"Th-thank you."

"I respect you as well. Lieutenant for doing the honorable, the heroic, thing. You made a sacrifice more dear, I suspect, then giving up your own life."

"N-no. It was nothing like that Lord." The tears threatened to retum. My Lori I really...can't talk about it...".The tears threatened to return.

"I understand." He massaged her neck, rubbing gently. "But I wanted you to know I respect such courage. It is why we are offering you the chance to sign on with the Red Duke's household troops.

Duke Hassid Ricol; my master, respects such bravery as well. We have a place for you here, Lieutenant. Laying your oath with Duke Ricol could take you far indeed. Promotion...Reward..."

"My Lord, please understand when I say...I don't want to go far. I just...I just want to forget."

"Of course. Well, you may go now. Take some time to become acquainted with your new comrades. Do you have enough money? Your quarters are adequate? Good. You'll find, I believe, that things are not as terrible within the service of House Kurita as enemy propaganda may have led you to believe. Take your time. Get to know us. I'll want to talk to you again in a week or so, after you've had time to settle in."

"My Lord, you are too kind."

"Notatall, my dear. I need people like you within my command.”

“Thank you, my Lord."

He watched her leave the office and waited for some minutes after the door had closed behind her. Then he touched a key on his intercom. A man's face appeared on the comcircuit screen, a lean face, dry and sharp. The red piping of a House Ricol Spec tech showed at his high-closed collar.

"Well, Vlade, your conclusions?"

"She will come over, Lord, but she is not ready yet."

"The readings?"

"We were picking up excellent readings through the chair's electrodes, yes. Let me see..." The man picked up a sheaf of printout paper and thumbed through it. "Your hints of promotion, of reward...she didn't react at all to those stimuli. Lord. I'm not even sure she heard them. Her grief is real. It is going to take her time to recover."

"Go on."

"Ah, well..." He looked at the printouts again. "There were markedly strong responses each time you brought the conversation around to her former commander, to his abandoning her and her comrade, the one she calls Jeffrie, and to Jeffrie's death. We can't know for certain, but I feel it very likely that this Jeffrie was a lover. It is difficult to account for the depth and scope of her grief in any other way.”

“Go on."

"What particularly interested me was her response when you touched her. From what I knew of her profile, I expected her to react negatively, if at all. Instead it was positive. Quite positive."

"Hmpf! And how do you interpret that?"

"She is lonely, afraid...a very vulnerable young woman, right now. Lord. She doesn't realize it herself, I'm sure, but she is hungry for companionship."

Nagumo snorted. "Are you suggesting I make love to her to get the information I want? I'm getting rather old for such games, Vlade!"

"Of course, Lord, that is for you to decide, of course. I mean... you’re certainly not too old—" Vlade broke off, embarrassed or at least flustered.

"Never mind. Doctor. Get to the point."

"Well, Lord, I must point out that the reaction to your touch was not necessarily a reaction to yourtouch, but only to the sense of closeness, the erotic stimulation itself. I point out that she has already opened a conversational relationship with one of the young men you assigned to her squadron."

"Which oner

"Captain Vincent Mills."

"Ah, good."

"He is one of yours, of course."

Nagumo ignored the statement "Is she ready to be approached yet, do you think?"

Vlade frowned. "She needs more time, Lord. Time to get her bearings, to establish a relationship with Mills or some other strong person whom she can trust She needs to realize her loneliness after the death of her lover, and time to come to terms with what she may perceive as her own betrayal of his memory. At some point, though, her grief may become so great that she will need comfort, seek closeness with someone she perceives as a strong protector."

"How much longer?"

"A week? Two?" Vlade shrugged. "It's impossible to say. This is, after all, a young, grief-stricken woman, not a machine.”

“Mmm. And if I order you to use more traditional interrogation methods?"

Vlade paused, licked his lips. "Lord, we coulduse more direct methods, certainly. But there is still considerable risk. In her present mental condition, the pain and terror of interrogation would heighten her sense of being betrayed again.She could be driven so deeply into shock that she would never recover. She might possibly go insane, become catatonic."

"And what I want to know might be lost forever. Or she could die before she reveals it. Very well, Doctor. I don't have muchtime, but I can wait. If we can get Klein to co-operate of her own free will, so much the better."

"Yes, Lord."

"Compile a report on the readings you took. I want this in her dossier."

"Yes, Lord.”

“Dismissed."

Nagumo studied the blanked screen for a moment before turning to gaze out the window into the overcast sky above Regis. Psychiatrists were so quick to remind others that the bundles of hopes, dreams, fears, and griefs that they studied were people and not machines. Well... perhaps.But Nagumo was used to playing upon those tangled emotions in much the same way that a master Mech-Warrior like Kevlavic played upon the controls of his Marauder.It did not take Dr. Vlade and his hidden sensors and computer printouts to tell Nagumo that the Klein girl had responded to his touch. He had sensed her response, had felt her loneliness in the same instant that he'd guessed that she would not draw away from him.

Klein must know something of this Gray Death Legion that had come to Verthandi. Sometime within the next several weeks, he would learn it from her, learn how to use it against her former employer. In the meantime, he could afford to watch and wait for the rebel force's next move.

Governor General Nagumo was supremely confident of the outcome.

* * * *

Hassan Khaled's Stingerrose dripping from the waves off the beach close by the mountain-hemmed fishing village of Westlee. It was still dark, though dawn was only moments away. It was a bad time for reconnaissance of a possibly hostile area, but there was no other choice.

The Phoboshad made the crossing, was already within sight of this port. With the rising of Norn, the DropShip would be clearly visible from land. If there were unfriendly forces here, they would have to be neutralized first. Tollen Brasednewic's information indicated that Westlee was a haven for rebel sympathizers, and that the rare Loyalist force that came to the village never lingered, but still....

He studied the screens arrayed across the tightly enclosed confines of the Stinger'scockpit. The infrared scan showed a heat source, some distance off in thatdirection. Now what could that be? With rapid strides, he paced his Stingerup the beach, bringing it into the shelter of some ramshackle and weather-battered buildings above the tideline. The buildings would offer shelter as the day approached.

Khaled was Saurimat, an ikwanof the Quick Death, and that basic fact would never, could never change, though his brothers would kill him now if they met him face to face. The memory of their final parting was still dark, dark, indeed. As Saurimat, he had drilled relentlessly to understand what it meant to command, to make life and death decisions that put responsibility for the mission's success in his own hands. The Saurimat masters taught that such decisions were best made in the ice-blooded embrace of farir kalb,literally "empty heart". In that self-induced, emotionless state, love and hate, fear and bravado receded to the point where they could not touch the warrior's mind, or his decisions.