"The Ship Commander and I had a discussion, and I convinced him it was in his best interests to let us go."

"In other words, you made a deal," Wrey growled. "What was it?"

"Something I'll discuss only with the Central Committee and only when we reach Asgard," Jonny told him flatly.

Wrey frowned at him, irritation and growing suspicion etching his face. "You're not authorized to negotiate for the entire Dominion of Man."

"That's okay—the Ship Commander wasn't authorized to negotiate for the Troft Assemblage, either." A gentle thump rippled through the deck and Jonny relaxed muscles he hadn't realized he'd had tensed. "But what authority he did have seems to have been adequate to get us away."

"Moreau—"

"Now if you'll excuse me, it's been a long night and I'm very tired. Good-night, Mr. Wrey; you can figure out on your own how you'll write this incident up. I'm sure you'll come out the hero in the final version."

Which was a rather cheap shot, Jonny admitted to himself as he headed aft toward his cabin. But at the moment his body was aching more than Wrey would ever know and he had no patience left for mid-bureaucratic mentality.

Or, for that matter, for illegal business practices and deliberate evasions. Which was why he planned to take a few days to recuperate before confronting Dru and Harmon with the half-truth the Troft Ship Commander had popped. Allies they had been; allies they might yet be... and he would like if possible to also keep them as friends.

It was another two weeks' travel to the Troft-Dominion border, fourteen of the longest days Jonny had ever suffered through this side of the last war. The cooling attitude toward him aboard the Menssana was part of it, of course, bringing back painful memories of those last months on Horizon. Jonny had all but forgotten the fear mainstream Dominion society felt toward Cobras, and on top of that he suspected Wrey of spitefully dropping hints that he'd made some terrible deal to buy their freedom. Only Harmon and Dru seemed relatively untouched by the general aloofness, and even with them Jonny could tell their friendliness had a large wedge of self-interest mixed in. After the long and painful confession session Jonny had forced them through shortly after their escape, he had the power to bring a fair amount of official flak down on them, and they both knew it.

But the social isolation was only a minor part of the frustration Jonny felt with the slowness of their progress. He had a real chance of sidetracking the war completely, but only if he could get to Asgard before the actual shooting began. To Asgard, and in front of the Central Committee. He hoped Jame would be able to arrange that; Wrey wasn't likely to be of any help.

And at last the Menssana touched down on Adirondack, the terminus point for Corridor traffic... and Wrey played his trump card.

"I'm sorry for whatever inconvenience it'll cost you to have to find your own ways back to your ultimate destinations," Wrey told the group of passengers as they gathered in the Dannimor starfield's customs building. "Unfortunately, the fast courier I'll be taking to Asgard hasn't room for anyone besides myself and Captain Tarvn."

"And me, I presume," Jonny spoke up.

"Afraid not," Wrey said blandly. "But then, you'll remember I warned you against inviting yourself along."

For a heartbeat Jonny simply stood there, unable to believe his ears. "You can't do that, Wrey—"

"Can't I?" the other retorted. "I suggest you check the statutes, Moreau—if you know how to look up real law, that is."

Jonny gazed at the other's self-satisfied expression, the small gloating smile playing at the corners of the paunchy man's mouth—the small mind having its big moment. And Jonny, his own mind occupied by too many other things, had failed completely to anticipate this move. "Look," he said quietly, "this is foolish, and you know it. The Committee needs to hear what the Troft Ship Commander told me—"

"Oh, yes—the 'secret plan' to stop the war that you won't tell anyone about," Wrey almost-sneered. "Maybe you'd better finally loosen up and give me at least the basic outline. I'd be sure and mention it to the Committee."

"I'm sure you would," Jonny grated. "You'll forgive me if I don't trust you to do the job right. Of course, you realize leaving me stranded here with vital information is likely to land you in very deep water very fast."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that." Wrey raised a finger and four men in Army uniforms detached themselves from various walls and stepped forward, halting in a loose box formation about Jonny. "I wouldn't worry about yourself, either," Wrey added. "You're going to be well taken care of."

Jonny glanced at the guards, his eyes slipping from the quietly alert faces to the collar insignia beneath. Interrorum, the Army's crack anti-espionage/anti-terrorist squad. "What the hell is this?" he demanded.

"You'll be getting a first-class military ride to Asgard," Wrey told him. "After you've been checked for hypnotic and subliminal manipulation, of course."

"What? Look, Wrey, unless basic citizen rights have been suspended recently—"

"You were alone with the Trofts for several hours, by your own admission," Wrey interrupted harshly. "Maybe they let us go because you'd been programmed for sabotage or assassination."

Jonny felt his jaw drop. "Of all the ridiculous—you can't make a charge like that stick for ten minutes."

"Take it easy, Governor. I'm not trying to make anything 'stick'—I'm merely following established procedures. You'll be released in—what were those numbers? Three to five days minimum? It takes a three-quarters majority of the examiners to clear you, of course."

Jonny ground his teeth. Wrey was really taking his pound of flesh. "And suppose while I'm sitting around hooked to a biomedical sensor your news of the Troft hijacking starts a war that could have been prevented? Or didn't that occur to you?"

For just an instant Wrey's eyes lost some of their insolence. "I don't think there's any danger of that. You'll get to Asgard in plenty of time." He smiled slyly. "Probably. All right, take him."

For a long second Jonny was tempted. But the soldiers were undoubtedly backed up by plainclothesmen elsewhere, and there were lots of innocent civilians in the building who'd be caught in any crossfire. Exhaling through his teeth, he let them take him away.

The first part of this kind of testing, Jonny remembered from his Cobra lectures, was to establish a physiological baseline by giving the subject several hours of solitary while hidden sensors piled up data. A side effect, especially for those who didn't know the procedure, was to raise the subject's tension level as he contemplated the unknown future awaiting him.

For Jonny, the wasted hours ticking by were maddening.

A dozen times in the first hour he seriously considered breaking out and trying to commandeer a star ship, and each time it was the sheer number of uncertainties that finally stopped him. By the end of the second hour the first twinges of pain began to intrude on his planning. He called the guard, was politely but firmly told his medicine would be returned once it had been analyzed. Protests were of no avail, and as he settled back on his cot to wait, the simmering anger within him began to slowly change into fear. In a very short time he would lose the ability to function... and when that happened he truly would be at Wrey's mercy.

He'd been in the cell nearly three hours when a shadow passed across the observation window and his enhanced hearing picked up a quiet click from the direction of the door.

He turned his head to see, muscles tensing... but the door wasn't being opened. Instead, a small hemispherical dome near the floor beside it rotated open to reveal a tray of food.