The Ship Avenged

Chapter Seventeen

"Easy does it," Kraig said to himself. "Pas de problиme." The High Clan certainly wasn't paying him enough to be a hero.

Nothing but nonsense on the com. He touched the sensitive pads under his gloved fingers, adjusting the fighter's trajectory. The ship itself continued on its way, apparently on autopilot, for neither speed nor course had changed.

He dreaded tight-beaming this information to the Kolnari. It made him feel as though he had failed. His mouth twisted wryly. It was definitely time to quit if he really gave a damn what the employer thought. And they scare me. He didn't like that sensation, either.

"Calling merchanter ship Wyal," he said, and waited for reply. He could hear sounds of consternation from her crew as his voice came through their speakers. Merde, merde, merde! he thought. I don't wanna do this! Every instinct that had kept him alive for the last fifteen years told him to stay off that ship. And the same instincts told him that if he left now the Kolnari would track him down and make him regret it.

"Kraig to command," he said; the machine intelligence of the fighter would relay and encrypt it automatically. "Crew incapacitated. Am approaching Wyal."

It was near enough for visual scan now, an elongated spindle, more streamlined than most freighters-built for landing on planetary surfaces. He was mildly surprised that the Kolnari had let it go; it would be perfect as a fleet auxiliary for surface raids.

This mission must be important, at least to whatever passed for brains inside those silver-blond heads.

Delicately, he established zero relative velocity and nudged his fighter towards the airlock, marked out by its square of strobing lights.

"So, Al, how're we going to handle this?" Joat asked, crossing her arms behind her head and stretching. The black Kolnar fighter approached delicately on the screen, like a cat advancing on a suspicious bit of string. She could think about this and stop thinking about Sperin.

Alvec's brow went up.

"I thought Joe was our resident warrior," he said.

"He is," Joat grinned. "But Joe's not likely to leave Amos's side now he's got him under his eye." She glanced over at her crew. "Besides, he knows we can handle this."

"He'll be wearin' space armor," Alvec said gruffly. He frowned and made a clicking sound with his tongue. "Can't charge a guy in space armor."

"Figure he's a merc," Joat mused, "so he won't be wearing Kolnari armor. That's a plus." She folded her hands on her middle and stared into space. "Ninety per cent of the space armor manufactured has lousy surge protection," she said at last. "Give 'em a sustained charge and," she snapped her fingers, "they're fried."

Alvec chuckled. "Set a trap?"

"Either side of the entry hatch," Joat agreed.

"Easily done," Rand said, and displayed schematics of the areas involved. "These segments-" bars of yellow flashed on the screen to indicate the spots he referred to "-are underlaid with support grids constructed of conductive materials. Actually I'm a little surprised at that," it added disapprovingly. "Anyway, they're…"

"I see it," Joat said quickly. "Just cut the power there to give us a chance to work. Then when our visitor steps onto those grids…"

"You can make him dance," Alvec finished, rising to follow a grinning Joat out the door.

"Actually," Rand said, mildly puzzled, "if this works properly he shouldn't be able to move."

Kraig's attempts to communicate with the Wyal had been met with half-hysterical nonsense and unending repetitions of "Mayday."

I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch who keeps sayin' that, Kraig thought. Quick too, just to shut 'im up. In the twenty minutes it had taken him to catch up with the merchant ship and align the locks he'd conceived a serious hatred for the prattling lunatic on the com. Aw, Ghu, he's crying now. I'll be doing the jerk a favor. Weight left him as he switched off his fighter's internal field.

He'd have done the woman a favor, too, if he could only get out of this damned suit. The mercenary shuddered. No chance of that, not with some bug loose on the ship. He disconnected his suit from the fighter's feeds and drifted out of his seat. Gripping hand-holds built into the minuscule cabin he pulled himself over to the hatch. Pausing there for a moment he ran a weapons and systems check on his suit.

All green, he thought, relieved. Even knowing he was unlikely to run into any opposition, Kraig was nervous. "Stage fright," one of his friends called it. Yeah, stage fright. Well, curtain up. He hit the control for opening the hatch.

Grapple fields held the two craft less than arm's length apart; the hard flat light of vacuum shone on every irregularity of hull and plating, and the undiffused glow of the airlock lights made the controls of the Wyal's entryway stand out.

e-n-t-r-y, he punched into the pad.

The Wyal's hatch opened after a second's pause to purge atmosphere. He crouched down and waited a full minute, alarm bells going off in his mind. It was always this way for him when things were too easy. He flipped across, catching the handbars by the merchanter's lock and orienting himself so that the internal gravity field would pull him down on his feet. Vibration shivered beneath him as he stood and swung the exterior door closed. Air hissed in automatically; the readouts below his chin showed it breathable.

He wished he had some of the fancy equipment the Kolnari had access to. Getting a nice, safe view of that corridor out there would suit him fine. As it was he'd have to rely on his eyes, and the few enhancements from his face-plate. Sonic and electromag monitor showed no weapons profiles from the access corridor. He readied the needler built into his cuff and stepped out into the ship.

Carefully, exposing as little of himself as he could, Kraig angled himself to look out the hatch in either direction. Nothing. That didn't mean they weren't there, it just meant they weren't obviously there. The suit's sensors would tell him more once he was actually in the corridor.

He pitched himself out of the lock and flattened himself against the wall opposite, his heart hammering.

Nothing. The sensors confirmed it.

He took a deep breath and let it out in a soft whistle. Then he grinned. 'Cause sometimes when it's easy, it's just… easy. Kraig set off for the bridge with a jaunty walk.

"Now," Joat said.

The mottled armor froze in a spectacular shower of fat blue sparks. Ozone drifted through the Wyal's corridors, and the life-support system whined in overload to carry it off. The suit toppled forward slowly in midstride, left leg frozen half-raised. The three hundred kilos of mass struck the decking with a clamor that echoed through the hull.

Help! Kraig thought as the power-armor toppled and he crashed helplessly to the floor, a prisoner inside it. Inertia flung him against the padded restraints inside, hard enough to bruise. His jaw struck the readout panel and blood filled his mouth with a taste of iron and salt. I've fallen, he thought in disbelief. And I can't get up!

A blond woman sauntered into sight, wearing a coverall with an amazing number of pockets for microtools Kraig didn't recognize. He did recognize the arc-pistol in the hand of the bruiser walking beside her. She squatted down beside the fallen mercenary and went to work with one of the tools. A minute later the faceplate came free; Kraig rolled his eyes at the whining head of the tool. Her thumb stroked the control, setting the tiny Phillips' head up and down the scale from a low burr to a tooth-grating whine.

"Tsk. Now, that's the downside of cut-rate equipment," she said sweetly. "When it breaks down it's worse than useless. Doncha hate it when that happens? I'm Captain Joat Simeon-Hap, by the way. This is my engineer, Alvec Dia. He doesn't like pirates."

"I'm… I'm just a freelancer!" Kraig wheezed. He was lying face-down, his limbs clamped in midstride position as firmly as a tangler-field could have done.

The arc-pistol came closer; he turned his eyes until they ached in their sockets, enough to see the four pointed prongs of the guide-field projector at the end of the weapon. They were pitted with use.

"I don't like mercenaries who work for pirates, either," he said in a voice like a gravel crusher.

"Rand," Joat went on. "Lower the corridor gravity for a second, would you?"

The mercenary felt himself lighten; not that it made any difference, since he still couldn't move anything but the muscles of his face. The face-plate began to swing shut again.

"No!" he shouted. "My air's off!"

"I know," Joat said.

They shoved him onto a cargo sled and brought him to the bridge; a Sondee awaited them, with a medical kit resting beside him.

"I don't want to do this," Seg said.

"Neither do I," Joat said, digging in her toolbox for something to manually open the mercenary's space armor. "But we need information and we need it now."

"No we don't! Amos will be all right whether I come up with an antidote or not. It's just a matter of time."

"Oh yeah? This guy is supposed to signal Belazir that we've accomplished our mission. I need to know what that signal is. What's more, he knows things that'll get me into Belazir's ship," she said grimly. "You may have forgotten Bros, but I haven't."

"Jeeez boss, you can't go back there." Alvec came away from the bulkhead with a startled lurch. "You'll get yourself killed. Let Central Worlds handle it, they've got the manpower."

"Thank you, Al, that reminds me. Rand, send that tight-beam message to the nearest Central Worlds facility."

She turned to Alvec while she continued to manually trip the helmet's locking system. "I guarantee you, I'll bet this ship on it, that they can't get anybody here for two weeks or so."

"Well?" She looked Alvec in the eye. "You want to take that bet?" She turned to Seg. "You?"

They both shook their heads.

"The Kolnari can be beaten," she said positively. "I've seen it happen."

The helmet popped off in her hands.

"Well, hello there," Joat said sweetly to the gasping mercenary. "Welcome aboard."

Kraig looked frantically around him, surprisingly fine dark eyes filled with panic. He was about thirty, balding, with dark hair and a narrow face.

"I won't talk," he said.

"Really?" Alvec said, sounding pleased.

The mercenary laughed. "You're worse than the Kolnari? I don't think so. And if you aren't, I'm not going to risk getting on their bad side. You know what I mean?"

"You're already on their bad side," Joat purred from behind him. Leaning close she continued, "And they're in no position to hurt you right now." She grabbed his sparse hair and yanked his head back. "But we are," she said, smiling pleasantly.

He went white to the lips.

"My name's Kraig…"

"I don't care," she interrupted him cheerfully, shaking his head.

"There are laws, lady!"

"You're working for the Kolnari and you're talkin' about laws?" Alvec said with disgust.

"What's civilization coming to?" Joat coolly asked the room in general. "Seg," she said, glancing at the young Sondee. "Prepare Kraig here a shot of one of those wonder drugs you've been telling us about."

Seg's mouth was sphinctered tightly shut and his golden eyes were half-closed, his face gray with tension, the ear whorls nearly white. But he set down his bag and opened it, slowly.

"Joat," Rand said, "I'm receiving a distress call."

"You're joking," she said.

Instead of answering, Rand opened the com for all to hear.

"Mayday," an obviously distraught young woman was saying. "Mayday! Our pilot is ill, he's unconscious, if you can hear me please help us. We must get to Bethel, it's a matter of life or death! Mayday! Please, someone, answer me. Mayday." Her voice disintegrated into helpless sobbing.

Belazir steepled his hands beneath his chin and settled himself more comfortably on his thronelike chair, gazing placidly at Nomik Ciety.

I think this one has some trouble with his internal mapping of reality, the Kolnari warlord thought.

He lounged back, resting his chin on the fingers of one hand. Behind him a holographic night-scene showed a plutonium volcano on Kolnar. Down either wall stood Kolnari warriors, naked except for briefs and their weapons, armored in their leopard deadliness.

Nomik bristled. "How dare you kidnap me and my associate?" he shouted. He ignored the subtle stirrings of the warriors, their bronze eyes riveted on Belazir. "Do you have any idea the trouble you've just bought yourself? Do you realize that I'm under the protection of Yoered Family?'

The woman beside him had been glancing about. She looked at the collection of plants in their netted cages, and at the shape of the gnawed bones beneath them.

"Mik…" she whispered urgently. The man shook off her hand.

"Answer me, you mutant goon! What do you want?"

He paused, panting and glaring at Belazir's mildly interested face.

Fascinating, Belazir thought, bemused, the creature seems to think I should be frightened of him. Apparently I am supposed to be intimidated. If this was an example of intimidating behavior it was no wonder the scumvermin races were so easily conquered.

"You are dead meat!" Ciety snarled.

At Belazir's almost imperceptible gesture, two of the Kolnari picked Nomik up and flung him down on the floor hard enough to knock the wind out of him.

The moment they'd moved Silken had flung herself at Belazir's throat, one hand stiffened into a blade. He watched her approach with astonishment and flicked her aside like a butterfly. She crashed to the floor and rolled to a stop not far from Ciety, and the two of them writhed, breathless at the Kolnari's feet.

"She is brave," Belazir said to Nomik. "I shall speak with her first as she is so eager to approach me." He smiled into Ciety's furious and frightened face. "But I shall try not to keep you waiting long."

Well, that was disappointing, Belazir thought as the guards dragged Silken's half conscious body from his quarters. He'd expected more fire from a woman who'd thrown herself at him unarmed. Ah well, some of them considered it properly stoic to affect total disinterest. Though he hadn't made that easy for her.

Who to speak to now? He sat down before his bank of screens, running a quick check on the day-to-day affairs of his people. Then he called up Bros Sperin and Nomik Ciety's cells.

Sperin was on his feet again, his body bearing yet more burns on his legs and sides. He swayed precariously, his jaw slack, eyes bruised-looking and swollen from lack of sleep.

Nomik was pacing energetically. He turned suddenly as the hatch opened. Two guards thrust Silken into the cell, where she collapsed in a boneless heap before Ciety could reach her.

Nomik knelt beside her and gathered her slender form into his arms, rocking her tenderly and whispering her name over and over as he stroked her matted black hair.

Bleh, Belazir thought. That is enough of that; Karak was bad enough. It is time I interviewed Sperin, anyway.

And the houseplants were hungry. It was time to cultivate a new crop, in any case. What the spores did to living flesh was very amusing.

Bros Sperin wavered. When he closed his eyes it felt as though his body was moving in a circle around the anchor of his feet. He tried not to close his eyes for too long; that meant he kept falling asleep and then over. The crisp white sheets of the bunk mocked him with taunting cruelty. Soft music was playing through the com system, soft soothing music-

He screamed as his knees struck the flooring and current arched through them. Still screaming he touched his hands to the floor to push himself up, then nearly staggered into the wall. Blisters burst on his kneecaps and palms, drooling liquid.

He was very thirsty. He'd promised himself that if he counted to a thousand one more time he could go to the sink and get some water. But he seemed to be stuck on eight hundred sixty-seven. For the life of him he couldn't remember what came next. Or before, for that matter. Eight hundred sixty-seven kept intruding itself into his efforts, offering itself every time he sought the next number.

The bottoms of his feet were numb, but his ankles ached and his calves burned. Inside as well as out.

The thought struck him as funny and he began to laugh. Wonderful, some distant, still sane part of him thought, I'm getting hysterical. That should move things along nicely.

That same part of him was waiting for Belazir to make an appearance. It unnerved him that the Kolnari hadn't come to gloat. It signaled unexpected new depths of self-discipline in the volatile pirate.

"Wake up, scumvermin," a gentle voice urged.

Painfully, Bros opened his eyes. Slowly, they focused on the face before him, and the wide yellow eyes blazing into his. He gasped and staggered back, almost losing his balance on his numbed and clumsy feet. Bros pinwheeled his arms and regained his balance barely in time to prevent himself from crashing into the wall.

Then he stood there panting, head down, heart beating rapidly, glaring at Belazir from under his brows.

Belazir chuckled delightedly and crossed his arms over his chest. He was pleased that he'd taken the time to dress for this interview in a long, open-necked robe of watered green silk accented by fretted silver jewelry glittering with fire-opals. It nicely emphasized the difference in their status. A refinement Sperin was definitely intelligent enough to recognize, on some level, semiconscious as he was.

"Are your accommodations to your liking?" he asked politely.

"I was more comfortable on the Wyal." Bros straightened slowly and found himself equal to Belazir's imposing height. Which pleased him a great deal more than it did the Kolnari, he was sure. "You look older than I'd expected," he said conversationally.

A tiny seed of fury burst into existence in Belazir's heart. His mortality gazed back at him from his mirror with every new wrinkle and hair gone from silver-golden to white. Leaving him ever more aware of the hot breath of ambitious underlings on his neck, well-honed blades clutched in their sweaty young hands.

To be so casually insulted by a man he was torturing was intolerable. Lightning flickered at the edges of his vision. If they were truly in the same room he would teach the scumvermin how little his age mattered.

But wait! Profound surprise flickered across his mind. Could Sperin be attempting to provoke me? To manipulate me? He raised one white-blond brow. Clever, foolish spy. How interesting that he was so eager to die. It promised useful information as well as excellent entertainment.

"Do you think," he asked casually, "that it is wise to make me hate you, Bros Sperin?"

"I don't particularly care how you feel about me," Bros said.

Belazir smiled serenely.

"Ah, but you will," he said with utter confidence. "And in a very short time, too."

He decided to begin with the drug that caused pain. As yet he'd had no one to experiment on and Sperin should make a fine test case.

Three Kolnari entered the cell, one of them smaller and pudgier than the other two and tremblingly subservient; a half-caste castrato slave, the usual type assigned the low-status occupation of medicine. He bowed to Belazir's image over the small satchel he carried.

The two guards took hold of Bros, one on either arm and he slumped between them, making them stagger as he let them take his full weight. It felt almost good, not having to hold himself up anymore.

"The drug that causes pain," Belazir said to the cowering medical technician. He turned to Bros. "An invention from the Phelobites, some of Central Worlds most clever allies. It ignites the nervous system, I am told, causing exquisite suffering."

Bros looked up at him, tired, but contemptuous.

"You make it sound almost sexy, Belazir. Is this how you people have fun when you get old?"

Again the creature taunted him, and he didn't care to have the issue of his age mentioned before his crew. Rage snapped through him like a power whip and was quickly suppressed. He coiled it in, to be used later. Rage always had a use if turned to the right purpose.

"We are a disciplined people," Belazir observed with a calm smile. "We seldom allow ourselves to have 'fun.' However," the smile became wolfish, "I anticipate that you will provide us with some occasion for merriment in the near future." He gestured for the medtech to administer the dose of pain-inducer and watched Sperin's eyes as it was done.

Bros looked back at him as calmly as though they sat across a table in The Anvil.

The dose went in with no more sensation than the touch of the injector to his skin. But inside, almost instantly, a vile sensation-like worms writhing beneath his skin-began to spread through his body.

Belazir watched eagerly as Sperin stood upright, taking his weight on his own feet and his face wrinkled into a mask of profound… distaste.

"Eeyaaahh, that's disgusting!" Bros said, shaking his hands and rotating his shoulders. All the while praising Seg!T'sel within his heart. What would this have been like without the antidote? he wondered.

Belazir showed no sign of his shock or disappointment beyond a tightening of his jaw. It wasn't working. Perhaps the drug was unstable and had begun to lose its power.

"Try the drug for fear," he ordered harshly.

The med-tech licked his lips and his dark flesh turned pale gray with terror.

"Great Lord," he said in a voice that shook, "there is a possibility that combining the two drugs could poison the prisoner."

"Do it," Belazir snapped. Or I will have you gutted where you stand, he thought viciously, but did not say. It would show too much of what he was feeling.

"Yes, Great Lord."

The second injection acted as quickly as the first, complicating the unpleasant sensation below Bros's skin with a sense of anxiety. His heart speeded up and sweat broke out on his brow. He found himself panting slightly and licked dry lips with a dry tongue. It was very unpleasant.

Almost as much of a strain as the effort not to laugh. The combined effect was about as bad as going three days without a bath or shave; and it was making him less sleepy, too.

Seg, you are a genius. Whatever they're paying you at Clenst it's not enough. If the little Sondee had been before him, Bros would have kissed him passionately.

Fortunately he was still too tired to smile.

Belazir's apparent calm hid a rage that almost frightened the Kolnari. He stood with his back stubbornly turned to his fury; a ravening beast that would overwhelm and devour him if he gave it one moment's attention.

"Leave him," he said coldly to his men, and watched them march impassively from the cell. Then he studied Bros for a moment longer, hating his victim's lack of reaction, hating his men for witnessing this humiliating incident.

"I see we shall have to think of some other means of helping you pass the time," he said to Sperin. "I shall return quite soon."

"Get some rest," Bros said, "at your age this land of excitement isn't good for you."

"I am going to take you to pieces," Belazir promised him, "One millimeter at a time."

Belazir flung himself into his chair before the bank of screens. Breathing heavily… he forced himself to be still, his fury as hot as the core of a sun within him. He held up a hand before his face, and the fingers trembled. There was a time when they had been rock-steady, however hard the pulse of rage drummed in his ears.

He would personally kill that medtech. How dare the creature care for the drugs entrusted to him so poorly they have gone off! He would tear the little eunuch apart! Belazir's mind filled with images of blood that soothed him somewhat.

He reached for the com, intending to have the creature sent to one of the rooms where discipline was administered, when his eye caught a movement in one of the screens before him.

Nomik sat beside his aide, Silken, on her bunk, holding her hand and talking. He'd reached up to brush her hair aside and that movement had earned him Belazir's attention.

Belazir watched him coax the shadow of a smile from Silken. My other prisoners, he mused.

Yes, his other prisoners.

Civilians.

Sperin was a trained spy, perhaps he'd been instructed in methods of resisting drugs, or he might have a natural immunity. Or there might be an antidote of some sort.

Belazir considered that. Those who had sold him the drugs had assured him that no counter-agents or immunizers for them existed. But he'd been dealing with thieves, and salesmen, who were also notorious liars. Anyone who trusted a Phelobite would ask a Kolnari for an insurance appraisal.

He slid down comfortably in his chair and steepled his hands before him, gently tapping the fingertips together. Yes, he would try the drugs on Ciety. Let Silken watch. The female had demonstrated her loyalty already. His lips twisted in a wry smile. Let us see what her loyalty will bring me, he thought, anticipating a pleasant interlude.

"Where is she, Rand?" Joat asked.

"Less than an hour away, and on our heading."

"Well we can't do anything tied to that fighter."

"I can pilot that," Al said. "Or did you just want t' let it go?"

"No, we're keeping it. Like I said, that ship, and this fellow's call signs are going to help us rescue Bros." She jerked her head downship, indicating that Al should go, cutting off his inevitable protest.

"You're crazy!" Kraig yelled. "You're fardling crazy!"

Joat ignored him. "Respond to that call, Rand. Tell her help's on the way." Then she stood with her fingers tapping her lips, staring off into space while Seg nervously watched her.

"Joat," he said quietly. "You're serious about rescuing Bros, aren't you?"

She looked at him from the corner of her eye and nodded once.

"It's suicide," Seg whispered in a pleading tone.

"You're fardling right it is!" Kraig snarled. "And not the easiest way to do it either. Do you have any idea what those people are like, lady?"

She nodded.

"I was on a space station they took over."

He went still. "The SSS-900-C?"

She nodded again, her lip curling slightly. "You may have heard of some of the tricks we played on them there." She leaned in close, filling his field of vision and whispered, "So you have some idea of what I'm like. Don't you?" He nodded and she nodded with him. Joat leaned still closer, resting her elbow on the shoulder of his frozen suit "Think about this," she said confidentially. "If you help us out, we'll send you to Bethel a hero. You were sent to destroy us, but sickened by the Kolnari, you decided to help us instead. How does that sound? Hmmm?"

He stared at her uncertainly.

"You'd do that?"

"Um hmm." She nodded.

For a moment he almost smiled, then the frown was back.

"It sounds great, but it wouldn't sound so good when the Kolnari catch up with me."

Joat looked at Seg's disapproving face, then moved to block Kraig's view of him.

"Well, you know what, Kraig? You're not with the Kolnari, you're with us now. And now is all you should be thinking about." She smiled sweetly. "Given that I am one nnaaaaasty, dangerous woman.

"But if you're so hot to get back to the Kolnari, here's what we could do. After we torture the information I need out of you, I can fix your air pump, put that helmet back on and take you with me when I go." She smiled encouragingly into his horrified face. "Now, how would that suit you, hmmm?"

He went so pale that even his lips faded to white.

"Jeeeeezzz," he breathed. "You are crazy."

"You can't do that, Joat," Seg said raggedly.

"Oh, yes I caaaan," she said, playfully tweaking Kraig's nose.

"But they'll kill me," Kraig pleaded.

"I know. It's good to see that you understand your options." She straightened and stood before him with her hands on her hips. "You can either be a hero or a statistic. Your choice. I'll give you a few minutes to think about it."

Without another word, she turned her back on him and sat in the gimbaled pilot's couch.

"Rand, any word from Central Worlds?"

"No, but…"

"… I wouldn't expect any, as yet," she finished with him.

Rand paused, as though nonplused by her knowing what he was going to say.

"Even if we hear from them in the next instant, Joat, that doesn't mean they will be here anytime soon."

"Tell me about it," she sneered. "Even Simeon couldn't get them to move their butts. It was two weeks before the station got help." She was silent a moment, remembering all too well the horror and anxiety of those slowly passing days.

There was a shudder through the ship as Alvec disconnected the fighter's caterpillar lock from theirs.

"So, any word from the Mayday Ms.?" she asked flippantly.

"I've had her stop her ship. She said that it is also a fighter. That she is a Bethelite and her companions are the former Captain of the Sunrise and a Kolnari."

"What?" Seg and Joat shouted together.

"Her name is Soamosa bint Sierra Nueva and the Captain's name is Sung."

"She captured a Kolnari?" Joat asked.

"She said he was one of her companions," Rand said carefully. "She made no boast of capturing one."

"Hmmmph! Interesting. The Sunwise was Amos's ship," Joat said. She keyed up cargo hold C. "Joe, Amos, does the name Soamosa bint Sierra Nueva mean anything to you?"

Joseph's head had lifted with a start at the sudden sound of her voice, Amos simply lay there, as unresponsive as ever.

"She is the Benisur's young cousin," Joseph said. "She was traveling with him when the Kolnari captured him." He straightened. "Why do you ask this?"

"Because we just picked up a Mayday call from her. She's in a ship ahead of us, en route for Bethel. Rand says we'll catch up with them in about forty minutes. Joat out."

She lives! Amos thought exultantly. And she is sane. Oh, dearest God, my thanks. Your kindness is as sweet as honey, a balm to my heart and spirit. How astounding that Belazir told me the truth!

He felt Joseph's hand take his and extended his will to respond.

Joseph felt the merest quiver in Amos's fingers, but he knew it was deliberate, that the Benisur was conscious and would, indeed, recover.

"My Lord," he said in a voice harsh with relief.

Soamosa had wakened to the sound of tears. A soft, strained, high-pitched whining, followed by a series of sobs. A sound of heart-breaking loss and confusion.

She blinked her eyes free of sleep and turned to Captain Sung, wondering if this time he would accept the comfort she offered him. I think Karak may have been a little rough with that catheter, she thought uncomfortably. Just the idea of a catheter made her squirm. She was certain she had installed her own incorrectly. Resolutely she turned her mind from that path.

There is nothing to be done about it now except to think of something else. It is not as though I lacked distraction, she thought wryly.

That was when she noticed that Captain Sung was quite still, his eyes closed, his face calm. He was snoring gently, she realized.

Then what is it that I hear?

Slowly, her eyes widened with horror and the hair on the back of her neck rose in a ripple that made her shudder. That awful weeping, the sound of a lost and wounded child, was coming from Karak.

Slowly she turned, her heart thudding like a horse's hooves and her mouth dry. He is having a nightmare, she thought desperately. My poor love. But instinctively she knew that the sound she was hearing never came from a sleeping man.

He was leaning over his console, the helmet almost resting on the boards before him. Then he flung himself back in his couch and flailed his head from side to side as if trying to fling off his helmet.

His face was gray and slicked with sweat. When his eyes opened it was like looking through two golden hued windows into the heart of a furnace. As she watched, tears spilled over and rolled heavily down his cheeks.

Karak touched gloved hands to his head, to be stopped by the face-plate. He groaned and threw his head forward again.

"Karak!" Soamosa freed herself from her couch and pulled herself rapidly over to him. "Speak to me, Karak. My love, can you hear me?" She placed her trembling hands on either side of his helmet and gently lifted his head. "Karak, you must answer me. Can you hear me?"

She was terrified. He could be dying and there was nothing she could do to help him. Locked into their suits hike this she couldn't even touch him.

He opened his eyes and after a long moment, he seemed to recognize her. He smiled and moved a hand, as though to caress her, then stopped, as though the effort, even in zero-g, was too great.

"My sweet," Soamosa pleaded desperately, "if you can hear me you must give me some sign. Can you speak?"

He looked puzzled for a moment, then shook his head.

"Are you in pain?"

He nodded and his face crumpled like a child's, great fat tears falling unchecked down his sweat-slick face.

"Take a sip of water," she advised him.

He looked at her blankly through the plastic that separated them. Then he looked around, as though expecting a glass to materialize from nowhere. When it didn't, he looked accusingly at her and licked his lips; thirsty now that she had mentioned water.

"Sip on that," she said, pointing at a small flexible tube near his mouth.

He complied and his eyes widened with pleasure when the water came in response to his sucking.

Soamosa smiled reassuringly at him and then turned to the array of tell-tales built into the front of his suit.

Each suit of space-armor had a very basic auto-doc built in, to offer pain-killers and antibiotics, to apply pressure in order to control bleeding, and to administer up to two pints of plasma. Soamosa directed the suit to administer pain-killers. She noted that his fever was one hundred and four and reduced the interior temperature of his suit, hoping to combat the heat in his blood.

"Sweetheart," she pleaded, "why is this happening? Kolnari are never sick. Their bodies are too strong, they fight off everything. Why is this happening to you?"

He smiled bravely at her through his tears and mouthed the words: "I fight." Then his eyes crossed and rolled back in his head and he lay quiet beneath her.

She had panicked then, rushing back to her seat and activating the com, putting out a frantic Mayday call, hoping desperately that it would not be the Kolnari who answered it.

"Answering Mayday," a voice said in her ears. "This is free merchanter Wyal. Report your position and status."

Wyal, she thought. That is… that is Joat's ship. Every child on Bethel knew about the Jack Of All Trades and what she'd done against the Kolnari on SSS-900-C-girls especially knew. She is the abomination's daughter.

That thought brought her up short, like a mild slap to the face. She had thought, "abomination's daughter," without the slightest bit of rancor. It was merely an identifying tag, like the security director's wife… or the Benisur's Lady. She blushed to remember how she had yearned for that title.

Well, she thought wryly, I suppose that if I have been impetuous enough to fall in love with a Kolnari, I have no business tossing epithets about. Nor aspiring to be the Benisur's wife, for that matter.

"I am aboard a Kolnari three-crew fighter craft," she said, her voice a little hoarse. "With me are Captain Sung of the Benisur Amos's ship Sunwise. And… ah, and a Kolnari. Captain Sung and the Kolnari are ill, very ill-some sort of tailored disease which affects the memory functions. Help us, please!"

The waiting was almost harder than the fear had been. Captain Sung slept on, for which she was grateful. She considered authorizing the suit to give him a sleeping dose, but fought the urge. It would be selfish of her, and might harm him. Who knew how this awful disease had marred the functioning of his brain?

Releasing herself from her couch, she once again floated over to Karak. His eyes were closed and his temperature remained high, but at least had risen no higher.

"Oh, be well, my dear one," she whispered fervently. "I could not bear it if you became like the Captain." Her breath caught on a sob.

For that must be what afflicted him. And his body, in typical Kolnar fashion, was just different enough to cause this violent battle for supremacy over the disease that had broken the Captain's mind. She prayed that his body would be different enough to win.

An eternity later, the Wyal slid out of the night.

"Stand by for force-docking." A distant part of her was surprised that a merchanter was equipped for that… but this was Joat's ship, after all. The smaller vessel shuddered violently as the freighter's lock clamped on to it.

A small explosion of air, part sob, part laugh, entirely relieved, escaped Soamosa's lips.

She heard someone thumping awkwardly through the narrow tube connecting their ships when a thought struck her.

"Wait!" she cried frantically, just as she heard someone's gloves clack against the lock-face.

"What is it?" Rand asked.

The thumper had either heard or been warned to stop, for suddenly there was no sound back there.

"I should have thought of this," Soamosa apologized raggedly. "There is sickness aboard our craft. A very dangerous illness; we dare not expose you to it." She could feel the blood drain from her face as she spoke.

Ancient tales she had once enjoyed, describing noble heroines buried alive for their principles, slipped into her mind. We're going to die out here, she thought numbly. This ship will be my tomb. Her heart picked up its pace, as though her oxygen were already running out and she gasped for air in sympathy with the thought.

There was a pause, then a woman's voice broke the silence.

"This is Joat Simeon-Hap, Soamosa, captain of the Wyal. I assume the disease you're referring to is the one that destroys a part of the brain, leaving its victims like very young children?"

"Yes," the younger woman choked. Soamosa pressed her fist uselessly to her face-plate and then snatched it away with an annoyed sound.

"We're immunized and we have a controlled environment on the ship where we can lodge you."

"Oh!" Soamosa cried out in relief, and her heart filled to overflowing with gratitude.

She disconnected from her couch and flung herself at the nearest hand-hold. Scrambling towards the lock, all elbows and knees, Soamosa felt tears warming her cheeks. She reached the keypad, released the lock and flung herself into the suited arms of the woman who waited without. Their helmets knocked together with a resounding clang.

"Easy, girl!" Joat said, laughing. "These helmets cost a fortune." She held the girl awkwardly, feeling her trembling even through their suit's thickness. Joat gave Soamosa an occasional thump in the area of her shoulder blades in hopes the girl would soon feel comforted enough to release the death-grip she had on Joat's waist. "C'mon now," she said bracingly, "who've we got here." She gently but firmly pried Soamosa off and turned her towards the fighter's interior.

"It is Karak who is most in need of aid," Soamosa said urgently. "His fever is one hundred and four and he has been unconscious for over an hour." She began to tug Joat into the fighter.

"He the Kolnari?" Joat asked.

"Yes, he saved us."

"He did?"

Joat quickly saw that the Kolnari would have to be removed first, before the other figure in the lower seat could get out. Soamosa was lithe and slim and so could maneuver in that tight space with ease. But Captain Sung was both older and significantly thicker bodied. And one glance into his frightened, confused eyes told her that getting him out was going to be a project to remember.

"Okay," she said somewhat impatiently. "Karak goes first. Grab his other arm, Soamosa, then get at his feet and keep his rear end from catching on anything. Rand?"

"Yes Joat."

"Could you ask Seg to meet me at the air-lock with that cargo sled?"

"He's on his way."

Once in the Wyal's gravity Karak seemed to weigh a ton. What with the thick, metal-heavy Kolnari bones and the great, muscled length of him, they nearly herniated themselves getting him onto the cargo sled.

Joat stood back and blew out an exhausted breath, put her hands on her hips. I should have asked Rand to flux the gravity, like we did for the power suit.

"Who did you say this osco was?" she asked aloud.

"He is Karak t'Marid," Soamosa answered in a tight, anxious voice, never taking her eyes off him.

"t'Marid?" Joat frowned.

Soamosa looked at her and licked her lips.

"He is Belazir's eldest son," she said, then she looked at him again.

"Can we use him as a hostage?" Seg whispered eagerly.

"No way," Joat told him with a dismissive gesture, "the Kolnari eat their young."

"Only very rarely," Soamosa protested. "For special ceremonies, Karak said, or under the most dire of circumstances." She looked up into their stunned silence and blushed. "In any case, you may be sure that if they did ransom him it would only be to destroy him. You must not return Karak to them," she cried passionately.

"He saved us, even the Captain, which was very awkward. Please help him! He is deserving of your aid, I promise you. He warned us of a plot to destroy Bethel and he was taking us there to thwart Belazir's plan when he was stricken." Her gaze turned defiant and she cradled Karak's massive paw in her own small hands. "And what is more, I love him."

Oh, wow! Joat thought That oughta jump-start Amos. He'll probably come out of that box like he was spring loaded.

She held her hands out at chest level in a soothing motion and said, half-laughing, "Look, if giving him back would make them happy, that's the last thing I'm going to do. So just relax and we'll get him into cargo hold C so that Seg here can take a look at him." I should have put a revolving door on that place, she thought uneasily.

Joat tapped in the destination on the cargo sled's keypad and they followed it down the corridor. Soamosa carrying the big Kolnari's hand and cooing reassurance, Seg dragging info out of the auto-doc that no one else she knew could either get or understand.

In years to come, she thought with a grin, I'm going to wish I had a holo-snap of Joseph's face when he realizes just what her hero is.