As the doors to the office swung closed behind him, Durg again wondered if his line carried a recessive for insanity. He had been stolen from this House at age twelve. Now, one hundred and ninety-six years later, he was returning. His boot heels drew music from the harmonically sensitive floor. It seemed an entire symphony’s worth of walk to the great desk.

Durg knew his attention should have been focused upon L’gura, Raiyis of House Vayawand. But there had been three rulers of the House since Durg’s kidnapping, and of greater and more terrifying interest was the Morakh who stood behind and slightly to the left of the Raiyis’s chair. Yes, she was standing absolutely still, but there was the poised quivering of a recently shot arrow. She was ready to fight. To kill. Her honey brown hair had been twisted up into an elaborate knot like a temple chhatri. Down, it would probably stretch to her knees. She was very beautiful.

Lighter-boned than a Morakh male, she was still massive when measured against her master. L’gura was thin to the point of emaciation, and his chalk white skin set off the green and blue of the jewels implanted in his cheeks and beneath his brows. He was placidly watching Durg’s approach.

It is a mark of his confidence in his Morakh that they leave the guards outside, Durg thought. And almost too late he reacted to her slashing attack. Too long among humans. Too long on a world where guests enter unarmed into rooms.

Durg tucked into a tight ball, thus missing the larynx-crushing blow. The roll was supposed to take her in the shins. She was too fast. She sprang lightly over him, delivering a vicious thrust kick to the kidneys as she passed. Ignoring the pain, Durg snapped onto his back and caught her by the ankle. Threw her hard into the far wall. He regained his feet just in time to counter her next attack. He now had his objective. He endured two punishing blows in order to close with her. He drove his heel down hard on her instep and speared her in the throat with his right elbow, while with his left hand he drew the ceremonial sword swinging in its scabbard at her side. He used her own momentum to send her stumbling past him, and he quickly ran to L’gura, knelt, and offered the sword and the back of his neck.

“Malika, enough!”

At that shouted command from her master, the woman skittered to a stop inches from Durg’s unprotected back. The aching between his shoulder blades diminished to a mere itch.

L’gura stood and threw the sword back to his Morakh. “It seems he is worth enough to let him live.”

“He is still a traitor and tainted,” Malika replied.

“But so interesting. A renegade Morakh who returns home in a stolen Ilkazam ship with an Ilkazam noble and an abomination in tow.” L’gura resumed his seat. “If your story is intriguing enough, I’ll let you live long enough to complete it.”

Durg omitted nothing. He told of his theft by a raiding Ilkazam party led by Prince Zabb. His years of service to House Ilkazam. The journey to Earth to evaluate the success of the Ilkazam Enhancer experiment. His secret command to locate and kill the heir to House Ilkazam, Prince Tisianne. His defeat at the hands of a woman touched by that Takisian Enhancer. His abandonment, and his years on Earth. How by the grace of the Ideal a powerful weapon had been delivered into his hands.

“Two, in fact,” Durg amended. “And I realized I had a coin valuable enough to buy my return to the House of my birth and blood.”

L’gura said nothing, just stroked his upper lip thoughtfully. Malika, having ascertained she would not interrupt her master, stepped in. “Why now? Why in all these long years did you decide that now was the moment?”

“I wished to breed. I heard you were available.”

L’gura laughed at his Morakh’s outraged expression. “Durg at’ Morakh bo…” The Raiyis of House Vayawand raised his brows inquiringly.

“Blaise,” Durg supplied the name of his master.

“…bo Blaise, you are a most unusual Morakh. Tainted, yes, but very interesting. Now, tell me of this coin, and why it is valuable to me.”

“Will it buy me back into my House?”

“If it is valuable enough.”

“Is the heir to House Ilkazam worth anything to you?”

L’gura leaned back in his chair. Spoke to the ceiling. “If you actually held Tisianne.” He snapped suddenly forward and pinned Durg with a look. “But you do not. You possess a body animated by the mind of a mudcrawling girl-child.”

“True, but the Ilkazam won’t know that.”

“And what happens when the real Prince Tisianne arrives and proves us all liars?”

“He will not. The human mudcrawlers are primitive. Years ago they attained their moon, then lost their will and nerve for space travel. They have no ships capable of crossing the void. The only ship was Prince Tisianne’s, and we have removed that means of escape.”

L’gura sighed. “I have no interest in gene money. I wish to defeat Ilkazam.”

“As do we. We are not proposing a kidnapping, a hostage situation. My master suggests that it might be more to your benefit if Tisianne brant T’sara seems to have willingly switched his allegiance.”

“It has never happened,” Malika said.

Durg shifted to look at her. “Then how much more impact this betrayal will cause.”

“No one will believe it,” L’gura said.

“They will. They will hear my young master speak, and he has the power of words.”

“Not enough to keep him alive. He is a half-breed horror.”

“Again, you are correct, but surely it is enough to keep him alive a few days?”

“You’re bargaining with me, Morakh. Are you sure you weren’t stranded among the Network vacu instead of mudcrawlers?”

“The question is… are you buying?”

L’gura stared at Durg for a long, long time. Durg knew the man was regretting the genetic manipulations that had left the Morakh completely opaque to even the most powerful telepath. When you were certain of your pet’s loyalty, it was not a problem. When you weren’t

Durg smiled inwardly but allowed no hint of his internal pleasure to show on his face.

“Three days for your half-breed.”

“That should be enough for him to prove his usefulness.”

“There will be no reprieve,” L’gura warned.

“As you say, Most Bred.”

And Durg bowed his way out of the office.

“We have little time,” Durg said softly to Blaise.

“Do it,” Blaise ordered, and Kelly closed his eyes and contacted Baby.

And the ship swallowed the Vayawand guard left on duty until the arrival of the House shuttle. Durg spared a moment to ponder the communication that had sprung up between the ship and the bogus Tachyon and regret it, but it was serving its purpose now, and soon Kelly would be separated from the other stolen female.

“I’ve bought you three days, but don’t trust it. Treachery is the great Takisian art form. They’ll try to kill you before the deadline and take Kelly for themselves.”

“So I’ll jump this L’gura guy -”

“No! We save that.”

“So how the fuck do I convince this guy not to croak me?” Blaise paced a few nervous steps away, and back again. “I knew we shouldn’t have come here.”

“You are an abortion, afterbirth, the most filthy thing they can imagine. Which means they will underestimate you. I will select the target and upon my command use your mind control. Strike when they are unaware. Kill them quickly.”

Durg had already selected the target – Malika, the Morakh guard. Perhaps it was a quirk of Blaise’s madness coupled with his freakish mind-control power, but the young man had found the key to a Morakh’s mind. At their first encounter Durg had repelled the mental attack, but Blaise had come close to scratching the surface of that opaque mind. Months of practice had provided Blaise with the secret. Now all their lives depended upon whether the knack would translate from Morakh to Morakh.