Supper was a replay of lunch, a replay Jake didn’t enjoy any more than the first time. Tain politely refused to touch anything but that cereal, an action that turned the tasty food tasteless for Jake. But he ate it anyway, knowing that he had to keep his strength up. Tomorrow they would be leaving that town, and not long after that they would be back where they belonged. Maybe then…

After the meal Jake put the tray of empty dishes out in the hall, then went back to his bedroom for some sleep. But first he called Tain to him and ran his hands over her beautifully naked body, looking for the least sign of a positive reaction from her. It had come to him that she might be lying about having no more interest in him, and if so then her body would tell him the truth.

And her body did tell him the truth but one he hadn’t wanted to know. His caresses brought not the least amount of arousal to her, not even what would probably have come from a brush with a stranger in a crowd. Seeing that killed his own interest, and after sending Tain to her pallet he turned the lamps down and tried to sleep. It took quite some time but eventually he managed the feat.

Tain opened her eyes to the beginnings of a new day, one that no longer had pouring rain. The pallet hadn’t been the easiest thing to fall asleep on, but she’d learned to sleep when necessary even if it was bare ground she had to sleep on. And she’d also learned how to control her own body when she had to, a trick that had quite a bit to do with self-hypnosis…

Odd how Killen doesn’t seem to know about that trick, she thought, studying the man where he still lay asleep in the bed. I thought all agents were taught the same, but maybe not. It’s possible my not using the trick sooner confused him, and that’s perfectly all right. The longer he stays confused, the less trouble he’s likely to give me.

Closing her eyes again let Tain see a replay of what had gone on between her and Killen the day before, memories that weren’t on her list of favorites. When the man had come back after she’d gotten over the shock he’d handed her in relation to that slave persona, she’d told him what had then been the absolute truth. At that moment, the idea of never seeing the man again had been her brightest hope.

But then she’d seen his distress and disappointment, two reactions that were ludicrous considering what he’d done to her. He’d been a fool and a louse, but he didn’t have to be told that by anyone else. He knew it for a fact all by himself, and although he obviously regretted what he’d done he only made one attempt to apologize. After that he simply accepted the guilt and tried to live with the consequences of his actions.

Which had forced her to change her mind about him again almost immediately. Anyone can do something stupid, a truism that didn’t exclude her, but regretting that stupidity and clearly deciding not to repeat it was more than a step in the right direction. In Tain’s opinion it made the person doing the deciding extremely attractive, a living lure to make her want to find out what else the man was all about.

But that was something Tain still couldn’t allow herself to indulge in. She didn’t want a relationship with Killen no matter how attractive she found him, so she knew at once that something had to be done. Putting herself into unresponsive slave mode turned out to be the answer, and no matter how much she hated acting like that she wasn’t about to let herself stray from the role again. She’d had one taste of what stupidity on her part could bring her, and she wasn’t about to court insanity by risking being put into that other persona again.

Tain didn’t quite brood as the time passed, but her thoughts had turned more than a little dark by the time Killen began to stir. She kept her eyes closed and her breathing even while Killen moved around the room, and he didn’t seem to know that she wasn’t still asleep. He shaved in the basin at the foot of his bed before washing briefly, which led Tain to wish she could wash in a bath. It had been much too long since her last bath, but backward societies tended to get used to the smell rather than try to do something about it.

A knock at the door finally let Tain pretend to wake up, but all she did was sit and gaze at the floor while the slave female brought in their breakfast on a tray. The food smelled incredibly good, but the lure of real food had no chance of reaching Tain. Being on this planet seemed to have destroyed her appetite permanently, which was actually a blessing. If you don’t want something, not having it doesn’t cause you to suffer…

“You’d better come over and eat now,” Killen said quietly once the slave was gone. “We’ll be leaving the hostel when we finish the meal, and then we’ll be going to the meeting we came to this town for. As soon as the meeting is over we’ll be heading home, so it won’t be much longer.”

Much longer that you’ll have to be a slave, Tain thought Killen meant as she silently got to her feet and walked to the table where he already sat. It might be true that she’d soon be free, but counting chickens just didn’t pay. She could let relief flood all through her once she really was home and free.

Killen had already taken his breakfast dishes from the tray himself, so all Tain had to do was accept the bowl of cereal and its spoon and kneel to eat. Thinking about how most slaves were made to beg for a taste of real food turned her stomach so badly that the cereal was really the only thing she could hold down. She would have been happier not eating anything at all, but if they were heading home soon she would need all the strength she could muster.

Tain took the last swallow of the cereal before Killen finished his own meal, but not that much sooner. It looked like Killen was in a hurry to get going, and after he gave her a drink of water he didn’t dawdle. In just a few minutes his possessions were all packed, and Tain had been given her “clothing” again. This time she put on the vest and so-called skirt without comment, ignoring the way Killen watched her closely. At no time had she made eye contact with him, and that practice would continue unless she was told to do otherwise.

When Killen was ready to go he led the way out of the bedroom into the common area of the suite. Tain was aware that Tandro and Ennie already stood in the area waiting for them, but the only one she glanced at was Ennie. The girl was dressed in the same outfit Tain wore, of course, but there was something … horribly distant about her. As if she wasn’t really there at all, as if she were a cutout figure instead of a living being. For a brief moment Tain wished she could do something for Ennie, but this wasn’t the place. Maybe once they got home the girl would come alive again…

By the time the men had all their gear and their horses the sun was well up, which meant that most of the mud created by the rain was not only almost dry but was on the way to being dry and cracked. But the last of the moisture made the mud cooler and easier to walk on, something Tain discovered once they’d left the hostel behind. She and Ennie had been told to walk behind the pack horses again, a position Tain found a lot more pleasant than riding with Killen. The farther away she was from that man, the better she liked it.

Their small procession moved through the town and its people for a short while, and then the number of people went down to just about zero. They’d reached an area that was mostly closed warehouses, but whether the places were closed temporarily or permanently was impossible for Tain to tell. A glance around the pack horse showed what looked like private houses beyond the last of the warehouses, and that was most likely where they were headed. A meeting, Killen had said, but not who the meeting was with.

And then all hell broke loose. Men came riding out from between two of the warehouses on horses of their own, four on each side of the men Tain and Ennie followed, and it was perfectly clear that the attackers had been waiting for Killen and Tandro. But not to kill the two men as those assassins had tried on the plains. These men carried heavy lengths of wood in their hands instead of knives, and as soon as they got close enough they began to swing at Killen and Tandro. Even as Tain watched, one of the lengths of wood struck against Killen’s head, and that was all she had to see.