She bowed her head briefly at the reminder, but then spoke impatiently. “You know that we will never get there in time, no matter how hard you wish it.”

“True.” It was hard for him to admit, but the numbers were undeniable. “But such a massive Hounding will result in many losses among the other fleet-clans. I want us strong enough to fill the void, so the balance may be kept. Not to mention the balance within our own fleet,” he reminded her.

“Yes, yes, we still have too many fertile females and unwed males to pair off, and they need somewhere to go.” She parroted the familiar argument in singsong tones. Neither of them mentioned the unthinkable: lose too many more skymounts and they would have to be absorbed into another fleet, shamed and subordinate. The shame of missing the Great Hounding would make it even worse. “Spirit deliver us from an excess of young males impatient to start their own families. The regular number is bad enough.” Qui’hibra let out a tiny laugh, one that probably only Qui’chiri knew him well enough to recognize as such. That youthful ambition had served him well, had let him win a prime mate and build this proud fleet-clan; but he was glad to have outgrown that contentious phase. He too had needed to wait for his chance to split off from his birth-skymount and start a subclan of his own, and his impatience had made him a major discipline problem for the elder of his small, struggling fleet.

“But at least that is a risk we can cope with,” Qui’chiri went on. “If we were to drive the skymounts from a breeding world this fine, it could cause a major population drop for generations to come.”

“But since it is such a fine world, they would not abandon it easily. And we will not attack too close to the system. When a departing school is spotted, we will trail it for as long as we can.”

“At the risk of losing it.”

“Another manageable risk.”

“Like allowing that Titanship to continue meddling?”

“Others have meddled in the Hunt before. The Hunt continues. The balance is kept.”

“These seem to have a closer rapport with the skymounts than most. They concern me.”

“Their intentions are good, if arrogant and ignorant. I do not wish them harm if I can avoid it.”

“Nice to say in theory. I am a female, I have no time for abstractions. And as you say, we have little margin for error, this close to a Hounding. I say kill them mercifully quick, commend their souls to the Spirit, and move on to the next crisis.” That was Qui’chiri—reliably pragmatic to the end, an ideal female. It was what he cherished about her. When his last wife—a competent matriarch, but nowhere near the level of his first, Qui’chiri’s mother—had died, Qui’chiri, as the most senior surviving female of the Qui’ha line, had been forced into the role of clan matriarch well before her time, but had borne the responsibility magnificently. If only he had the luxury, he would dote over her shamelessly and devote himself to singing her praises. Instead, most of their conversations were about the business of the clan and the hunt. But that was the language they both spoke best, so it was better that way.

“It is an option,” Qui’hibra told her. “But the Hunt is for their good as well, even if they do not accept it.”

“And if they disrupt the balance and the chaos takes hold, they will die just the same, and many others with them. Better they die for the right reasons.”

“Better still if we can make them see wisdom. Then they could prove an ally.”

“All right,” Qui’chiri said. “That is practical, I can support it. But the moment it becomes a choice between killing them and losing another skymount—”

“They die, of course.”

“Of course.” She gave his neck feathers a quick, affectionate preening. “I had no doubt. Good to have it said, though.”

Just then, the Shizadam crew member monitoring communications turned to him. “Elder, we have a hue and cry from Skymount Tir’Shi. A school is nearing the system on a vector within their field.”

“Inbound, you say? Not outbound?” he asked.

“Verified. A school of thirteen members, inbound at sublight.” Qui’hibra was irrationally disappointed. He’d been hoping for a rematch with the school they had fought before. Of course it was natural to expect that school to remain in-system for a time, recharging its energies and ensuring that its offspring settled in well. Still, that school owed him blood, and he wouldn’t feel the balance had been truly restored until he could claim it.

But the fleet needed new mounts now, regardless of their pedigree. “Very well,” he said aloud. “Continue tracking, then follow them at the edge of sensation range. Once a comfortable distance has been gained, the rest of the fleet will warp to meet you and we will attack.”

“So…why do you hate Cadet Torvig?”

Ranul Keru glared at the tall, atypically slim Tellarite across from him. For the umpteenth time, he cautioned himself not to rise to the bait. “I don’t hate him,” he replied in a level tone.

“Liar. How else do you explain these absurdly harsh discipline recommendations you made, hmm? Confinement to quarters? Revoking of security clearances? Possible transfer? What do you think this is, the Spanish Inquisition?” Counselor Pral glasch Haaj didn’t conduct his sessions like any other therapist Keru had ever known. One would think that the argumentative approach favored by Tellarites would serve to put patients on the defensive, making it harder for them to trust their counselor and open up about their problems. But Haaj had a way of making it work—of exposing people’s mind games and preconceptions, deflating their illusions, and maneuvering them into self-contradictions that forced them to question their assumptions. And he did it without the noisy bluster of the stereotypical Tellarite, though with just as much arrogance. Rather than shouting in anger, he delivered his barbs with withering dryness in a smooth, cultured tenor voice.

“What he did was serious,” Keru countered. “And he doesn’t seem to care that it was wrong.”

“Wrong? How? No harm would’ve come of it.”

“That’s not the point. It was incredibly thoughtless of him to attempt to infest people with, with nanoprobeswithout considering their reactions.”

“Oho. Nanoprobes,is it? Naa-no-prrobes,”Haaj said, mocking Keru’s weighty delivery. “Not simply nanites, which everyone knows have been routinely used in medicine and research practically since the Dark Ages. No, these were naa-no-prrobes.I can practically hear the italics. Tell me, Mr. Keru, what exactly was it about these microscopic monstrosities of Mr. Torvig’s that warranted such melodrama?”

Keru glared at him. “You think this is about him being a cyborg? That I’m treating him unfairly because he reminds me of the Borg? Counselor, I’m not a bigot.”

“Well, you’re certainly not a smallot.” Haaj looked over his massive frame. “Good grief, I’m amazed you were never joined. A whole family of symbionts could’ve set up house in there with room for guests. I’m sorry, that was small of me. Well, proportionately. Now where were we?”

“You were calling me a bigot.”

“Excuse me, whocalled you that? I’m sure the word never crossed mylips. But since you bring it up…”

Keru sighed. “All right, I admit, the sight of Torvig makes me uncomfortable. Frankly it makes a lot of people uncomfortable, and he’s well aware of it. Yet he deliberately chose to take an action that would provoke that very unease.”

“Ohh, I see. Well, we can’t have that. Challenging people’s prejudices? That way lies madness, surely. Better to conform, to downplay your uniqueness and just try to fit in. After all, that’s how the Trill did it up until a decade or so ago, right? And we all know how well that worked out for you lot.”

That struck a nerve. For centuries, the joined Trill had kept the existence of their symbionts a secret from the rest of the galaxy, afraid that other humanoids would see them as parasites holding their humanoid hosts in thrall, or as inferior creatures to be exploited or dissected. The truth had come out about a dozen years ago, and had been better accepted than the Trill had feared. But keeping secrets was a longtime habit of the joined Trill leadership, stretching back to an ancient and horrible act of genocide thousands of years in the past, one which the Trill elites had tried to erase entirely from their history out of the shame they felt at the act. More recently, they had concealed the fact that half the humanoid population was fit for joining rather than a tiny fraction, for fear that the many would covet the symbionts of the few, steal and trade them as commodities, and hate and persecute their possessors. Three years ago, the weight of all the secrets had reached the breaking point, culminating in a violent uprising by a radical unjoined faction, the exposure of all those buried secrets, and the murder of the majority of the symbionts. So Keru had to concede that trying to conceal one’s true nature for fear of how others would respond was not a very healthy thing to do.