In reply to Joanna's dispatch, I sent back one of my own telling her to verify Aidan's demise. I could envision her, bureaucracy-hater to the core, despising the performance of that order. But it turned out to be an order worth sending.

Came the reply from Barcella:

"Corpse in question not that of Astech Aidan. I am told it was not even a member of the bandit group, nor was it the man they thought they had executed. Some grand strategy was involved. Aidan tricked them, perhaps to mislead us. We have no present indication of his whereabouts, but Tech Nomad is certain we will find him. I have learned to respect Nomad's instincts. We carry on. Falconer Joanna."

I was as elated now as I had been downcast before. The master plan was still in operation.

There is still time. I have selected the unit to be destroyed, and can do so at any time. We will lose one warrior training officer, which is unfortunate. But I purposely selected a unit whose officers include some with questionable service evaluations. None would be missed, least of all the one who will die.

Aidan's physical specifications, and for that matter, his general abilities, match up with one Jorge. They say Jorge has shown some pronounced anti-social traits, which could link his behavior type with Aidan's occasional rebelliousness. The main difference is that Aidan's streak may translate into admirable officer traits, while Jorge-being a freebirth—would have to suppress his rage, a dangerous quality out in the field. Jorge might have some potential for piloting a 'Mech—and is, in fact, at the top of his group in that department—but he would not make a good officer. And, besides, he is only a freeborn.

28

She had changed a bit in the short time since he had last seen her. Her face had grown older in some indefinable way, her eyes more serious. Her eyebrows also seemed to have been reconstructed into a permanent scowl. She had become thinner, but her body had lost some of its cadet tautness. In the intense sunlight of Tokasha, she had developed a permanent tan that also aged her. He wondered how she could stand the odd, decaying smells of the laboratory where she now worked so determinedly.

On the pocket of her lab coat was a Jade Falcon warrior patch, which former cadets, even those who had flushed out, were allowed to wear in whatever caste they served. The patch showed a Jade Falcon in flight, magnificent wings outspread, keen, small black eyes searching for prey. The Jade Falcon was native only to the planets of Ironhold and Strana Mechty, and then it was seen only rarely. Legend had it that Jade Falcons disappeared from nature for precise periods, hibernating or perhaps hiding in some spirit world until it was time to fly again. Aidan had never seen one.

The patch was also intended to remind people in other castes that sibkin, even those who had not qualified as warriors, were among them. Their genetic origins were respected—and frequently resented—all over the Clan worlds.

"Peri," he whispered.

Startled, she looked up suddenly. From the look on her face, she might have been staring at a ghost. Then again, he probably did look phantasmal.

"Aidan? Is it you?"

"Yes," he said, and fell unconscious.

He did not come fully awake for several days. In that time, he would stir a bit, and it seemed that Peri was always at his bedside. Once he said blearily, "I am keeping you from your work, Peri."

"Not as much as you think. Are you ..."

But he was asleep again.

Another time he was conscious of someone dabbing at his head with a damp cloth. Opening his eyes, he saw Peri again.

"You are looking better," she said quickly, as if she had been waiting for him to waken so she could. "You looked so awful when you came into the lab. You looked like—"

"I had been in the jungle. There were . . . terrible things there."

"That is Tokasha for you. This part of Tokasha, anyway. Yesterday I saw—"

He passed out again.

The next time: "Peri, I failed."

"Hush, let the medicine work."

"I was in the Trial and Marthe—"

"No. Do not tell me. When I left Crash Camp, I put all that behind me. I do not want to hear."

"But—"

"Do not excite yourself. This fever is still dangerous, especially when you involve—"

Another time. Maybe not the next one, maybe it actually came before. Later he could not be sure of what he remembered and what he might only have dreamed.

"Do not scratch your arm, Aidan. That rash can become permanent. A never-ending itch, and you do not want that, do you?"

"Peri, I think Joanna is after me."

"Oh? What makes you think so?"

"I was escaping in a shuttle. On ... on Grant's Station, I think."

"I have been there. A true hellhole."

"And there was a port in the shuttle. When I looked out, I saw people who were pursuing me, bandits and others on horses. They came into the camp. The bandits were the ones I had been with."

"Bandits? You have led an odd life since last I saw you."

"No, listen. It was Joanna on one of the horses, I am sure of it. How can you miss that—"

"Hush. You are getting too excited."

"And Nomad, I think, too."

"Nomad?"

"My Tech. I was his assistant, his Astech."

"This sounds too fantastic to me. Calm down."

She smoothed his forehead with her fingertips until he fell asleep again.

When he was better, Peri fed him soup.

"This is delicious. Did you make it in your lab?"

"No. There is a cook in the village. He is teaching me some of his simpler concoctions."

"Village?"

"It has no name, but it is nearby, on the other side of the small forest that helps to isolate our scientific community. The village is where the service personnel for this facility are housed. I think they have some vulgar terms for it."

"And this is an experimental station?"

"Yes. But you knew that. How could you have found me otherwise?"

"Luck, for one thing. But, yes, I intended to come here, find you. You are right about that."

"I am a scientist. On the way to becoming one, at any rate. I do not accept coincidence until all the chance factors have been analyzed. I have the impression you did not come here by, shall we say, the main routes?"

"No, I was running away. They saw through my fake credentials at the spaceport, tried to detain me. It took only a few of the fighting tactics we learned back on Ironhold to lay my captors out. Warrior training does have its advantages, quiaff?"

"I do not know. I have not had as many opportunities to test them as you apparently have. My life is relatively quiet."

"It will not be if I stay here."

"I have thought of that. Stay. I accept the risk. So far everyone in the facility thinks you are a stray citizen who got lost in the jungle. I told them you were with a geological team, but that you got separated from them and have been wandering for days."

"The wandering for days is the truth. What with that and my sickness, I have lost all sense of time."

"You have been out for about nine days. And now your voice is weakening again. Eat some more soup and then hush for a while. We will have much time to talk later. I intend to keep you around for a while."

"But Peri—"

"Hush. I have saved your life—more or less—and you are obligated to serve me. Here, let me wipe that dribble off your chin."