She held his gaze another moment, then leisurely looked around the room again. "Now. I wish to learn about my new responsibilities. You will show me around."

"Certainly, Arbiter Liadof," Faraday said. It hadn't been a request; but then, he hadn't really expected one. It had probably been years since Katrina Liadof had done anything but give orders. "If you'll come this way..."

"...and so she left," Raimey concluded. "And then I left. And I've been out here ever since."

Beltrenini flipped her tails. In amazement or disbelief; Raimey wasn't quite sure which. "That's quite a story," she said. "That's it? All of it?"

"That's it," Raimey assured her. It wasn't, of course, though there was no way Beltrenini could know that. He'd left out such minor details as who he was, and where he'd come from, and the fact that Drusni had refused to bond with him because he was a half-breed monster. But it was the whole story as far as Beltrenini was ever going to be concerned.

"Interesting," the Counselor commented. "It wouldn't win you any honors in the herd's story circles, but I can see how it could still hurt. What I don't see is why you don't just forget her and move on to someone else. I mean, you only get about four and a half dayherds of breeding time, and you've already squandered one and a half of them. The way you're going, you'll wake up some sunlight to find that you're a Protector, and that you've missed your chance to bond with anyone."

"So what?" Raimey said. "What's the point of bonding at all if I can't do it with the one I want? I'd be better off alone."

"Don't give me that," Beltrenini said severely, flipping her tails in annoyance. "This obsession of yours with getting exactly what you want or else not taking anything at all is as selfish and selfdestructive as anything I've ever seen. It's also completely ludicrous. Who gave you the right to demand perfection every single time, anyway?"

"That's easy for you to say," Raimey snapped. "You got the mate you wanted."

"Who says?" she countered tartly. "As a matter of fact, Kydulfo was my third choice. I was his fifth."

Raimey winced, the taste of shame trickling into his mouth. "Oh," was all he could come up with to say.

" 'Oh,' " she mimicked. "And yet, we did well enough. We had five broods, you know. Six healthy young Qanska." She paused. "And in time," she went on quietly, "we came to care very deeply for each other. Even now, I miss him terribly."

"I'm sorry," Raimey said, feeling embarrassed and depressed, not to mention ashamed. She was right: Who had given him the right to demand perfection?

But this was Drusni he was talking about. Drusni. How could he possibly settle for second-best after her? How could Beltrenini even expect him to?

"Being sorry won't feed the Pakra," Beltrenini chided. "If you want this to mean anything, then you make sure you learn from it. My advice is that you go back, find yourself a nice female Breeder, and get on with your life."

"I don't have to go back for that," Raimey pointed out. "I could find someone here and save myself the trip."

"No," she said firmly. "You have to go back. If she cares about you as much as you said she did, even as just a friend, she's probably worried sick about you."

Raimey snorted. "I doubt it. Not with Pranlo there to keep her company."

"That's nice," Beltrenini rumbled. "You say you love her, and then go ahead and insult her in the same breath. I'll say it again: If she cares about you at all, she's going to be worried."

Raimey swished his tails restlessly. "I'll think about it."

"You do that," Beltrenini said. "Meanwhile, it's about that time. I'll see you at sunlight, right?"

"Uh... sure."

"Good," she said. "Sleep well." Her gently fanning fins fell still, and her breathing slowed and evened out. A ninepulse later, she was asleep.

Raimey gazed at her, feeling a surge of envy at her ability to fall asleep so easily. It had been ninedays and ninedays since he'd been able to do that. Maybe her conscience was less troubled than his.

Or maybe she was just old.

He peered into the gathering darkness. In the distance he could see other Qanska settling down to sleep: Protectors and their Nurturer mates, floating and twisting together in the eddy currents. There was a loose group of the larger Counselors, too, drifting in his and Beltrenini's direction. Some of them were settling down for the sundark in pairs; others, like Beltrenini, were alone.

I should go, he told himself. Beltrenini was right: A lone Breeder like him didn't belong here.

Besides, if he waited until sunlight, she would just nag him some more about going back to face Drusni. That was something he didn't particularly want to hear.

On the other hand, if he left her, where would he go? Back to the equator? Not a chance. Just float around some more? What was the point of that?

Besides, his ostensible reason for being on Jupiter was to study the Qanska, and it was abundantly clear that the culture here in the northern latitudes was sharply different from the one he'd grown up in at the equator. He might as well learn what he could about this area; and who better to learn it from than someone who lived here?

Anyway, there was a comment she'd made that had piqued his curiosity. Five broods, she'd said she and her mate had had, and then had mentioned having six baby Qanska. The arithmetic implied she must have had twins somewhere along the line.

Problem was, he'd never heard of such a thing among the Qanska. Every birth in his herd had been single babies, and none of the stories in the herd circle had ever even mentioned twins.

Was that something else that was different out here? Or had Beltrenini simply gotten her memories crossed?

Either way, it would be worth a nineday or two to check it out. And it wasn't like he had somewhere else he wanted to be, anyway.

He let his fins go limp, letting the wind take him. The air out here seemed unusually warm, but pleasantly so. Maybe that was why Beltrenini could fall asleep so easily.

Eventually, so did he.

The tour Liadof had requested took over an hour. Faraday assumed it was at least somewhat enlightening for her, though she seemed to be quite familiar already with both Changeling's history and its current status.

It was, unfortunately, far less than enlightening for him. Every time he tried to delicately probe into the reason for her unexpected arrival, she either deflected the question or changed the subject entirely. By the end of the tour, about all he'd been able to glean from her comments was that she and the Five Hundred were rapidly running out of patience. But what that actually meant in terms of changes in policy or operation, he couldn't guess.

He'd also rather expected that when the tour was over Liadof would leave, either to return to her quarters or else to launch herself on an inspection of the rest of the station. Instead, she pulled a spare chair directly behind Beach and settled into it, listening silently to the computer give its slightly broken translation as Raimey told Beltrenini about his fiery breakup with Drusni.

It was another two hours before Faraday was finally able to make his excuses and ease his way out of the Contact Room. There was only one man on the station, he had already decided, who might be able to give him a clue to this new mystery.

He found Hesse on his first try. The younger man was sitting at a back table in the smaller of the station's two bars, fingering a half-empty glass of dark beer and staring broodingly into the cheery glow of the faux fireplace in the corner. "Mr. Hesse," Faraday said, sitting down beside him.

"Welcome back."

"Oh, thank you so very much," Hesse growled, throwing an almost furtive glance at Faraday and then shifting his gaze back to the fireplace. "It's so good to be back, too. Do you like the present I brought you?"