
be the stupidest game in existence made me wish I’d been
born on a Hsktskt planet. At least with the lizards,
violence had some meaning.
  Another player, this one on the StarDrivers team, was
shocked. The decibel level reached a new crescendo.
   “Why do they scream when someone gets penalized?”
   “They cheer because they like seeing the players get
hurt.”
   “That’s disgusting.”
   He shrugged. “That’s shockball.”
  Milass came to sit on the other side of me and leaned
over to address the chief. “Should I begin?”
   “Yes.”
   Rico’s secondario brought over another tray of food
and sat beside me. He held it out.
   “No, thank you,” I said politely, thinking he was
offering it to me.
   “Hold this for the chief.” Milass scooped up a couple
of dessert tarts and started munching on them. “How
many times did the Shaman take you to sporting events?”
  I took the tray. “Once.”
  “How old were you?”
  More questions about my childhood. I ignored him. “If
you want to know something, Rico, why don’t you ask
me yourself?”
  “I must attend to the game. Answer Milass.”
  It was hard to concentrate; I couldn’t take my eyes off
Reever. Plus the questions Milass asked were extremely
annoying.
  “How many hours of leisure were you permitted each
day?”
  “Were you permitted to go on holiday, and if so,
where?”
  “How many times a day were you permitted to eat?”
   Reever took a bad hit and went down under a pile of
three opponents, and I jumped to my feet. “No!” The tray
went flying. The drone waiter hurried over and began
cleaning up the mess.
  Milass yanked me back down. “Answer me.”
   “I could have as much leisure time as I wanted, I went
on holiday with my paid companion twice a year, and I ate
three times a day. Satisfied?”
  Rico said nothing, but made a languid gesture.
   The questions went on. Really idiotic questions this
time, about how much credit I was given and what toys
were provided for me and things like that. The more I told
them, the more I sensed Rico withdrawing. It was as if my
answers disgusted him.
  Maybe they did. I hadn’t ever given much thought
about how privileged my childhood had been—who did?
Although Joseph had never been an affectionate parent, he
had literally showered me with material things. The real
motives behind his generosity still made me sick.
  To Rico and Milass, however, the facts probably made
me sound like a thoroughly spoiled brat. I was relieved
when the halftime warning went off, and Milass got up and
went to the lift.
  “Come. You will see to the players below.”
   I saw to the players. There were dozens of minor
electrical burns from the many penalties incurred by the
team in the first half. Reever included.
   I got to him as quickly as I could and wiped the sweat
from his face as I ran my scanner over him. “Are you
okay?”
  He nodded and leaned back against the storage unit
behind him.
   “Rico had me up in his private box. I’ve been watching
the game. Guess what? The Night Horse tribe owns the
Gliders.” I injected him with a mild analgesic and treated
fresh burns on both of his palms. “Do you have to keep
playing?”
   He took his clear plas mouth protector out before he
answered. There were teeth marks in it. “As long as I
stand upright, yes.”
  “Can you run these plays without getting the penalties?”
   “I’m trying.” He regarded the protector without
expression. “The plays are deliberately flawed so we can
gain maximum advantage on the field.”
  “Who’s calling the plays?”
  “Rico schedules them before the game.”
   I straightened and glanced at the next player waiting for
treatment. “I’ll try to talk to him about it.”
  Reever closed his eyes. “Be careful.”



   The twenty-minute interval went by too fast, and the
players were signaled to return to the field. I went back up
to the private box with Milass. This time I didn’t try to
bait him while we were in the lift. I was too busy
formulating an argument to use with the chief.
   Rico was busy, too. I walked in to find him with Ilona
on his lap. He was lazily fondling her body while she
purred and rubbed her cheek against his. Her eyes
widened when she saw me step off the lift.
   “What is she doing here again?”
   “She is my personal patcher.” Rico pushed her off and
slapped her backside. “Go back to our hogan, sweet one.
I will return after the game.”
   Ilona made sure to bump shoulders with me on her way
to the lift. Oddly, Milass went with her, leaving me alone
with Rico.
   “Your girlfriend doesn’t like me,” I said as I sat down.
  “She is young,” he said, as if that explained it all.
“What do you think of our game?”
   “It’s revolting. Brutal, criminal, and meaningless. I think
whoever invented it should be shot. They should give
each of those spectators a couple of electrical burns,
make the players get some psych therapy, and throw the
team owners into prison.”
   “You do not like it.”
   “It disgusts me.”
   He stretched and smiled at the viewer. “It is not a
woman’s game, I think. Though there are several female
players on other teams.”
  The chauvinist didn’t sound too pleased about that.
“But not on your team.”
   “Not mine.” He waved to the drone, who brought over
a plate with fruit-flavored sherbets. “Women have a
simpler purpose in the great scheme of things.”
   “Like sitting on your lap and letting you paw them?”
   “Why do you ask?” He licked some ice from the silver
spoon in his hand. “Are you intrigued by my attentions to
Ilona?”
  “Sure. I always wonder why other women have such
bad taste in men.”
   He threw the drone’s plate at the viewer panel,
splattering it with a rainbow assortment of sherbet, which
immediately began to melt and drip down all over the
immaculate red-and-black floor covering.
  He stood up, towering over me. “You have been
overindulged since you took your first breath.”
   “You should have been around the last three years.” I
went to help the drone clean up the new mess, but the
dark man seized me by the wrists and pushed me down
on my knees. “You’re ruining my trousers.”
    “You serve me,” Rico said, tightening his grip. “Say
it.”
  He wasn’t just angry. He looked ready to kill me. We
were alone; there was no one to stop him.
   I remembered my four broken ribs, which made it easy
to say the words. “I serve you.”
   For a long moment we stayed in that position, me on
my knees, him ready to strike. My heart pounded in my
ears, driven by the waves of fury rolling from him. Slowly
his fingers uncurled, until he released me.
  “Watch the remainder of the game.”
  Then he simply walked to the lift and left me there.
    I waited a few minutes, then tried to get out myself. The
lift didn’t respond to my summons—he’d apparently
locked me in.
   I took the opportunity to search for weapons or
anything that I could use to defend myself. There was
nothing—even the utensils on the banquet table were made
of thin plas and therefore totally useless.
   At last I dropped in a seat and watched the violent
escalation of the game on the field below. Reever was still
playing centerfield, still getting the sphere on every other
play. The tally board showed the gap between the teams’
scores—the Night Horse were winning.
   But not without paying a heavy price. Four of Rico’s
players were penalized so frequently they dropped out of
the game with injuries by the final quarter. The
replacement players evidently weren’t as skilled and for
nearly the entire final twenty minutes of the game, Reever
ran the sphere.
   I watched, mesmerized by Reever’s speed and the
thundering approval of the screaming fans as he moved
toward the touchzone. I didn’t cheer when he scored
points. All I could do was let out whatever breath I was
holding.
   The game ended at last. The arena vids lit up with the
final score: Gliders—35, StarDrivers—7.
   “Way to go, Duncan,” I said to the image of my
husband as he was carried off the field on the shoulders
of his teammates. “At this rate, your kidney may last a
whole month.”
  Milass emerged from the lift.
  “You will attend to the players now.”
   Back down to the locker room, where I did another full
round of treating injuries. This time the burns were much
more severe and there were several cases of thrombosis
and minor stress fractures to be dealt with. Reever hadn’t
been hurt as badly this time, but that didn’t make me feel
any better.
   “Did you watch the entire game?” he asked as I
scanned him.
   “Yeah. Real riveting, seeing you get pounded like a filet
of veal. I especially liked it when the other guys spit on
you. Sports traditions are so heart-warming, aren’t they?”
  “There is a reason for what I’m doing, Cherijo.”
   “You’ll have to explain it to me some time.” I finished
my scans and dressed the new burns on his palms. “Gee,
look. The insides of your hands are starting to match the
outsides.”
   He studied the new injuries, and flipped his hands to
display the old scars. “I will heal.”
   “But not before next week.” I checked his pupils, and
then his ears. “I assume you’re playing again.”
  “I have to.”
  “Never say I stood in the way of you enjoying yourself,
Reever.” I clicked off my optic magnifier and thrust it
back in my case. “Excuse me, I have other dolts to fix.”



   My first shockball game was not to be my last. Rico
insisted I be brought to every subsequent game leading up
to the final playoffs for the World Game. In between
treating players, I sat in his private box and submitted to
more interrogations by Milass.
   Reever kept playing, and wild applause broke out
whenever he took the field. Women began rushing at him
after the games from the sidelines. He ignored them, but
that didn’t make me feel any better. Bad enough when it
was just Ilona being his groupie. Now he had thousands
of women wearing number-fourteen jerseys to every game.
   After one match that sent the Night Horse into overtime
play, Rico summoned the entire team up to his private box
to celebrate their victory. That was when Reever
overheard Milass questioning me, and pulled me aside
later to ask me about it.
   “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Rico seems to get some
kind of charge out of hearing about my childhood.” I
looked over at the chief, who was drinking with the
players. He was telling a story everyone thought was
funny, judging by the amount of laughter.
    “You don’t see how he looks at you when you speak
with Milass,” he said, looking worried—for Reever,
anyway. “He’s angry about something. I can almost sense
it.”
  “You feel it, too?” I asked, then I bit my lip. “Damn.”
  “What are you talking about?”
  I hadn’t meant to let him know about the weird
connection I shared with Rico, but he was already steering
me into a private corner.
  Tell me.
   He linked to me so fast that I barely registered the
mental connection now. It’s nothing, really. Just, I can
tell what he’s feeling sometimes. Whenever he gets close
to me. I looked at my footgear, which I was shuffling
nervously. Look, I don’t have any feelings for him. I
mean, other than disgust and revulsion and what I’d
normally feel toward a murderer. But no matter how
hard I try, I can’t turn this thing off.
  We have never tested your telepathic abilities.
   We both looked at Rico, both of us thinking the same
thing: What if he can pick up our thoughts?
   I decided to use my voice. It seemed safer. “If I was a
telepath, wouldn’t I be able to read anyone in the room?
The only people I can do it with is you and… him.”
   Reever’s hand went under my chin, and he made me
look up at him. “I am not jealous of Rico.”
  “You don’t have any reason to be.”
  “I know that.” But his eyes were so cold. “You’ve
been keeping this from me as well, haven’t you?”
  “Yes.” I was tired of the anger and the lies. “There’s
something else we need to talk about.”
   “Not here.” He leaned forward, and murmured the rest
against my ear. “I’m going to try to link with him. We
have to know if he’s a telepath, or just a transmitter. We
also need to find out all of his plans for us. See if you can
separate him from the group, just for a moment. I don’t
want anyone else to see what I do.”
   “Okay. Wait here.” I took two glasses of wine from the
passing drone waiter. “Be prepared to ad-lib your way
through this.”
   I wandered through the crowd over to Rico and the
players, and squeezed in beside the chief. To get his
attention, I handed him one of the drinks. “Do you have a
minute, Chief?” when he frowned, I added, “Reever and I
want to have a private toast.” I held out my hand and
turned up my smile, like we were all good pals.
  He folded his hand over mine. “Of course.”
  I led him over to the corner where Reever was waiting.
“Look who I ran into, honey. Chief, my husband wants to
make a toast.” I lifted my glass, and gave Reever a glare.
   Reever lifted the drink he’d snatched from a nearby
table. “To the glory of the Gliders, and the coming World
Game. May we make you the owner with the most wins in
the junta.”
  We all clinked our glasses together, and drank.
Somehow, I had ended up with another merlot. I nearly
choked on it.
   “Why do you toast to our success, patcher?” Rico
asked after a healthy swallow. “You despise this game.”
  I gave him a goofy smile, as if I was a little drunk. “I
guess it sort of grows on you after a while.”
  “We’re both looking forward to the championship
games.” Reever held out his hand. “Wish us luck, Chief.”
  “You have what will serve you better—skill and heart.”
Rico took Reever’s hand and shook it.
  I watched the chiefs eyes glaze over for a few seconds,
and the two of them stood there like statues, not moving
or even blinking. Finally, Reever released the chief’s hand.
   “Luck will be welcome, too.” Rico had sort of a blank
look. Then, without saying another word, he turned and
went back to the group of players by the viewer.
   I moved in front of Reever, trying to block him from
the gazes of Milass and the other Night Horse. He was
pale and beads of sweat had broken out over his upper lip
and brow. “Are you okay?”
   “No.” He wiped a hand over his face and stared at the
chief. “I linked with him, but I— His mind—”
   I saw Milass heading our way. “We’ll talk about it
later.”
  Later turned out to be that night, in our hogan.
   It is safer to use telepathy, Reever told me. He cannot
read us, and it will be easier to explain this way.
  You looked terrible after you linked with him. What
went wrong?
   His mind does not operate the way a Terran’s usually
does. He thinks almost completely in images—memories,
I believe.
  What are the memories of?
   Reever obliged by summoning up the images he’d
seen. I watched the mature Rico looking at himself in the
mirror, and seeing the image transformed into a young boy
with a battered face. Rico picked up something to eat, and
melted into an emaciated adolescent.
   He’d been beaten, and starved. No wonder Reever had
been upset. I’m sorry. I had no idea he’d been through
that kind of thing, or I would have never let you do this.
   It explains much about his need for dominance and
control over others. Reever pulled me closer. That much
of his character I understand completely.
   It made me think for a minute. Is that why you became
a linguist? So you could control others? Because of what
your parents did to you?
   It was more out of my need to control my environment.
Many times in my youth I found I couldn’t communicate
with the beings around me. It was frustrating, especially
when I was left behind while my parents were out
gathering data in the field. I was never beaten by my
parents, or intentionally starved, but inadvertently
through their negligence, I suffered the same
deprivations.
   I was glad they were dead. I can’t believe they did
those things to you. You were just a little kid.
  I survived. You survived. But Rico… He shook his
head. He is completely without conscience or remorse for
what he does. That much, his parents taught him.
   I tried to make out the image Reever had retained of
Rico’s parent, but all I saw were huge, black-and-white
blurs were shaped like hulking monsters.
   Maybe. I was beginning to have my own suspicions
about the source of Rico’s mental imbalance. I have to
find a way to examine him, somehow.
  That will not be easy.
  I live for the day something is.
  We both sat up when a loud, automated screech
sounded throughout the cavern.
  “What’s that?”
   One of the players stuck his head through the entrance
flap to our hogan. “Intruders have penetrated the entrance
traps to one of the outer tunnels. Come, we must hide.”



   We followed the other members of the underground
down a tunnel into a section of old subway I hadn’t seen
before. Behind us, the rumble of collapsing rock and
weapons being fired in the distance sent deep vibrations
through the stone walls.
    At the end of the ancient platform, Hawk was standing
at the entrance to some kind of room, ushering people in.
  “What’s going on?” I asked him, and he waved me and
Reever over to one side.
   “The Shaman discovered the entrance to the sewer
pipes from his underground facility a few days ago.”
Hawk pointed back in the general direction of the estate.
“We didn’t expect him and his men to find the traps so
quickly, but they may be using wide-range thermal
proximity scanners. Our scouts report they’re also using
some kind of chemical detectors.”
   That made no sense, until I remembered the solution
that had splashed everywhere when Rico had destroyed
the embryonic chambers. “We must have tracked the
duralyde in here. That’s how he found us. What happens
when they get to the central cavern? Are we going up to
the surface?”
   “They won’t. Rico is sealing off access to all the
tunnels that lead to the cavern. They’ve all been rigged
with frequency displacers in the ceilings.”
  “Hawk!” someone called from the tunnel.
   He pointed into the room. “Go in the bunker now. We
reinforced this section to resist collapses. There will be
many when the displacers are activated.”
    Inside the large bunker, which had once been a large,
tile-lined lavatory, it was cold, dark, and crowded.
Someone put up a couple of temporary emitters, while a
few of the women started handing around blankets.
Reever and I found a place against one wall and stood
with our backs to it, watching and listening to the tunnels
collapse.
   “What are these displacer things he was talking about?”
I asked him, keeping my voice low.
   “They’re used in mining to create tunnels and break
down rock into workable ore. The units tap into the
atomic frequencies of the stone, then alter them at the
molecular level. The stone molecules subsequently
disintegrate, and the solid mass turns to gravel.”
   “How charming.” I looked around at the tired faces of
the Night Horse, waiting patiently for the all-clear. “Any
chance we can get our hands on one?”
  “Possibly.”
   The vibrations abruptly stopped. An hour passed
before Hawk called for everyone to return to the hogans.
Reever and I went back, but neither of us were able to
sleep very well. My still-ringing ears kept me staring at the
roof for the rest of the night.


         CHAPTER FOURTEEN
                                                 «^»

           A Promise to Keep
When I heard the women preparing the morning meal
outside, I left Reever to go and check on the cats, whom
I’d left in Medical. They were both hiding under the
equipment, but I coaxed them out with a bowl of leftover
stew.
   Ever the practical stray female, Juliet didn’t waste time,
but got right to wolfing down her meal. Jenner paced
around her protectively, giving me some surly looks.
   “Hey, it wasn’t my fault the guy in charge decided to
blow half of this place last night.”
   Jenner sat down beside his hungry companion and
regarded me without a shred of sympathy. You’re never
around when things start going boom.
  “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.”
  “Patcher.”
   I turned to see a couple of the men standing in the
entrance. “Did someone get hurt?”
  “The chief wishes to see you. Come with us.”
   I was escorted to the central cavern, where nearly the
entire tribe was assembled around the fire. Milass was
standing on the speaking rock, holding something and
shaking it.
   “We offer nothing but life and meaning and purpose
and this is how we are repaid for our generosity. It is
beyond forgiveness this time. Our way of life is
threatened. Our lives are threatened. We are threatened.”
   Rico was standing below, and he didn’t look happy,
either.
  I turned to one of the guards. “So who’s in trouble?”
   I got my answer when I was led up to the speaking
stone.
  “Patcher.” Milass threw down the object at my feet. It
was a tunic, torn and filthy. My physician’s tunic, which
had disappeared a few days ago. “You led the whiteskins
here. You showed them the way into the tunnels.”
  The demon dwarf had gone way too far this time. “Um,
no, I didn’t.”
  “We found this where the whiteskins broke in from the
sewers. It is yours.”
  “Yes, it’s mine, but—
  “You treated the unclean cast out from this tribe.”
  “Yes—”
   Rico came up and grabbed me by the hair. “I trusted
you and you betrayed all of us. How did you lead them in
here? Did you work a spell? Did you mark the way with
magic? Is that how their machines led them to us?”
   “No!”‘ He was scaring me. “I don’t do magic or
spells. It was the duralyde from the lab. We must have
gotten it on our footgear.”
  “Let her go.”
  It was Reever, and he was not happy. Hawk came up
behind him and grabbed his arms.
  “She is a chindi, intent on destroying Leyaneyaniteh.”
Rico shoved me forward, toward one of the tunnels no
one was allowed into. “I will deal with her.”
   The last I saw of Reever was him struggling with Hawk,
then going still as Hawk said something to him. When I
stumbled, Rico dragged me back on my feet by my hair.
My scalp burned as I kept trying to free myself.
  “What are you doing? This is crazy!”
   The chief kept dragging me forward, past the stern
faces of the tribe and into the forbidden tunnel. Once
inside, he hauled me down what seemed like miles of rock
to a wide, open area. Where we stood hung over a huge,
dark hole like a cliff. He forced me to the very edge.
   “I believed you were one with us. I treated you as one
of the blood, and you do this to me. You betrayed me.”
  “I didn’t betray you!”
   “Lies!” He shoved me over the edge, and held me for a
moment, dangling by my hair. I clawed at his hand, trying
to hold on. “If only he could see you now.”
   He let go and I fell into the dark abyss below. I
screamed, waiting for the bone-shattering impact, but it
never came. I simply kept falling and falling.
   Something came out of the dark at me from below, and
claws sank into the right side of my abdomen.
   Animal? Monster?
  The wrenching grab sent me spinning out of control,
until my head smashed into hard rock. My last thought
was of Reever, and how glad I was that Rico hadn’t made
him watch me die.



   I didn’t expect to survive that fall, much less wake up
in Reever’s arms. It was a lot like how I’d woken up, after
coming in direct contact with the Core back on K-2.
Especially the being naked and floating in water part.
   Maybe I’m just having a flashback.
   I opened one eye, not sure if I was going to trust my
senses. No, I was definitely naked, and absolutely floating
in water. If this was a flashback, it was happening inside a
dimensional simulator.
   A dimensional simulator that strongly resembled a cave
half filled with an underground lake.
   Reever was doing something to one side of my face.
The same side that was throbbing. I’d hit the side of the
pit there, I remembered. There were more aches and
pains. I felt the distinct sting of lacerations below my ribs
and gingerly touched them. Claw marks. Big claw marks.
   There really was something in that hole.
   “They are not bad,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll need
sutures.‘’
   “Thank you, Dr. Reever.” I opened the other eye and
looked around. “Mind telling me what happened?”
   “Rico threw you into an interior shaft.”
  “I remember that part.” I winced. “Ouch, stop. That
hurts.”
   “We almost didn’t have time to get you before you fell
too far.”
   “We?”
  He looked over at the side of the pool. So did I. Hawk
was lying facedown under a blanket, apparently
unconscious. I jerked up and found the bottom of the
pool with my feet. “What happened to him?”
  “You’d better see for yourself.”
  I got out of the pool and went to Hawk. He wasn’t
unconscious, only curled over and in considerable pain.
As soon as I pulled the blanket aside, I saw why.
   “I need my medical case right now. I left it in the
bunker,” I said to Reever, who disappeared into an
opening in the rock wall beyond the pool. I started a
therapeutic massage to loosen the cramped muscles along
Hawk’s abdomen and back, talking to him as I worked on
the knotted tissues. “This is why you never wanted me to
scan you.”
  He looked up at me, and managed a nod.
  “Now that I know, are you going to let me help you?”
  “Can… you?”
   I sat back on my heels. “Yeah. I think I can.” I got the
rest of his clothes off and rubbed his limbs briskly to
promote circulation. That’s when I saw the open sores.
“God, you’ve been infected, too. Who was it? One of the
outcast women?”
  He shook his head, and refused to answer any more
questions. Reever arrived a few minutes later, and handed
me dry clothes along with my medical case.
   I scanned Hawk, took a blood sample, and confirmed
he had first-stage syphilis.
   “I’m going to start you on antibiotics to treat the
venereal disease, but I have to know who gave it to you so
I can stop her from spreading it.” He didn’t answer.
“Once we get the syphilis cured, we’ll start you on a
regime of physical therapy.” I adjusted my scanner and
performed a spine series. “Maybe some minor surgery,
too. But I need to know whom you’ve been having sex
with. Not because I’m nosy. They’re going to need
treatment.”
   The analgesics I infused him with helped dull the pain
of his cramped muscles, and he sighed. “I am the tribe’s
only hataali. It is my place to perform the Tl’ééjí, the
Night Ways.”
  “Which is?”
  “The necessary ceremonial to cure the diseased one.”
   Not this Indian superstitious nonsense again. “There
may not be just one diseased person. Dozens of people
could be infected.” Be nice if I could confirm and actually
do something about that. “A lot of singing and dancing
won’t cure syphilis.”
  He closed his eyes. “It is what must be done first.”
   “No, the entire tribe needs to be inoculated, including
the woman who gave you this disease.”
  “If I fail, I will tell you everything you need to know.”
   I laughed once. “Look, I’m all for cultural integrity. But
praying to your gods to get rid of venereal disease is
about as intelligent as throwing the only doctor you have
down a bottomless pit.”
  Hawk gritted his teeth. “Our way is not meaningless.”
   “It’s a primeval attitude.” My display indicated his
penicillin screen was negative, so I infused him with the
antibiotic. “Wake up and join this century.”
  “The old ways are our balance.”
   I threw up my hands. “Fine. Go on and do your
song-and-dance routine. When some of your children are
born blinded by this outbreak of syphilis, I’ll remind you
of this conversation.” By the time I was done ranting, he
was asleep.
   Reever wrapped a thick piece of linen around me and
started rubbing me down with it. “You cannot force them
to follow the dictates of modern science.”
   “I’m not planning to.” I sighed as he unraveled my wet
braid and began drying my hair. “It’s simple geometry,
you know. The longer we wait to treat the carriers, the
more people they can spread the disease to.” I thought of
the wedding ceremonial we’d attended. “Maybe even
some of the villagers topside. That feels nice.”
   He draped the damp linen over my shoulders and
worked his fingers through the worst of the tangles. Then
his hands slowly stilled, his fingers spreading on either
side of my throat. “I thought I’d lost you again.”
  “Me, too.” I turned around. “Have I lost you?”
  “What makes you think you have?”
  “The shockball. Ilona. What I did—” and what I still
hadn’t told him. “Duncan, I meant it. What I said. If you
want to find someone who can give you children, I won’t
stand in your way. Although you could do better than
Ilona—”
  Suddenly he was pulling my hair. “Do you love me?”
  “It doesn’t matter what I feel. You can—”
  Really pulling my hair. “Answer me.”
  “Of course, I love you. But if you don’t stop yanking
on my scalp, I’m going to—”
   He hauled me over to a cavity in the rock, away from
Hawk, and threw the linen down on the stone floor. His
tunic followed. “Show me.”
   We hadn’t been intimate with each other since before
his surgery. I’d been too scared, too upset, too angry, too
ashamed. Everything that had happened since we’d been
taken from the Truman had conspired to tear us apart.
Most of it was my doing.
  So if I felt like a virgin all over again, I was justified.
   My hands trembled, and I couldn’t look at him as I
stepped closer. I shivered with cold that had nothing to do
with being wet in a dark cave. I wanted his warmth, his
touch, his love.
  What did he want from me?
   “Do you know what I thought, when I nearly lost you
after that knife fight with Milass?” I slid my arms around
his waist, and rested my cheek against his heart. “I
thought, how could he do this to me? How could he go
and get himself killed, and leave me alone? I don’t want to
be alone, Duncan. I can’t do it anymore. You made me
forget how.”
   I ran my hands up his sides, until I could feel the
thickening scar from the two operations. Then I clenched
my fist, and hit him on the side of the arm.
  “I’ve never been so angry with you. Don’t you ever try
and die on me like that again.” I was shouting, my voice
echoing in the cave, and I couldn’t care less who heard
me. “And don’t you ever even think about leaving me!”
   I let the rage and pain direct my hands as I pulled his
head down and pressed my mouth to his. I let all the
sadness and fear I’d been locking away spill out and wash
over both of us, with that single kiss. His long hair was
wrapped around my fingers. His heart pounded against
mine.
   This was where I belonged. No other place but right
here, with this man. His woman. His wife. And no one
was ever going to take that away from me.
   We were both on our knees, and I was sobbing. He
kissed my wet eyes, my brow, the curve of my cheek.
Blindly, I chased his mouth until I caught him. He held the
back of my head with one scarred hand, and kissed me.
  The pain abruptly exploded into passion.
   What followed was a blur of sensation and wanting and
movement. I felt his hands rasp over my skin as I dug my
fingernails into his shoulders. Sweat made our bodies slick
as we landed on the pile of garments and linen, the stone
beneath bruising me in a dozen places.
   I didn’t care. The need inside me had become a
snarling, ravenous beast and it was long past feeding time.
When his teeth scored over my breasts, I groaned and
dragged my nails down his back. He pushed his legs
between mine, and I arched up, aching for him, greedy for
the hard thrust that would fill me and encompass him.
   He held back, clamping one hand in my hair, watching
me as he waited. For what I didn’t know, didn’t care—I
had to have this. I had to have him. I jerked my hips up,
trying to force him into me.
  “Open your eyes, Joey. Look at me.”
  I looked. “Do you want me to beg now?”
  He bent until his mouth was just resting against mine.
Golden hair spilled around my face. “Would you beg for
me?”
   Even now, after all this time, he needed the words.
Once I’d actually resented it. Now I’d give him as many
as he wanted to hear.
   “I’d beg for you. I’d lie. I’d steal. You know, I already
have.” I lifted my hand and took his, and brought it to my
lips. “And, though it might take some time and effort”—I
kissed the scarred back of his hand—“I’d find a way to
die for you.”
  He didn’t push or shove or thrust his way into my
body. He sank into me in slow degrees, a centimeter at a
time. We didn’t mate, we melded, until he was so deep
inside me that all the emptiness I’d ever felt vanished.
   “You don’t have to beg, beloved. Or lie, or steal.” He
traced the outline of my lips with his fingertip. “I have
been yours since the first moment.” Slowly he moved,
gliding out and in, pressing deeper. “You don’t have to
die for me, Cherijo. You’ll have to live.”
  “Show me,” I whispered.
    I don’t know how much time passed after that.
Pleasure burst through me so many times as I moved
under him, and still he kept rocking our bodies together,
taking me with slow, determined restraint. He seemed
driven to maintain his control over himself and me. I held
on, taking what he gave me, returning it when he allowed
it.
  It wasn’t dominance and submission, it was male and
female, so elemental and inexplicable that I barely
understood it myself. All I knew was he needed this,
needed me in ways I hadn’t begun to understand. As I
needed him. After tonight, there would be no question
about what lay ahead in the future for us.
   Whatever happened, we would never be separated
again.
   In the end, when he finally lost the battle with his own
need, he pressed my face against his chest, and pulled us
both up from the ground. He moved until he stood with
his back against the cave wall, his hands on my hips,
working me over him. I braced myself with my hands on
his shoulders and stared into his eyes.
   “You’ll live for me,” he said, his voice hoarse, his
lungs dragging in air. “Say it.”
  “I’ll live for you. I love you.”
  “Forever. Promise me forever.”
  “I promise you, Duncan. Forever.”
   “Cherijo.” He wrapped his arms around me,
shuddering as he cried out and poured himself into me. I
held on, I lived for him. I loved him.



  We spent the night on that bumpy, uncomfortable cave
floor, and I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever been
happier. Duncan and I were together, body and soul, and
that was all I wanted. That was paradise enough for
anyone.
   Hawk’s groans were what brought me back down to
earth. Reever watched me as I got up and slowly dressed.
   I smiled down at him. “Good morning.”
   He folded his hands behind his head. “Yes, it is.”
   If he’d been a cat, he would have been purring. “Don’t
look so smug. We’ve got work to do.” I found his clothes
and tossed them at him. “I need to get to Medical for
more supplies for Hawk.”
   He pulled on his trousers. “We will all go back up to
the occupied levels.”
   “But I’m supposed to be dead.”
   “We will tell them you survived.”
  He walked with me over to where Hawk was. I knelt
down beside him. “How are you feeling?”
   “Not as good as you, I think.” Hawk rolled over so I
could check his back. “I don’t want anyone to know,
patcher.”
   “No one knows?” Hawk shook his head, and Reever
and I exchanged a look. “Duncan and I won’t say
anything.” I turned to my husband. “Can you get him up
to Medical by yourself? I’ll tell you what you need to do
for him.”
   Hawk groaned. “You cannot stay here, patcher.”
   “Sure I can. Even if you tell them I somehow survived
the first fall, they might try to do it again.” I made a face
as I helped the Indian to his feet. “And, as thrilling as the
experience was, I really don’t care for a repeat.”
  “No one will assault you,” Hawk said as I slipped his
arm over my shoulders. “You are not the first person I
have taken from the pit.”
   “I thought you said no one knew.”
   “No. The others were unconscious when I took them.”
Hawk looked sheepish. “The tribe believes I appealed to
the gods for their lives, and they were returned from the
spirit world.”
  “I’ll try to remember all that. What about Rico?”
  “He will not remember what he has done. He never
does, when he is in a rage.”
   Reever took Hawk’s other arm. “The chief will not
attack someone returned by the gods, will he?”
  “It is not the way.”
   “I hope you’re right.” I looked at the man we had
propped between us. “Are you sure, Hawk? You’re not in
any shape to defend me or Reever.”
   He chuckled. “I was rather hoping to see you defend
us.”
  “Now he gets a sense of humor,” I said to Reever.
   I left the men outside the medical alcove to pick up my
cats and more supplies. And walked right in on Milass,
going through every container in the place.
   “Find what you’re looking for?” I asked, then folded
my arms and leaned back against a wall as he jumped to
his feet.
  Even his scars turned white. “You’re dead!”
   “Am I? That would make me a ghost, haunting you.” I
raised my arms and made a horrible face. “An angry,
vengeful, surgically knowledgeable ghost.”
  “He killed you. I made sure he killed you this time.”
   So I was right—he’d planted the tunic. “Why did you
go to all the trouble of framing me? Do you really hate me
that much?”
  He didn’t answer that. He yelled, rushed past me, and
kept going on down the tunnel until he was out of sight.
   The cats came out to stare at me. “Don’t look at me. I
didn’t make all that racket.” I turned to the entrance.
“Reever, bring Hawk in here.”
  I took care of the muscle strains, then Reever helped
me get Hawk dressed and back on his feet.
  He tried walking and grinned at me. “I have not felt this
good in years.”
  “You’re welcome,” I said, then couldn’t help adding,
“even better, I didn’t have to sing a note.”
   Hawk limped out into the tunnel to talk with Reever, so
I went over to the containers to put everything back in
place. A short time later, the first of my patients walked in.
   “Can you look at my leg?” Hawk must have done some
fast talking, because the man didn’t look even vaguely
spooked. “We’ve only got a week until the World Game.”
   I examined the infected burn on the lower half of his
leg, cleaned and treated it, then went back to straightening
up the mess Milass had made. For a few minutes, anyway.
More patients came in to congratulate me on my celestial
return, and could I check this or that injury for them?
  Milass came back, his face absolutely blank. “The chief
wishes to see you.”
  “The last time I saw the chief, he wasn’t in a very good
mood. Tell him I can’t make it.”
   “He does not hold you responsible for the intrusion
anymore.” Milass gave me what could be construed as a
pleading look.
   On another day, I would have needled him a little more,
but I was still in my glowing-with-happiness mode.
“Look, twerp, I’m busy. Get lost.”
   “Patcher, it is Ilona he blames now. He is not rational
today. You must help her.”
   I set down the box of skin sealer I was repacking and
sighed. “All right. Give me a minute, will you?”
   After telling Reever and Hawk an abbreviated version
of the truth, I went to the central cavern with Milass.
“What did you mean, he’s not rational?”
  “Some days the chief is as you saw him at the arena.
Some days he is as he was at the pit, with you.”
   “So today is a pit day, not an arena day?”
   “Yes.”
   “Terrific.”
   “He will not harm you. He has exercised his rage many
times. Now he indulges himself with drink and food in
celebration. Much of what he says makes no sense.”
   I got to see that firsthand when Rico hailed me as
Milass and I entered his hogan. The chief was dirty,
drunk, and acted as if he’d never thrown me down a cave
shaft.
   I pulled out a scanner. “Looks like he’s really been
celebrating. I’d better have a look at him.”
   “Do not approach him yet,” Milass said. “Wait until he
invites you near.”
   “Patcher! We have prevailed over the whiteskin. You
should have been there.”
  “Sorry I missed it.” No, I wasn’t.
   The interior of the hogan was so dark I couldn’t make
out who was with him, until Milass got a fire going. The
flames illuminated everything—two guards standing
behind Rico, who was sitting on the antique chair I’d seen
him use once or twice before. Then I looked down.
   His feet were resting on top of a body. A bleeding
body, wrapped tightly in rope. Ilona’s swollen, battered
features were slack, but from the whistling sound coming
from her broken nose, she was still breathing. Someone
behind me made a similar noise, and I glanced back to see
several League troops huddled in chains against the walls
of the hogan.
  “You’ve noticed my new footrest.”
  “Yes. It’s… very decorative.”
   “Ilona was the one who led the League into the tunnels
to get you. She confessed it to me. She is very sorry she
made it seem as if you were to blame.” He frowned. “Did
I shout at you for that?”
  “Yes, but not very much. So you beat her into
confessing, is that right?”
   “I found her with the League men, and she got on her
knees and told me everything.” He drank from the bottle
he held and wiped his mouth. “Then I beat her.”
   “I’m glad we’ve got that straightened out.” How long
had he beaten her, and how much damage had he done?
How was I going to convince him to hand her over to me
so I could find out? “Who are these other men, Chief?”
  “Scum who thought they could challenge me.”
  “Oh, they’re crazy men.” Casually I walked back to
have a look at the wounded troops. One of them was in
bad shape, and just my luck, the worst enemy I had in the
League besides Joseph. “It looks like you caught a pretty
important guy here.”
  “The one gasping over there? Shropana, is it not?”
  “One and the same.”
  “Do not concern yourself, patcher.” Rico waved an
unsteady arm. “He does not breathe very much. He will be
dead soon.”
  “Maybe not.” I knelt down and checked him quickly.
What I’d been worried about since I first examined him
was about to happen. I rose to my feet. “He’s a powerful
man, Chief. One who could possibly prove more
beneficial alive.”
   “Possibly.” Rico looked at Shropana. “He has not long
to live, though.”
  “I can keep him alive. He needs a heart operation.”
  “Another patient for you, huh? Eventually everyone
comes under your hands,” Rico said, then laughed
uproariously. “There is nothing you can do for him here.
Let him die.”
  “On the contrary, I can do a great deal, if you’ll let me
borrow your new footrest.”
  “Why?”
   I gave him a cool smile. “Patril here needs a new heart.
Ilona won’t be needing hers much longer.”
  The chief gave me an owlish stare. “You mean to cut
out my footrest’s heart and give it to the alien?”
    “The organs are compatible,” I said, hoping my nose
wasn’t getting longer. “The League will pay you a fine
reward for his return. Or, you can keep him here as a
hostage against future attacks. The worst that can happen
is they both die.”
   Rico laughed again. “I like how you think, patcher.
Very well.” He kicked Ilona’s body toward me. “Take
them.”


           CHAPTER FIFTEEN
                                               «^»

                     Initiation
Milass helped me get enough men together to carry Ilona
and Patril to the alcove, but he made it obvious he didn’t
like the idea.
   “I got her out of there for you, didn’t I?” I asked him.
“What’s your problem now, shortie?”
   “You will not harm her to save him,” he said as he
directed the men carrying Ilona to a berth. Once she was
on it, he took out his knife and began slicing through the
ropes binding her limbs.
   I left explanations for later. What I had to do now was
get Patril prepped for surgery. I thanked the other men for
helping us as they left, then did my preliminary scans. The
Colonel’s heart could go at any moment. I was out of time
and options—if I didn’t do the procedure, he would die.
  “Did you hear me?” the demonic dwarf came up and
gave me a push. “You will not cut out her heart.”
   “I have no intention of cutting anything out of her, you
moron. It was the only way I could think of getting her out
of there before Rico did anything worse.”
  Milass didn’t thank me. I think I would have dropped
dead of a heart attack myself if he had. He did agree to go
and find Hawk and bring him back to assist me.
   Once more I grumbled under my breath about my lack
of nurses as I completed the prep work and got Shropana
sedated. As soon as he was under, I set up the instrument
trays and cordoned off the area. I couldn’t make a sterile
field, but I got everything as isolated as I could make it.
Before I scrubbed, I went to check on Ilona.
   Rico had done a good job on her; she had extensive
facial fractures and all of her ribs and fingers were broken.
Ilona wouldn’t be weaving anything for a couple of
weeks.
   She’d regained consciousness, and stared at me as I
infused her with painkillers. “You help me—why?”
   “I’m a masochist. Go figure.” I watched her drift
under, then went to scrub and take care of my other pain
in the ass.
   Hawk limped in just as I finished gearing up. “Get
sterile, we’ve got cardiac transplantation surgery to
perform.”
   “A transplant?” His mouth sagged open. “You can’t
do that down here.”
   “I’d better find a way, or this man will die.” I looked
into the swollen, canine features of the Colonel who had
chased me across the galaxy. “Believe me, his death is
one I really don’t want on my conscience.”
   Hawk scrubbed while I went to set up the laser rig and
the heart-lung machine which would keep Shropana alive
while I installed the replacement heart. A couple of scans
made me readjust the calibration of the Jarvik
biomechanical replacement unit I’d swiped from Joseph’s
lab; it wasn’t going to be a perfect fit. Still, it would serve
as a temporary fix until I could get him out of the tunnels
and up to a regular medical facility.
   “You know something, Hawk? I think I’d amputate a
limb just to have access to a nice, big, well-stocked
medical facility.”
   “The gods do not give us more than we can handle. I
know this man,” Hawk said as he took position by the
instrument trays. “This is the one who has been asking for
your execution.”
  “Yep.” I adjusted the optic emitter to give me
maximum light over Shropana’s brisket.
   “Is there anyone you will not operate on?”
   “First rule of being a surgeon: You don’t get to pick
and choose who ends up on your table.” I powered up the
rig and leaned over. “Here we go.”
   My first radical decision was not to remove Shropana’s
diseased heart, but to perform a heterotopic transplant,
which would leave the native heart in place. To do this, I
didn’t sever the diseased organ from the atria, but refitted
them to pair off with the Jarvik replacement’s
connections.
  Hawk spotted what I was doing at once. “Why do you
put the machine heart on top of the old one?”
   “To give Colonel Shropana a heart with eight
chambers, instead of four. The Jarvik will take care of
circulatory supply and return, and the other four can do
whatever they want.”
   “Would it not be easier to take the old heart out?”
   “Easier, sure, if he was human. He’s not, and this unit
wasn’t designed for his species. I’m hoping a
better-equipped surgeon can salvage the native heart, and
remove or replace the Jarvik.”
  If we ever got Patril back to the League.
   I started the work on the pulmonary arterial and aortic
junctions. From the amount of plaque in his vessels, I’d
have to adjust his medication regime and his diet while he
was with us. That would make me even more popular with
the bad-tempered military mogul when he woke up.
  “How will it continue to function?” Hawk asked me.
“You said you have no power core.”
   “Don’t need one. We’re going to do this the way they
did before autonomous power cores were invented. See
these air lines?” I indicated the tubes I would be putting in
the chest wall. “They’re going to do all the hard part.
We’ll rig him to an external compressor that will feed
pressure through the lines.”
  “I will sing for him later,” Hawk said.
   It sounded like all we’d need was a song, but as soon
as I tested the Jarvik, things got complicated. The
biomechanical heart had to be recalibrated twice before it
attained the proper pumping sequence and speed. As
soon as I performed the preclosure test activation, an
internal safety valve shut the unit down.
   “It still thinks he’s human,” I said, scrambling to
disable the safeties. I could only pray the components
wouldn’t seize up while they were running at three times
the set rate. “One more test, and then we’ll plug him in.”
   The second test was successful. Now I had to take
Shropana off the machine that was keeping him alive, and
see if all my hard work would do the same.
   Hawk murmured something under his breath as I
switched on the external compressor. There was an instant
of silence before the Jarvik began to pump. Shropana’s
vital signs elevated slightly, then leveled out.
   “It worked.” The skin around his dark eyes crinkled in
a surgeon’s smile. “You made it work.”
   “Piece of cake.” I watched the Jarvik for a few minutes,
just to be sure. Then I showed Hawk how to close, and
suture the long incision.
  At the cleanser unit, he scrubbed in silence.
  I worried for a minute that I’d demanded too much of
him. “Not what you expected?”
   “No. It is so much more… beautiful. Like dancing
inside a soul.” He glanced over at Shropana, then at me.
“How long does it take? To learn to do these surgeries?”
   “As long as you want it to take.”
   He discarded his bloody gloves. “I want to do more of
this. I want to learn more. Will you teach me?”
   “We won’t get in any more alien cardiac replacement
cases, I think.” I thought of Vlaav, and how I had
wrecked that. “Still, if you’re willing, I’ll start you off.”



   Hawk didn’t have much time for lessons over the next
nine days, as he began the Night Way. I joined the tribe
every night for the chanting and ritual sings that, according
to my new student, would attract holiness and repulse evil.
   I didn’t know about the curative effects, but the
ceremony involved the entire tribe, which made it very
loud, anyway.
   “Explain this to me,” I said to Hawk as I adjusted his
back brace on the morning of the ceremonial. “How is it
that a tribe who owns a major shockball-team franchise
doesn’t give in to the temptation of material wealth? I
mean, Rico has to be taking in millions of credit a month,
just from the arena ticket sales and advertising.”
  “Most of the profits are reinvested in the team. The
non-Indian players must be paid, of course. The Night
Horse contribute their portion to the tribal fund.”
   “I thought Rico used all that to pay for purchasing the
Gliders.”
   “Now we use it for to provide dowries for our men.”
Hawk nodded toward a group of villagers from the
surface. “Ten will return to Four Mountains this month, to
offer for their brides.”
   “I thought you had broken off with the Navajo.”
   “Not in marriage. It is forbidden for our men to marry
within the clan. We have been sending young men back to
the reservation to seek brides and settle down for many
years. The Four Mountains clans have welcomed them.”
   That bothered me. Why was he really sending his
people back to the surface? He’d led them from Four
Mountains, started a new tribe, and moved underground
rather than stay on the reservation and live under
“whiteskin” laws. Now he was funding the way for the
Night Horse to rejoin the mother tribe?
   Could he be trying to deliberately infect the Navajo, and
through them the general population, with syphilis? It
might take months, even years before someone identified
the cause and treatment for the disease, and by then it
would constitute a worldwide epidemic.
   I rejected that idea at once. Sure, Rico might slit
someone’s throat, or beat up his girlfriend. But he wasn’t
sophisticated or psychotic enough to attempt that kind of
random, global destruction. Someone like my creator
might pull it off. But the Night Horse chief was no Joseph
Grey Veil. Besides, Rico still thought the disease was a
curse from the gods.
   Hawk explained that the first day of the Tl’ééjí was
devoted to the purification and consecration of the special
hogan built for the ceremonials. Hawk called it “The Day
of the East.”
   “Today we perform the first rite of exorcism, the
breath of life,” Hawk said to the crowd gathered around
the Night Way hogan. “There will be prayer ritual, the
cleansing of the sweat bath, and honor to the sacred
mountains.”
   I refrained from pointing out there weren’t any
mountains around, and went in for a few minutes to watch
the festivities.
   It was interesting, in a Navajo kind of way. Hawk used
special gourds and lots of corn meal and pollen to purify
and consecrate the hogan. Everyone chanted without
stopping. I wondered idly how much breath control it
took to accomplish that, and how many sore throats I was
going to have to treat tomorrow.
  “Here.” Hawk thrust something covered with beads
and feathers in my hands. “Offer this up to Changing
Woman for us.”
   It was some kind of elongated pot filled with ground,
dried corn. “Urn, I don’t exactly know any prayers,” I
told him.
  “Cast it into the fire, and say what you will.”
  I went to the fire, and shook out some of the corn-meal
over the flames. Prayers. Right. Like I knew.
   Might as well keep it simple. “Changing Woman,
accept this offering and bestow your blessings here.”
   Despite my cynical attitude toward religion, performing
the offering moved me. The smell of the corn burning was
sweet and pervasive. I could almost feel the weight of the
eyes watching me. Beyond that, there was a feeling of
connection to something I’d never recognized in myself
before.
  Come on, Cherijo. Next thing you know you’ll be
abandoning your laser to hold sings for injured patients.
    The assembled repeated what I’d said, only in Navajo.
I turned to hand the pot-thing back to Hawk. He looked
amused.
  “Your blood is red after all, patcher.”
   I stayed until the purification rites were through, then
headed back to my alcove to check on my patients and
make sure Rico hadn’t recovered from his hangover and
come looking for a heart-less Ilona. Reever was feeding
the cats, but I spotted his shock-ball uniform hung over
one of the containers. I kicked it over, and that got his
attention.
  “You know I must do this, Cherijo.”
   “We didn’t get around to discussing why the other
night.”
   “Not for the reasons you think.” He picked up Juliet.
Since he was her favorite human, she let him. “We’ll talk
after the game.”
   Shropana’s mechanical heart was still ticking, but he
was very weak and couldn’t be brought out of sedation
just yet. I made note of his vitals and ran some routine
cardiac screens. The native heart was functioning at about
twenty percent, which was enough to keep it alive. The
Jarvik did the rest of the work. Due to his advanced age,
recuperation would probably take a few months.
    Ilona was in much better shape, although I’d
immobilized her in multiple bonesetters. She wasn’t going
anywhere for a while, either. She also tested positive for
first-stage syphilis, which made me wonder if she was the
carrier. I just couldn’t picture her with Hawk. Since she
was asleep, I didn’t wake her, but added her meds to her
infuser line.
   I moved the privacy screen back in place, and stacked
the containers we’d been using to help conceal Ilona’s
presence. Then I sat down to watch Reever dress.
   “I hate to admit it, but you look good in protective
padding. How much longer are you going to have to do
this?”
  “The World Game is next week.” He strapped on his
shoulder padding and pulled his jersey down over it.
“Why were you surprised that I enjoyed the competition?
All cultures participate in some form of sport.”
  “Shockball is not a sport. It’s an excuse to electrocute
people.”
  “Avoiding penalties is quite exhilarating.”
  “So is avoiding my bad side.” I went over and kissed
him. “Don’t get on it anymore.”
  “Patcher.”
  I went back behind the partition, and found Ilona awake
and agitated. Now that the meds had worn off, I
wondered how much of a fuss she was going to kick up
about being under my care.
   “Hi.” I checked her abdomen and saw that the
inflammation around her ribs had gone down
considerably. Sympathy pains still made me grimace.
“How are you feeling?”
  “Foolish,” she said. Her face, still beautiful despite the
swelling and the bruises, was serious. “You saved my life.
Why?”
   “I was bored and had nothing better to do.” I sat down
beside her berth. “Mind telling me how you got mixed up
with someone like Shropana?”
   “I saw him on the vid broadcast. I thought it was a
good idea. I could give you to him and get money for my
people. I went up to the surface to seek him out.” Ilona
closed her eyes. “He said he wouldn’t hurt anyone. He
only needed to know how to get into the tunnels.”
  “He lied, but then, he’s good at that.”
  Her bottom lip trembled. “Does Rico think I’m dead?”
   I sighed. “Ilona, Rico wanted you dead. Rico tried to
kill you. Rico gave you to me so I could kill you.”
  “He will kill me as soon as he finds out I am alive.”
  I thought of the outcasts. “Not necessarily. I can help
you get out of here, but I need some information first.”
  “What do you want to know?”
   I was almost positive she was the carrier, but I couldn’t
exactly accuse her of sleeping her way around the tribe.
How did I put this diplomatically? “You were infected
with a sexually transmitted disease called syphilis. It’s
very contagious. I need to know how many men you’ve
been with so I can treat them.”
  “One.”
  “Ilona, this is really important. Don’t kid around, okay?
Tell me their names.”
  “There has only been one. Rico.”
  “But Hawk was infected, and some of the outcasts,
and—” I stopped. “Just Rico?”
   She gave me an ironic look. “Do you think Rico would
share his own woman with the rest of the tribe?”
  “No.” That put a lot of things into swift perspective.
“So you’re telling me you’re not his only woman.”
  Ilona sighed. “It is not the old way, but Rico takes
whoever he wants. He told us it was his right. We do not
have the kind of sexual taboos the whiteskin have. Though
Rico forbids our women to be with more than one man,
our men can have as many woman as they wish.”
   I wonder how the logistics of that actually worked out.
“It has to be one of the other women, spreading it to the
men.”
  “No, they were infected by Rico, too.”
  “He has sex with other men?”
  “Of course.” Ilona didn’t blink. “He enjoys taking
whoever he wants—whenever he wants.”
   “Great.” No wonder Hawk refused to tell me where
he’d gotten the disease. Since Ilona was tiring, I told her
to rest and moved the privacy screen back into place.
   I turned around to see Dhreen standing in the entrance
to the alcove. He looked like someone had tried to feed
him through a disposal unit.
  “Where is she?”
  “Out making new friends already?” I went over to help
him get to a berth.
   He wouldn’t let me touch him. “I tried to stop him, and
then they said he’d given her to you.” He grabbed the
front of my tunic with his bloody spoon-fingered hands.
“Did you cut her up? Did you?”
  “I didn’t cut anybody up, and when I do, I sew them
back together.” I glanced down at his hands. “Do you
mind?”
  He let go. “Where is she?”
   “Ilona, right?” He nodded, and I pointed to the privacy
screen. “She’s back there.”
  “She’s alive?”
  I thought about torturing him a little, then decided not
even Dhreen deserved that. “Yes.”
   All the color drained out of his face and he started
sliding toward the floor. I grabbed him and hauled him
over to my exam table. Slinging him up on it was even
more fun.
  “Did Rico do this to you?” I said as I scanned him. he
was more battered and bruised than Ilona was.
  “He doesn’t like anyone obstructing his judgments.”
He latched on to my wrist. “She’s going to be okay?”
   Evidently Dhreen had a little love quadrangle going on
between him and Ilona and Milass and Rico.
  “With a little time and care, yes, she will. Glad to see
you’re concerned with someone other than yourself.” I
put his hand down at his side and calibrated a syrinpress.
“What’s the matter, she owe you money or something?”
  “It isn’t like that.” He closed his eyes.
   “Would you mind telling me exactly why you’re down
here?”
  He didn’t look at me. “It’s not because of you, if that’s
what you think.”
  “Pardon me if I find the coincidence a little tough to
swallow.”
  “Your parent didn’t require my services after we
reached Terra. I didn’t have enough credits to purchase a
new ship, so I hired myself out for surface transport.”
   “The kind legitimate transportation companies wouldn’t
touch, I imagine.”
   His mouth curled. “You know me too well. I got word
of this place in the tavern district. The chief hired me to
convey the players to regional games and do a little
resource management on the side.”
  “Smuggling, you mean.” I infused him. “Good story,
Dhreen. I almost believe it.”
   “Doc.” He opened his eyes. “You’ve got to get her out
of here before Rico finds out she’s still alive.”
  “I plan to. Forgive me if I don’t ask you to help.”
   “I don’t care what happens to me. Just get her away
from him.” The painkiller I’d administered started taking
effect, and his voice slurred. “Please, Doc. Keep her
away… from… him…”
   I finished my scans and set his collarbones and right
shoulder, then sutured the various cuts and gashes he’d
gotten. He still looked like a kid, just the same way he had
when he’d picked me up on Terra.
   My mouth thinned. Dhreen was a grownup, just like the
rest of us. He’d lied his way into my life one time, and
there was no way I was going to extend a second
invitation.



   I couldn’t allow Hawk and the others to keep fooling
themselves with Indian rituals and protocol—if Ilona had
told me the truth, it was possible Rico had infected nearly
every adult in the tribe. Since members of the tribe were
not only going topside to play shock-ball, but were also
moving back to the Four Mountains reservation, the
disease could easily get out of control.
  Way out of control.
   Modern doctors would have a problem diagnosing and
treating patients with syphilis. Their diagnostic units would
identify the treponema pallidum bacteria, but it had been
so many centuries since the last reported case of STD that
I doubted if any symptomatic or treatment files even
existed. They’d probably think it was something new, and
waste months going through the World Drug
Administration’s painstaking procedural process to have a
standardized inoculate approved.
   If there was one thing a sexually transmitted disease
didn’t need, it was months to spread.
   There was also the very strong possibility that, once
prevalent among the general public, the syphilis would
mutate into different strains. Strains developed in
crossbred carriers would be resistant to Terran antibiotics,
creating a whole new set of headaches, and possibly an
incurable mutation.
   I went to the consecrated hogan to talk to Hawk. From
the outside of the door, I could hear he was in the middle
of one of his unending prayer sings.

   “The ts’aa has a pathway to the coming dawn.
   The pathway leads out to the edge of the world,
   The place that can be felt by the singer in the dark,
   The place that opens to the dawn in the east—
   Here under the east, it is a holy place,
   Here beneath the triangle stone, it is a holy place,
   Here at this consecrated hogan, it is a holy place,
   Here at this fire, it is a holy place
   Holaghei…”

  My guards took up position on either side of the
hogan.
    It was purely superstitious nonsense, but the words
throbbed in me. My unruly Indian blood again. No matter
how the clinical side of my brain attacked the problem, I
still felt the draw of my heritage, the beauty and serenity of
the Night Horse way.
   Compelling, but it wasn’t going to kill off a single
treponema pallidum.
   That was the end of the song. The occupants of the
hogan filed out, carrying baskets of corn that had been
blessed, to use for the evening meal.
  After the last person left the hogan, I stepped inside.
Hawk was sitting in an awkward position, obviously in
deep meditation. I waited another few minutes, then
politely cleared my throat.
  “Patcher.” He opened his eyes. “Changing Woman
smiles upon you.”
   “Changing Woman would be yelling, if she had my
problems.” I went over and sat down beside him. How
would one of the tribe ask him? “I need your help, hataali
.”
  “I am here for you.”
   “I know who is the syphilis carrier. Ilona told me, and I
don’t think she would lie about that. Rico is the one
responsible for infecting the tribe. For infecting you.”
  Hawk didn’t respond.
   “The silent treatment isn’t going to work this time. As
much as I respect you, and want to honor your traditions,
I can’t continue to stand back and do nothing.”
   He got up and hobbled over to the fire. He crouched
down and prepared two cups of tea, and handed one to
me. When I took it, he said, “It would be like asking a
bird not to fly.”
    “Or a hataali not to sing.” I sipped the tea, which was
hot, dark, and pungent with fresh herbs. Crushed mint
leaves swirled around the bottom. “How would you feel,
if you were in my place?”
   “Torn between two worlds. As I feel now.” He stared
into his cup.
   I still didn’t understand what it was about
Leyaneyaniteh that kept him in the underground. Hawk
didn’t belong here. He belonged where he could feel the
sun on his face—
   I looked down at the tea leaves in my cup. The baskets
of corn. The pot of stew bubbling over the central cavern
cooking fire. Something that had been subconsciously
bothering me for weeks suddenly snapped into focus.
  “What more must you do?”
   I put aside the new mystery to deal with matters at
hand. “First, I absolutely must send a signal to the
doctors at the Four Mountains reservation. The
reservation medical facilities have to know what the
disease is, how to test the general population for it, and
what to administer as a cure.”
   “The chief is the only one of us with access to any
communications equipment, and it is all located within the
arena.”
   “I need to examine Rico. Can you get me in to see
him?”
   He hobbled over to the door and looked out into the
cavern. “Rico has gone to the surface, to make
arrangements for the entire tribe to attend the World
Game. He will not be back until the day before the game.”
  That was a week. “What about testing the other
members of the tribe here?”
   “They will not voluntarily allow you to examine them,
not until you pass the initiation ceremonial. The chief left
instructions to accept you back into the tribe only after
you passed the test.”
  I clenched my teeth. All that meant was a big fat no to
everything I’d asked. “How long until the initiation?”
   “It is held in four days from now.”
  “I guess you can’t move it up on the schedule.” He
nodded. “Terrific.”
   “Will a week make that much difference?”
   “This is a STD. A single night of romance makes a
difference.” I put the tea down and joined him at the door.
“All right, Hawk. Out of respect for tradition, and because
I have no other choice, I’m willing to wait one more week.
But call off the guards. You can do that much for me.”
   He smiled. “Very well.”
  I smiled back. Respect for tradition had gotten me
exactly what I needed.



   Reever finally contacted and arranged a rendezvous
with the outcasts. On the third day of the Tl’ééjí, we
moved Ilona out of Medical and into the outer tunnels.
Dhreen, whom I’d reluctantly allowed to visit Ilona daily,
insisted on going with us.
    “You do one thing to mess this up,” I told him, “and
I’ll tell the chief all about this little love affair of yours.”
  “You would not do that to Ilona.”
  “I’d do it to you. Speaking of Ilona, you’d better
watch your step there, too.”
  Dhreen looked hurt. “I care for her.”
   “I’ve seen how you treat people you care for. Just how
did you two lovebirds get together, anyway?”
   “We’re not together. Not literally.” He looked down at
the litter he was carrying with Reever. Ilona was asleep.
“This isn’t the initial time the chief employed his fists on
her. I saw him knock her down the first time I came here.
Since then, I got her away from him when I could. She
told me she had no option but to be with him. I know all
about that. We became friends, then…” He shrugged,
embarrassed.
  I looked sharply at him. “Then you’d better remember
what I said.”
   The outcasts were waiting for us as we emerged into
the sewers.
  “Patcher.” A very healthy-looking hybrid led his group
out of the shadows. He grinned at me and slapped Reever
on the shoulder. “Nilch’i’. They say nothing can catch
The Wind in the arena.”
   “I haven’t chased him yet,” I said, which made
everyone laugh. “We hadn’t heard anything from you in
so long—I was worried. Where have you been hiding?”
    “We found a passage above the old subway that leads
to the surface, and made a place for ourselves in the
forest. The villagers will not go there. They fear the Glider
will descend from the trees and take them to his lair. Now
it grows too cold for us to stay there, so we are moving
into the western conduits.” He pointed down toward
another section of the sewer. “We will be there until the
snows pass.”
   One of the women stepped forward to have a look at
Ilona. “This is the chief’s woman. They will search for her
when she is found missing.”
  “No, they won’t,” I said. “They think she’s dead.”
   Reever briefly explained the situation, which dispelled
the last of the hybrids’ doubts.
  “Good. We will keep her with us until she is able to
travel. Then we can see she returns to her clan at Four
Mountains.”
  Ilona suddenly clutched at my hands and wailed, “I
don’t want to go! I want to stay with Dhreen!”
  Dhreen gave me a desperate look. “I’ll go with her and
make sure she’s all right.”
    Infatuated Oenrallians were more tenacious than Larian
flatworms. “We’ve already been over that. I can make a
dead woman disappear, but you’d definitely be missed.”
To Ilona, I said, “You know you have to go, Red Face.
I’ll do my best to keep him safe.”
  She stopped crying and scowled at me. “Faun. Red
Faun. Why can’t I stay in hiding? No one has seen me.”
   “I can’t keep chasing people out of Medical, Ilona.
Someone is going to get suspicious. Then Rico will come
to finish what he started.”
   “You’re sure she’ll be safe with them?” Dhreen jerked
his thumb at the hybrids.
  “They’re our friends. She’ll be fine. Talk to her,
Dhreen.”
   The Oenrallan knelt down by Ilona’s litter and carefully
took one of her broken hands. “Doc’s right, my precious.
The chief’s crazy. I couldn’t stand it if he hurt you again.
You have to go with them now.”
  “My precious.” Gee, he had it bad.
  “I’m afraid.” Ilona groaned as she tried to reach for
him. “Come with me.”
   “I’ll come as soon I can.” He bent over and rubbed his
cheek against hers. “I’ll figure out something soon. I
promise.”
   We all watched as Ilona’s litter was carried off by the
outcasts. She sobbed Dhreen’s name until they vanished
into the sewer pipes.
   “I can’t leave her out here by herself,” Dhreen said,
staring after them.
   True love. I needed an aspirin. “She’s not going to be
by herself. They’ll take good care of her. I know you’re
worried, but if you want to keep her alive, she has to stay
out of sight.”
  “Don’t simulate the sympathy.” He turned on me.
  “You want to despise me, okay. But she’s just a kid.
Don’t unleash your disillusionment with me and make her
pay for it.”
   “Pardon me. I’m not very fond of you, but I won’t
take out my frustrations on your girlfriend. If I’d wanted
to do that, why the hell would I go through all this?”
   “Grey Veil. Your parent could have tutored you on
some of his maneuvers. He has more than a Hsktskt raider
fleet.”
   I walked back into the tunnels. Behind me, Reever
started talking to Dhreen in low, rapid Oenrallian. I didn’t
bother to switch on my wristcom.
   “Cherijo.” Reever caught up to me.
    “I go to all this trouble for her, and he thinks I’m doing
it to set him up. The ingrate.”
   “He doesn’t understand friendship.”
   “I can see why.” I scowled over my shoulder at the
sullen Oenrallian, who trudged several yards behind us.
“Who wants to be friends with him, anyway?”
   “You should talk to him about what happened at
Joren.”
    “I was there, I remember what happened.” I made an
irritable gesture. “Just let it go, Reever. He thinks I’m just
like Joseph, and I’ll never trust him again. Whatever
friendship we had is over.”



   Hawk continued performing the Night Way ceremonial.
The first four days were devoted to exorcism rites, group
sweat baths, and unending prayers. After an all-night sing
on the fourth night, Hawk went into “the Healing” phase
of the ritual and made his first great sand painting.
   I’d read about them, naturally, but to see Hawk actually
making the dry painting on the cave floor was something
else.
    He held different colored materials in his fist, and
crawled to a specific spot. Slowly and carefully, he
trickled the colored stuff in a specific, geometric pattern.
Already he’d laid out a complicated design, with hands,
spirals, snakes, and stick figures bent over, gathering
something in small baskets.
   “Sa’ah naaghéi, Bik’eh hózh Ó,” he chanted.
   I went to the other side of the dry painting, where he
could see me and my voice wouldn’t startle him. “Can I
talk to you while you do that, or will it mess you up?”
   “Talk as much as you like. However, try not to sneeze
in this direction.”
  I already smelled the pollen, and gave him a
mock-warning sniff. “What is that stuff you’re using to
make all the different colors?”
   “Crumbled clay, sand, cornmeal, pollen, and crushed
larkspur petals.”
   “If it’s supposed to be a painting, why not use paint?”
  “The ’iikááh is not a permanent thing. Only vegetal
materials and sand are used, so the painting can be
destroyed before tse’yi, sundown.”
   “You take hours to make this thing, and you’re going
to sweep it up before it gets dark?”
   “Yes.”
   “Hawk, you need to take up another hobby.” I looked
around at the gathering circle of children watching both of
us. “The little ones seem to like it.”
   “They take part in the ceremonial tonight. It will be their
initiation into the spiritual life of the tribe.”
   “Really.” The children weren’t just fascinated; some of
them looked terrified. “This initiation scary?”
   “Children must learn the greatest secret of the way.”
   I noticed that wasn’t a “no.”
   “Which is?”
   He glanced up from the dry painting. “You will learn
that tonight, when you are initiated.”
   “Me?” I sat back on my heels.
   “Isn’t it time you rejoined your people, Cherijo? In
spirit, you’re ready to embrace all the mysteries of the
way.”
  I’d been initiated into a lot of things that no one had
bothered to properly explain to me. “Tell me something,
Hawk. Does any of this involve things like accidental
betrothals?”
  He laughed.



   Reever escorted me to the consecrated hogan that
night, but he was not allowed inside. Only me and a group
of kids were admitted.
   I saw Hawk, painted and wearing some kind of
ceremonial jacket, standing beside a pile of bundled
sticks. One of the older women directed me to sit with the
girls on the south side of the fire. The boys had already
stripped down to breechcloths and were shivering on the
opposite side. The low chanting swelled, and suddenly a
figure wearing a white mask burst into the hogan.
  “Who is that?” I asked the trembling girl next to me.
   “The Yei,” she whispered back. “My mother says they
put bad children in a sack and take them away and cook
them and eat them.”
  Nice, what they told their kids for bedtime stories.
“Why don’t we tell them to leave?”
  The little girl looked blank. “You cannot tell the gods
what to do.”
   The Yei danced around the girls’ side of the fire,
sprinkling something over our heads. Then another figure,
this one in a black mask, ran into the hogan and started
touching every girl with an ear of corn.
  Once all the girls had been sprinkled and touched, the
dancers went to the other side of the fire. The oldest boy
got up and stood apart from the others. The Yei started
dancing around the boy and sprinkled something over his
head. More cornmeal, judging by the way it looked.
  Then the black-masked dancer ran over and grabbed a
bundle of sticks. He also started dancing around the lone
boy, then struck him on the back with the bundle. The
boy bit his lips and didn’t make a sound.
   I got to my feet. Cornmeal fell off my head and made a
circle around my feet. “Hey!”
    Someone grabbed me and held on. “Do not interfere. It
is the way.”
  I was getting extremely tired of “the way.” Just the
thought of letting this clown in the mask hit all those boys
made my blood boil. I thrust away the hands holding me
and yelled as the masked figure hit the boy again. “Knock
it off!”
  It was obvious no one was going to stop them, so I
went over and placed myself between the masked dancers
and the quivering boy.
   “Whatever this means, you can do it without hurting
him.”
  “Life is pain. Truth is pain,” Hawk said from behind
me. “He is not hurt, Cherijo.”
   “He has welts on his back. Bleeding welts,” I pointed
out. “You’re going to have to do this another way,
because I’m not sitting here and watching you beat these
children.”
  “The blows must be given.”
   “Fine.” I pushed the nearly naked boy toward the fire,
stripped off my tunic, and presented my back to the two
masked dancers. “I’ll take them.”
  “You would have to take three for each male child.”
  “I said, I’ll take them.”
   Hawk shook his head. “You would have to take them
in silence.”
  “What happens if I yell?”
  “You shame the young men of our tribe.”
   “Changing Woman offers her compassion for our
children,” one of the older women called out. “The
Goddess cannot be refused.”
   The dancers looked at Hawk, who made an obscure
gesture and hobbled away. The kids were staring at me
like I was crazy. I folded my arms and glared at the dancer
in the black mask.
  “You heard her. I’m a goddess and you can’t refuse
me. Have fun.”
   He hit me. The bundle of sticks was actually a pile of
reeds tied together, and they hurt. I withstood the blow,
and the next ten, in silence. Hawk watched me from a few
feet away.
  The black-masked dancer kept hitting me, on the back,
the arms, and the abdomen. The other dancer pelted me
with cornmeal. The kids began chanting my name, low at
first, then louder and louder until they were practically
shouting it.
   I was busy biting my tongue and multiplying. Three
blows for each of the eleven boys at the fire. Thirty-three
hits. By the time I figured that out I was halfway there, I
also started to weave on my feet from the pain.
  “Who stands with Changing Woman?” one of the older
women yelled.
    Two of the Night Horse women came forward and
took hold of my arms. That helped—I was about ready to
pass out—and supported me. The black-masked dancer
was hitting me harder and harder each time. Blood began
trickling down my back and arms. My abdominal muscles
started to cramp. Not being able to make a sound really
made it all the more interesting.
   Twenty-nine. Thirty. I was barely aware of the last of
the blows. The final one hit me squarely between the
shoulder blades, and would have driven me to my knees if
the other women weren’t holding me. Then all the chanting
and yelling stopped, and the dancers stood in front of me
and removed their masks.
   The one in the white mask was Kegide. The one in the
black mask was Milass. As if I hadn’t guessed that.
   I saw the faces of the kids go rigid with shock as
Kegide and Milass put the masks on the ground. Hawk
was handing out little pouches of corn pollen to all the
kids.
  “So you see now the secret of the Yei. Men and
women must do much of the work of the
gods—remember this.”
   The kids all came forward to sprinkle the masks with
corn pollen. Kegide even picked up the mask so they
could look through the eye holes.
  “You must never tell what you saw this night to
anyone. Especially not your younger brothers and sisters,”
Hawk said.
   The children all promised to keep quiet about the
initiation. Then they started surrounding me, and touching
the bloody wounds on my arms and back. Some of them
smeared my blood in parallel lines on their faces.
   “You are truly Changing Woman.”
    “I was truly in a lot of pain. ”Thanks.“ I let one of the
women lead me over to mat, and sank down on it. I
couldn’t seem to catch my breath. One by one the kids
filed out of the hogan, along with the adults, until only
Hawk and I were left.
  “That was a foolish thing to do, patcher.” He brought a
bowl of water and started washing the blood from my
back. “What is this?”
   I tried to look over my shoulder. “What?”
  “The cuts are already scabbing over.” Hawk squeezed
out the rag and the water in the bowl turned pink.
   “I heal really fast,” I said.
   He sat back on his heels. “You have been touched by
the gods. Like our chief.”
   Raising my arms to put on my tunic wasn’t an option
for a couple of hours. “Yeah, and I didn’t enjoy it. Can I
borrow a shirt?”



                 PART FOUR
                   Equity

            CHAPTER SIXTEEN
                                                  «^»

                          Twins
The day after my initiation, Reever was summoned with
the other players to go to a pregame press conference at
the arena. I concealed the palm-sized sensor unit I’d
modified to double as a medical scanner in his right
forearm pad, and suggested a couple of ways for him to
get the scans I needed on the chief.
   “If you can’t get anything else, do the cerebral scan.
Try putting your arm on his shoulder. Position the unit
directly behind his head and press the second and third
buttons simultaneously. You can pretend to be giving him
a hug or something.”
   “I’ll do what I can.”
   I looked at the vid unit, which was broadcasting news
coverage of the pre-World Game festivities. “When
you’re talking to the media, remember to keep your helmet
on.” I tucked his queue into the back of his jersey. “The
last thing we need is for them to find out ‘The Wind’ is a
wanted fugitive.”
  He ran a finger down the side of my face. “What are
you going to do while I’m gone?”
  “Figure out a minor mystery.” I caught his hand and
squeezed it. “You be careful.”
   After Reever left for the surface, I casually strolled out
to the central cavern, where the women were preparing
food for the midday meal. I hadn’t bothered to help
myself to the community stew in weeks, but now I went
over and examined it with interest.
  One of the older women beckoned to me. “Are you
hungry? I have bread from the morning meal.”
  “No, thank you. I was just wondering, are those
potatoes?” I pointed to an open mesh sack next to the flat
boulder used for food prep.
   “Yes. New potatoes, very fresh.”
   Fresh. In an underground cave. With no sunlight. “May
I have one?”
   She nodded, a little puzzled. “You would eat it raw?”
   I smiled and shook my head. “No, I don’t think so.”
    I went over and took a potato from the sack. I brushed
a little dirt from it before I dug a hole in the hot ash with a
stick and buried it. Then I started to walk back to the
tunnels.
   “Patcher, what about your potato?”
   “It has to cook. I’ll be back in a little while.”
   When I got to Medical, I made a slide from the dirt
concealed in my palm. The analyzer balked a little at my
input analysis request, but eventually it identified three
different organic compounds, including horse manure.
   My conclusion: The potatoes hadn’t been grown this
far underground.
   Working off the theory that using the subway system to
transport food to Leyaneyaniteh from the surface village
would be impractical, I went back to the central cavern
and did some discreet reconnaissance from behind the
cover of an unoccupied hogan.
   The women working on the stew occasionally got up
and wandered back toward a certain tunnel. When I
judged the timing was right, I edged along the wall and
went into the tunnel.
   It was another section I hadn’t been permitted to
explore, part of another subway station. I kept listening
for footsteps as I cautiously made my way deeper into the
network of platforms and recessed storage areas.
    I saw the sunlight before I found the storeroom. It
streamed into the tunnel from an open doorway,
illuminating everything with a faint, golden glow. Holding
my breath, I edged into the room.
   Sacks and boxes of vegetables were neatly sorted and
stored inside. Above my head, sunlight poured in from a
narrow square opening lined with some kind of alloy.
    Even better, there was a square wooden platform
hooked to a pulley-and-chain fall hanging from the shaft. It
was simple to see how it worked. Whenever they needed
something, all they had to do was pull the chain, which
hauled the platform up through the shaft. Food was
loaded onto the platform at the surface, then lowered back
down. A primitive, but ingenious, method of assuring the
tribe got their veggies.
   I got under the shaft and looked up. It was longer than
I’d expected, maybe as much as five hundred feet straight
up. The shaft itself was too narrow to accommodate more
than a few boxes or sacks of vegetables.
  But perhaps one small, skinny Terran could fit through.
   I heard voices coming near and promptly dived behind
a stack of crates. A rat squealed as I dropped and ran
past my face to cringe in a nearby corner. I held my breath
as the storage room door opened.
   “We need three more bushels of corn for the
ceremonial. And bring some of those new carrots. Burrow
Owl wants to mash them for her little one.”
  “They were sweet, were they not?”
  “Sweet is all that greedy baby wants.”
   The women laughed and gossiped as they collected the
food, then left. I lifted my head cautiously, then rolled my
eyes as the rat stared suspiciously at me from its corner.
  “I wouldn’t hang around here, if I were you. Burrow
Owl’s kid may decide she wants some stew to go with her
mashed carrots.”



   I got back to the central cavern without raising an
alarm, and retrieved my now-baked potato. It proved to
be delicious. I made a mental note to prepare some for
Reever when he returned from the arena, and returned to
Medical to run the daily cardiac series on Shropana.
   I’d been backing down on his sedation, gradually
weaning him off the heavy dosage. Now he was able to
respond physically to reflex and verbal stimulation,
although the few times he’d opened his eyes, he hadn’t
acted very lucid.
   Today he was looking better, and his vitals had inched
up another few digits out of borderline red range. The
Jarvik was thumping along without a hitch. He responded
to my voice by opening his eyes and trying to focus on
me.
   “Hello, Patril.” I checked his infuser lines and catheters
before giving him his daily sponge bath. The surgical site
was also healing nicely. “Miss me while I was gone?”
  His eyelids fluttered. A sound came from his lips.
Something that distinctly resembled “no.”
   “Don’t spare my feelings now.” I finished the bath and
carefully changed his berth linens. The liquid nutrient diet
I’d put him on had eliminated twenty-five percent of
excess body fat, so it was getting easier to handle him.
“Your extra heart is working fine, and you’re making me
very happy by not getting any unnecessary infections.
Now if I can get you to a League medical facility, and
someone can convince you to stop lining your vessels
with enough plaque to choke an elephant, you’ll be able to
start chasing me again in a few months.”
  He groaned something in his native language, too low
or too obscene for my wristcom to translate.
  “Tell you what. When Reever gets here, I’ll ask him
what that means.”
   Reever came back that night, a study in surrealistic
contrasts. He carried a bouquet of exotic-looking orchids,
a plaque with his Indian nickname on it, and a black eye
that spilled over into a huge bruise on his left cheek.
   I looked up from the chart I was studying and jumped
to my feet. “What happened? God, you look like you
went ten rounds with the front end of a glidetruck.”
   “Rico does not like having champagne spilled down the
front of his suit.” He handed me the flowers and plaque,
and sat down on the exam table. “Especially in front of
the media.”
   I set his stuff aside and pushed open his swollen eyelid
to check his eye. Other than the surrounding bruising and
some broken capillaries beneath the cornea, the eye
wasn’t injured. The orbital bone and cheekbone had
narrowly escaped being fractured, though.
   “Bet this hurts like nobody’s business. He hit you this
hard in front of the reporters?”
   “No.” He winced as I applied a cold pack and put his
hand over it to hold it in place. “He waited until they left.”
He extended his other arm. “You’ll have to check the
scanner, but I believe I was successful.”
   “You must have been, if you got flowers and a plaque.
Your face first.” I finished examining him and only then
did I pull up the sleeve of his jersey and unwrap his
forearm. “Did you have enough time to run a full series?”
   “Yes. It was a large bottle of champagne.”
   “Sit back and relax. I’ll put your flowers in some
water.” I couldn’t help chuckling as I took the scanner
over to the console to download the data. “While you
were out carousing with the boys, I found another way to
the surface.”
   I inserted the leads into the console input panel and
transferred the information Reever had gathered. As it
downloaded, I told him about the storeroom and the
vertical air shaft.
   “Even if it is too narrow for me to traverse, you can
use it.” He changed out of his uniform.
   “Keep that pack on your face, and I’m not going
anywhere without you.” I sat back and ran an analysis on
the downloaded scans. The scrolling results made my
smile fade. “Oh, boy. This isn’t what I thought. At all.”
   He came over to study the screen while I grabbed the
ancient printed book on STDs and started flipping
through it.
  “Does it indicate that he is the carrier?”
  “Looks that way. Hang on, I need to find something.”
   I waited until the final cerebral series appeared, then
cross-referenced the results with information from the old
text. Then I put the book aside and rubbed my eyes.
  “Okay. Rico is crazy, but not for the reasons I thought.
He’s in the final stages of paretic neuro-syphilis.”
   “That is a different disease from what infects the
others?”
    “No. It just means he’s had this disease for so long it’s
worked its way into his brain tissue. It’s started destroying
it.” That’s why he hadn’t shown any latent symptoms.
He’d probably stopped showing them a long time ago.
   Reever perched on a storage container beside me while
I ran the secondary scans, and created a patient data file
on the chief. Transferring the data kept my hands busy,
while I tried to figure out the next move.
   The problem with tertiary-stage syphilis, especially
when it affected the nervous system, was treatment. I
could destroy the bacteria in his body, but I had no way
to repair the destruction it had already caused.
   “Here.” I handed him the book. “Read the section on
long-term effects on the neural system.” Then something
caught my eye. “What? Can’t be.”
  Reever looked up from the page he was reading.
“Those are DNA patterns.”
   “They sure are.” Maybe I was just seeing things. I got
up, selected a scanner I’d just used and downloaded a file
from it. Then I created a split data screen and ran a
side-by-side comparison.
   “You already had a sample of Rico’s DNA?” Reever
asked.
  “No. This sample belongs to someone else.” The two
samples were, with the exception of gender and a few
altered physical characteristics, identical.
  “What’s wrong? You look ill.”
  I was ill. “The name.” I rested my brow against my
hand. “Of course. He’s nothing if not consistent and
methodical.”
  “What are you talking about?”
  I tapped the screen. “Rico’s not an only child, Reever.
These DNA sequences match. He’s a twin.”
  “Who is his brother?”
  You have been touched by the gods. Like our chief.
  “Not a brother.” I shut the display off. “A sister. Me.”



   I got up and checked on Shropana, then wandered
around the alcove for a few minutes. Reever left me alone.
He probably guessed I wasn’t capable of coherent
speech.
  It wasn’t every day I found out I had a brother.
   I didn’t know exactly which one he was, but Joseph
had created nine other clones before me. When we’d
confronted each other the first time about my origins, my
creator had told me that none of the others had developed
properly. I’d assumed that meant they’d died.
  Now I had proof at least one of them was alive.
   “When I was a kid, I hated being an only child,” I said
as I sterilized the already-clean spare monitor rig. “You
were an only child. Didn’t you hate it?”
   Reever eased the sterilizer from my white-knuckled
hand and tossed it on my worktable. Then he handed me a
single orchid. “I had no basis of comparison.”
   “I did. All my father’s colleagues had at least two kids.
I’d have given anything to have a brother or sister. I
would have loved it.” My face felt hot and stiff as I
touched the pale lavender, waxy petals of the bloom.
   “Now that I know the connection, I see the
resemblance.” Reever brushed a piece of hair from my
face. “He has the same features, the same cast to his hair.”
  I’d never noticed, but then, I hadn’t been looking.
“What did Joseph do to him, Reever? What did he do to
all the others?”
  “We will find out.”
    “Not like we can go back to the estate and ask him.” I
shook my head. “I wonder if Rico knows what he is. Of
course, he has to know something. How else could he
have found this place, unless he’d lived in the
underground lab? But how did he get away? Did Joseph
put him up for adoption? Did he escape? Does he know
where the others are?” I glanced at the blank vid screen,
still seeing the ghost images of those matching patterns.
“Does he know about me?”
   “He must. There are too many concurrences in our
present situation for Rico not to have extensive knowledge
of you and Joseph.” He turned me around to face him.
“What did you mean when you said he was consistent and
methodical?”
   “The name Rico. Joseph would have named him the
same way he named me—with the experiment
designation.” So much for my very original name. “The
chief is about thirty-four years old, so it’s safe to assume
he’s Comprehensive Human Enhancement Research I.D.
‘C’ Organism.”
  “C.H.E.R.I.C.O.”
   “He had to know about me. Why else would he kidnap
us from the lab? Twice?” So many things made
sense—and didn’t. My head whirled with the potential
avenues of disaster. “Hawk told me Rico won’t be back
until just before the World Game. We need to get some
answers, Duncan.”
  “Agreed. We should find out what else Hawk knows
about your brother.”
   My brother. I looked down, and saw I had crushed the
fragile orchid in the tight knot of one fist. Slowly I
uncurled my fingers, and let the remains drop to the floor.



   “Hello, Hawk.” I stepped inside the consecrated hogan,
with Reever right behind me. “Planning out the next dry
painting?”
  He was scratching the surface of the cave floor with a
piece of light-colored clay, which left visible lines in
complicated patterns. “Yes. I have three more to make.”
   “They tell stories, don’t they? Why don’t you make
this one about Rico being Joseph Grey Veil’s genetically
engineered human construct, and consequently, my
brother?”
   I expected the hataali to show some emotion— shock,
dismay, even disbelief—but he didn’t. Hawk only played
the silent, inscrutable Indian and kept drawing. As far as
he was concerned, Reever and I could have been invisible.
   I was tired of the lies, the Night Horse, and being
invisible. I spotted a wicker jug of water, picked it up, and
tossed the contents over Hawk’s drawing. The huge
splash erased all the spirals and patterns and stick figures,
and drenched Hawk. This time he reacted.
  “What are you doing?”
  “Getting your attention. Now that I have it, tell me
about my brother, the chief.”
  He glanced at the entrance to the hogan, then shook his
head. “Do not say that aloud.”
   “Why the big secret? There some kind of taboo against
cloning? I mean, other than our dastardly whiteskin laws
prohibiting it. Or doesn’t he want anyone to know he’s
forgotten to send me Christmas signals for the last thirty
years?”
   “He has only spoken of it to me once, when we first
came here.” Hawk used a piece of worn cloth to wipe up
the floor of the hogan. “He told Kegide and Milass and I
about the Shaman and how he had been brought into this
world from the great beyond.”
   Sounded like a legend Rico would invent. “Sorry,
there’s no great beyond. He came from an embryonic
chamber, where he was cloned from Joseph’s cells. Just
like me.” And what else had the chief invented?
  “No one may understand how the gods work their
magic.”
  “Joseph Grey Veil is not a god. Neither is Cherico.”
   “Jericho. That is what he called himself when he came
to Four Mountains.”
  “How old was he? How did he get there?”
   “I’m not sure. Fourteen, fifteen years old, perhaps. He
was found on reservation land, injured and near death. He
ran away from the hospital the next morning. Milass found
him hiding in the pinyon groves. We concealed him, cared
for him.”
   Hawk went on to describe the younger Jericho, later
adopted by Milass’s family, gradually gaining influence
among the young men of the Navajo. He gathered enough
followers to make the tribal council concerned, then
opposed them on the issue of deporting illegal Indian
hybrids. In a bold move, he led the men and women who
would become the Night Horse off the reservation in one
night. Hawk and Milass were already his lieutenants by
then.
   “He kept his promises to us. He created Leyaneyaniteh
so the hybrids would be safe. He mended the broken ties
with the Four Mountain clans. He purchased the Gliders
and ensured the entire tribe would never want for
anything.”
   “What about freedom, to come and go as you please?
What about proper health care? What about not asking
men to risk electrocution in order to donate to the tribal
fund?”
  “You do not understand what he did for us. The
whiteskins were going to send every half-Indian off-planet,
and our own families would do nothing to stop them.
Rico stood up for us, spoke for us, protected us. We had
nowhere to go; he made a place for everyone.”
   “Giving everything he had,” Reever said. “The Navajo
have great regard for someone who sacrifices himself for
the good of the less fortunate.”
   Hawk gestured toward the door. “And so it was.”
   “That’s only the beginning of the story. What about
when things started to go wrong?” He didn’t want to vilify
his beloved chief, so I did it for him. “My best guess is
the syphilis progressed to his brain after you established
your underground here. You’d remember, he would have
been a little irritable at first. Quick to anger. Irrational now
and then.
   “As the brain tissue deteriorated, he would have gone
from cranky right into scary. The temper tantrums. The
rampages. Memory loss and delusions. How many years
has he been abusing the men and women of the tribe?
Three? Five?”
  “There has been no abuse.”
   “You mean, everyone just let him have whatever he
wanted? Out of respect? Or terror? I’ve seen Rico slit a
man’s throat and walk away whistling. He nearly beat
Ilona to death. I think those were mild incidents. Come
on, Hawk, tell me, what’s he do on his bad days?”
  Hawk wouldn’t look at me. “There has been no
abuse.”
  “He won’t condemn him, Cherijo.” Reever took my
hand. “Put aside your anger and ask him what we need to
know.”
  Easier said. “Your chief is a very brilliant, sick,
dangerous man. I need to know why he kidnapped us, and
what that has to do with Joseph Grey Veil. I need to know
why Rico is sending so many men back to the Four
Mountains reservation. Why this World Game is so
important to him.”
  Hawk’s head sagged against the wall. “I don’t know.
He hates the Shaman, but has never told us why. He needs
both of you, but he will not say for what. He sends our
men back to the Navajo to spread the Night Horse way.
Having the Gliders play in the World Game has always
been one of his greatest obsessions.”
   “Would he confide in anyone? Milass? One of the
other men?”
  Hawk shook his head. “He keeps his own counsel.”
  “Do you know if he ever lived at The Grey Veils?”
  “He once spoke of it. He called it his prison for thirteen
years. I knew then the Shaman was his father.”
   Knowing Joseph, I’d bet Rico had been subjected to
some of the same testing and training that I’d been. “It
doesn’t make sense. Even if he was a total failure, Joseph
would have kept him as a baseline, a yardstick to measure
the success of future constructs. And why didn’t he do
anything about the syphilis he’s carrying? Joseph would
have made him take some kind of rudimentary medical
courses. I had my first anatomy and physiology courses
before I began primary school.”
  “I must complete the ceremonial, but the Night Way
will not help our chief.” Hawk looked hopeful. “Can your
way save him?”
   “I can get rid of the syphilis, but given the advanced
stage of his disease, that won’t do much. He’s teetering
on the edge of full-blown psychosis, and the brain damage
he has is irreversible.”
   “He would never take medicines or allow doctors to
touch him. That has not changed since he came to the
Four Mountains. Even now, he has his food tasted before
he eats it.”
  “I’ll find a way.”



   Before I could do anything about my long-lost brother
or the venereal disease that was driving him insane,
disaster struck on two fronts.
   The sound woke up me and Reever close to dawn after
the last day of the Night Way ceremonial. We had stayed
up most of the night, and Reever was permitted to
observe the Dance of the Atsálei and the Dance of the
Naakhaí, and join in on a beautiful sing called “The Song
of the House Made of Dawn.” While I already knew I had
no singing voice whatsoever, I discovered my husband
had a rather startling, mellow tenor.
   “You could be an opera singer, with that voice of
yours,” I said as we made our way to our hogan. “No
kidding, this could be a real career option for you.”
  “I doubt it.” He gave me a pointed look. “You,
however, should not sing.”
   “So I’ve been told, many times.” I ducked inside and
knelt to bank the fire. I felt exhausted, wrung out from all
the revelations of the day and the endless turning wheel of
my thoughts. I smothered a yawn. “What other hidden
talents have you been keeping from me?”
   He pulled off his tunic. “You will have to discover
them for yourself.”
   The last of the firelight danced over his skin, and
suddenly I wasn’t so tired anymore. “Sounds like a
challenge.”
  Understandably I was very groggy when, several hours
later, things started to rumble and shake. Reever, who was
already up and dressed, tossed me my clothes before he
disappeared out the door. I had to scramble to catch up.
  The entire tribe assembled in the center of the cavern,
while the noises got louder and closer.
   “What’s happening?” I asked Hawk when he limped by
us.
   “The Shaman has returned with more men, and has
blown a passage through to the east subway station. We
think he’s using more explosives to try to create an
entrance to the inner tunnels.” A sound from the other side
of the cavern made us both turn. “The League forces have
also been concentrating their efforts, working their way in
from the west.”
   Attacked from two sides with enemies all around us.
Would I ever stop getting in these ridiculous
predicaments? Then I remembered Ilona and the outcasts.
Their new sanctuary was out where the League was
currently blowing things up.
  I grabbed Reever’s arm. “We’ve got to get to the
hybrids before Shropana’s forces do.”
   Dhreen appeared beside me, his face still bruised and
pale from the beating Rico had given him. “Doc, we’ve
got to get Ilona and the others out of those pipelines.”
   I saw all the entrances were being guarded. “That may
be more difficult than you think.” I spotted Milass, who
was ordering everyone in different directions. Little twerp
looked like he was having the time of his life. “Stay here.
It’s time for me to collect on a favor.”
   Milass was snapping out orders to his men and barely
glanced at me when I came up. “Move the children and
the women into the quake bunker. Have the men destroy
the perimeter tunnels, all except the ones to the village and
the arena drop point.”
  “Excuse me.”
  Now he looked at me. “What?”
  “There are people out in those sewer passages. We
need to get help to them, too.”
    “The unclean?” I nodded. “The chief already told you,
let them die.” He turned his back on me.
   “No, I won’t.” I went around and planted myself in
front of him. “Who came to me a few days ago, begging
for help?”
  “That was different.” He got a besotted look in his
eyes. “Ilona Red Faun is not cursed.”
  “She couldn’t stay here. Guess who I sent her to a few
days ago?” At his gape, I nodded. “Uh-huh. She’s hiding
out with them, and they don’t have a chance against
armed League troops. They’ll all be slaughtered.”
    He hit me, and I went down. “How could you send her
to them?”
   “Why?” I pushed my hair out of my face and glared up
at him. “What else could I do? I didn’t see you
volunteering to help me with the problem—and you’re the
one who dumped her on me.”
  “They are cursed. Rico forbids us to go near them.”
   “They’re not anymore. I’ve cured their curse. I can
cure everyone, now that I know what it is, and who’s
spreading it.” I resisted the urge to tell him exactly who
had been cursing the Night Horse. “You’ve got to send
some men into the sewers and get them out of there.”
   “Even if I disobeyed the chief, my men couldn’t get to
them. Your League pursuers have collapsed the western
perimeter tunnels. They’re cut off, probably buried alive.”
Hatred replaced the anguish in his expression. “You have
her blood on your hands.”
  He kicked me out of his way and stalked off.
   Reever and Dhreen got on either side of me and
grabbed when I would have gone after the demonic dwarf.
    “They’re trapped,” I said to Reever. “We have to get
to them. Do you know a way out of here that will take us
to them?”
  “No. But Hawk might.”
   We found Hawk outside the Night Way hogan, getting
ready to destroy the last of his dry paintings. He listened,
then shook his head.
   “Is that a no, you don’t know the way, or no, you
can’t help us?” I frowned when he squatted beside the dry
painting. “Hawk, this is important.”
  Dhreen got disgusted fast. “Let’s get out of here. Every
minute we waste on him, she could be dying.”
   “Wait.” I watched Hawk’s patient sprinkling of the
dried flower petals and stomped down the impulse to kick
the ’iikááh into a big smear. Then something caught my
eye. “Reever, you said the tunnels were laid out like a
web, right?”
  “Yes.”
   “Look.” I nodded toward the spiral pattern Hawk was
creating on top of the dry painting mural. “This was
finished. He doesn’t do that when they’re finished.”
  Reever studied the new design. “He’s drawing us a
map.”
   It must have been the only way Hawk could help us
without disobeying the chief’s orders. On a hunch, I
crouched down beside him. “Where are the outcasts?
Show me.”
   He stopped sprinkling the larkspur petals and discarded
them on one side in favor of some red sand. Carefully he
made a small dot on one of the outer “web” strands.
  “And where are we?”
  He sprinkled another red dot in the center of the web.
  Reever studied the dry painting for a moment. “I know
where they are. How do we get to them safely?”
   Hawk sprinkled a thin blue line from our position,
through the web of tunnels, and over to where the
outcasts were located. I looked up at Reever, who
nodded.
  “Would you take the cats up out of here?” Hawk
nodded, and I squeezed his arm. “Thank you.”
   He started to chant as he added swirls of red along the
outer ring of the design.

  “The enemy is everywhere,
  The enemy is inside us,
  The enemy is outside us.
  We walk the rainbow path
  To fight the enemy within us.”

  “He is marking the position of the League troops,”
Reever said.
   I judged the distances. “God, they’re really close.”
Hawk got to his feet, destroyed the entire dry painting with
a couple of shuffling steps, and left the hogan.


        CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
                                               «^»

           Change of Course
Since everyone had moved to the emergency bunker, we
only had to slip past one of Rico’s guards. I suggested
the smallest one might be the easiest to jump, but Reever
overruled me.
   “That man.” He pointed to the largest of the guards.
  “Reever, he’s twice your size. Forget about it.”
  Before I could stop him, Reever went over to the big
guard, and spoke in low tones with him. Then my
husband turned and gestured for us to come to him.
   “This redeems my debt to you, Nilch’i’,” the guard
said, then he turned and faced the stone wall.
  Reever led us past him without incident.
  “What debt does he have to you?” I asked.
   “You are not the only one who has favors to collect. I
took a penalty for him during a game.”
   “Copycat.” I glanced back at the guard. “So why is he
facing the wall?”
   “Milass ordered him to see that no one went into the
tunnels. By doing so, he was not disobeying the
secondario’s orders.” He stopped me when I would have
turned toward Medical. “Where are you going?”
   “To get Shropana. You’re coming with me. This may
be the only chance we have to get him up to the surface.”
  Shropana was unconscious again, thanks to the
continuous sedation I’d been keeping him on. I hooked
up the external pump to the side of the gurney and had the
men carefully transfer him to it. His artificial heart was still
operating smoothly, my subsequent scan revealed.
  “Whatever you do, don’t drop him.” I downloaded his
chart onto a datapad and placed it by his side. “And don’t
knock those pressure lines out of the pump, or his chest.”
   Dhreen and Reever handled the gurney while I packed a
medical case. The outcasts had doubtless suffered some
injuries from the explosions, and I hoped they wouldn’t
be severe. There was only so much I could carry. I
spotted the Lok-Teel, looked at Shropana, then slipped
the ambulatory mold in my pocket.
   When I was finished, the men pushed Shropana’s
gurney out into the tunnel and we began following Hawk’s
route to the western sewer system.
   The tunnels were in bad shape. Loose rock had fallen
everywhere, and the stone walls still shuddered with each
new explosion. The closer we got to the sewers, the
louder the booms grew. Dust and small rocks began
raining down on us, and I held my case over Shropana’s
chest to protect him. We edged around a couple of
half-sprung traps until we got out of the interior tunnels
and into the old conduit system.
    We emerged into the main sewer line, and discovered
all the lights had been knocked out. It was too dark to see
what lay ahead. I sniffed the air, and smelled smoke.
   Not fire. I’d been badly burned in the past, first during
a mercenary attack on the Sunlace, then repeatedly
branded on Catopsa. As a result, I had an enduring and
understandable case of pyrophobia. Please, God, not
another fire.
   “Wait.” I pulled an optical emitter from my medical
case. “If memory serves me, we need to go left up here,
then walk a hundred yards and turn right.”
  It wasn’t easy to do any of that. The damage from the
explosives was much worse out here, and the fragile
concrete pipes had partially collapsed. Mounds of soil
and rock created a labyrinth for us to wade through.
   “Where are we?” I asked Reever.
   “About forty feet from where the outcasts were
hidden.”
   I looked around. “There?” I pointed to a recessed area
above the jumbled rubble that had been a processing
station.
  Reever nodded.
   Small hills of debris blocked every possible approach
to the recess. We could climb them, but there was no way
Dhreen and Reever were going to be able to get the gurney
through. “How can we get to them?”
   “We get them to come to us.” Dhreen walked over to
the pile of loose rock and climbed up until he reached the
top. “I can see some light from behind it. Duncan, help
me clear this stone away.”
   An hour of moving rocks made enough of an opening
for the outcasts to push through from the other side. To
our disappointment, no one emerged.
   “Maybe they’re farther down the other way?” I tried to
see, but the emitter’s power cells were starting to fade.
  “No, it has to be on this side.” Reever went around
another hill and vanished. A moment later, he called back,
“Over here.”
   I helped Dhreen maneuver the gurney around the
rubble. We had to wrench Shropana through a tight spot,
and I held my breath as more rock slid down and pelted
us.
  The stench of something burning got worse.
   I tried not to panic, not to allow my lungs to solidify
from it. Sweat broke out all over me, and I started to
shake. My throat was closing up. Soon I wouldn’t be able
to breathe.
   Images of the fire on board the Sunlace, when I’d lost
Tonetka and very nearly the use of both of my hands,
rushed into my mind. I hadn’t had a full-blown anxiety
attack since leaving Catopsa, but I hadn’t been near any
uncontrollable fires since then, either.
   “Reever, what’s burning?” I looked for signs of flame
shooting out of some hidden recess. “Is this because of
the explosives?”
  He helped me and Dhreen wrest Shropana’s gurney
toward the next opening. “It is from the explosives. The
League uses thermal detonator.”
  That should have reassured me. It didn’t. “Maybe I
should sit down for a minute.”
   Reever climbed down and held out his hand. “Squilyp
told us this would happen, and when it did, for you to
confront it.”
    “What does that Omorr know anyway?” I grumbled as
I threaded my fingers through Reever’s. Fear had clamped
around my neck like an invisible bonesetter, so I tried to
focus on the men and the reason we were trying to kill
ourselves. “Do you see them? Are they close?”
   “There’s another one right up ahead. In there.” Dhreen
pointed to a shadowy recess in a section of pipe a few
feet away.
  “Leave Shropana here,” Reever said. “We’ll come
back for him.”
   We had to climb and crawl over more rubble to get to
the outcasts’ hiding place. I jerked a few times I felt
something a little warmer than it should have been, but
saw no fire. Which was a good thing. I think I would have
started screaming hysterically if I’d spotted so much as a
spark.
   The recess had once housed some kind of pumping
station, judging from the remnants of the equipment.
  A crude door had been rigged and now stood jammed
and inoperable.
  I felt the metal door, which was cool, then put my
mouth by the small open space. “Is anyone in there?”
  A chorus of relieved voices answered me.
    “Step back, Cherijo.” Reever nodded toward Dhreen,
and the two of them grabbed the door and wrenched.
Metal groaned, some loose rock fell, and then they pulled
it out, far enough for the outcasts to fit through.
   They started emerging, covered with dust and grinning.
A few were injured, and I herded them to one side for a
quick triage. Dhreen yelled and swept Ilona up in his arms
the moment she appeared.
   “It is good that you came to find us,” one of the men
said.
  “I’m sure you would have made your way out
eventually. True love conquers all.” I watched Ilona cover
Dhreen’s grinning face with kisses, and shook my head. “I
can just imagine what kind of kids they’ll have.
Short-tempered mercenaries. The universe may never be
safe again.”



   While I dealt with the minor injuries, Reever gathered
the outcasts together and decided with them how to
proceed.
   “We have family on the surface who will help us travel
to the Four Mountains reservation,” the oldest man said.
“We have voted and decided to rejoin our Navajo clans.”
   That must have been a tough decision to make, seeing
as every one of the outcasts still had family members
among the Night Horse.
  “Weren’t these the same clans who were willing to let
you crossbreeds be deported?” I mentioned.
   “We have made contact with the tribal council. They
never wished us to leave, and will not turn us over to the
authorities. The chief deceived us.”
  Another of Rico’s many sins. I finished wrapping a
support around a sprained wrist and went over to the map
Reever was scratching in the dirt.
   “You’ll need to get past the League troops, and they’re
probably all over the subway system.” I pointed to the
place on the crude map where the outcasts had helped me
take Reever to Joe’s underground facility. “There’s a
surface access hatch here, right before you enter the lab. It
leads to the back maintenance shed on the estate. I doubt
the League is watching Joe’s grounds. I’d take that.”
   “What about drones? As soon as they see us, we will
be detained.”
   I thought for a moment. “Is it October twelfth or
thirteenth?”
  Reever answered that one. “It is the twelfth.”
   “Tell the drones you’re architectural students from the
University of California. A group of them comes on the
twelfth every year to take a tour of the estate. Thank the
drone for its hospitality, and walk away.”
  The outcast looked down at his dusty garments. “We
do not resemble students.”
    “On the contrary.” I smiled. “Native American fashion
is the latest trend among young people. The drones won’t
blip a sensor over your appearance.”
   “What about him?” Dhreen jerked a thumb in
Shropana’s direction. “They’re not going to think he’s a
student.”
  He had a point. “We’ll take him out another way.”
   We led the outcasts back through the opening we’d
created and a couple of the uninjured volunteered to carry
Shropana. Then we slowly and cautiously made our way
toward the subway tunnels.
  “Stop,” Reever said as we reached the junction tunnel.
“Be as silent as possible from here.”
    We could hear the troops moving on the other side of
the walls, and everyone made an effort to be quiet as we
filed in. Dhreen, Ilona, and I ended up toward the rear of
the group, and we were the first to hear the approaching
steps behind us.
   “Everyone, down!” I hissed as loudly as I dared, then
shrank into the shadows. Beside me, Dhreen wrapped his
arms around Ilona.
   A detachment of soldiers passed through the tunnels,
just where we had been standing only moments ago. I
stared at Dhreen, knowing one word from him would
bring the League troops running. He had nothing to worry
about, he’d only be deported. Terrans didn’t even jail
aliens—they considered it inhumane treatment of human
prisoners.
  He’d also get a hefty reward for turning me in—
enough to give him and Ilona a start wherever they
wanted.
   As if he could read my thoughts, I saw Dhreen flash me
a smile. And he didn’t make a peep.
   The troops disappeared down the tunnel, and we all let
out a collective sigh of relief.
  “You’ve certainly changed,” I said to Dhreen.
  “Maybe.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Maybe not.”
  “No more talking until we reach the surface,” Reever
warned in a barely audible whisper.
   We got the Night Horse out first, but Dhreen insisted
on staying with us to help carry Shropana. Deliberately,
we moved him to another access hatch on the other side
of the estate, one I knew was regularly patrolled by
security drones.
   He was beginning to come out of the anesthetic as we
hauled him up the ladder and out of the small portal
behind the front gate station. Shropana saw me and
struggled for a moment, until Reever clamped an arm
around his shoulders and pinned him to the gur-ney. I
knelt beside it, and spoke close to Shropana’s ear.
   “All the details of your surgery and treatment are on the
datapad beside you. Tell them to get you to a medical
facility, as soon as possible.”
  “You… did… this?”
  “No thanks are necessary.”
  He closed his eyes and didn’t make another sound.
Apparently he thought so, too.
  “I’ll stay with him,” Dhreen said. “I’ll point them in the
wrong direction when they want to know where you are.”
   Now he wanted me to trust him again. Funny, but I was
inclined to do just that. To a certain extent. “You just want
the reward for recovering him.”
   He grinned. “I haven’t changed that much.” He looked
at Reever. “Why don’t the two of you get out of here
now, while you can?”
   “I can’t go. Not until I treat the infected members of
the tribe. Especially the hybrids—they may never see
another doctor.”
  “Still immolating yourself for your patients.”
  “Sacrificing, and yes, that’s part of the job.”
  He reached out as if to hug me, then thought better of it
and offered his hand. “I’ll see you again, Doc.”
   I took it. “You still owe me free passage. When I’m
done here, we’re going to need to get off this planet in a
hurry.”
  He lifted his eyebrows. “I don’t have a ship.”
  “So? When has that ever stopped you?” I took the
Lok-Teel from my pocket and handed it to him. “Put on a
happy Terran face, and go up there and steal one.”
  There were no guards left inside the cave when Reever
and I returned. Kegide, however, appeared before us and
made some urgent gestures.
  “Do you think the League will get this far?”
  “Possibly.” Reever scanned the area. “The tribe took
whatever they could carry, and all the food stores are
gone.”
   Kegide was hopping from foot to foot now and making
the low, toneless sounds that indicated he was beyond
agitated.
  “We’d better go with him.”
  Kegide led us past the emergency bunker, which was
completely empty, and down a long, narrow corridor that
ended in a passage up toward diffused light.
   I hung back for a minute. The entire area above us was
crawling with Joseph’s men. “I can’t go on the surface,
Kegide.”
   “I don’t think this goes to the surface, Cherijo. Wait
here while I check.” Reever climbed up the ladder and had
a look around, then descended again. “This leads to old
maintenance tunnels under the city arena.”
  I looked up. “You mean, the shockball arena is right
over our heads?”
  “Yes.”
   “Wonderful.” I shouldered my medical case and
started climbing. “Nothing like hiding in plain view.”
   “I doubt the officials even know these tunnels exist.”
He climbed up before me, and we swung off the ladder
into a pristine passage of whitewashed plascrete. “Wait
here.”
   Reever silently strode down the passage and
disappeared. I stayed close to the hatch, in case I had to
make a quick exit. A few minutes later he returned.
    “They have occupied some of the old storage facilities
at the other end of this passage.” Reever didn’t look
happy. “Milass tells me the chief wishes to see you at
once.”
  “He isn’t happy that we stayed behind, right?”
  “He is… disturbed.”
   Great. Rico in a psychotic rage was no one to fool
with. “I don’t suppose there’s any way I can get out of
this?”
  “I will be with you.”
   We went to the storage areas, where the Night Horse
had set up a temporary camp, and Milass wordlessly led
us to Rico. The chief was working on a computer console
in front of an entire wall paved with vid screens. He hailed
me as I walked in.
  “Patcher! We thought we had lost you.”
   There was expensive computer equipment crammed in
the room, more than I’d seen even in Joe’s lab. I struggled
to remain calm and keep my tone innocent. “I had to
retrieve some medical supplies.” I held up my case for
emphasis.
  “Come here.”
  I glanced at Reever, who nodded, then slowly
approached Rico.
   Rico. Jericho. My brother. Even after seeing the DNA
strands, it was a little hard to believe. Then I saw what
Reever had mentioned—same hair, same eyes, same bone
structure. Even our noses made a matched set.
  Is that the reason I can sense his feelings? The fabled
mental connection between twins?
   We’d never shared a womb, the physician in me
immediately pointed out. And we weren’t really twins—I
was at least four or five years younger than Rico. But
perhaps it didn’t matter. Maybe the connection was
formed beyond gestation, in spite of distance and
chronological age.
  “You are nervous,” Rico said.
  I was terrified. I didn’t know what to do, what to say to
him. “Just a little unsettled. What’s up?”
   “The Shaman has been busy.” He tapped the console,
and an image of Joseph Grey Veil came up on the dusty
screen.
  Our creator. “What does he want now?”
  “Listen.”
   Rico enabled the audio, and Joseph’s voice came
through the panel speaker.
   “—have combed the tunnels and neutralized all the
traps. They have also placed pulse charges in several
areas. You are boxed in. Release my property, or I will
have the devices detonated—”
   “He has been transmitting it continuously since the
assaults on both sides began.” Rico switched it off. “Old
Joe thinks he will destroy my Leyaneyaniteh.”
   “He’ll do that and worse.” I stepped away from the
panel. “Why don’t I just surrender to them? As soon as
they have me, the tribe will be out of danger.”
  “The tribe has never been in any danger, I assure you.”
Rico sat back and pressed another keypad. “Bring in the
devices we recovered.”
   Several of the Night Horse men came in, each one
carrying several small metal boxes.
  Reever took one and gingerly examined it. “These are
explosives.”
   “Defused and quite harmless for the moment.” Rico
grabbed one for himself and started tossing it back and
forth between his hands. “We found every one of them
and removed them soon after they were planted by the
Shaman’s forces.”
   I watched him toy with the deadly device. Even if it was
defused, it was still a bomb, and his nonchalant fiddling
was making me feel nauseated. “You may have missed
some.”
    “No.” He gave me a gentle smile, then tossed the
device at me. I gasped as I caught it. “We saw them plant
all of them. When we came here and created this place, I
had recording drones installed in every tunnel.” He turned
to the console, and switched on the bank of vid screens.
   Each square coalesced into a different image of the
entire underground world of Leyaneyaniteh. The tunnels
outside Medical, the cross sections leading into the sewer
conduits and subway systems, all displayed in perfect
detail.
   “I like to come here and watch when I cannot be
below,” Rico said. “When I cannot be here, I have the
consoles record the images.”
   What he was telling was he had seen or had accessed
recordings of everything Reever and I had done since
he’d taken us from The Grey Veils. Everything we’d
done, from sneaking around and escaping to… I flinched
when I saw the hidden lake cavern show up on one
screen. Not even on the night had we remained
unobserved.
   I stopped being afraid. I’d been subject to surveillance
before in the past, and I’d never liked it. One bit. I handed
him back his bomb. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you it’s
rude to spy on people?”
   Some of the men made threatening noises, but all the
chief did was dismiss them. “There was much I was never
taught, patcher. But I learned what I needed.”
   “So what are you going to do with the bombs? Throw
them back at Joe and his merry men?”
  “My men will plant the devices as I have instructed.
They will serve my purposes now.”
   Given the fact we were under an arena that regularly
held several thousand people, I could almost bet what his
purposes were. “Your men won’t blow up the arena for
you. They don’t hate Caucasians that much.”
  “The devices will not be used to destroy the arena.”
  “Where are you putting them?”
   “I’m not going to tell you.” He sounded like a
scheming child. “I want it to be a surprise.”
  “I don’t want to be surprised.”
  “Very well.” He made a show of thinking about it. “I
know—if Reever makes the first score in the World Bowl
game, I will have all the devices removed and
deactivated.”
  “What if I don’t score?” Reever asked.
  “Then I will trigger them.” The chief said nothing else,
and dismissed me and Reever.
  “He’s lying,” I said in a tight voice as we were escorted
back to the shelter. “We’ve got to find a way to warn
someone up there.”
   “I can do it before the game starts. I’ll inform one of
the drone officials of the threat.”
   “They’ll just arrest you and haul you out of the arena
for interrogation. You have to make that first score,
Duncan.”
   “I will.”
   Reever left me to talk to some of the other players and
see if any of them would tell him what Rico was planning.
Given the tribe’s loyalty to their chief, I didn’t hold out
much hope of his success. For now, all I could do was
set up a triage area and examine the members of the tribe
injured from the cave-ins. Someone cleared out a smaller
room for me, and after prioritizing the cases, I moved into
my temporary treatment room.
   Hawk came in later, after the last of my patients, and I
took the opportunity to perform his final back treatment.
   “You don’t have to walk hunched over anymore,” I
told him as I straightened the curled muscles.
   “It is best I maintain the illusion.”
   Considering his problem, I had to agree with that call.
“I think if I lie and say it’s vitamin shots or something, I
can convince Rico to let me administer antibiotic to the
infected tribal members. Once he goes to sleep, I can do
the same for him. If I pull that off, will you help me and
Reever get out of here?”
   Every word dragged as he said, “I will help you.”
   “Why don’t you come with us? Dhreen will probably
steal a starshuttle, and there’ll be plenty room.”
   “I cannot go.” He looked around, and spread his arms
helplessly. “This is my home.” His gaze darkened and he
stared at his footgear. “I cannot betray my chief.”
   “Your chief infected you with syphilis. He won’t seek
medical treatment, so if you stay, he’ll do it again. You
already know he won’t be faithful to you. Come with us.”
   “I will not leave him.” Hawk pulled on his tunic and
stalked off.
   So much for convincing Hawk to improve his situation.
   When some of the men delivered the storage containers
with my stock of antibiotic, I decided to go ahead with my
vitamin-therapy plan, and took a box of fully charged
syrinpresses out to the shelter. Everyone accepted my
outright lie without a qualm. I performed quick allergen
screens—saying they were to confirm what kind of
vitamins they needed—and infused everyone with the
proper antibiotic.
   I saw Reever a few times, deep in conversation with
some of the players. He looked at me from across the
shelter once, and shook his head.
  He was having no luck.
   I didn’t see Hawk again until nightfall, when all the
lights dimmed and we had to rig some emitters around the
different storage rooms. Hawk called me over and pointed
to the monitoring room Rico had occupied all day.
  “He wants to talk to you.”
   “Good.” Now that I had wiped out treponema pallidum
in every member of the tribe, it was time for the final
showdown with my brother. “I have some things we need
to discuss, too.”



   I stopped back in the treatment room to retrieve a few
things, then went with Hawk. We didn’t go to the
monitoring room. Instead Hawk escorted me to another
chamber. He opened the door panel, but didn’t go in. I
took a look—it was completely dark inside.
  I didn’t like dark rooms. “Am I in trouble?” I
whispered.
  He nodded once.
  “Okay.” I stepped inside.
  As soon as the door panel slid shut behind me, I
smelled flowers and food.
  “Hello?”
   Soft lights flickered on, illuminating the luxurious
furnishings of a private boudoir. The tribe had moved all
of Rico’s possessions up from his hogan, and added a
few things—tapestries, upholstered furnishings, and a nice
big sleeping platform. Platters of food sat on polished
tables. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought myself
back in Joseph’s mansion.
   “Good evening.” My brother sat in a wing-back chair in
front of the sleeping platform. He wore a black velvet
jacket with gold embellishments. His hair was wet, and he
was drinking pale wine from a crystal goblet.
  Yep, I was in trouble. “You wanted to talk to me?”
   “Come and sit down, Cherijo.” He waved toward the
matching, empty chair a foot away from his. “I have
looked forward to this evening for a very long time.”
  I went to the chair and sat on the very edge of the seat.
  “Have a glass of wine.” He held out a second goblet to
me.
  “No thanks. Alcohol gives me headaches.”
  “As you wish.” He drained half the glass and set it
down. “Hungry?”
   “No.” I felt like a butterfly that was about to lose a
wing or two. “Chief, we need to talk about a couple of
things.”
  “Sit back and relax. Tonight I will listen to whatever
you have to say.”
    Which was a rather ominous way to put it. Would my
being honest drive him over the edge, or give him a
lifeline? I had no love for my brother or what he had done,
but I knew what Joseph Grey Veil was capable of doing.
If circumstances had been altered only slightly, I could
have been sitting in his chair, sipping wine, and dying of a
curable disease while plotting to blow up two hundred
thousand misguided people.
   “At the pre-World Game press conference, I had
Reever run a series of medical scans on you. The results
are what we need to talk about.”
  “Of course, the business with the champagne. I gave
him a black eye, didn’t I?” He seemed pleased that he
could remember. “I should have broken his jaw instead.”
He shrugged. “There’s always tomorrow after the game.”
  “Rico, after running my analysis of the scans, I
confirmed you are carrying a sexually transmitted disease.
You’ve infected everyone you’ve been intimate with since
contracting the illness.”
  “That would be a substantial amount of people.”
   “Yes, it is. I also discovered that you and I have nearly
identical DNA patterns. Do you know what that means?”
  “Of course we do. You’re my little sister.”
         CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
                                                «^»

       The Grandfather of All
             Monsters
Hearing him say that made my heart sink a little further. I’d
been subconsciously hoping to use our connection as an
edge. “I never knew I had a brother. Joseph never told
me. I wish I’d known.”
  “He didn’t tell you about the others, why bother telling
you about me?”
  My heart did a flip and I clutched the arms of the chair.
“How many others survived?”
   “We all survived, Cherijo. Joseph was the proud father
of nine baby boys, and one baby girl.”
  I had eight more brothers. It was too much to grasp.
“Where are they?”
   “I imagine Joseph has been keeping some of them at
the Mendocino facility. I heard rumors of an assistant he
sent off Terra, to work with League scientists. Some kind
of genius with stardrive design. I imagine he’s one of us,
too.”
  “Are you the only one who got away from him?”
  “No, dear sister. You escaped, too.”
   “Rico, I have about a million questions to ask you, but
we have to talk about your disease first. What we do to
deal with that is the most critical thing right now. Did
Joseph ever give you any medical training?”
  He ignored my last question as he refilled his wineglass.
“My disease. Yes, tell me about my disease.”
    “You were infected with it some time ago—ten or
fifteen years, at least. It’s a disease called syphilis. It
hasn’t existed on Terra for a couple of centuries, so I’m
not sure how you contracted it, but—”
  “I know exactly how I got it. Would you like to
know?”
   I leaned forward. “Yes.”
   “Yei gave it to me.”
  “Yei?” That was what the little girl had called the
masked dancers during the initiation ceremony. “You
mean Milass? Or Kegide?”
  “Yei.” He got up and started strolling in a circle around
my chair. Abruptly he changed the subject. “I’ve always
known about you. I was there when you were born. I
watched him drain the chamber and pull you out. I had a
good view of the entire procedure from my cell.”
   His cell. I swallowed hard and shook my head.
   “I’d never seen a naked female until that day. When I
saw you, all naked and screaming and squirming in his
hands, I simply thought he’d neglected to give you a
penis. I felt sorry for you, until they took you up to the
house.” He frowned. “None of us were ever permitted in
the house.”
   He wandered over to a table and took a handful of
grapes from one of the platters. He started tossing them,
one by one, into his mouth. It was so quiet I could hear
them squish between his teeth.
   “Did the others know?”
   “I’m not sure. He usually kept us isolated from each
other. So it wouldn’t spoil his tests.” He stopped behind
me and leaned over so that his warm, fruit-scented breath
caressed my cheek. “I would have liked to have known
you, little sister. You were the fairest of us all.”
   “He never told me. If he’d told me, I would have—”
   “You would have done exactly what he said. Whatever
he said. That is one thing I knew about you, Cherijo. He
was so pleased with your compliance that he practically
sang your praises every day. Each morning I listened to
some new tale about my sister, how intelligent you were,
how well you comprehended and achieved the goals he
set for you. You were his trophy clone, his superb
attainment in human genetic engineering.”
   It hurt. It hurt to think of all of the years I had spent at
the estate and never knew what was happening beneath it.
“It may sound hard to believe, Rico, but I was a victim,
too.”
   “Were you?” He came back to his chair and sat down
quickly, making a burlesque of his eagerness to listen to
me. “Did he beat you? Put you on the treadmill? Did he
wrap you in nerve-webbing and set you on the stimulator
for a few hours?”
  “No, but—”
   “Then, he starved you? He liked to see how long we
could go without food. Or the temperature chamber, did
he ever make you stand naked in blizzard conditions? Did
he rupture your eardrums, to see how fast they’d heal?
Did he have a drone fracture your arms, and legs, to
monitor the density of the breaks knitting back together?”
  “No!” I shot up. “Stop it!”
  “Did he touch you?”
  I meant to shout something else, but those four words
knocked all the air out of my lungs. I could barely form
one syllable. “What?”
  “Did he touch you? Undress you? Fondle you?”
  “No.” Something was making me feel like vomiting,
and it was coming from him. “You knew that, too. You
knew what he had planned for me.”
   “I knew he loved you. I know he still loves you.” Rico
leaned forward and took my icy hands in his. “I’ve always
known you were the only one worthy of him.” He
massaged my fingers, warming them. “The perfect
woman. Any man would kill to have you.”
  I had to change the subject. Fast. “Rico, who is Yei?”
   “One time, just before I escaped, he allowed me to
watch you and your companion through an observation
viewer. You were almost three, and she had you
assembling a model of a human skeleton. You got all the
bones right on the first try. All you had to do, he told me,
was see a diagram once and you memorized it.” His hand
squeezed. “It was one of my punishments for neglecting
to memorize the entire nervous system.”
   “I’m sorry, Rico.” And I was. “Look, I’ll do whatever
I can to help you. There’s a possibility, with the right
medications and therapy, we can repair some of the
damage and you can have a more normal life. Just tell me
who Yei is and I’ll—”
   “That’s all you can think about, isn’t it? He’s
programmed you completely. His perfect physician. His
perfect woman. His perfect life partner. Even now all you
can think about is fixing me. Do you ever wonder which
genes are responsible for kindness and sympathy and
caring? Perhaps you could get me a couple of those.”
   I couldn’t take another moment of it, and my voice
rose to a shout. “Tell me who Yei is!”
  “He’s the grandfather of all monsters, Cherijo. You
know who he is.”
   I backed away. “No. He wouldn’t do that. Not to a
child. He told me he wasn’t— He wouldn’t—”
   “But he did.” Rico’s voice became a gentle caress.
“He infected himself from a biosample he’d gotten from
one of the research facilities he worked for. Some archaic,
extinct bacteria no one had even heard of. He liked to give
us all challenges, didn’t he?”
  I turned my back on him.
   “I didn’t know what he intended to do when he put me
in the restraints. Until that particular day, the
nerve-webbing had been the worst, and I’d gotten used to
spending hours wrapped in that. I didn’t struggle. I don’t
think I was even frightened.”
  “No.” I pressed my hands against my ears. “Don’t.”
   “He could have administered it with a syrinpress, but
he was a stickler for details. He wanted it introduced to
my body the way it would have been when it existed. So
he infected me the time-honored way.”
  I closed my eyes. My hands slipped down to my sides.
    “When he was done with me, he infused himself with
the correct antibiotic treatment and then he monitored me,
to see if my immune system would destroy the bacteria by
itself.”
  “It was just another test to him.”
    “Yes. Just another test.” Rico came up behind me,
lifted my hand, and brushed a kiss against the back of it.
“Be glad you were perfection, little sister.” He got close
enough to whisper in my hair. “Brutal things happen to
imperfect children.”
  My face was wet, and I was sobbing. It made it hard to
speak evenly. “You never needed me as your team
physician. You’re using me to get back at him. Have you
been signaling him, taunting him about me?”
   “I merely made our parent aware that his most
cherished creation now belongs to me.” He guided me
back to my chair and pressed a glass of wine in my hand.
“Drink. You’ve had a shock, and it will help steady you
for the rest.”
  I put the wine aside. “The rest?”
   “I have to tell you about my plans. My holy mission,
given to me by the gods who watch over little children in
the wilderness.”
   He was descending back into the madness, and this
time, I had a front-row seat. Keep him talking.
  I cleared my throat. “I’d like to hear about it.”
   “When I escaped from our father, it was revealed to
me. In the wilderness, as I lay dying. I am the
reincarnation of Atse Hastiin—First Man. Born not of
woman and man, but of the universal forces that once
created the gods.
   “Since my enlightenment, I have been waiting for the
reincarnation of my Atse Asdzan—First Woman. Together
we will slaughter the Yei, and go on to populate this world
and the next with our wisdom, and our children.”
   “We, as in I’m this First Woman.” I made it a
statement. Who else could it be?
   Rico smiled. “That he loves you makes it all the
better.”
  “You can’t infect me with the syphilis, and you can’t
make me give the disease to Joseph Grey Veil.”
   Anger slammed over me as my brother reacted to my
guess with an outraged scream. “It is not a disease! It is a
gift of enlightenment! I have given it to my tribe, to
enlighten them as I have been. I have sent it across the
mountains so the Diné may know the beauty of seeing
through my eyes.”
   I wasn’t falling for that. “That’s why you’ve been
arranging all those marriages? Sending all those men back
to the Four Mountains? You really are trying to create a
global epidemic.”
   For a moment, a flicker of rationality gleamed in his
eyes. “The Shaman is consulted on all matters of serious
health concerns for the Native American Nations.” Joy lit
his dark face. “Can you imagine his reaction when he
learns his sacred Navajo have shared in the gift he gave to
me? Do you think he will observe them to see how their
immune systems respond, Cherijo?”
  I didn’t have to state the obvious. I knew at that
moment that there was no medication, no therapy for him.
My brother was totally, conclusively insane.
   I tried delicacy first. “I’m sorry for what he did to you.
As much as I appreciate the honor you’re offering, I have
to decline.”
  That seemed to stun him. “I offer you revenge for
everything he has done to you, and to your brothers, and
you refuse me?”
  Delicacy wasn’t going to do a damn thing. “Yeah.” I
got to my feet. “Let me help you, or let me go.”
   “You think I need you?” He walked over to me, and
with that same, cheerful smile backhanded me with his fist.
I went down and out of reflex covered my head with my
arms. His foot drove into my bicep. “You’re not fit to lick
my footgear. But since you refuse me, it makes everything
much simpler. I’ll let you live long enough to watch your
lover die.”
  Now I dropped my arms. “What are you talking
about?”
   “My men have replanted all the explosives beneath The
Grey Veils. The triggering device is hidden inside the
World Game sphere. When Nilch’i’ crosses the
touchzone line, a sensor planted in the field will activate
the trigger, and blow Joseph Grey Veil straight to hell,
along with his precious research facility.”
  “Chief.”
   We both looked over at Hawk, who was standing just
inside the door.
   “Come and have a drink, old friend. We are celebrating
the coming festivities above.”
   “Grey Veil’s facility lies directly within the San Andreas
fault zone.”
  Rico took another sip of his wine. “So?”
   “If you detonate those devices, millions will die in the
subsequent destabilization.”
  Rico set down his glass carefully, and started toward
Hawk.
  “Hawk, get out of here!” I yelled.
   “You question me? You, my brother, my lover, my
shoulder-talker?”
   Hawk bowed so low his brow nearly touched the
ground. “Chief, I respect and honor you in all ways. Let
me serve you, let me be your tool. Listen to my words
and hear the truth of them.”
  Oh, God, he was going to end up a smear on the floor
covering. “Hawk, run!”
   “My warped songbird sings badly tonight,” Rico said,
caressing Hawk’s cheek. Then he began to beat him,
using his fists and feet. Hawk never raised a hand or tried
to defend himself, so he went down quickly. I tried to pull
Rico off and got tossed across the room. My head hit
something hard, and everything went black.
  When I opened my eyes, Rico was dragging me into a
hogan. Ropes bit into my arms and legs. We were back
underground, but the cavern was completely deserted. Of
course, everyone was still in the underground arena
passages.
  Had he killed Hawk?
   “I will come back for you as soon as Reever and our
parent are dead. Enjoy these last hours.”
   He closed the door covering, then I watched as he
nailed it shut.



   It took a couple of hours to work my way out of the
ropes. Once I’d bound the cut on my arm with a piece of
fabric torn from my tunic, I tried to force open the door,
but it was sealed tight. There was nothing in the hogan I
could use to make a hole through it or one of the rounded
walls. They were too thick.
  I had to get to Reever before the World Game started,
but how? Hawk was either dead or in no shape to help
me. No one else knew where I was. It was hopeless.
  Then again, when had hopeless situations ever stopped
me?
   I hammered on the sides and door of the hogan. I
screamed for help. Screamed until my throat was raw and
my voice nearly gone. I had to keep making noise and
someone would hear me.
    Hours passed. I alternated yelling with pounding. I kept
at it with such concentration that when the door was
wrenched open, I nearly decked my rescuer in the face.
   “Oh!” I reeled backward and smacked the back of my
head. Kegide reached in to help me out, and I threw
myself into his arms. “Kegide. Thank God. What are you
doing here?”
  He smiled, reached down and pretended to stroke a
small animal.
   “You came to play with the cats. Of course.” What
should I do first? Disarm the bombs by destroying the
trigger. Duncan. I had to get to Duncan. “They’re not
here, Kegide. Hawk took them up to the arena. Can you
take me there so we can both play with them?”
   He shook his head, then I remembered. The subway
transport couldn’t be moved unless it held enough people
to pull it up the incline. There had to be another way—
  And there was. I took his big hand in mine “Come with
me.”
   In the storage room, I mounted the platform and tugged
on the chain. It felt sturdy enough, but getting me up the
air shaft would be a tight squeeze. Kegide would have to
haul on the chain. Once inside, I wouldn’t be able to lift
my arms.
   With simple words and gestures I showed Kegide what
I needed him to do. Then I got on the platform and helped
him pull me up to the entrance of the shaft.
   It was more than a tight squeeze—I felt like a square
peg being forced into a triangular hole. As I ascended, the
surfaces of my body, along with my arms and legs,
scraped against the shaft’s rusty inte-rior. I could hear
Kegide grunting in the storage room beneath as he hauled
on the chain.
   At last I was on the surface, in a clearing behind the
villagers’ fields. I stepped off the platform and yelled
down to Kegide, “I’m out! Thanks!”
   Getting to the arena was my next problem. I had no
idea how to get out of the mountains and down to the city.
The village itself was completely deserted.
   They’d gone to the game, too. However, if they’d gone
to the city, that had to mean they had more than horses for
transportation up here.
   I found the old glidecar hidden inside one of the grain
storage sheds at the end of the village, and checked the
batteries. There was enough charge for a one-hour ride.
The trusting owner had also left the ignition sequence
uncoded, so I got the engine started with a few jabs on the
keypad.
   I flew straight up, pushing the vehicle’s atmospheric
tolerances so I could get a good look at where I was.
From this height, it was easy to spot the city, and the
small dot that represented the shockball arena.
  I might have just enough charge to get there.
   It had been years since I’d driven, but I didn’t hesitate
as I descended and leveled out the glidecar. All I could
think of was Duncan, and how little time I had left to get
to him. I pointed the vehicle’s nose toward the city, and
slammed down hard on the accelerator.



   I thought nothing else could possibly go wrong after
that. I found out differently when I hit the glide lanes
leading to the arena, which were choked with fans headed
for World Game.
   Claxons blared. Voices shouted. Fists waved. And
everywhere were the Gliders’ team colors, and the number
fourteen.
  My batteries were going dry. “This isn’t going to
work.”
   I ended up abandoning the stolen vehicle in the
emergency lane and running the last mile. I shoved my
way through the river of spectators flowing into the
entrance gate, and came up short when a mechanical arm
shot out.
  “Present your seating pass.”
   I didn’t have a seating pass. Frantically, I looked
around, and spotted a middle-aged man arguing with his
wife.
   “—shouldn’t play? Look at Jory Rask!” the wife was
saying. “How many downs did she score last season?
Forty?”
  “It’s a man’s game, you don’t know what—
   I reached over between them. “Excuse me.” I snatched
the pass chip from the man’s fist. “Thank you.”
   I shoved the chip in the drone’s arm slot and vaulted
over it. Behind me, the couple screeched their outrage. I
kept going, dodging around concession carts and the long
lines of customers winding around them. At last I found a
door marked MAINTENANCE, slipped inside, and
headed for the lower levels.
  A console I passed displayed the minutes left until the
game started: twenty-eight. It took me another ten to find
my way to the bunkers where the Night Horse had set up
camp.
   Everyone was gone from there, too. I thought of what
I’d told Kegide. Where were the cats?
  “Cherijo.”
   Hawk stood at the entrance to the bunker. He looked
like he’d been put through a disposal unit backward.
Jenner was under one arm, Juliet under the other.
   “Thank God.” I hurried over to help him. “Why didn’t
you run when I told you to?” I ran my hand along his
spine. “Did he hurt your back?”
   “No. Just my front.” Hawk’s split lips barely formed
the words. “I will recover.”
  “Rico set up my husband to be the trigger for the
explosives in the fault. I’ve got to get to him and warn him
about the game sphere.”
   “I can get you inside the arena as the team patcher, but
how are you going to stop Reever from playing? The
drone officials don’t let anyone near the field.”
   I took Jenner from him. “Reever and I can
communicate in other ways.” I knew I could initiate the
link, but only if I was physically close to him. “I have to
get on the field.” I stroked my pet as I recalled the
spectator I’d seen hauled away by drone officials. Scratch
pretending to be an enthusiastic fan. Team staff members
were either seated in the stands or watched from boxes
during the actual game. There was no way I was getting
anywhere near that field unless—
  “Do you know where the players’ locker room is?”
  “Yes.”
  “Take me there.”



   We found a couple of small containers to put the cats
in, which did not make us very popular with the felines.
   I wrestled with Jenner. “Thanks for bringing the cats, I
think.”
   Hawk tried to stroke Juliet’s head and reassure her as
he lowered her into her temporary carrier. She clawed
both his arms. “After last night, I was afraid Rico might
harm them.”
   Once His and Her Majesty were secure, we carried
them with us to the arena’s lower corridors level. I filled
Hawk in about some of what Rico had revealed to me,
including the delusional plot to spread the syphilis bacteria
throughout Four Mountains.
  “If I am able to get out of here today, I’m finding a
way for Reever and I to get off the planet. You need to
warn the tribal council at Four Mountains. Tell them
everything I’ve told you about the disease. Give them the
books Wendell found. They will help.” I recalled what
Rico had said. “Do you think they’ll try to ignore or
conceal it?”
   “The old way was to revere those whose minds existed
in other worlds,” Hawk said. “Rico believes, as they did,
that the mental illness he suffers is enlightenment. But I
don’t think the Navajo will wait and watch their people
suffer the same fate. They will go to the reservation
doctors.”
   We were nearly to the underground access panel when
someone stepped out into the hall directly in front of us. I
relaxed when I saw that the figure had a flight suit on and a
smiling, happy Terran face with two distinct bumps on the
top of his head.
  “It’s Dhreen,” I said to Hawk. “He’s on our side.
Come on.”
  Dhreen removed his Lok-Teel mask and checked his
wristcom as we reached him. “About time. I was going to
come down looking for you. Sphere-drop is in only a few
minutes. Reever’s playing first string today.”
   “No, he isn’t.” I quickly explained the circumstances
behind the pending disaster, then asked, “If I can get
Reever out of the arena, can you take us to a place where
they won’t find us for a while?”
  “I can get you off planet, if you want.”
  “You got a starshuttle?”
  “I stole it, just like you told me to.” Dhreen’s smile
wavered a little. “There’s only one thing I want in return.”
    Probably wanted me to check Ilona and see if she had
a little horn-earned bundle on the way. “Name it.”
   “What your father promised to do. Help my people.
Come to Oenrall with me and cure them of the sickness
they have.”
  I’d agree to anything to get to Reever and prevent
California from splitting into a lot of little pieces.
  “Sure, I’ll go. I don’t know about a cure, but I’ll give it
my best shot.” I glanced at Hawk, who was lagging
behind. “Give me a minute.”
   I walked back to where he stood. “You’re not coming
with me, are you?”
  “No. Dhreen can take you the rest of the way.”
   “I can’t repay you for what you’ve done for me.
You’ve saved my life twice. You opened my eyes to a lot
of things I’d never considered, too.”
  “It is trivial compensation for what you’ve done for
me.”
  I thought of him living in those underground tunnels,
never feeling the sunlight on his face. “Come with us.
We’ll find a better world.”
   “No, patcher. As tempting as it sounds, I belong in
Leyaneyaniteh, with my chief. He will need me even more
after today.”
  “If that’s your final word.” I put my arms around his
contorted body, and hugged him. “I’m going to miss you.
Thank you for helping me understand my blood. I’ll
always think of you whenever I hear anyone sing.”
   He held me tight for a moment, then let go and hobbled
off.
    Dhreen led me to the locker room, and the Oenrallian
filled me in on the starshuttle he’d “borrowed” from a
Terran trade jaunter who was at that moment sleeping off
the flask of spicewine he’d consumed, courtesy of
Dhreen.
    “After I used his access chips, I wondered if anyone
would try and halt me, even with the mask. It was more
rudimentary than I contemplated. I strolled in purloined it
from the nucleus of New Angeles Transport, can you put
faith in that?”
  If I could understand half of what he was spouting.
“Do you know something, Dhreen? The more nervous
you get the worse you massacre my native language.”
   “Literally?”
   “Really.”
   The interior of the locker room was littered with
discarded clothes and damp towels. Someone had
prematurely opened a bottle or two, and the smell of
synalcohol was strong. A maintenance drone trundled
around, collecting the used linens for sterilization. It halted
as soon as it picked us up on its sensors.
   “May I be of assistance?”
   Dhreen peeled off his Lok-Teel mask and handed it to
me before he went over to the drone. With a single jerk, he
tore the entire operational system— core, panels, and
circuitry—off the back of the drone. Towels thudded to
the floor, then the unit collapsed on top of them.
   I just stood there and stared. “That was… efficient.”
    “You still haven’t said how you plan to get out on the
field.”
   I located Black Otter’s locker, which contained a clean
uniform and helmet. He’d been unable to play since
escaping the hospital. I slipped the Lok-Teel under my
tunic. “You’re going to put me in the game.”
   Once we had stowed the cats in a safe place, Dhreen
helped me with the disguise. The outer uniform jersey and
leggings were made of a elastic material, suitable for fitting
over the various body protectors I had to strap on. The
thick protective pads and thermal leggings to prevent
discharge burn weighed about as much as I did. By the
time he handed me the helmet to wear over my face, I was
ready to topple over.
  “How do they run wearing all this stuff?” I took an
experimental step and nearly went sprawling on the floor.
“Never mind run—how do they walk?”
   I took a few minutes to practice balancing on the
special footgear designed for the synthetic grass of the
arena field, then sighed. “This is as steady as I’m going to
get.”
  “Right on time, Doc.” Dhreen nodded toward the field.
“The amusement’s about to commence.”

   Emerging from the locker room into the players’
walkway was an experience. Extra seating had been
installed overhead to accommodate the additional
spectators for the World Game, and some three hundred
thousand fans stood shrieking for their teams.
  “Ear plugs,” I muttered as we cringed under the solid
wall of sound. “I should have remembered ear plugs.”
   The Gliders’ familiar red-and-black team colors
dominated the arena, as they were not only the home team,
but favored to win this final match. Everywhere I looked,
fans sported the mini black-winged hats and divided
red-and-black face paint.
   Vendors circled on modified hover boards, advertising
their wares by using holo-imaged signs slung around their
necks. They sold everything, from the traditional popcorn
and synbeef dogs to more exotic treats like Fhirrede iced
curds and Kirlian colas. The official team bands were
trying so hard to outplay each other, their songs tangled
into a noisy jumble of notes.
    Dancers were still writhing in their glittering costumes
all over the playing field, tumbling into acrobatic
formations, shooting off small versions of the fireworks
that would fill the skies above the arena once the contest
was over.
   But there wouldn’t be any fireworks today, I reminded
myself, if I didn’t get moving and find Reever.
   I stepped out of the passage and onto the boundary
between the arena seating and the Gliders’ sideline area. I
was sweating and terrified I’d be stopped for some
ridiculous reason.
  “Swagger,” I heard Dhreen say.
  I turned around. “What?”
   “Swagger. Sashay. Strut.” He threw up his hands, in
disgust with stanTerran, me, or both. “Walk like you’re a
shockball player.”
   I tried to swagger. It was a fairly insurmountable task,
with all the equipment weighing me down. Maybe I should
take off my helmet, give everyone one of my patented
haughty looks. That might chase people away. Just as I
loosened the straps, I remembered.
  There were no female players on the Gliders’ team.
  Scratch looking haughty and unapproachable.
   As I walked down the sidelines, a couple of drone
officials buzzed around me, then scanned the code on my
player’s badge and whizzed off. The fans hit new heights
in sound pollution as they screeched for the game to
begin. Glancing up at those thousands of rabid, thrilled
faces made my stomach roll.
  They can’t wait to see someone go down and fry.
   The two bands called a temporary truce as the
pre-game performers left the field, and began striking up
the opening notes of the World Anthem. I had no choice
but to follow the Gliders as they trotted out onto the field.
   Finally I saw Reever’s number fourteen on the other
end of the line, but the song was already playing and I
couldn’t move out of place. I’d have to catch him before
he took up his position.
  The anthem ended, and the fans cheered. I tried to dart
down to the other end of the line, but a drone buzzed in
my face before I had gone more than a dozen steps
toward Reever.
  “Defense will remain on the sidelines. Offense will
compete for possession of the sphere.”
  Just my luck, Reever was on offense. I wasn’t.
  The Gliders won the drive, and the first play was in
motion by the time I spotted Reever again. He ran the
sphere, passing it back and forth in a triangular motion
between him and two other offensive runbacks. The
opposing team smashed into all three of them, and Reever
went down on top of the sphere.
   I stood frozen, waiting for something to blow.
   “First sphere down!” A drone official called. “Second
in four point three!”
   The stomping and yelling became synchronized, and
directed at Reever. “Nilch’i’! Nilch’i’! Nilch’i’!”
   I measured the distance the Gliders would have to run
to get to the touchzone. About sixty yards. Reever and the
other players were huddled together at the lineup. Maybe I
could catch his attention from the sidelines, call him over
before the next drive started.
  I tried to link, but I was still too far away. So I waved
my arms and yelled, “Duncan!”
   A couple of the players on the field glanced at me, but
no one moved out of the huddle. Someone cuffed me on
the back of the head. “Shut up, Otter! He can hardly hear
to call his plays!”
  I looked up at Handsome Runner, who was glowering
down at me. “Sorry.”
   “You are not Black Otter.” His eyes narrowed
suspiciously. “Who are you?”
   “Second string,” I mumbled, and quickly dodged
around him to walk out of questioning range. Along the
way, a couple of the players pummeled me with their fists.
   “Otter, good to see you!”
   “I thought you had taken up weaving!”
   “Does the chief know you’re back?”
   The next drive began, which drew everyone’s attention
back to the game. I hid behind a couple of line drones,
trying to see another way to get on the field, and praying
Reever would lose possession of the sphere.
   He didn’t. The Gliders got to the forty.
   I tried to sneak onto the field a couple of times, until
the drones got tired of me and warned me one more
attempt would result in an auto-penalty. My attempts to
link also failed. Reever, on the other hand, was doing a
brilliant job of moving the sphere down the field, getting
closer and closer to the touchzone.
  The thirty. The twenty. The closer he got, the more I
shook.
   At the twenty, the team lined up in touchzone
formation. I knew that from the excited cheers of the
players.
  “Bring it down, bring it down!”
  “Shove that sphere pole down his throat!”
  “Go for it, you can do it, you can do it!”
   I had to do it now, before the next drive started. I
stepped over the boundary line and an official immediately
buzzed over to block my path,
   “Defense will remain on the sidelines until possession
of the sphere changes teams.”
   I doused the drone with the cup of JocAid I’d gotten
for that specific purpose, and ran onto the field.
“Duncan!”
   He was still in the huddle, still unable to hear me. The
sound of the boos and hisses from the fans was
merciless. A cluster of drone officials was heading to
intercept me. I’d never make it. But I was close enough
now to link.
  Duncan, damn it, look at me!
   Reever straightened and stared out of the huddle,
looking around. As I ran toward him, I lifted my hands to
take my helmet off so he could see my face.
  Duncan, you’re in danger, can you hear me?
Whatever you do, don’t make the sphere-down.
   The next thing I knew I was being dragged off the field.
I fought, desperate to get loose and get to Reever.
Whoever had me held on tight. Through my helmet, I
heard the low, familiar sneer.
  “Nice try, woman.”


         CHAPTER NINETEEN
                                                 «^»

                Game Sphere
Milass had stolen my idea and was wearing a helmet and
one of the Gliders’ uniforms. As he hauled me past the
other players and the angry drone officials, I tried yelling
for help.
   “Stop him! He’s crazy!”
   Someone snorted. “He’s not the one who nearly cost
us a penalty by tromping out on the field.”
   I turned to the stands. “Help! He’s going to kill me!”
   A couple of men laughed. One woman yelled back, “If
he doesn’t, I will!”
   Everyone on the sidelines ignored us, which made it
easy for Milass to drag me away and into the equipment
pit. When we were out of sight, he shoved me against the
wall.
  “Well, little sister.” Rico stepped out of the shadows.
“You’ve shown your superior ability once more. How did
you get to the surface?”
   “Teleportation.” I tried to duck around him, but that
only got me thrown back against the wall by Milass for my
efforts. “Get out of my way, Rico. I’m not going to let
you kill him.”
  “There’s nothing you can do to stop it. They won’t let
you back on the field now. Listen. The sphere is in play.
The Wind is about to blow itself out.“
   “No!” I went crazy, throwing myself at him, clawing at
his face, beating him with my fists. “He heard me, he
heard me tell him! He won’t do it!”
   “Even if he doesn’t make the score, he still dies.” He
got my hands pinned to the wall and his face in mine in
short order. “I’ve programmed the computer to
administer five penalties to him. If they don’t make
sphere-down by the end of the first interval, he gets
automatically charged with delay of game and unsporting
conduct and a few other things. Shock, shock, shock,
shock, shock. Each one more severe. The last one is
special. It’s three times the usual voltage.”
  Milass laughed. “That should cook him like a
Founder’s Day turkey.”
   There was a strange moaning sound to one side of us,
and I looked over. Kegide stepped into the light, and
made the odd, keening sound again. In his arms were both
of my cats. Juliet stayed curled up against his broad chest,
but Jenner lifted his head, sniffed, then jumped down to
come after me.
    “Everyone leaps to defend you. Even your precious
little pet.” To Kegide, Rico said, “Put the animal down
and come here.”
   Kegide shook his head.
   “He doesn’t understand, Chief,” Milass said. “Let me
do her. I’ve been wanting to for months.”
  Rico took a pistol out of his tunic, raised it, and shot
Milass in the face. The blast decapitated him. I screamed.
   “Never tell me what to do,” Rico said to the headless
corpse, still twitching on the floor. “I am your chief.” He
turned to Kegide. “I gave you an order, follow it.”
   “Jenner!” I shrieked.
   Rico glanced down at the floor. My beloved pet was
crouched right in front of him, ready to spring. “Kegide!
Come and get this mangy animal away from me.”
   Kegide didn’t move.
  “Very well, I’ll do it myself.” My brother aimed his
weapon at Jenner. I shoved just as he fired, and the shot
went wide. Jenner stopped playing the hero, screeched,
and dove under the benches.
   “Kegide,” I shouted. “Help them! Get them out of
here!”
  Kegide carefully set down Juliet instead and came
toward Rico, shaking his head, making the raspy, moaning
sound.
   “She’ll have them send you back to where we came
from, remember?” Rico snarled at his enforcer.
“Remember the little room they made you stay in? I took
you from there, I gave you a life. You owe me that life,
Kegide.” He shoved me into Kegide’s arms. “Show me
your gratitude and kill her!”
   Instead of snapping my neck, Kegide set me aside as
gently as he had Juliet. Then he kept advancing on Rico,
his hands outstretched.
    Rico looked stunned at the big man’s betrayal. He
lifted the pistol. “I should have left you there to rot, you
imbecile.”
   “Kegide!” I screamed.
   Kegide lunged, and Rico fired the pistol. The enormous
body stiffened, then dropped short to land at the chief’s
feet.
  I tried to get to him, but Rico grabbed me and put the
hot end of the barrel under my chin. “Your turn.”
   Duncan. I closed my eyes. I can’t keep my promise.
   Someone stepped into the equipment pit. “It’s time to
stop this,” he said. “Let her go, son.”
  I opened my eyes. Joseph Grey Veil closed the door
panel and leaned back against it.



  He wasn’t carrying a weapon, or had anyone with him.
His immaculate business suit and calm, unruffled
appearance made him look as though he’d just left a
medical conference. He looked utterly confident of his
control over the situation.
  Probably thought he was. Obviously, he’d forgotten
what I’d said to him, the last time we were together.
   “Lend me your pistol for a minute,” I said to my
brother. “Then you can shoot me.”
   “He’s not going to shoot anyone else, are you,
Jericho?”
  “Why are you here, old man?” Rico’s voice changed,
went flat. “You’re supposed to be at your lab.”
  “Yes, I know. Unfortunately, I would have been, if I
hadn’t gotten a signal from Ilona Red Faun. She told me
Cherijo would be here.”
   Rico’s grip on me tightened. “Ilona lives?”
   “Sorry, I forgot to mention it,” I said.
  “It doesn’t matter. I’ll find her later.” He sighed. “Well,
Father, I’m surprised you were able to get tickets. Have
you seen my team play?”
   “Yes. They’re quite competent.”
   “We’ve been trying to get to the World Game for five
years. I think changing the starting offense line was the key
to winning the semifinals.” He sounded like a little boy
now, trying to impress his daddy. “I made some other
changes, got them to stop whining about penalties.
Thanks to you, I learned a little pain goes a long way.”
   Joseph got tired of listening, and held out his hand.
“Jericho, give me the weapon.”
    “Don’t you want your daughter?” Rico’s free hand
turned my face toward his, and he gave me a leisurely
kiss. I didn’t move. “She’s everything you said she would
be. Beautiful. Intelligent. Resourceful. Sensual.” He
stroked his free hand down the front of my body, and
patted my right thigh. “I’ve thoroughly enjoyed having her
all these months.”
  I thought about telling Joseph that he’d never touched
me, but I wasn’t sure what might set either of them off.
   “She doesn’t belong to you.”
   “She’s been very happy in her loving brother’s arms,
Father.”
   “Loving?” Joe let his upper lip curl. “You tried to kill
her four times when she was an infant.”
   “She was so small and helpless, it was practically
irresistible. Can you really blame me for what I did when I
was a boy?”
  “No. I failed in that, Jericho. I failed to recognize the
genius behind the psychosis. Even after all the studies.”
   The studies. When he’d raped his own son.
  “Shoot him,” I said to Rico. “Or shoot me, because I
don’t want to listen to another word of this.”
   “But you don’t get a choice, little sister. See, I’ve had
fantasies about this sort of meeting. I never dreamed I’d
have the two of you together. Have the chance to
exterminate both of you at the same time. My esteemed
parent, and my brilliant sister. Scientist and experiment, all
rolled into one. Do you want to know why I really bought
a shockball franchise?”
   “Why?”
  Rico giggled. “He hates the game, don’t you, Father?”
   “She’s nothing. A failure. The experiment never
worked,” Joseph said. “Let her go. Come back to the
estate with me. We can talk about the future.”
   “That’s a very good bluff, Father. Unfortunately, I was
around long enough to see just how successful number
ten here was. She’s the one you were waiting for. I think it
must have taken superhuman effort for you to keep your
hands off her.”
   “We can talk about everything back at the estate.”
Joseph looked at me. “Bring her with us, if you like. She
has no clinical value to me, but we can use her in other
ways.”
   “You want to share her between us?” Rico sputtered an
incredulous laugh. “What a provocative thought. There is
more of you inside me than I imagined.”
  I told Joe what I thought of him. In no uncertain terms.
   Rico’s grip on the pistol shifted. “Her speech patterns
leave a great deal to be desired. No, if she is a failure,
Father, let me put her out of her misery.”
  Our creator looked bored now. “Very well.”
   Rico’s hand tightened on my thigh, then he moved it
around toward the small of my back, and gave me a
shove. “Give Daddy a kiss good-bye, Cherijo.”
   I stumbled forward, and Joseph caught me in his arms.
He lowered his head as if to kiss me, while I shrieked and
twisted against his hold.
   But he didn’t kiss me. He whispered against my ear, “I
love you. Run.”
   The interior lights went out. Joe pushed me behind him
and lunged toward Jericho. My brother shouted something
obscene, then I heard the pistol fire as I turned around. I
saw the pulse hit Joseph’s chest, watched as the front of
his torso exploded.
  “No!” In spite of everything, I reached out.
  The emergency lighting flickered on.
   “Go…” Joseph wheezed, and staggered the last couple
of steps so he could fling his ruined body on top of my
insane brother.
  I covered my mouth in horror, backing away. Then I
remembered Duncan and the explosives, and frantically
groped for the door.
  Someone’s gentle hands eased mine away from the
panel. “Wait, patcher.”



    It was Ilona Red Faun, and with her were about a
dozen of the outcasts. They filed in, surrounding me in a
protective circle. None of them looked angry, but they
were all staring at Jericho, who was still trying to get out
from under Joseph’s body. His pistol waved wildly in the
air.
  “Ilona, you traitorous bitch. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill all of
you!”
    The outcasts descended on Rico and Joseph. I
watched how carefully they disarmed him, the way they
lifted him out from under Joseph’s body. For a moment, I
thought the worst, until I saw the look on Ilona’s face.
   “No.” Even knowing the depths of his depravity and
insanity, I couldn’t condemn my brother. He’d been a
victim of the grandfather of all monsters. “Ilona, he needs
to be hospitalized.”
  “He has done enough, patcher. Even you said you
could not cure him. That he will never get better.” Ilona
knelt beside Milass’s headless corpse. She placed her
hand on his chest. “He killed my brother, didn’t he? Yet
Milass was always loyal to him. He would never disobey
Rico. He loved him.”
  I hadn’t known Milass was Ilona’s brother. That
explained a lot.
   She sighed, then got to her feet. “This is our chief, our
problem. Let us deal with it in our way.”
   Rico was screaming and demanding the outcasts obey
and release him. The pistol disappeared into someone’s
pocket. Then he was silenced by a dozen hands, clamping
over his nose, mouth, and throat. The last thing I saw was
him swallowed into the center of the tight circle of bodies,
his eyes wide and unblinking.
  I couldn’t stop them, couldn’t process what was
happening. All I could do was think of Duncan. “Ilona, I
have to get out of here.”
  “We will take care of them, patcher. Go.”



   I put on my helmet and went out to the sidelines, in
time to see the Gliders’ defense leave the field and the
offensive team trot out to take their positions. The
Scoreboard remained at zero on both sides.
  Reever had heard me.
   I walked up to one of the players I knew. “How much
time remaining?”
   “Two minutes before interval end.” Small Fox glanced
at me and his eyes widened. “Patcher? Is that you? What
are you doing here?”
  Beyond us, Ilona and the outcasts silently vacated the
equipment pit and returned to the spectators’ stands.
  I hoped that now, at last, our brothers were at peace. “I
had to talk to Rico.”
   Ilona went over to a security drone and said something.
The drone immediately buzzed past me and entered the
pit. A minute later more drones descended on the
sidelines. They’d be notifying arena security about the
dead bodies any moment.
  I adjusted my helmet. I had to do it now.
   A drone intercepted me as I started toward the field.
“You were seen going into the equipment pit with the dead
man. Security wishes to interview you about the nature of
his demise.”
   “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said,
keeping my voice low and rough. “Can’t this wait until
after the game?”
  “Do not leave the arena,” the official warned me.
   I saw the drones carrying the bodies out of the pit. My
brother was dead. My creator was dead.
  My husband was going to live.



   I hid behind an equipment rack to do what I needed,
then emerged with my new face. When the interval clock
sounded the one-minute warning, the Gliders lined up for
the last play.
   This was it. My last chance.
   There was only one person who could walk onto the
field and not be automatically stopped by the officials.
Knowing that, I headed for my husband.
  A drone buzzed in front to me. “The team owner must
not disrupt the game—”
   “I’m just going to have a word with my players,” I
said, in a low growly tone. “One minute.”
   Confused, the official rolled back out of the way. My
Rico-mask worked, but only for a moment. Someone
must have identified Rico’s body, because a horde of
drones left the sidelines and headed for me. At the same
time, the play was called, and the sphere put into motion.
  I had fifty meters to cover before I could get to Reever,
who was heading directly for the touchzone, so I ran.
    I ran the way Xonea had taught me, with fast, long
strides that pulled at the muscles in my legs. If we
survived this, I was going to be sore as hell.
   Duncan!
  Reever looked over, saw me. His face turned to stone
and he kicked the sphere into play.
  He thought I was Rico. I peeled off my Lok-Teel
mask. Duncan! Stop!
   Reever worked the sphere toward the wide white line.
But why? Then I remembered the drones carrying the
bodies out. He must have thought Milass’s headless
corpse was mine.
   My husband was trying to commit suicide.
   “Duncan!” I screamed. Then, with every bit of mental
ferocity I could put behind it, I repeated the call in my
head. Duncan! Stop!
   A few inches from his goal, Reever suddenly came to a
halt and looked over his shoulder at me. I glimpsed the
interval clock. Twenty seconds left. I held out my arms.
   Pass it to me now.
   Cherijo?
   Just give it to me! I screamed in my mind.
   He almost fell, then bent and scooped up the sphere.
The crowd shrieked with rage and got to their feet. My
ears rang as the noise increased with every step I took.
   Reever threw the sphere to me just as the interval clock
ran out. I caught it and went down, holding it against the
ground with my body.
   Gliders helped me to my feet. The game computer
registered five penalties on the player’s board, all charged
to Reever. A drone announced them as they were listed.
   “Illegal pass. Illegal reception. Illegal number of players
on the field. Illegal assumption of position.”
  Another drone buzzed near me. “Release the sphere.
Penalties must be discharged.”
   There was no way in hell I was letting go. If I did, the
sphere would act like a homing device, go directly to
Reever, and kill him. I turned, and ran for the sidelines. I’d
drop the sphere into the nearest bucket of water I could
find. Hopefully that would short out the triggering device.
   I hadn’t counted on the efficiency of the game
computer, or the rule that stated if a non-penalized player
refused to release the sphere, they had to take the jolts
instead.
   The first jolt hit me like a sledgehammer. I staggered
and nearly fell, then righted myself. Five penalties, like
that? That wasn’t too bad. I could handle that.
   The second jolt was harder, and longer. This time I did
go down, on both knees. The bioelectrical charge stabbed
up through my hands and sent arrows of bright pain
through my arms. Only when the jolt ended was I able to
get up and keep going.
   I could hear the other players running after me. A drone
got in my path and I jumped over it. Thirty meters and
three more penalties to go. I ran over to the sidelines,
hoping that would stop the charges. Players lunged to get
out of my way. Couldn’t blame them—if I touched any of
them, they’d get a taste of the penalty jolts, too.
   “Cherijo!”
   I don’t know if it was Reever’s voice or the third jolt
that knocked me off my feet. I went flying, body writhing
uncontrollably, and landed on the spectators’ side of the
retaining wall. When I stopped twitching, a couple of
furious fans heaved me back over and onto the field.
  I sat up in time to get penalty number four, which sent
me into convulsions. Vague images of players surrounded
my burning field of vision. Someone was yelling my name.
Two men held a third back.
  My immune system was good, but would it hold up
under the increasing strength of the shocks?
  Well, you’re going to find out, aren’t you, smartass?
  Maggie stood over me, and held out her hand.
   “Come on, get up. The next one won’t be for another
ten seconds.”
   I cringed and rolled away. “Don’t touch me. Someone
will take it away.”
   “Baby, ten seconds in your world is about ten hours
here.” She took the sphere away from me and tucked it
under her arm. “Damn stupid game. We thought these
people were civilized, until we saw one of these sporting
exhibitions.” She made a clucking sound as she dusted off
my uniform. “Really ruined the theory you evolved from
primates for me.”
  “Primates? Evolved?”
   “Yeah, well, Terran primates are a lot more sensible
than homo sapiens. Don’t go calling them family.” She
surveyed me. “So you saved Reever and everyone who
had the lousy idea of building houses on top of a shifting
tectonic plate. Proud of yourself?”
  “What do you want?”
   “What I always wanted. You get the discs?” I nodded.
“Good girl. Now you take them, and Reever, and get off
this planet. There are star charts contained in one of the
discs, you’ll be able to use them to get to Jxinok. It’s easy
to find even if you can’t decipher the star charts. Go to
Oenrall—”
  “Dhreen’s world?”
    “Yeah, Dhreen’s world. Once you get there, take a left
at the second moon.”
  “Juh-zin-ock?” I tried out the word. “That the name of
your homeworld?”
  “Bingo.”
  I was beyond exhausted, and hurting, and she was
worried about giving me directions. “And what am I
supposed to do when I get there?”
   “You’ll find out all the answers on Jxinok.” She looked
around at the arena. Everyone around us was frozen, as if
time stood still. I finally understood that here, with
Maggie, it did.
  “Will I see you there?” .
   She looked down at herself and laughed. “No, little girl.
I’m dead. All you see are some memories I gave you.”
  “Interactive memories.”
  “I was an interactive kind of gal.”
  “Did you know about Jericho?”
  She stopped smiling. “Yeah, I did. I was the one who
got him out of there.”
  “What about the others? Jericho said they all survived.”
   “They did. If you could call it that.” Maggie turned,
and suddenly we were back at Joseph’s underground
facility, in the Research and Development room. A group
of dark-haired boys sat playing a game. They ranged in
age from three to twelve. One of them had a particularly
chilling smile.
  Rico and his eight brothers. My eight brothers.
   “Jericho was almost a success,” Maggie said. “The
only problem was his immune system didn’t work right.
And the fact Joe had turned him into a fullblown
sociopath by the time he was four.”
   I began noticing something was physically wrong with
each of the other boys. One had a deformed head, another
possessed withered legs. “What about the others?”
   “Some he put out for adoption. Two had to be
institutionalized. By the time you came along, they were
almost all gone. All except Rid and Rig. They stayed and
eventually became his research assistants. Rid’s in
Mendocino. Rig’s out cruising with the League boys.”
Joseph was dead. Who remained behind? “Are any of
them still at the estate?”
   “No. They were moved as soon as you got old enough
to wander around the mansion. It doesn’t matter.”
   “It doesn’t matter?” I whirled around. “They’re my
brothers. My family.”
   “They were raised like laboratory rats, Cherijo. Most of
them don’t have the personality of a drone on
auto-replay.”
  “You two made sure I wouldn’t ever find out.”
   “You met Jericho, wasn’t he enough?” Jericho, who
like me had only wanted our father to love him. A few
genes’ difference, and I might have ended up chief of the
Night Horse. “Go away, Maggie.”
  “I will. When you tell me you’re going to Jxinok.”
  “I’ll go to your damn homeworld. Satisfied?”
   “Oh, no, baby. The dead are never satisfied.” She
straightened my jersey and dusted off my helmet. Then
she pinched my cheek. “But getting you there, yeah, that
will do, for now.”



   Someone helped me to my feet, and led me out onto
the field. It was a drone official, moving me away from the
crowd. Everyone had fallen silent.
   “We cannot disable the game computer,” the official
was saying. “If you do not release the sphere, you will
die.”
   Even now, if I released the sphere, it would
automatically seek out Duncan. I wasn’t going to let that
happen. Going out on the field was to protect everyone
else, I realized. I stumbled along, ears ringing, vision
blurring.
  Jericho was dead. Joseph was dead. I clutched the hot
sphere tighter between my palms. They were dead, but
Reever would live.
  The official checked the player’s board. “The last
penalty shall be administered in five, four, three…”
   The hysterical crowd chanted down the clock, then
suddenly hushed. Behind me, a woman screamed.
Everyone was on their feet, looking up at a lone figure,
standing on the edge of the highest tier of seats.
 Another crazy fan, determined to have the best view.
What a game.
  The final, lethal jolt hit me. It knocked me flat on my
back. The alloy between my hands began to glow a dull
red. I clenched my chattering teeth and endured the
charge, holding the sphere up, high above my head, so
everyone could see.
  Look at me. Watch me burn.
   I forgot about the pain when I saw the lone figure leap
out into space, and fall. Thousands of voices shrieked
their shock and horror as the figure hurtled down toward
me and certain death.
   As I twisted and writhed, so did the figure. Was it
some kind of poltergeist, suffering with me, burning with
me? No, it was tearing off its outer clothes. Another
dark-haired twin who arched up and at the last moment
spread out his two enormous, gleaming black wings.
  Hawk.
    I watched my friend as he broke his own fall and turned
it into a slow, graceful glide. No one moved or made a
sound, so I could hear his wings beating against the air
currents. It sounded like a heartbeat.
   Then someone started to chant, “Gliders, Gliders,
Gliders!”
   More voices chimed in, and soon everyone was
chanting the word. For a hunchback who had turned into
an avatar. The black-winged Glider of New Angeles myth.
Now Hawk had revealed his secret, not only to his tribe,
but to everyone on Terra. I was proud of him.
    I let my head fall back once I saw he could sustain his
flight, and let the pain roll through me. My teeth screeched
against each other. The flesh on the insides of my hands
began to smoke.
  “Cherijo!”
   Hawk swooped down and grabbed me, plucking the
sphere from my hands at the same time. He was wearing
some kind of insulation gear, so the jolt didn’t affect him.
His talons crushed the sphere before dropping it, then he
folded me against his chest.
  “Reever,” I managed to say.
   “Look.” Hawk hovered, and pointed. On the other side
of the field, Dhreen was helping Reever, Ilona, and the
cats into a glidecar he’d landed on the sidelines. “Are you
ready to go now?”
  Oh yeah, I was ready. I nodded and held on.
   Hawk flew up and out of the arena, and glided above
the regular traffic lanes. I looked down and saw Dhreen
following us below. They weren’t the only ones.
   “League troop units,” I said. “They’re coming after
us.”
  “They’ll have to get through the Night Horse first.”
   I watched as several glidecars deliberately smashed into
the troop vehicles, disabling them. The faint sound of
Indian voices hooting with triumph made me smile. “You
guys are handy to have around when someone wants to
escape.” I looked up into his dark face. “But I thought
you were staying.”
  “I can’t now.” Hawk smiled. “You forced my hand,
you know.”
   “I did nothing of the sort. This was all your idea.” I
grinned, painfully. “But you made one hell of a
sphere-down, pal.”



   Hawk flew until we were over some deserted
agricultural fields, then finally glided down to the ground.
He grimaced as he set me on my feet and folded his
wings.
   “I know those exercises you showed me how to do
strengthen them, but they still hurt every time I fly.”
   “Keep at it.” I inspected the spinal junctions, where his
wings were connected to his back. I would have felt them,
but my hands were too burned to use. “You’re using
muscles that you’ve been binding down for years. The
atrophy was the biggest problem, and that’s gone. In time,
they’ll stop aching and you’ll be able to fly longer.”
   “Not on Terra.” He reached back and touched the top
of one wing, stroking the short black feathers covering it.
“At least now I won’t have to pluck these out of my chest
anymore.”
   Or face having his wings amputated to better pass as
Terran, I guessed. That must have been why he’d never
told Rico or any of the other Night Horse.
  “See? And you thought Small Fox had problems.” I
looked around. “Any particular reason you decided to
stop here, other than getting tired of hauling me around?”
   “We’re expected.” He nodded toward a nearby line of
trees.
   I walked with him to the edge of the field, and saw
Dhreen and Reever waiting for us. Both of them were
holding a very disgruntled cat in their arms. Beyond them
was another, smaller clearing, and a large object covered
with brush.
  Reever handed Jenner to Hawk, then pulled me into his
arms. “You shouldn’t have done it.” He kissed me, hard
and angry.
    As soon as he let me up for air, I smiled. “What, and
let you get fried? Who has the superior immune system
around here?” I snuggled against him, exhausted but
happy. “I was so scared.”
  “I was frightened, too.” He kissed the top of my head.
“Now we must leave, or the League will catch up to us.”
    “Is that big heap under those branches over there what
I think it is?”
  “Dhreen’s starshuttle.”
   I looked at the Oenrallian pilot. “You mean Dhreen’s
stolen starshuttle.”
  Dhreen shrugged and wrapped his arm around Ilona.
“As long as it maintains a stable flightshield, what does it
matter?”
   We all went to the shuttle and boarded. It was a Terran
flagship, a luxurious craft that planetary officials used to
transport League dignitaries. It definitely would be missed.
  We all elected to stay at the helm, and strapped in. I
jumped when a dark-haired woman walked into the cabin.
  “Ilona? You’re coming with us?”
   “Yes.” She smiled and sat down beside me. “Dhreen is
very clever, isn’t he?”
  “Yeah.” I eyed our pilot. “He’s just full of surprises.”
   Hawk was having trouble with his harness, so I leaned
over and clipped him in. He was sweating and staring at
the viewport.
  “Don’t be nervous. Dhreen has survived out in space
for years. He probably doesn’t even know how many
crashes he’s walked away from.”
  Hawk’s wings folded around him like a cloak. “That
does not give me a great deal of confidence.”
   After putting the cats in their carriers, Reever sat down
across from me. He never once looked away from my
face.
   “I had to do it. More than your life was at stake.”
   “I know.”
   “You’re still mad.”
  “You broke your promise to me.” He didn’t crack a
smile. “I will be mad for some time.”
   “I guess you’re entitled. Do you think you’ll forgive me
by the time we get to Joren?”
   “Perhaps.”
   I hid a smile and gripped the armrests as Dhreen
initiated the flightshield. “Dhreen, how are you going to
get us through the security grid?”
   “No worrying, Doc. This baby is equipped with a full
camouflage array.” Dhreen’s spoon-shaped fingers
danced over the pilot’s console. “Once we’re in the upper
atmosphere, I’m going to enable it.”
  “What does a camouflage array do?” I asked Reever.
“Make us disappear?”
   “Not exactly.”
   We lifted off and headed straight up. G-force kept me
plastered to the seat, until the shuttle’s flightshield altered
the molecular composition of the ship, and we started
slipping through gravity. That was when Dhreen yelled,
“Watch this!”
   I looked out the viewport, and suddenly we were
surrounded by hundreds of shuttles. All identical to ours.
   “I get it. Camouflage as in try to guess which one is
real,” I said.
   “They’re all real,” Reever assured me. “As real as we
are.”
    Which, given the peculiar mechanics involved with
flightshielding, meant we were all visible—and invisible.
   I sat back in my seat and closed my eyes. “Wake me
when we get the signal.”
  “What signal?” Reever asked.
  “Didn’t I mention it?” I yawned. “The cavalry is
coming.”


           CHAPTER TWENTY
                                                  «^

            A Gift for Duncan
The League had mustered all the ships within the Sol
Quadrant, and sent them after us. Dhreen didn’t seem
worried about that, even when I pointed at the converging
blips on the sensor screen about an hour later.
   “No worrying, Doc. I already signaled our friends the
Jorenians, and the Sunlace is waiting for us, just beyond
Jupiter. Right where you said they’d be.”
  Reever glanced at me. “You sent for the Jorenians?”
   “It was my last request—you know, my Speaking. I
asked them to come to Sol as soon as they’d finished
repopulating the slaves. I told Xonea we’d find a way to
rendezvous with them.” Seeing the familiar nautilus shape
of the Sunlace made my eyes sting for a moment. Then I
saw two more Jorenian ships hovering just beyond
HouseClan Turin’s star vessel.
  “Three Jorenian ships?”
   “Xonea probably figured we could use the extra
firepower.” Dhreen flew directly at the Sunlace, and
signaled for permission to dock.
  “If you have my ClanSister on board, you may,”
Xonea’s deep voice said over the audio. “If you don’t, go
back and get her off that miserable world she was
mistakenly born on.”
  I went to the helm. “Hi, Xonea. You don’t like my
homeworld?”
  “Of course I do—but your homeworld is Joren.” He
made a gesture that blended affection and relief.
“Welcome back to your family, Cherijo.”
   “Xonea, we’ve got about twenty League ships on an
intercept course with us. You’d better prepare to
transition—quick.”
  “As soon as you land in launch bay, we will transition.
Sunlace out.”
   The Sunlace and the two flanking ships transitioned a
few minutes after we landed in launch bay. I got to go
through the dimensional shift while clutching my seat
harness and swearing to join the Hsktskt just so I didn’t
have to watch reality melt around me.
  Once we were cleared to disembark, I walked out and
saw Salo and several large Jorenians waiting for us. They
were armed and not smiling.
  “Isn’t anyone happy to see me?” I demanded.
   Salo nodded, but his eyes were fixed on a spot beyond
my right shoulder. “We have some HouseClan business to
attend to here, healer. You and Duncan should go to your
quarters.”
  I turned around and saw he was staring at Dhreen, who
was having a hard time blinking. Then I recalled how my
adopted family felt about people they thought had harmed
me.
   “Oh, no.” I backed up until I bumped into Dhreen. “I
shield the Oenrallian Dhreen, Salo.”
   Slowly the killing rage left the grim expressions of the
Jorenians. Salo lowered the huge, curved sword he’d been
ready to use and gave me a frown.
  “You never allow us to carry out ClanKill against
anyone, Healer Cherijo.”
   “I can’t stand the sight of all those ripped-out
intestines.” I let out a sigh, walked over and nearly
dislocated my spine giving the Sunlace’s second in
command a hug. “Good to see you, big guy. How are
Darea and Fasala?”
   “The light of my life, as always.” He touched his brow
to mine. “Eager to see you as well. But I think perhaps
you should go to Medical first.”
  Medical. Yes, I definitely was ready to go to Medical.
  “Make sure no one chops up Dhreen while I’m gone.”
I grabbed the cats and Reever and headed directly for a
gyrlift.
  “I want Squilyp to look at those electrical burns on
your hands,” Reever said as I pushed him into the gyrlift.
“Why are you in such a hurry?”
  “You’ll see.” I tapped my foot on the floor of the lift.
“Can’t this thing go any faster?”
  Squilyp was waiting for us at the entrance to Medical
Bay. So was Alunthri.
   After I gave the Chakacat a hug and exchanged relieved
greetings, I turned to my former resident. “Well?”
  He looked at my hands. “You’ve been burned again.”
  “Minor.” I flicked my fingers to show him. “What
about the experiment?”
  “What experiment?” Reever asked.
  Squilyp hopped over and put two of his three hands on
my shoulders. “Cherijo, it was a complete success. It
worked.”
  At least, I think that’s what he said. A moment later, I
was flat on my back, with someone waving an ampule of
ammonia under my nose.
  “Okay, okay!” I slapped the hand away. “I’m up.”
   Alunthri paced nervously around me. Reever didn’t let
me stand, but picked me up instead. “She’s endured more
than burns. You’ll need to do a complete workup on her,
Senior Healer.”
    “I should live long enough to see the day she allows me
to do one,” Squilyp said. “Put her on the trauma table and
I’ll start my scans.” He saw my expression and shook his
head. “We can discuss the experiment after I bring you
the results. Let me make sure you’re all right, for
Duncan’s sake.”
  “Hurry up,” I said. “I’ve been waiting almost a year
and I’m not going to wait another second more than I
have to.”
  Reever jumped right on that. “A year? For an
experiment? What sort of test was this?”
   Alunthri muttered something about its thesis and beat a
hasty retreat.
   I didn’t want to tell him until Squilyp brought us the
results. I bit my lip and stretched out on the table. “Let
Squilyp scan me first.”
   That took only a few minutes, and then Squilyp left us
to go to get the test results. I couldn’t sit still, so I got up
and did his rounds for him. Reever trailed after me, still
looking puzzled.
   “Cherijo, this experiment, what is it?”
   “You can’t stand being in the dark, can you?” I
grinned. “Well, you’ll just have to wait this time. Because
I don’t think you’ll believe me until you see it with your
own eyes.”
  Xonea came in a few minutes later, and nearly crushed
me with one of his brotherly hugs.
  “I never want to go through this again,” he said against
my hair. “First we thought we’d lost you to the Hsktskt,
and now to the Terrans. You cannot leave us again. I will
not let you.” He held me at arm’s length. “You are thinner.
You are burned.”
   I saw the familiar, kin-have-been-harmed,
get-the-swords expression and patted him on one
muscular blue arm.
   “I’m fine. I burned myself. Come and sit down and tell
us what’s happening with the war. Reever and I have been
out of touch for months.”
  Anything to keep me from thinking about what Squilyp
was getting.
   Xonea shook Reever’s hand and led us into Squilyp’s
office, where he updated us on the League’s escalating
war with the Hsktskt. Started by my own creator in order
to retrieve me from the Hsktskt, the war had exploded
across a dozen quadrants throughout the galaxy. It was
moving forward, like a deadly tide, and getting close to
Terran space.
   “We should return to Joren at once,” he said. “We can
better safeguard you on our own territory.”
   Reever and I exchanged a glance. “I don’t think that’s
such a good idea, Xonea. Remember what happened the
last time?”
   He looked a little annoyed. “We have improved our
planetary defenses.”
  “Great. I hope you never have to use them. Joren is still
remaining neutral in the vwar, isn’t it?”
   “Yes, for now. However, news of atrocities on both
sides may compel Joren and some of our allies to form a
third defensive force to protect our homeworld
quadrants.”
   That wasn’t such good news. “Neutral usually means
staying out of the fighting, Xonea.”
   “We will do what we must. If League or Hsktskt forces
enter the Varallan system, we may have no choice but to
fight.”
   “Well, Reever and I are going to stay away from Joren,
just as a precaution.” I recalled my promise to Maggie,
and to Dhreen. “There are some other places we need to
go.”
   We debated just where to go for a few minutes. The
boys wanted to fly to the other side of the galaxy, and find
a nice, unoccupied fertile world for me and Reever to
settle down on.
   Gee, just what I’d always wanted: to build a house I’d
have to clean myself. My patience, which had been
thinning ever since Squilyp left, reached a breaking point.
“According to what you’ve told us, the war isn’t likely to
reach Oenrallian space. Why don’t we head that way?”
  “I’d heard you shielded Dhreen.” Xonea glared at me.
“Why?”
   “My creator basically blackmailed him into doing what
he did. It really wasn’t his fault. Besides, even if everyone
stays mad at Dhreen, you can’t blame his people for his
actions.”
   “True. We have yet to explore that particular
quadrant.” Xonea tapped his finger against his lips. “I
think it may be a viable alternative.”
  I wasn’t going to mention that Maggie’s homeworld
was in the same quadrant—there would be time enough to
analyze the discs and tell everyone about that later.
“Where are our other passengers?”
  “Waiting for us at the reception.”
  I groaned. The Jorenians loved to throw parties. “Not
another one.”
  “You are a popular member of our HouseClan, Healer.
Get used to it.” Xonea looked up as a nurse called him
over to the main console. “Excuse me.”
  I started pacing again. My ClanBrother came back a
minute later.
  “It seems Squilyp needs my assistance.”
  “With what?” I demanded.
   “A minor problem, easily dealt with.” Before I could
say anything, he shook his head. “Patience, ClanSister,
you will soon have all you desire. I will meet you both at
the reception in a few minutes.”



   The reception was held on level seven, in the new
environome someone had put in around the galley. Now
everyone could dine in the simulated surroundings of
whatever world they chose. It disoriented me for a
moment, to step off the gyrlift and into Marine Province
on Joren.
   “Wow, someone has been busy.” I took Reever’s hand
in mine. “Listen, no matter what happens when Xonea
comes back, I want you to remember something.”
  “What is that?”
   “I love you.” I smiled at him, then stepped forward to
greet what looked like the entire crew.
   Everyone had missed me, judging by the number of
times my ribs were compressed. Wonlee made me put on
a plas-lined frontal engineering shroud so he could give
me a squeeze without impaling me on his spines. I spotted
Dhreen and Ilona over in one corner, talking to a couple of
the nurses, and left Reever to see how my Oenrallian
friend had fared with my adopted family.
  He had his arm around Ilona and was making jokes
about water on Terra. “It looks clear enough, until twelve
hours later, and then the microbes hit you—”
   “Hey, you two.” I stepped into the circle. “Anyone
seen Hawk?”
  “Not since we left the shuttle.” Ilona snuggled up to
Dhreen. “We have been busy.”
  “So I see.” I gave her a stern look. “You are not
allowed to breed for at least two months. We’ll discuss
why when I give you your followup exam.”
  “Yes, patcher.” She gazed at the big warrior men and
women surrounding us. “Your tribe is most impressive. I
have never seen such people.”
  I thought of my own reaction when I’d landed on the
mostly nonhuman colony of K-2. “Another reason it’s
good to leave Terra. Are you okay with that?”
  “I am bonded to Dhreen. Where he goes, I follow.”
   Dhreen gave her waist a squeeze. “And where you go, I
follow.”
  “Keep that up and you two will go in circles.” I spotted
Hawk on the other side of the galley and smiled. “I’m
going to go check on our other guest. Behave
yourselves.”
   It took me a few minutes to work my way through the
crowd over to Hawk, who had his wings to a hull panel
and was gingerly sampling some Jorenian tea.
   “Awful stuff, isn’t it?” I whisked the server from his
hand. “It took me a couple of months before I could
manage to drink more than a few sips.” The professional
side of my brain kicked in and I glanced at his back.
“How do they feel?”
   “Sore. But good, too. I don’t think I could go back to
binding them down again.” Hawk stretched them out
slightly. Many of the Jorenians were eyeing him with open
curiosity, and it was making him nervous. “Your tribe,
they will allow me to accompany you and Nilch’i’ to your
destination?”
   “Of course. They’re always happy to welcome friends
of the family along for the ride.” I went to a prep unit and
dialed up more familiar Terran tea, and handed it to him.
“Try this, it’s chamomile and mint.”
  The taste of the unsweetened tea seemed to relax him.
“No one seems to mind that I have wings.”
  “Or fur.” Alunthri joined us. “The Jorenians aren’t like
Terrans. They enjoy the diversity of life in the universe.”
  I looked at the door panel for the hundredth time. If my
ClanBrother and that damn Omorr didn’t show up soon, I
was going to go hunt them down myself.
  “One of the pilots told me we’re going to the Liacos
Quadrant.”
  Hawk was talking to me again. “That’s right.”
 “My father’s homeworld lies along our route there.
Would it be possible, I mean—”
   “Can we make a stop? Of course.” Reever came over,
and I automatically blocked my thoughts. I patted Hawk’s
arm. “You’re among my friends now. I hope you’ll give
them a chance to be your friends, too.” I smiled at
Alunthri. “They’ve enriched my life quite a bit.”
  “Cherijo, may I have a moment?”
   I excused myself, then went with Reever to another
unoccupied corner. As I looked back, Hawk began having
a conversation with Alunthri, and two fascinated Jorenians
who had approached them in my wake.
  “I think we have another potential member for
House-Clan Torin.” I looked back at Reever. “What’s
up?”
  “Why are you acting so agitated?”
  “I’m just, uh, excited to be back where I belong.”
  “If that’s so, why are you blocking your thoughts from
me?”
   “Because I’m thinking about killing two crew members
with my bare hands.”
   Duncan turned to the viewport and made a frustrated
sound. “I could understand why you were blocking your
thoughts on Terra. But we are among friends now,
Cherijo. It isn’t necessary.”
   Maybe it was time I went to find Xonea and Squilyp.
“Stay here and I’ll—”
  The crowd between us and the corridor door panel
suddenly parted, forming a wide gap between them. I saw
why, and froze.
   Xonea was standing at the other end of the gap. In his
huge arms he was holding a yawning, blond-haired
toddler.
  There she was.
   “I know you think my telepathic abilities are an
intrusion, but if you would only consider how they deepen
our intimacy—”
   She was a tiny thing. Of course the Jorenians made
everyone look dinky. Her hair was so blond it was almost
white, dead straight, and nearly touched her shoulders.
Her features were rosy and yet not baby-pretty. No, she
looked like a miniature adult.
  “Uh, Duncan?” I blindly swatted at him, unable to take
my own eyes away. “Turn around.”
   Xonea started walking toward us. The sleepy child
rested her cheek against the wide vault of his chest,
making her look even smaller. Given her rapid gestation,
the six months I’d spent in sleep suspension on the
League ship, plus the time on Terra, she would be about a
year old now.
   Reever took me by the arm. “I love you, Cherijo. I
don’t want there to be any more walls between us. Let me
in.”
   “I will, in a minute. Would you please turn around?”
   “Even now you are distracted. Has someone—”
   I grabbed his arms and shoved him around. He went
very still. “Xonea.”
   Xonea stopped a few feet away, and the entire room
fell silent. “I regret I was not able to join you sooner. My
ClanNiece Marel often becomes grumpy when woken
from a sound sleep.”
   I could sympathize with that.
  “One of the disadvantages of being gestated in an
embryonic chamber,” I said, my voice cracking a little.
“You get spoiled.”
   At the sound of my voice, the child lifted her head and
looked at me.
   Xonea gave me an indignant look. “She is not spoiled.”
    Squilyp hopped down the gap after Xonea. “Yes, she
is. In fact, she’s terrorized the entire ship since emerging
from the chamber I raised her in.”
   Marel reached out to the Omorr and smacked him
lightly on the arm.
   “She likes to hit people, too,” Squilyp said in a dry
tone. “Just like her mother.”
   Xonea set Marel down on her feet, and the little girl
stared up at me. Hawk appeared on the edge of the
crowd, distracting the toddler for a moment. He smiled as
she headed straight for him, then patted the lower part of
one of his wings.
  “She has the same eyes as you, Cherijo.”
  “Yes, she does.” I knelt down and held out my hand.
“Marel?”
   Marel took a couple of steps forward on unsteady legs,
then looked back at Xonea. “Mine?”
   “Yes, Marel.” To me, my ClanBrother said, “I showed
her photoscans every day so she would know.”
  The little girl pointed to me. “Mine.”
    “Yes, Marel.” I’d waited over a year to hear that. “I’m
all yours.”
   The baby toddled over and reached up for me with her
tiny hands. I carefully lifted her and closed my eyes at the
feel of her slight weight in my arms. Her hair was so soft
beneath my palm.
  Oh God. She was real. “Hello, sweetie.”
   “Mine mama.” She patted my cheek and gave me a
delighted, four-toothed grin. Her eyes changed from green
to blue. “Where been, Mama?”
  My throat hurt. “I’ve been trying to get back to you,
sweetie.”
  Marel thought about that. “Stay now?”
   “Yes, I’ll stay now. I won’t leave you again.” I turned
slightly. “There’s someone else here who wants to meet
you.”
  She looked at Reever with a great deal of interest.
“Him?”
  “That’s him.”
   “Mine?” She cocked her little head, then reached out
her other hand.
   Something incredible happened when that small hand
touched Duncan’s face. The blank mask that I’d never
seen him without vanished. Then he smiled.
  Duncan Reever smiled.
  Our daughter patted his cheek. “Mine daddy.”
                    —«»—«»—«»—


   S.L. Viehl was raised and educated in South Florida,
where she now lives with her two children. A U.S.A.F.
veteran, her medical experience was gained in both military
and civilian trauma centers.

[scanned anonymously]
[August 7, 2003—v1 html proofed and formatted by
IrisBlue for ELF]