"And what about my pursuit of virtue?" he countered, throwing up to her the other equally important and utterly contradictory tenet of Takisian life.

"Time has not stood still at home while you have amused yourself on Earth. When you vanished, Shaklan suspected you had followed the ship to Earth."

"But you were not alone in your concern over the great experiment. Others watched, but rather than haring off to prevent the release, they struck at the source. L'gura, that motherless animal, welded a coalition of fifteen other families, and they came." She stared down at her hands, and suddenly she looked very old. "Many died in the attack. But for Zabb I think we all might have died." Tach caught his lower lip between his teeth, holding back the excuses for his absence. "Did you never wonder, as the years passed and still we did not come, what might have happened?"

A cold blade seemed to twist in his belly, and he forced out, "Father?"

"A head injury. The flesh lives, but the mind is gone." Numbness gripped him, and the remainder of her words seemed to come to him from a great distance. "With you gone Zabb agitated for the scepter, but many feared his ambition. In order to block his ascension your uncle Taj maintained a regency, but it was decided that you had to be found, for it is doubtful how much longer Shaklan's body can continue…"

Bitterly cold mornings, and his father pressing a paper cone filled with roasted nuts into his hand while a street vendor bobbed and beamed at the noble ones… Swinging sadly on a door while Shaklan conducted business and forgot that he had promised to teach his small son to ride that day. The meeting ending, and the arms opening wide. Racing into that embrace, feeling safe as those powerful arms closed about him, the tickle of a lace cravat against his cheek, and the warm, man scent, overlaid with the spice of his cologne. . The indescribable pain when his father had shot him through the upper thigh during one of his psi training sessions. Their tears had mingled as Shaklan tried to explain why he had done it. That Tisianne had to be able to withstand anything this side of death without losing mental control. Someday his life might depend upon it… The flicker of firelight on the etched planes of his face as they shared a bottle of wine, and wept, the night they learned of Jadlan's suicide.

Tach covered his face with his hands, and sobbed. Benaf'saj made no move, physical or mental, to ease his anguish, and he hated her. The storm wore itself out, and he mopped at his running eyes and nose with a handkerchief supplied by his many-times great-granddam. Their eyes met, and he saw in them.. pain? He could scarcely credit it, and the moment passed before he could assure himself of the reality of what he had seen.

"We will be under way as soon as we have swept the area for swarmlings. We are not well enough armed to fight off an attack by one of the devourers, and our screens must be dropped before we can enter ghostflight. It is a shame," she continued to muse, "that we were able to save so few specimens. It is likely the T'zan-d'ran will destroy this world." His head moved in quick negation. "You disagree?"

"I think the humans might surprise you."

"I doubt it. But at least we have gathered our data." She pinned him with a cold, gray eye. "You will, of course, have the run of the ship; but, please, do not approach the humans."

"It will only agitate them, and make it harder for them to adjust to their new lives."

She gave a telepathic summons, and a slender woman entered the room. Tach realized, with a start, that the last time he had seen her she had been a roly-poly five-year-old, nursing a fine family of dolls, and making him promise to marry her when she grew up so they could have pretty babies. She would never marry now. The fact that she was on this ship, and not safely ensconced in the women's quarters, meant that she was bitshuf'di, one of the neutered ones who had been deemed to carry dangerous recessives, or to be -of insufficient genetic worth to be permitted to breed.

Her eyes flicked (sadly?… it was difficult to gauge the emotion, so quickly had it passed) over him, and she made obeisance.

"Sire, if you will accompany me."

He swept Benaf'saj a final bow, and fell into step with Talli, debating how to break the silence. He decided small talk would be inappropriate-of course she'd grown, it'd been decades!

"No word of greeting, UP" The corridor curved before them, gleaming like polished mother-of-pearl as they spiraled deeper into the heart of the ship.

"You gave none in farewell."

"It was something I had to do."

"Others also live by that imperative." She glanced nervously about and switched to the tight, intimate telepathic mode. Zabb means to have you dead. Eat or drink nothing that I have not brought, and watch your back. She pressed a small sharp dagger into his hand, and he ran it quickly up his sleeve.

I suspected as much. But thank you for the warning and the weapon.

He'll kill me if he. suspects.

He won't learn it from me. He was never my equal in mentatics. But she looked doubtful, and he realized with embarrassment how lax were his shields. He strengthened them, and she nodded with relief.

Better.

No, terrible. This is a dreadful situation. He looked at her seriously. I have no intention of returning to Takis.

They had reached the door to the cabin, and the ship obligingly shuttered open for him.

She placed her hands on his shoulders, and urged him in. You must. We need you.

And as the door lensed shut he decided that maybe she wasn't much of an ally after all.

Tom Tudbury was having one of the worst days of his life. The very worst day had been March 8, when Barbara had married Steve Bruder, but this one was running a real close second. He had been on his way to Tachyon's clinic with the strange device he'd taken off the street punk when a strange ship, looking rather like a wentletrap seashell, had looped out of the clouds, pulled up beside him, and invited him aboard. Maybe invited wasn't the right word; compelled was closer to the mark. Icy talons seemed to settle about his mind, and he had calmly flown the shell through the yawning doors of a cargo bay. He didn't remember anything more until he had found himself standing in a gigantic room, his shell squatting behind him.

Several slender men in comic-opera gold and white uniforms stepped forward and searched him, while another darted into the shell, and emerged with the strange black ball and a half-drunk six-pack of beer. He gestured with the cans causing them to clunk dully together, and there was a burst of laughter. Next the device was examined amid a ripple of musical words filled with random and inexplicable pauses. With a shrug, the device was placed on a shelf which ran along one side of the curving room. One of his captors gestured politely toward a doorway. The courtesy of the gesture removed his worst fear-he clearly wasn't in the hands of the Swarm. Somehow politeness seemed out of place with monsters.

They exited into a long snaking corridor whose walls, floor, and ceiling shone like polished abalone. As they proceeded, the arching ceiling would light before them and darken after they had passed. One wall held a tracery of rose colored lines like the petals of a flower. This section suddenly shuttered open, and Tom was urged into a luxurious cabin. A burst of brittle, feminine laughter met his arrival, and he goggled at the beautiful woman curled up in the center of a large round bed.

"Well, you don't look like much," she said, her eyes raking over him. He sucked in his belly, and wished his tee shirt was cleaner. "I'm Asta Lenser, Who the hell are you?" He was scared, but the fear made him cautious. He shook his head. "Oh, fuck you! We're in this together."