"No, not that."

"Don't you want to know?" Her own longing was naked in her voice. I was embarrassed.

"I've always known mine. I was of the William Cameron sibko."

"Right. I forgot. You're not a no-name like me."

There was pain in her voice. I reached out to embrace her, give her the human warmth that helped wash away that loneliness. She didn't move until I touched her, then she started. I pulled back and she turned her shoulder to me.

"You'll earn an Honorname," I said awkwardly.

Her voice was tiny. "I want my own."

I understood that. Compared to her, I was lucky. I knew my parents, knew I was the seed of an Honor-name bloodline. Even if I hadn't won the name, I could carry the knowledge of my heritage with me. But I had won a name. Unity! I must have sounded condescending to her.

I dropped my arms to my side and turned my face to the window. Beyond the transpex, the rows of iron wombs marched into the darkness in their immobile ranks, their inner warmth hidden within the chill metal. New life was stirring there in the core of those wombs that looked so hard and nonhuman. The children born of them would face lives full of fighting. Some would know their geneparents, as I did. Some would have no idea who had provided the sperm and egg from which they grew. All would grow up dreaming of earning a name. Some, a very few, would succeed in doing so. Many more would die.

And why?

To fill the ranks of Wolf's Dragoons. And why?

To be ready for the renewed assault of the Clans.

Jaime Wolf had determined that the Dragoons would be there to oppose the return of the Clans in their drive toward Terra. His official reasons were on record in the private Dragoon annals. The sibkos had been full of rumors that hinted at hidden reasons. I heard even wilder speculation once I left the sibko and had free encounters with spheroids. Correct or not, speculation didn't change truth.

The Dragoons were renegades from the Clans, the people who had developed the iron wombs. Most of the oldsters, the Dragoons who had been among the Clans, were freeborns. They had been born of human parents, and some had even grown up in real families. That parentage, derogatorily known as freebirth, had made them second-class citizens, looked down upon by the so-called trueborns who had gestated in the iron wombs and grown up in sibkos. The irony tore at my guts. Here on Outreach the Dragoons had turned to the iron wombs to save themselves as a group, much as had the followers of Nicholas Kerensky, founder of the Clans; the so-called renegades were walking the path of those against whom they'd rebelled. The sibkos were to fill out the ranks and make the Dragoons the elite warriors of the Inner Sphere. Like Clan warriors, the sibkin would become the Wolf's soldiers. They would be educated and trained from birth to be the best. Soldiers without parents, the elite of Wolf's Dragoons.

Like I was. Like Maeve was.

The children birthed of the wombs were our brothers and sisters, even those with whom we shared no genetic heritage. We were all a family. If the Wolf's plan worked, we would be more closely knit, better-trained, and more cohesive than the Dragoons had been when they had first come to the Inner Sphere, fresh from their Clan training.

"Brian?"

I grunted a reply. Very eloquent.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"You don't have anything to apologize for."

"I know you were trying to help."

"I . . ."

"Can we just forget it?"

"Sure." What else could I say?

"You started to tell me why you came here tonight."

"In the sibko we were told that the Dragoons take care of their own."

"Unity of mind, unity of purpose," she quoted.

"The communique I saw was addressed to the scientists. It was about an addition to the gene banks."

"A new Honorname line?

"No. New genes."

Maeve's eyes went wide. "What do you mean?"

"Do you remember when the leaders of all the Inner Sphere came to Outreach? The Wolf was supposedly warning them of the threat of the Clans. He told them of our origin among the Clans and our repudiation of that allegiance. He offered them anti-Clan training and intelligence. He even had them bring their heirs so the new generation would be ready to fight the Clans. The House leaders got training and information all right, but they paid for it in a way they will never know."

"You said new genes."

"That's right. The Wolf ordered genetic samples taken from all the heirs while they were having full medical evaluations. During those examinations, each of the children of the House lords was asleep. I hope they had pleasant dreams, because while they slept, they were leaving something of themselves behind. They're all in the genetic banks."

"The Wolf added spheroid genes to the pool?"

I couldn't tell if she was shocked or just surprised. I nodded.

"Even Kurita genes?"

"Aff."

She was quiet for a long time. "But he kept it secret."

"Aff. A commander must keep some secrets. It's not just a part of the mystique, it's a necessary tool in maintaining unpredictability. Secrecy is as much a part of war as particle projection cannons and blood. A lot of what the Wolf does is secret. He wears one face in public and another in the command center."

"Like any good officer."

I hoped that was all. "It's more than that. I wish I knew what."

"Maybe he's afraid that the adoptees will have a problem with his decision," she said thoughtfully. "They don't like the sibkos. I think they really do think we're not quite human."

"Maybe they're right."

"You know better," she said, touching her hand to my face.

She sounded like Lydia. My sibsister had always had a comforting word when I had not done well in a test, but Lydia rarely offered physical comfort. Maeve's palm was hot on my cheek. I tried to ignore the contact, but it burned its way to my brain. I mumbled, "Do I?"

She turned my face to hers and stared into my eyes. Her other hand dropped between my legs. "You're human enough for me," she said. And she was human, too.

11

If I hadn't been thinking about the previous night, I might have reacted faster. Maeve, too, must have been dulled by our late night, for she was just as slow. Then again, maybe it wasn't a fault in us, but I still don't believe it. We should have been more observant. Ishould have been more observant.

As the Dragoons equipped more infantry troops with Elemental-style battle armor, people dressed in battle suits were an increasingly common sight in the streets of Outreach. The equipment of war is not out of place in a camp of warriors, and Harlech, as the capital of Outreach, was certainly that. On this particular day, this particular battle suit bore Dragoon markings, which was as it should be; Dragoon policy prohibited any but our own on the planetary surface. Battle suits were still not commonplace in the rest of the Inner Sphere, so we had no reason to suspect that this wasn't one of ours.

Still, I was disturbed to see the battle-armored infantryman lounging against the concrete barrier wall screening the side entrance of Wolf Hall. At the time, I put my unease down to thoughts that the soldier might be the big thug who Maeve and I had fought last night; he had been big enough to be an Elemental. Now I realize that I was dimly registering that the battle suit's markings were definitely Dragoon insignia and tactical signs, except that they were out-of-date.