Generation Warriors

Chapter Twenty-one

Timran had ignored the commotion around the shuttle's shields the morning after the landing. Nothing civilians could do would damage them or give access. He could tune in civilian broadcasts and spent the day watching newscasters ask each other questions on the main news channel. He'd rather have watched a back-to-back rerun of Carin Coldae classics, but felt he should exercise self-discipline. His second night alone in the shuttle he spent in catnaps and sudden, dry-mouthed awakenings. Keeping the video channels on did not help. He kept thinking someone had sneaked in to take control. Morning brought the itchy-eyed state of fatigue. He turned the com volume up high and dared a fast shower in the shuttle's tiny head. A caffeine tab and breakfast. The news blared on about the trial which would start in a few hours. He had heard nothing from Ford since that brief contact giving him the coordinates to watch, the details of the ship he might encounter. That had been around dawn of the day before. He felt so helpless, and so miserably alone. How could he help the captain, stuck way out here? The memory of the last time he hadn't obeyed orders smacked him on the mental nose. But those had been the captain's orders and these were only the Exec's. He had a sudden memory of Sassinak and Ford coming out of her quarters when he'd been on an errand. On second thought, he had better not antagonize Ford.

He settled down to watch the news coverage of the trial. Another interview with another civilian bureaucrat concerning the Iretan plague. Tim snorted, squirming in his seat. They asked the stupidest questions and the experts gave the stupidest answers. He wished he could be interviewed. He'd do a lot better. None of them would ever say "I don't know" and stick to it. Of course, they'd probably quit asking the ones who did know.

When the coverage of the Grand Council finally began, with the Speaker formally greeting each delegate, Tim sat up straight. He had stowed all the litter of his solitary occupation, prepped the shuttle for emergency liftoff, and made sure that every system was working perfectly. What he didn't have was any kind of effective weapon, unless the ship he expected to meet had neither shields nor guns. He was trying not to think about that. He had his helmet beside him, just in case. Outside the shuttle's shields, a thin line of police kept the curious away. They would be safe at that distance when he lifted.

The view on screen flicked from one location in the chamber to another. He saw Lunzie and an admiral sitting together in the seats reserved for witnesses, then Ford coming in. The view shifted and he saw Sassinak on the other side of the chamber. Why over there? he wondered. Aygar, beside her, looked unhappy. Tim wanted to be there worse than he'd ever wanted anything. He liked the big Iretan and hoped he'd decide to join Fleet in some capacity. And everything was happening there! Not here.

When the trouble began, he sat forward, hardly breathing. He'd often said he wished he'd been there to see other fights, other adventures, but he found that watching was far worse. He couldn't see what he wanted, only what the camera showed, and it was all a lot messier than the stories. Then the screen blanked, streaked, and finally returned as an exterior view of the Grand Council hall with a rioting crowd outside. Again the views shifted; first one streetful of people screaming, then another of people marching in step, waving flags, then of orange uniformed police firing into the crowd.

He glanced outside. The police there shifted about, looking edgy. No doubt they had communication with the inner city, and wondered what to do about him. Suddenly one of them whirled, and fired point-blank at the shield. His companions pulled him away, yanked the weapon from him, and moved back. Tim did nothing. He was trembling, he found, far worse than he had been that time on Ireta, but he managed to keep his fingers off the controls. His mind clung to the thought that Sassinak would call for him, would need him: he must be ready.

Yet when the call came, he hardly believed it.

"Zaid-Dayan shuttle!" came the second time before he got his fingers and his voice working and thumbed the control.

"Shuttle here!" His voice sounded like his kid brother's. He swallowed and hoped it would steady the next time.

"Fugitives en route. As planned, launch and intercept."

Did that mean the others weren't coming? Was he really supposed to take off without them?

"Are you?"

"Now!"

That was definitely Sassinak, no doubt about it. This is not like I imagined it would be, he thought. His memory reminded him tiiat so far it never had been. Helmet on, connections made. He looked at the fat red button and pushed it, then got his hands on the other controls just as the shuttle surged up, sucking a good bit of the landfill's carefully planted grass in its wake.

He was high over the city in moments, balancing on a delicate combination of atmospheric and insystem drives. He had time to enjoy the knowledge that he had made a perfect liftoff and was doing a superb job now in precisely the right position.

The coordinates he'd been given, entered into the shuttle's nav computer, now showed a red circle on a displayed map that matched what he could see below. Hard to believe that beneath that vast warehouse a silo poked into the ground ready to launch a fast yacht. But the displays were changing color. The IR scan showed the change first as the warehouse roof sections lifted away. Then the targeting lasers picked up the vibrations, translated as seismic activity.

The inner barriers lifted and the yacht's nose poked out, rising slowly, slowly. As if on an elevator lift, then faster, then… Tim remembered he was supposed to give one official warning and poked the button to turn on the pre-recorded tape. Sassinak had not wanted to trust his impromptu style.

"FSP Shuttlecraft Seeker to ship in liftoff. You are under arrest. Proceed directly to shuttleport. You have been warned."

Sassinak had said they could divert to the shuttleport, even immediately after liftoff. But she didn't think they would.

"Don't even try it, Tiny!" came the reply from the yacht. "You haven't got a chance."

He hoped that wasn't true. Supposedly, the constraints of taking off from a silo meant that the most common weapons systems couldn't be mounted until after the yacht was out of the atmosphere in steady flight. And his shields should deflect all but heavy assaults. The problem was how to stop the yacht. Shuttles were just that - shuttles - not fighter craft. He had a tractor beam which was not nearly powerful enough to slow the yacht and a midrange beamer designed to clear brush when landing in uncleared terrain. Could he disable the yacht's instrument cone? That's what Ford had suggested.

He got the targeting lasers fixed on the yacht's bow as he kept the shuttle in alignment, and pressed the firing stud. A line of light appeared, splashed harmlessly along the yacht's shields. It wasn't supposed to have shields. They were high in the atmosphere now. His displays told him the yacht should be planning to release its massive solid-fuel engine. This didn't worry him because the more massive yacht, with its limited drive system, could not possibly outmaneuver a Fleet shuttle as long as it stayed below lightspeed. But he still could not figure out how to stop it. If it made the transition to FTL, he could not follow.

Of course he could ram it. No shields on a ship that size could withstand the strain if he intercepted at high velocity. But what if he missed? How could he keep track of it, keep it from going into FTL, if he couldn't stop it cold? The yacht's booster separated and it surged higher. Tim sent the shuttle after it. What if it had more power then they'd thought? What if it could distance the shuttle? Then it would be free to go into FTL and disappear forever and he… he would get to explain his failure to Commander Sassinak.

Who had not explained, this time, exactly what to do. Who was not in her cruiser, this time, ready to come to his rescue. He found he was sweating, his breath short. He had to do something and, except by a land of blind instinct, he had never been good at picking alternatives. The yacht opened a margin on him. Tim uttered a silent prayer to gods he couldn't name and redlined the shuttle to catch back up to it. If he was right… if he could remember how to do this… if nothing went wrong, there was a way to keep that yacht from making a jump. If things did go wrong, he wouldn't know it.

Sassinak picked herself out of the tangle of bodies with a groan. A dull ache in her leg promised to develop into real pain as soon as she paid attention to it. Tim should be on his way. Arly was out there somewhere doing something with the invasion fleet. And here… here was death and pain and carnage. One Lethi delegate smashed into amber splinters and dust that stank of sulpur compounds. A Ryxi whimpering as its broken leg twitched repeatedly. The singed feathers on its back added another noxious reek to the chamber. Aygar? Aygar lay sprawled, motionless, but Lunzie knelt beside him and nodded encouragingly as she looked up. Ford, gray around the mouth, held out his blistered hands for the medics as they sprayed a pale-green foam on diem.

Sassinak limped over to Lunzie and thought about sitting down beside her. Better not. She didn't think she could get back up. "How bad is he?"

"Near as I can tell, a stunner beam got him. Not too badly. He should wake up miserable within an hour. What else?" Lunzie still had that intense stare of someone in full Discipline.

"The Paraden representatives here, the ones in the guest box, got away. To their yacht."

"Blast it!" Lunzie looked ready to smash through walls barehanded.

"Never mind. I had a trap for them."

"You…?"

Sassinak explained briefly, looking around as she did. The surviving delegates were safely sealed into their places. She could just see them watching her. What must they be thinking? And what should she do?

"Sassinak. A statement?" One of the students had come down to the floor, with a camera on his shoulder. So they had secured the newslines. She frowned, trying to clear her mind, to think. She felt the weight of it all on her. She glanced around for Coromell who should, as the senior, make any statements. Then she saw his crumpled body in the unmistakable posture of the dead.

"I… Just a moment." Had Lunzie seen? What would she do? She touched Lunzie's shoulder. "Did you know? Coromell?"

Lunzie nodded. "Yes. I saw it. I'd just gone to full Discipline. Couldn't save him… and he was so decent." She blinked back tears. "I can't cry now, and besides…"

"Right."

Coromell dead. The Speaker dead. The Justices, if not dead, at least unable to take over. Someone had to do it. She limped up the step to the Speaker's podium and stepped gingerly between the bodies that lay at its foot: the Speaker, who had reminded her of her first captain, and the Diplonian delegate she herself had killed. The Speaker's podium had had status screens, an array of controls to record votes, and grant the right to speak. But none of that worked. Her own shots, most likely, had shattered the screens. Still, it was the right place, and she stood behind it as the student with the camera moved in for a close shot. She could imagine what it looked like. A tired, rumpled Fleet officer in front of the Federation shield, the very image of a military coup, the end of peace and freedom. But she would do better than that.

"Delegates, Justices, Citizens of the Federation of Sentient Planets," she began. "This Federation, this peaceful alliance of many races, will survive…"

Arly, in the command seat on Zaid-Dayan's bridge, had the best view of what happened next. Although the Central System's defenses were concentrated along the three most common approaches from other sectors, the Seti had not chosen an alternative route. They had counted on most of the defenses being knocked out by collaborators. Once she realized that their approach was in fact along a mapped path, she had been able to use the Zaid-Dayan's capabilities against them.

At first she had used the defense satellites as cover, taking out two of the flanking escorts, and one medium cruiser as if the satellites had been active. So far, the Seti commanders had assumed that the losses were, in fact, due to passive defense systems that had escaped inactivation. At least, that's what her Ssli told her they were thinking. She hoped they were also wondering if their human allies were double-crossing them.

When that got too dangerous - for the Seti clearly knew exactly where such installations were and they began attacking them - she used the stealth capability and the Ssli's precision control of tiny FTL hops to disappear and reappear unpredictably, firing off a few missiles each time at the nearest ship, and then vanishing again. She could not actually destroy the invaders, not with one cruiser, but she could inflict serious losses.

Now they were well into the system, inside the outer ranks of defenses, still in numbers large enough to threaten all the inhabited planets. It would be another day or more before any Fleet vessels could arrive, assuming the nearest had come at once on receipt of the mayday. By then FedCentral might be in range of the Seti ships.

She was just considering whether to sacrifice the ship by going in for close combat for she thought she might do the Seti flagship enough damage to force the invaders to slow, when the scans went crazy, doppler displays racing through color sequences, alarms flashing. Then the ship's drive indicators rose slowly from green to yellow with some strain as if a massive object had appeared not far off.

"Thek," said the very pale Weft, its form wavering before it steadied back to human.

"Thek?"

She had seen before the way Thek moved, and how it seemed to violate a lifetime's assumptions about matter and space. She had just not realized that her instruments felt the same way about it.

"Many, many Thek. They… more or less vacuum packed the Seti fleet."

The sensors reported the right density and mass for more Thek than Arly had ever seen, but what she thought of was Dupaynil. Dupaynti being squashed by granite pyramids.

"No," said the Weft, shaking his head. "Not that ship. That one's whole, but can't maneuver. The Thek have made it quite clear to the Seti that their prisoners had best stay healthy."

"What about us?" After all, humans had been involved in the plot, too.

"We're free to go, although they'd prefer that we picked up the prisoners from that Seti ship."

"Fine with me. I'm not arguing with flying rocks." She hoped the Thek wouldn't consider that disrespectfull. "Are you… talking with them?"

He looked surprised. "Of course. You know we're special to them. They think we're… I suppose you'd say, cute."

"No one ever told me that you Wefts could talk to Thek."

"Not that many know we're telepathic with some humans, or most Ssli."

"Mmm. Right. So where does this Thek want us to go to pick up passengers?"

In the event, they sent a shuttle which the Thek guided through the interstices of the trap they'd shut on the Seti. While it was on its way, Arly remembered to prepare quarters for the alien guests, including a sealed compartment for the Lethi where the fumes from their obligatory sulfur wouldn't bother anyone else.

Arly decided the shuttle's arrival required a formal reception to reassure the allied aliens that Fleet was loyal to the FSP and not part of the plot. With the crisis over, she left the bridge to a junior officer and came to Flight Deck herself, with a squad of marines in dress uniform.

The Zaid-Dayan had no military band, but she had a recording of the FSP anthem piped in as more suitable to aliens than anything else. The shuttle hatch opened and two of the crew came out, carrying the Lethi. The Ryxi bobbed out on its own, fluffing feathers nervously, and chittered vigorously before greeting her in Standard with eflusive thanks. Then came the Bronthin, its normal pastel blue fur almost gray with exhaustion and fear. Two more of the shuttle crew, with the larval Ssli's environmental tank. Finally, Dupaynil emerged.

Arly stared at him in frank shock. The dapper, elegant officer she remembered was a filthy, shambling wreck, red-rimmed eyes sunken.

"Commander!"

"Is Sassinak aboard?" That had an intensity she couldn't quite interpret.

"No. She's onplanet."

"Thank the…" he paused. "The luck, I suppose. Or whatever. I…" He staggered and the waiting medics came forward. He waved them off. "I don't need anything but a shower - a long shower - and some rest."

"But what happened to you?"

Dupaynil gave her a look somewhere between anger and exhaustion. "One damn thing after another, Arly, and the worst of it is it's all my fault for thinking I was smarter than your Sassinak. Now please?"

"Of course."

He did reek and she felt her nostrils dilate as he passed her. She wondered how long he'd been in that pressure suit. She hardly had all the survivors settled when the Weft liaison to the Thek called her back to the bridge. One last chore remained. The humans most responsible had escaped the planet in a fast yacht, and although a Fleet vessel had kept it in sight, it could not stop it.

"Tim and that shuttle!" Arly said. "I forgot him. Com, get us a link!"

Tim had the yacht's position and the Ssli flicked the cruiser in and out of FTL space in a minute jump that put them well in range. Her weapons officer reported that the yacht lacked anything to penetrate the cruiser's shields. Too bad Sassinak wasn't here. She would enjoy this. But she'd had the onplanet fun. Arly put their message on an all-frequency transmission.

"FSP Cruiser Zaid-Dayan to private vessel Celestial Fortune. Going somewhere?"

"Let us alone, or you'll regret it!" came the reply. "You're nothin' but a lousy little short-range shuttle tryin' to play big shot."

"Take another look," suggested Arly and cut back the visual screens. "Do you want to argue with this?"

She sent a missile past their bows, and heard a yelp from Tim on one of the incoming lines. A spurt of annoyance. He should have had sense enough to get out of the way.

"Get that shuttle back in here," she told him.

"Sorry, ma'am "

"What do you mean, sorry?"

"I… uh… It was the only way I could think of."

"What did you do?"

"I… locked shields with "em."

Arly closed her eyes and counted to ten. So that's why they hadn't gone into FTL yet. But it meant that blowing the yacht would mean blowing the shuttle, and Tim. Nor could he pull away. Locking shields was hard enough going in. She'd never heard of anyone getting back out, unless both ships agreed to damp the shields simultaneously.

"Who's with you?" asked Arly.

"Nobody," came the reply.

From his tone he knew exactly what that meant. If Sassinak had been aboard… but one ensign, who had been unable to think of any way to impede the enemy but bonding to it? He was very expendable.

"You suited up?"

"Yes. But…" But what good would it do?

Shuttles had no escape pods, for the very good reason that in normal operation they were useless. And being blown out of an exploding shuttle was a little more than hazardous.

"I can flutter their shields, Commander. Give you a better chance of getting 'em with the first shot."

"Dammit, Tim, don't be so eager to die."

It would help, though, and she knew it.

"I'm not," he said. Was that a quaver in his voice?

He was not going to die if she could help it. But the yacht had meanwhile refused to cut its acceleration outsystem or change course. Its captain seemed sure he could make his FTL jump anyway.

"Even if I do scrape a louse off our hide."

"Do that and you're dead for sure. We've followed more than one through FTL flux." She flipped that channel off. "And why can't the blasted Thek help us now?" Arly demanded of the Weft at her side. "I hate the way they pick and choose. If these are the bigshots…"

The Zaid-Dayaris proximity alarms blared. The artificial gravity pulsed. Arly swallowed hastily, clutching the arms of her chair. Small objects tumbled about and a dust haze rose, to be sucked rapidly away by the fans.

"Do me a favor, Captain, and don't bad-mouth the Theks any more," said the Weft.

This time he'd shifted completely and hung now from the overhead, bright blue eyes gleaming at Arly. Then he shifted back, leaving a mental image of strings of innards trailing down in a most abnormal way to reassemble into a living person.

"I just said…"

"I know. But you people complain all the time about how slow the Thek are and how they don't pay attention. You should rejoice that they're now paying attention and you've had a demonstration of how they can move."

"Right. Sorry. But the yacht…"

The Thek had absorbed all the yacht's considerable inertia, flicking Tim and his shuttle off as a housewife might flick an ant off a plate. When he hailed them, Arly could hear astonished relief in his voice.

"Permission to land shuttle?"

Should she bring him in, or send him back to FedCentral? A glance at the readouts told her the shuttle wouldn't make it back safely.

"Permission granted. Bring 'er aboard, Ensign."

And he did, without any hotdog flourishes.

Arly looked around the bridge, and wondered if she looked as disshelved as the others. Far more ragged than Sassinak had ever looked, she thought. Well have to get this place cleaned up before she sees it and everyone rested. But we still have to get back down there, just in case.

Convincing the Dockmaster at the FedCentral Station that the Zaid-Dayan was not an agent of doom required the rough side of Arly's tongue.

"We saved your tails from a 'catenated Seti fleet. And you're going to gripe at me because I left without your fardling permission?"

"It was highly irregular."

"So it was, and so were the Seti. So were the traitors in your system that wanted to let 'em in. It's not my fault you wouldn't believe the truth. Now you can let us dock or watch us sit out here using your station for target practice."

"That's a threat!" he said.

"Right. Going to take us up on it?"

"Ill file a complaint." Then his face sagged as he realized to whom that complaint would go: Sassinak, now in command of the loyal Federation forces onplanet, Acting Governor. "It's all very irregular…" His voice trailed away into a sigh. "All right. Bays twelve through twenty, orange arm."

"Thank you," said Arly, careful to keep her voice neutral. Never push your luck, Sassinak always said, and she felt her luck had been working overtime lately. "If you have any fresh forage for Bronthin, we have an individual in bad shape who's been a Seti prisoner."

This the Dockmaster could handle. "Of course. With so much diplomatic traffic, we pride ourselves on keeping full supplies for every race in the FSP. Any other requirements?"

"A Ryxi which is suffering from 'feather pit,' whatever that is, and a pair of Lethi who seem all right, although our medical team isn't familiar with Lethi."

"Only two Lethi? That's very bad. Lethi need to cluster in larger numbers."

"Plus a larval Ssli," Arly said. "It's complained that its tank needs recharging."

"No problem with any of that," said the Dockmaster, suddenly cordial. "If you'll send the allied races to bay sixteen, that'll be the quickest access for our specialty medical services."

"Will do." Arly shook her head as she looked around the bridge, "Can you believe that? He was willing to stand us off as if we were pirates, but he's got specialty medical teams for our aliens."

Arly had been in communication with Sassinak for the past several hours. The situation onplanet had stabilized with the loyalists firmly in control, and only scattered pockets of resistance.

"And I think most of that's confusion," Sassinak had said. "We're finding that many of the Parchandri/Paraden supporters had been blackmailed into it. Others just didn't know any better. Right now the Thek are calling for a formal trial."

"Not another one!"

"Not like that one, no. A Thek trial." Sassinak had looked exhausted. Arly wondered if she'd had any rest at all since her disappearance. "Another Thek cathedral is all I need! But considering what they've done, we really can't argue. They want those prisoners you rescued from the Seti, especially the Bronthin, Ssli, Weft, and Dupaynil."

So now, docked at the Station, Arly saw these turned over to special medical teams. Soon they'd be on their way to the Thek trial. She wondered about the crew and passengers of the yacht Tim had trapped. But she wasn't going to ask any questions. Two experiences with fast-moving Thek were quite enough.

It was impossible to overestimate the civilizing influence of cleanliness, rest, and good cooking, Sassinak thought. Back on the Zaid-Dayan, back in a clean uniform, with a stomach full of the best her favorite cook could do, with a full shift's sleep, she was ready to forgive almost anyone. Particularly since the Thek, in their unyielding fashion, had satisfied any remaining desire for vengeance.

For a moment, she felt again the pressure of those most alien minds. And marveled that she had survived two terms in a Thek cathedral. Never again, she hoped. The judgment process might be exhausting but it served its purpose admirably.

The guilty Seti were to be confined to one interdicted planet, guarded by installations whose crews were former pirate prisoners. Paraden family lost all its possessions, from shipping lines to private moonlets. Paradens and Parchandris alike were given basic survival and tool supplies, the same they had sold to many a colony starting up, and deposited on a barely habitable planet.

With the single exception of Ford's Auntie Q. She lost nothing for the Thek considered her a victim, not a Paraden, despite her name.

And, thanks to Lunzie's partisanship and fierce arguments, heavyworlders were also considered victims. After all, they had been cheated by the wealthy lightweights who then blackmailed them into service. So the Thek required only that those conspirators in the governments of heavyworlder planets be expelled. The others, informed of the complex plot, were given shares in the liquidation of Paraden assets. They could use that to ease their lives.

In addition, FSP regulations changed to allow heavy-worlder migration to any world open to humans. But that did not include Ireta: the Thek would not change their earlier decision. Aygar had been consoled, finally, by the knowledge that he would have a chance to see many equally fascinating worlds. And enough money to enjoy them.

Now the original team relaxed in Sassinak's office, with most of the tales untold and a long night ahead for telling them. Restored by a couple of sessions in the tank to heal his burns, Ford crunched another of the crispy fries. Sassinak met his eyes and felt indecently smug. They had private plans when the party broke up. He had told her just enough about Auntie Q and the Ryxi tailfeathers to whet her appetite.

Dupaynil, though, had lost some of his polish. Specklessly clean, as usual, perfectly groomed, he still had a hangdog tentative quality that she found almost as irritating as his former blithe certainty.

Lunzie, always tactful, had put aside her grief for Coromell to try to cheer Dupaynil up, but so tar it hadn't worked. Timran, on the other hand, was indecently gleeful. He had taken the mild commendation she'd given him as if he'd been awarded the Federation's highest honor in front of the Grand Council. Now he sat stiffly in the corner of her office as if he would burst if he moved. She'd better rescue the lad.

"Ensign, there's an errand… a fairly special one…"

"Yes, ma'am\"

"We're having guests; I'd like you to escort a lady from the Flight Deck in here."

If anyone could settle a young man like Tim, it would be Fleur. He'd enjoy Aygar's student friend, too, and Erdra. Sassinak grinned wickedly at the thought of Erdra coming face to face with the reality behind her daydreams. She was no Carin Coldae and the sooner she quit playing games and went back to finish that advanced degree in analytical systems, the better. The riot had cured her of any thought that violence and glamor coexisted, and a visit to a working warship ought to clear out the rest of her nonsense.

Lunzie would want to meet her relative-of-sorts, from the Chinese family. It had been extravagant, in several ways, to send her own shuttle down for them, but she felt it important to build respect for Fleet. No more restrictions on the movement of Fleet personnel, and no civilian weapons monitors, either. The Zaid-Dayan was, as it always should be, ready for action. Now, while Tim was gone, she could try to penetrate Dupaynil's gloom again.

"I wanted to apologize to you," she began, "for pulling that trick…"

"It was a trick, then, with the orders?" He brightened a moment. "I was sure of it. You used the Ssli, right?"

"Right. But it was flat stupid of me not to know more about the ship I tossed you onto. I had no idea…"

"I know." He looked glum again.

"You said something about charges?"

"Well, the Exec of the escort and I had to overpower the crew, put 'em in custody…"

"On an escort? Where?"

"In the escape pod in coldsleep. They were going to space me."

Sassinak stared at him. He said it in a tone of flat misery entirely out of character for someone who had run a successful mutiny.

"I'm sure we can get the charges dropped. If anyone's dared filed them," she said. "Especially now. I've had contact with Admiral Vannoy, back at Sector, and he's rooting out the traitors around Fleet."

But that didn't cheer him up as it should have. Clearly impending charges weren't the burden he carried. Lunzie caught her eye and made a significant glance at Ford, at Dupaynil, then at Aygar. Sassinak let one eyelid droop in a near-wink.

"Ford, if you don't mind, I think I'd like a grownup to supervise that reception. Aygar, you might want to be there to greet your friends."

Aygar leaped up while Ford stood more slowly, grinning at Sassinak in a way that almost made her blush.

"You ladies take care," he said, with his own significant glance at Dupaynil. "No squabbling."

Then he left, shepherding Aygar ahead of him.

"Now, then," said Sassinak. "You've been brooding about as if you were about to be stuck in Administration forever. So, what's the problem?" She thought for a long moment he would not answer, then it burst out of him.

"It's ridiculous, and I don't want to talk about it."

Lunzie and Sassinak waited, saying nothing. Dupaynil looked up and met Sassinak's eyes squarely.

"I was so furious with you for pulling that trick. For getting atvay with that trick. I dreamed of outfoxing you again, coming back with what you needed, but making you pay for it. Then I had to escape those… those pirates on Claw, and realized that 1 didn't know one thing about actually running a ship. Panis had to train me as if I were a raw recruit. But I still thought, with what I'd found, that I'd have a chance of returning in triumph. A good story to tell, all that. But then the Seti…" He stopped, shaking his head, and Sassinak and Lunzie stared at each other over his bent head.

"What did they do?" asked Lunzie.

Sassinak was thinking that it was a good thing they'd died before she'd had the opportunity to skin their scaly hide off their live bodies.

"Arly didn't tell you?"

"She said you looked pretty dilapidated when you came aboard, but you wouldn't go to Medical -" Her skin crawled as she thought of reasons why he might not, which could explain his present mood. "Dupaynil! They didn't!"

This time he laughed, a genuine if shaky laugh. "No. No, they didn't actually do anything. It was just… Have you ever seen a Seti shower?"

What did that have to do with anything? "No," Sassinak said cautiously.

"It sprays you with hot air, grit, and more hot air," Dupaynil said with more energy than she'd heard from him yet. Bitter, but alive. "I'm sure it's what keeps their scales so shiny. Probably takes care of itchy little parasites on a Seti. But for a human, day after day… And then I had to stay in that blasted pressure suit for days." His expression brought a chuckle to Sassinak; she couldn't help it. "I'd planned on strolling in, cool and suave, to hand you what you needed. Instead, I was stuck in a stinking pressure suit in a crowded compartment full of terrified aliens where I could do not one damn thing, and had to be rescued like any silly princess in a fairy tale."

"But you did," said Sassinak.

"Did what?"

"Did do something. Kipling's corns, Dupaynil, you got the warning to us. You had evidence the Thek used."

"They could have got it straight from those slime-buckets minds."

"Well, if the Thek hadn't been there, we'd have needed it. After all, they asked for you at the trial. They needed your evidence, too. I don't know what more you could want. You escaped one death-trap after another, you got vital information, you saved the world. Did you really think anyone could do that without getting dirty?" She thought of herself in the tunnels, even before Fleur's disguise.

"I wanted to impress you," he said softly, looking at his linked hands.

"Well, you did." Sassinak cocked her head at him. "Impress me? Was that all?"

"No." She would never have suspected that Dupaynil could blush, but what else were those red patched on his cheeks. "When I was on Claw, when I realized what you'd done, and I was so mad… I also realized I wanted…"

It was clear enough, though he couldn't say it.

"I'm sorry." That was genuine. He had earned it. She couldn't offer more. Her joyful reunion with Ford had revealed too much to both of them.

"Sorry!" Lunzie fairly exploded, her eyes sparkling. "You nearly get the man killed, he has to take over a whole ship, and then he saves us all from a Seti invasion, and you're just sorry!" She looked at Dupaynil. "She may be my descendant, but that doesn't mean we agree. I think she ought to give you a medal."

"Lunzie!"

"You wouldn't think so if you'd seen me getting off that shuttle." Dupaynil said. "Ask Arly."

"I don't have to ask Arly. I can see for myself." That came out in a sensuous purr. Under Lunzie's bright gaze, Dupaynil's grin began to revive.

Sassinak regarded her great-great-great with affectionate disdain. "Lunzie, I know where I inherited some of my propensities." If Lunzie stayed interested, she gave Dupaynil only a few more hours of freedom.

"Meow!" Lunzie stuck out her tongue, then leaned closer to Dupaynil.

Whatever else she might have said was interrupted by the arrival of the others: Fleur, who had worn one of her own creations in lavender and silver, Aygar and Timran in the midst of the students. Erdra, Sassinak noticed, wore the same kind of colorful shirt and leggings as the others. Perhaps she had grown out of her wishful thinking already.

"Have you?" Fleur asked, drifting close a little later, as the conversation rose and fell around them.

^What?"

"Grown out of your past?"

Sassinak snorted. "I grew out of Carin Coldae a long way back."

"You know that's not what I mean."

Sassinak thought of Randy Paraden's face, the instant before the Weft killed him, and of the faces of the other conspirators in the Thek cathedral. She had looked long in her mirror when she came back aboard, hoping not to find any of the marks of that kind of character.

"Yes," she said slowly. "I think I have. I can't change what they did to me, but I can change what I do about it. It's time to be more than a pirate-chaser. But not less."