But the universe hadn't proved cooperative. Like courier ships, fighter stardrives were twice as fast as those of larger ships, but they paid for that speed with five times the fuel consumption, and if there was a way to retune the drive for the slower, more efficient drive speed, neither of them had been able to find it. Courier ships had large fuel tanks to compensate. Fighters, unfortunately, didn't.

Which had left them with an extremely limited number of places they could reach without refueling, none of them places where humans flying a fighter with official Mrach markings wouldn't be greeted with raised eyebrows and suspicious questions. With Bronski undoubtedly burning up space behind them, suspicious questions were something to be avoided at all costs.

Which had in turn boiled down their options to exactly one.

Klyveress ci Yyatoor, Twelfth Counsel to the Yycroman Hierarch, had been surprised to see them again so soon. Her welcome had turned noticeably cooler when she'd learned they were on the run. But with a little persistence Cavanagh had managed to work out a deal, and a few hours later they were off again in an old Pawolian mining ship Klyveress had had stashed away somewhere.

With its slower drive the Pawolian ship had more than enough fuel to reach Avon. Unfortunately, what it turned out not to have was a reliable set of reactant infusers.

They'd been able to nurse the ship only as far as Granparra. But as Kolchin had pointed out, as emergency stopovers went, Granparra was a reasonably good one. With virtually the entire planetary population crowded together on Puerto Simone Island, there was no reason for anyone to keep close tabs on space traffic going in or out of the rest of the planet. On the other hand, with a few thousand rough-and-tumble sap miners and prospectors working the mainland at any given time, there were also enough small ships going in and out for one more not to attract particular notice. Kolchin had taken full advantage of that, bringing the ship in toward a mining complex well away from the island—and away from the Myrmidon Weapons Platform that orbited protectively overhead—then flying low over the forests and jungles to a spot only a few hours' hike away from the coastline.

Their problems, according to Kolchin, had thus been reduced to two: how to locate new reactant infusers, and how to raise the money to pay for it without triggering the credit red flags Bronski had undoubtedly set up on the Cavanagh accounts.

Problem three, Cavanagh had privately added, was how to stay alive while they dealt with problems one and two.

"Your bag looks undamaged," Kolchin said, running his fingers along the material. "No thorns embedded or anything."

"Good," Cavanagh said, studying the young man's dirty and unshaven face. Kolchin was being very professional about this, certainly: inquiring closely after his employer's health, sympathizing with him over foot blisters and sore muscles and venom burns, sharing in his fears about the continual danger there. But beneath it all, despite it all, it was obvious that the young bodyguard was enjoying this adventure immensely.

And Cavanagh could hardly blame him. Kolchin had been trained as a Peacekeeper commando—trained with the best and brightest warriors the Commonwealth had to offer. The job of personal bodyguard hardly ever even scratched the surface of his abilities. Now, for probably the first time since Cavanagh had hired him, Kolchin was getting the chance to actually use his combat, stalking, and survival skills.

Cavanagh could only hope that that wasn't the real reason Kolchin had brought them down in the wilds of Granparra in the first place.

"Good," Kolchin said, checking his watch and then peering up at the sky. "You might as well get a little more sleep. It'll be another couple of hours before we can get moving."

"I know," Cavanagh said, rubbing his knuckles into tired eyes, his hands tickling against two weeks' worth of beard growth as he did so. He desperately wanted to sleep, certainly; this little field trip through the Granparra outback was as physically and mentally exhausting as anything he'd tackled since his own stint in the Peacekeepers thirty-six years ago. "I think I'll do a little work first. I still haven't got the ablative part of the scheme balanced properly, and I want to be ready to hit the ground running when we get back to Avon."

"If you want to," Kolchin said, glancing out into the darkness around them. "There'll probably be several hours after we get to the dock before Piltariab shows up."

"If there are, I can work then, too," Cavanagh growled. "And probably also all of next week, after we find out we still don't have enough money to buy the infusers. Maybe we'll wind up spending the whole war here—then I'd have lots of time to work."

Kolchin's eyes narrowed, just slightly. "I only meant—"

"I know what you meant, Kolchin," Cavanagh sighed, waving a hand in tired apology as fatigue overtook the brief flash of anger. "I'm sorry. I'm just tired."

"Yes, sir," Kolchin said, his voice studiously neutral. Perhaps he was finally getting tired too.

More likely, he was wondering whether his boss was beginning to lose it. Cavanagh wouldn't blame him on that one, either. After all, the whole reason they'd run from Mra-mig in the first place was to avoid the quarantine Bronski had planned for them, a quarantine designed to protect the startling and potentially devastating secret that the legendary deterrent weapon CIRCE didn't exist.

Cavanagh had argued vehemently against any such quarantine. With his daughter and two sons still in deadly danger from the Conquerors, he had no desire to let anyone lock him uselessly away where he couldn't do anything to help them. But Bronski had refused his plea, at which point Kolchin had ended the discussion with a drawn flechette pistol and a quiet promise to use it if necessary.

And so, of course, they'd wound up here on the Granparra mainland. As effectively cut off from civilization as they would have been in any quarantine Bronski could have devised.

"I understand your concerns, sir," Kolchin said. "But this last sale should have us pretty close to what we need. And if Piltariab was able to get your message to Bokamba—and if he's willing to lend us the difference—we could conceivably get out of here tonight."

"Perhaps," Cavanagh murmured. Bokamba was Reserve Peacekeeper Wing Commander Iniko Bokamba, Adam Quinn's former commander in the Copperheads. The one potentially bright spot in all this, and a lingering source of annoyance for Cavanagh that he hadn't thought of contacting the man sooner.

Bokamba had been one of the handful of former Copperhead officers Quinn had considered contacting when the family had first decided on a private mission to try to find and rescue Pheylan from the Conquerors. Cavanagh didn't know whether Quinn and Aric had in fact gone to Bokamba or had instead gone to someone else—he and Kolchin had headed off to Mra-mig before that part of Quinn's plan was settled. But it was a possible opening; and with his children in danger, it was an opening Cavanagh was willing to take a chance on.

If he indeed still had any children. If Pheylan was, in fact, still alive out there. If Aric and Quinn hadn't been killed looking for him. If Aric and Pheylan's sister, Melinda, trapped on Dorcas by the Conqueror invasion of that world, hadn't also been killed.

Cavanagh laid his head back down on the mattress pad. No—he wouldn't think that way. Couldn't think that way. Wherever they were right now, Aric, Melinda, and Pheylan were alive and well. They had to be.

"Well," Kolchin said, breaking into the silence. "With your permission, sir, I'm going to take another look around the area. After that I'll see about breakfast."

"All right," Cavanagh nodded. "Thank you."