"But the ilKhan hasn't proclaimed us bandits," Hanson protested.

"And he won't," Carmody said. "He's a Wolf himself."

"Maybehe won't," Stan corrected. "He's got a lot more to worry about than the welfare of a bunch of runaway freeborn warriors."

Carmody looked unhappy at Stan's assessment. "Maybe this is an attempt to punish the Dragoons for betraying the Clans."

Several of the officers agreed with that theory.

"How much do you think the Nova Cats would have bid for that privilege, Elson?" Atwyl asked.

"I am no longer a Nova Cat warrior."

"So what? What do you think?"

"I never participated in such a bid session."

"Fat lot of good you are," Atwyl snapped. He let out his frustration by kicking the unoccupied battle suit. "I think Jason put his finger on it. The Cats would love a scheme like this. They ace Jaime and they make a double score. They get revenge on the Dragoons for Luthien and at the same time they get to embarrass the Wolves by cleaning up their mess for them. They'd raise their stock with the other Clans and that's something they need to do, especially after Tukkayid."

"Maybe we can learn something from the Elemental." Carmody sounded hopeful.

The messages filling my right ear gave me the unhappy duty of destroying that hope.

"Med center reports the Elemental DOA. Bit off his tongue and drowned in his own blood." To the chorus of questions, I added the more important news, "The Wolf is stable. Prognosis is good."

"Any word from MacKenzie?" Atwyl asked anxiously.

"Unity, Ham! The message only just went out."

"I know, Stan." Atwyl frowned. "I'll be happier if he's back here until Jaime's up and around. Somebody's got to ride herd on this bunch."

There was general agreement, but I was surprised to note that some of the officers seemed less than enthusiastic. I made a point of checking Elson's reaction, but when I looked for him, he was gone. So were his Elementals.

12

MacKenzie Wolf arrived on Outreach two weeks after the attack on his father. The trip would have taken longer had not Colonel Atwyl diverted some of the Dragoons' JumpShips from their regular duties and put them into place to create what the spheroids called a command circuit. A sequence of JumpShips was put at his disposal all along his route to Outreach. Instead of having to stop and wait while his ship recharged its interstellar drives, MacKenzie was able to transfer his DropShip from JumpShip to waiting JumpShip. The multiple transfers made the trip to Outreach relatively brief, but there had still been more than enough time for everyone to devise a favorite theory concerning the identity of the would-be assassin.

Some theories had more adherents than others. Clan assassin, pick your Clan. Spheroid revenge. Interference by the reactionary faction of ComStar. A first strike by the majority faction of ComStar. A simple rogue. Even a renegade Dragoon. The last was especially popular with spheroid Dragoons who wished to believe that we were led by a cabal of manipulative Clan puppets. I had formed no opinion; I was waiting for the evidence to come in. I was, however, troubled by the outcome of all this wild speculation.

Within days the leading theories seemed to have become ossified into rigid, almost political, positions. Arguments had erupted, even a few fights, between proponents of one theory or another. It began to seem that one could know the theory favored by a Dragoon by knowing which was his favorite among the factions that appeared to be developing within the Dragoons.

I found the division and acrimony unsettling.

In the sibko, I had been raised to believe that the Dragoons were one big family. Without knowing your genetic parentage, you could call any Dragoon from an older ageframe a parent and any of the same or a younger frame a sib. I had really believed that as a child, and that belief had made living in a sibko easier to bear. And why not? With every Dragoon either a parent or a sib, concern and caring could be found anywhere within our ranks. I was learning that life in the Dragoons, like life anywhere, I suppose, wasn't that simple. If we were a family, we weren't getting along very well.

I began to see the attack on Maeve as a symptom of a malaise afflicting the whole Dragoons, rather than an isolated incident. Once I had thought such differences merely the stuff of good-natured jibes. Now I saw a deeper source, a true rancor. I began to see that the Dragoons had families all right, families within families. Some seemed on the verge of feud.

Spheroids distrusted the oldsters, and sibkos held them in contempt for it. Those born of natural parents looked down on those of us who had been born of the wombs. And Clan bondsmen had nothing good to say about anyone else. I do not mean to suggest that everyone with a particular background felt exactly the same; they did not. But there were groups who nurtured those who shared their sentiments. Some were more open about it than others, but none were above recruiting more of their own kind. Each day, it seemed, the huddled heads in one corner or another grew in number.

I tried to tell myself that my fear of factionalism was paranoid. We were all Dragoons, loyal to the Wolf.

This outbreak of acrimony was merely a sign of stress. Worry for Jaime Wolf's health had made everyone edgy, distressed. When he was recovered, all would be well.

I hoped that I wasn't fooling myself.

During the weeks of Colonel Wolf's confinement at the med center, I was in almost constant attendance on him. That was how I came to be there whenever his family, his blood family, came to call.

Of course, I knew Marisha Dandridge. She was coordinator of sibko socialization, and I had seen her often during my early life. She had always been warm and, during my younger years, I believed that she was especially fond of me. Early in my third training frame, I had dreamed that I was in love with her. Then I learned that she was the Wolf's wife and I was filled with the sort of unformed terror that only a twelve-year-old can conjure. Our relationship changed overnight. I don't think she ever knew.

Marisha was Jaime Wolf's second wife. Though she was from a younger ageframe, her passionate feelings for him were evident. Uncomfortably so at times, for me, that is. Jaime Wolf certainly approved. A different sort of emotion was reflected in the two children she had borne him. There was an easy intimacy between the children and parents that I had seldom seen outside a sibko. Even in a sibko, I had never observed such depth of caring. I told myself that my flustered embarrassment was due to my old crush or my obvious intrusion on their privacy, but I knew better.

They were a blood family. I felt out of place.

But my duty was to be at the Wolf's side, except for brief times when he or Marisha requested privacy. In those weeks at the Colonel's side, I saw who came to visit him and who did not. I saw who was comfortable in his presence and pleased with his recovery, like the oldsters; and who seemed to harbor uncertainties. I felt sure that he noticed all that and more, but he remained cheerful and friendly to all who came.

It was halfway through morning visiting hours and I was in the midst of the morning status report when MacKenzie arrived. Business was shunted aside as the younger Wolf greeted his sire with great affection. I stood back out of the way; the report could wait.

MacKenzie and his father were close, just like the rest of the family. Seeing MechWarriors of such different ageframes display so much affection still seemed odd to me at the time. They might have been sibkin. Once MacKenzie had assured himself of his father's condition, he kissed and embraced Katherine and Shauna, his wife and youngest child, before greeting his stepmother and stepsibs.