He slumped down on the bench. If Bevan was right and she is an omen, 3050 is going to be a very bad year.

14

JumpShip Dire Wolf

Star's End, Periphery

15 January 3050

The sour smell of sweat-drenched sheets met Phelan Kell as he fought his way to consciousness through the black fog filling his mind. Thousands of questions asked in hundreds of different ways by a legion of voices continued to echo through his brain. In counterpoint, he heard a single, agonized voice answering them again and again, and in the end, always surrendering valuable truths. Like the stench of his bedding, Phelan recognized the voice as his own.

No, dear God, I couldn't have told them all those things! I've betrayed everyone and everything that means anything to me.His stomach heaved, though Phelan couldn't tell whether his nausea was from self-loathing or the aftereffects of the drugs they had used on him. Weak, trembling, and gasping for breath, he lay on his cot and stared into the darkness of his cell. The fact that it was drugs that made me talk doesn't make my action any less hideous or damaging.

A searing oval of light outlined the door to his cell and gave him a moment's warning to close his eyes. Light still bled through his eyelids, stabbing needles of torment straight into his brain. Thought moved so slowly that by the time Phelan realized he could raise his hand to shield his eyes, the door was already closed and someone had flipped him onto his back. A hand grabbed his left wrist and deftly rotated his forearm upward. A tug extended his arm, then something sharp lanced into the vein at his elbow.

A chemical flood swept through his body and blasted away the sludgy residue of the myriad interrogation sessions. As the voices and questions faded, Phelan felt a jolt travel through him. His eyes snapped open on command, eloquent witness to the fact that brain-to-body messages were once again traveling express instead of over the local routes of the past two months. He flipped his wrist over and caught hold of the person who had been holding him.

A hand chopped down into the middle of his forearm, numbing the entire limb, then surrounded his thumb and peeled his hand away with the ease of a child removing the rind from a naranji. I may be in command of my body,Phelan thought, but I've still got no strength.He opened both hands and let his arms drop limply to the bedding.

"That was a wise choice." It was a woman's voice, but somehow that didn't surprise him. Her voice was husky, but as matter-of-fact and emotionless as her handling of Phelan's attack.

She lifted his right hand up by the cord around his wrist and positioned it to cover his eyes. "I am going to bring the lights up slowly. Keep your eyes shaded because the drug I just injected into you will dilate your pupils somewhat."

Light mutated the entire ceiling from an infinite black plane through stages of gray and tallow to a luminescent white that filled every corner of the small cell. Phelan hooded his eyes, but greedily drank in every detail of his surroundings as the light unveiled them one by one. His ragged cot all but filled the tiny room. The commode opposite the hatchway he recognized instandy as the peculiar design suited to zero-gravity use. That means I'm still on a DropShip.In the corner next to the hatch, Phelan saw a gray woolen blanket wadded into a ball, and sympathetic pains in his back dredged up memories of more than one night spent curled up with it like a child.

Phelan looked up at the woman, twisting around so he could orient her properly to the dark cell. For a moment, he had trouble reconciling the sleek beauty standing over him with the beefy image he had formed in his mind, based entirely on her strength at manhandling him earlier. She wore her white hair very short and combed behind her ears. Though her expression was serious, her pert, upturned nose gave her an incongruous air of amusement.

She wore a navy jumpsuit and no other decoration except for a single earring in her left ear. Formed in a star pattern, it had been enameled to the color of fresh blood. Four of the eight points on the star were enlarged, with the southernmost point almost four times the length of the others, giving the whole design a dagger-like shape. As she moved toward the door, Phelan saw that the shoulder patch on her uniform matched the earring's design.

She clipped the lighting remote control to the jumpsuit's hip pocket and folded her arms across her chest. "I should have expected this."

Phelan swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. Another wave of nausea swept over him, and he gripped the edge of the cot to keep from falling over. He shook his head to clear it, but that only increased his discomfort. There was nothing to do but wait for the dizziness to pass. When it finally did, he carefully turned his head to look at her.

"What should you have expected?" The hoarse, croaking quality of his voice surprised him. What have I been doing, gargling razorblades?He shuddered as another memory bobbed to the surface of his mind, recalling the terrifying hallucinations that had driven him from his bed to the corner. I must have been screaming for hours ...

Irritation played across her face. "I cannot take you to see the Khan looking like this. You will have to be made presentable." She frowned deeply. "By rights, I should take you down with the other bondsmen, but you are supposed to be in isolation. All praise be to the Khan, but why did he give me thisjob?" She wrinkled her nose, then seemed to decide on a course of action. "The others will not like it, but that is their problem, quineg? Let us go."

Phelan unsteadily gained his feet, then reeled over to the cell's opposite wall. The cool metal felt good against his spine and helped hold the nausea at bay. He pressed both palms against it and levered himself away from the wall. "Where am I? Who are you? Where the hell are you taking me?" He folded his arms across his chest. "Answer me, or we're not going anywhere."

She arched an eyebrow in surprise, and the corners of her mouth curled up in a grin. "It is up to the Khan to answer your questions, Phelan Kell, if he so desires. You must go to him, and it is my job to get you there. I can understand, after all you have been through, your desire to exert some independence. But that is not to be. You must ask yourself if you will go willingly or if you want me to carry you."

Phelan opened his mouth to snap out a retort, then stopped. You're as weak as a kitten and she's as strong as a tiger.His shoulders sagged down. "You mean that we can do this your way or the hardway." She nodded and he shuffled forward. "Lead on."

Wordlessly, she waved Phelan through the door, then guided him down a hallway. Cool and clean, it, too, was lit by glowing ceiling panels. Phelan noticed that all the other hatches in the corridor stood open, making him wonder if he were the only prisoner, or if he had mistaken his status. He looked around for any sign that might be a clue to where he was, but he saw only a triangular shield with three links of a chain painted across the upper edge.

Its meaning eluded him until they reached another stretch of corridor curving around like the hub of a wheel. Other corridors shot off like spokes, and at the entrance to each, Phelan saw more shields painted with symbols. In addition to the earlier shield and chain image, he noticed a shield with a hexagonal device, one with a small red star, and one showing a blue and white striated ball. The woman led Phelan to the corridor marked with this latter symbol.