CHAPTER 2

“They told me you’ve been released,” Sascha said from the door to the room the Eldritch was only too glad to be vacating.

Hirianthial glanced toward him, then looked away, suffering the unaccustomed swing of his shorn hair against his jaw and the unfulfilled promises it represented. The dangle the crew had woven him barely moved, a long rope down his back: that too, was a promise, but theirs to him, that they’d meant it when they’d said they would stand by him. He composed himself, then said, “Sascha, I am sorry.”

“For snapping at me?” Sascha padded closer, pulling a stool with him and straddling it. He flicked his ears forward, aura a settled warm gold, comforting. “I could use an apology for that, yeah.”

Hirianthial exhaled and met the Harat-Shar’s eyes. “You have it, then. I am sorry. I was… not myself.”

“I think you were actually very much yourself,” the tigraine said. His ears flicked forward. “Worried, are you.”

“We’ve left our own amid dragons and slavers and traitors,” Hirianthial replied. “Perhaps you have some knowledge that prevents you from worrying? If so, I would very much like to hear it.”

Sascha shook his head. “If that’s a ‘tell me something’s changed since I was awake last,’ that’s a no. But you’re up, and that’s good. That’s one of the things we were waiting for. And frankly, you need to be on your feet because your cousin needs you.”

“Ah?”

“She’s going to explode,” Sascha said. “I’m no judge of royalty or anything, but I do know something about tempers, having lived with Reese for years now. And if something doesn’t distract that woman, she’s going to start punching walls. Or whatever passes for that among you people. Something that sounds more dramatic and genteel.”

“We say cutting ourselves to feed the blade,” Hirianthial said.

Sascha’s ears flattened and he grimaced. “You would, wouldn’t you.” Hirianthial felt the tigraine’s regard as he pushed himself off the bed, trying his feet. Far too weak, he thought. How long did he have before he’d need his full faculties? Not long, and he was no longer a youth to snap back from bodily distress so easily. So it surprised him when Sascha said, “You look good.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You looked like death when we rescued you, so… yes. You look much better.” The tigraine’s tail lashed once against the stool. “Fortunately we got you patched up by the best on the starbase.”

“I had wondered. Where are we, then?”

“We’re in the Fleet hospital,” Sascha said. “When we came barreling in, your cousin took over the comm and, not surprisingly, I guess, royalty gets perks. Especially royalty from an allied nation. Not only that, but the Earthrise is owned by one of the few holders of Fleet’s only civilian citation—for that business with Surapinet and Captain NotAgain—so we got privileged treatment. They’re shining the hull as we speak. I don’t think Reese will recognize her when we pull back into orbit.”

His heart contracted at the thought. Theresa alone, and amid his enemies… had they never met, she would never have become their targets.

“You really do love her, don’t you,” Sascha said, and Hirianthial broke from his reverie to find the tigraine studying his face.

“Sascha…”

“You’re about to tell me all the reasons why it can’t work,” Sascha said. “As if I don’t already know them.”

“You don’t,” Hirianthial said, firm.

“She loves you, too, you know.”

“And now,” Hirianthial said, “You are meddling, Sascha—”

“By telling you things you already know?” Sascha snorted. “You called me ‘arii’. That means we’re friends. And as prickly as she is, the Boss trusts me with her life. That gives me enough right to meddle when the both of you already know something and don’t want to look at it.” He looked up. “And you know. You know, don’t you.”

The touch of her fingers in his shorn hair… the temple she’d pressed lightly against his in her wild despair. The feeling that had been wellspring to that despair, the only one capable of creating such panic and horror in her at his state, at the thought that he might die. He closed his eyes.

“Thought so,” Sascha murmured. “Look, we’re going to live through this… so I’m not going to push you about it.”

“No?” he said, surprised.

“If I’m right,” Sascha said. “All that we’ve lived through, and all that we’re about to go through, will teach you far better than I could. I’m just pointing all this out so… you know. When you do live through it, it’ll be on your mind. About how precious some things are, and how rare, and how easily you can lose them.” He smiled faintly. “You Eldritch. You think you’re magic just because you have the potential to outlive us ten times over. But that doesn’t change that it’s just potential. You know how often people realize their potential, arii? And that’s over things in themselves they can control.”

Hirianthial stared at him, stunned. Not just at the words, but at the solidity of his aura. Before leaving the homeworld, Urise had been teaching him to reach the silence of the Universe, where the answers were implied because there had been a Listening in that silence. To see it reflected in the aura of someone his own kind would have called a mortal….

“And how did you get so wise?” he asked.

Sascha grinned. “Thanks for not finishing that ‘so young.’ By now you should know the answer, right?”

“I fear not.”

The Harat-Shar snorted. “By loving. Of course. What else?”

“What else,” Hirianthial murmured, feeling it sweep through him like a vivifying wind, like the first breeze of spring.

Kis’eh’t peeked in. “Is he awake? Is—oh! You are!”

“I am,” he said, and had enough time to realize the Glaseah was running to brace himself. She halted just short of him as if remembering such as he was not to be touched for casual cause, but… surely this was no casual cause. So he leaned down and completed the embrace she’d wanted to give him, and she sighed against his ribcage, bringing him the effervescence of her pleasure at the sight of him on his feet, the quiet orderliness of her thoughts, the contentment she felt that things were finally falling into place… and the knowledge that she was holding… his clothes?

“You have something for me?” he said, puzzled.

“Yes,” she said. “If you’re up, the Queen asked that you come see her. Apparently you have family coming? And they’re arriving now.”

“Family,” he murmured. “Of course. If you will excuse me? I will dress.” He paused and looked at Sascha.

The Harat-Shar laughed. “What, are you waiting for the inevitable joke? ‘Do I have to go?’”

“I thought I would grant you the opportunity.”

“To tease you!” Sascha grinned. “Maybe things will be all right after all.” He paused a heartbeat, then added, “So do I have to go, or can I watch?”

Kis’eh’t rolled her eyes and pulled his elbow. “Come on, lecher. The faster we figure things out here, the faster we can deliver you back to your sister’s loving arms.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Hirianthial watched them as the Glaseah led the Harat-Shar away, felt at his fingertips the softness of their auras where they melded with the ease of long friendship. He did not think they would call one another friends, if asked. Family, though.

He looked at the clothes. Pulled from his own room on the Earthrise, no doubt… but by Liolesa. He knew the moment he touched the long bronze scarf, and not just because he could feel through it the memory of her fingertips. She would have noted the hair Baniel had shorn in the cell, and how naked it would make him feel, to be reduced to the coif of a boy not yet at his majority. And yet, there was something freeing about the lack… as if, without it, he might contemplate a life outside his world’s expectations. He passed his hand over his nape, hearing the bell at the end of the dangle shiver as he disturbed it.

 

Hirianthial was escorted directly from the hospital, over a Pad and into what looked like a hotel lobby, save that this lobby was maintained solely by uniformed personnel from the Alliance Fleet. One and all their auras were contracted close to their bodies—discipline learned, he wondered? Or concern over their military’s posture? But they were courteous to him when they guided him smoothly from the lobby to the suite where they’d installed Liolesa… who was, after all, a visiting head of state. She was sitting in what looked like the Alliance version of a receiving room, complete with a small collection of chairs around a table and a window. If here the window spanned from floor to ceiling and showed the uncanny clarity of space rather than a winter landscape, well. He had been traveling in the Alliance for over sixty years now, and it looked natural to him. Even his cousin looked normal in this setting… but then, Liolesa had that talent of making anywhere she bided her own.

No, it was the stranger facing her, who was rising at his entrance, who arrested his attention.

Lesandurel Meriaen Jisiensire was not much more their senior: two centuries or less, Hirianthial thought. But unlike either of them, Lesandurel had left their world when he was barely over two hundred… and had not returned. He had stayed among the Pelted and made a home with them, and kept family—mortal family, nine generations’ worth—and though Hirianthial knew Liolesa had maintained contact with him since Maraesa had passed the crown to her, he knew very little of a man who was technically a distant kinsman. He hadn’t known what to expect of an Eldritch who’d been so long away, but given his own experiences with loss and death, he thought to face at least some evidence of melancholy and the grief of time made manifest in the lives of those who had died before him, over and over again.

But Lesandurel Meriaen was not a melancholic. And while his aura was scored with the memories of sorrow, he was a brilliance to Hirianthial’s sight: a calm and an energy and a richness that made Hirianthial suddenly want to touch and see if that energy would feel like velvet and smell like aged wine and taste like flakes of gold on festival bread.

He could not move, facing this evidence of just how wrong he’d been.

…and then Lesandurel smiled and touched his palm to his breast, bowing as one would to the seal-bearer of the family. “My Lord Jisiensire.”

“God and Lady,” Hirianthial exclaimed. “Call me not that.”

Lesandurel cocked a brow. He spoke beautifully in their tongue… but he had an accent. A Universal accent. “You are no longer the head of the family?”

“He still bears the swords,” Liolesa said, silvering the words. She was still sitting, as was her right. She was also, he discerned from her aura with some irritation, amused. “But his cousin now holds the seal.”

“Ah,” Lesandurel said. “I apologize. I have not been keeping up with affairs at home the way I should.”

“Lesandurel just joined me,” Liolesa said. “Won’t you sit, cousin? This is a conversation you should take part in anyway.”

“Are you no longer the Queen’s White Sword as well?” Lesandurel asked as he settled again.

“I no longer guard her body,” Hirianthial replied. “I appear to be helping her to guard our Body, now.” And shaded the final words in white, for purity and abstractions, to evoke a people rather than a person. He caught the edge of Liolesa’s approving glance and decided to ignore it; she was already enjoying herself too much, and if Sascha had been right he could bear some mortification to keep her from living too deeply in her anger.

“You have joined a rare brotherhood, then.” Lesandurel leaned forward to pick up a cup of coffee from the table. “So, my Queen.” He looked at her, growing somber from face to aura, a gray weight settling around him like a cloak. His words slid into shadows. “We arrive at last at that we most feared.”

“We have,” she said. “What can you give me to the task?”

“A great deal… and none of it what you need.” Lesandurel shook his head, a gesture less minute than it should have been among their own. His body language was some seamless amalgamation of Eldritch reserve and Pelted openness; Hirianthial found it mesmerizing. “I have money, my Lady. It can buy you weapons, but not people who have been trained in their use. It has bought you ships, but they are couriers, not corvettes. It can buy you intelligence—that has its utility—but the most important intelligence available you will already have access to, if the Alliance is sharing its with you…?” At her dipped chin, he sighed. “Then you have some notion of what transpires. There are some in the family who have gone into Fleet, and while they cannot say much, what they have does not inspire confidence.”

“No,” she murmured, words shadowed. “It would not.”

“I tell you true, liegeman to lady,” he said. “What I have made all these years passing was never intended for the purposes of war, but of peace. I have for you builders, my Lady, and engineers, doctors and messengers. We are positioned to solve the problems that developed during the reign of Queen Maraesa, and the ones you identified yourself later. To fight a war…” He shook his head again. “That is a matter for your alliance with the Pelted.”

“Surely there must be mercenaries,” Hirianthial said. “There have been in every culture.”

“Mercenaries you would trust with the fate of our world?” Liolesa asked, arch.

“We have few options,” he said.

“I am to know soon what our allies are willing to offer us by way of aid,” Liolesa said. “Even a single Fleet ship should be enough to deal with a pirate. And after that.…”

“And after that,” Lesandurel said. “We will build you your infrastructure, my Lady. Money cannot buy warriors. But it can buy a world fixed defenses, and with time the warriors can be trained.”

“And you?” Liolesa asked. “Will you come home?”

“If my family is permitted?” Lesandurel smiled. “Maybe. For a while.”

She laughed. “For a while.”

“A man who has centuries to nurture his investments is rich among people who don’t have that luxury.” Lesandurel had a sip of his coffee. “It is not unusual for the rich to have more than one residence.”

He was—was he?—yes. His aura sparkled with the laughter he was withholding. How could this man have such equanimity after centuries among the short-lived Pelted? Not just living among them, but living with them? Liolesa had teased Hirianthial about beginning to develop a mortal household like this distant House-cousin, but the idea had horrified him. It obviously did nothing of the sort to Lesandurel… but he also did not seem heart-lamed, or callous, to be insensible to the pain of people’s passage. Nor did he seem as angry about the condition of their world as he thought proper—”You aren’t worried,” he said suddenly. “About the pirates.”

Lesandurel paused, then set his cup down carefully and folded his hands. “No.”

“Because?” Hirianthial demanded. “You speak of the death of our people!”

“We speak of the death of the Veil,” Lesandurel said. “They are not the same things. And the world is not the people, as you well know, cousin. It is a fine world, and it would be an inconvenience to lose it, but it was not our first and need not be our last. And if I have no access to warships, what I do have access to… is lift.”

“Lift,” Hirianthial repeated, aware that Liolesa was not as surprised by this comment as he was.

“If things become that dire—if in fact, they are so dire already—then it would take very little to move all of us off the world. There are not so many of us anymore. A single colony ship would be sufficient to the task.” He tilted his head. “It would use up all the Meriaen fortune, but it could be done.”

“With pirates in orbit?” Hirianthial said. “Such a ship would not last long. Indeed, it would merely give our enemies a convenient prize to tow away.”

“They must leave orbit sometime,” Lesandurel said. “And then there will be an opportunity.”

“Too much risk,” Hirianthial murmured.

Lesandurel said, “Which has described our philosophy for most of our lives, has it not? And this has served us how?”

Liolesa held up a hand. “A matter to consider after we have put paid to the situation that besets us now.”

The chime that sounded then managed an air of diffidence, as did the Tam-illee male who entered at the Queen’s permission. Another of Lesandurel’s, from the uniform, and the foxine bowed and informed her that she was wanted by some ambassador, if she was available. The Queen rose and said to them, “I will return anon. I leave you to the discussion of the issue.”

“As if there is much left to discuss,” Lesandurel said after she’d gone. “Coffee, House-cousin?”

Hirianthial supposed that was somewhat better than ‘My Lord Jisiensire,’ which while strictly correct put far too many layers of formality between him and this man, whom he did not sense to be his to command at all. Lesandurel, he thought, belonged to the Alliance… and because of that, he dared honesty and said, “I do not believe that was the issue she left us here to discuss.”

“Ah?”

“She believes I might learn from you something of what it is to have short-lived companionship.”

Lesandurel’s ‘ah’ then was softer. He poured a second cup and offered it, and not wanting to be ungracious Hirianthial accepted it. Their auras lapped, though their fingers did not touch, and Lesandurel paused.

“You felt it?”

“That was you?” At Hirianthial’s nod, Lesandurel shook himself. “I don’t envy you that.”

“I don’t envy me it either,” Hirianthial said. Had Urise come with them? God and Lady knew the priest had needed a Medplex as badly as he had. Surely moreso, given the frailty of the elderly. And if he had come, then Hirianthial had access yet to spiritual counsel… and his lessons, which had suddenly become far more important, if they gave him a sword to use against his enemies. Liolesa’s enemies. Theresa’s enemies. His enemies.

“So why does she want us to discuss it?” Lesandurel was saying. “You have companions of your own already. You don’t need to be talked into it, as I see the matter.”

Hirianthial looked at him, really looked: at the ease of him, at the depth and layers of his aura, at the calm that lived so well with his vibrant engagement in life. There was nothing languid about Lesandurel, nothing broken and seeping. His eyes, a rare silver, were present in a way Hirianthial had yet to see among almost any of his kind. “How do you bear it?” he said, because he had to know.

“You ask me that, though you have the mien of someone who has known loss?”

“I ask you that because I have known loss, and you must have also. But you are bearing it better than I am.”

Lesandurel smiled. “Are you wed, House-cousin?”

“I—was.”

“Forgive me—”

Hirianthial lifted his fingers, just enough to still the guest. “You gave no offense.”

“I hope I continue not to,” Lesandurel said. “Have you children?”

“No.”

Lesandurel nodded. “That would be my guess, then. I bear it because I have a large family. A very large family.”

“The Tam-illee you have cultivated…?”

“Cultivated!” Lesandurel laughed. “You make it sound so premeditated. I did not intend to “cultivate” a family, House-cousin. I made a friend in a young and uncertain Tam-illee foxine when I visited Earth. And I decided to remain friends with her. She married, and then they had children, and when she died I thought…” He trailed off, then looked up at Hirianthial. “That was it, you understand. That was my moment of decision. When I buried her and thought ‘it is over.’ But then her daughter came to me asked me how it was fair, that I should abandon the children who’d grown up knowing me when they’d so lately lost their mother. And… I couldn’t.”

Hirianthial tried to imagine being confronted by Irine and Sascha’s children, did he try to leave after the death of the twins, and felt sympathy like a cramp in his heart. “You could yet have gone,” he said after a moment. “No matter their claim. To stay and give up the possibility of a wife and children of your own body—”

Lesandurel stared at him, brows lifted. “When did I say I had given up that possibility?”

“You live among outworlders, and have for centuries.”

“And I will live another four or five yet,” Lesandurel said. “Whoever said anything about giving up the thought of a wife?” He shook his head. “God, House-cousin. I have time. I fully plan to return and see if anyone will have me.” A flash of a smile then, and a ripple of merriment through his aura that shone like the silver of his gaze. “I am waiting for the Queen to remake the world in her image; that will transform me from outré exile to a very rich and very eligible bachelor. And more seriously… I will not go back until I can take this, my first family, with me. I love my Tams, Lord Hirianthial. I know them each by name, and have seen them grow and struggle and prevail, love and bear young and die, carry on and carry forth and carry through every possible hardship. If they cannot stand with me at my wedding, I will not have one.”

For a very long moment, Hirianthial said nothing. Could say nothing in response to the understanding that he had been thinking enough like an Eldritch to deny himself the company of the Alliance’s aliens… but not enough like one to realize that, if he survived, if he lived his entire span, he would have time for everything.

What he said at last was, “You did not say ‘return home.’”

“I have a home,” Lesandurel answered, quiet. “It is in the midst of my Tams. That gift Sydnie gave me, when she welcomed me into her family, and everyone who came after.” He set his cup down. “Make no mistake, Lord Hirianthial. I may return to our world to take a wife. I may even buy myself a holding there. But I will never live again on our world. I belong out here, among my own.”

Another hesitation, one he felt like a hiccup in his heart. Then he said, “Tell me about them?”

The other man smiled. “I would be glad to.”

Some hours later, after Lesandurel had left in the company of three of his foxines, Sascha found him alone there, still sitting, looking out the window. Hesitantly, the Harat-Shar said, “Long day?”

It struck him as ridiculous, a crazy humor: a long day. Days to people of his lifespan were supposed to be short, and they were, and yet he could answer honestly, “Yes.” Not because the day had been long, but because the revelations in it had been painfully vast, and he found himself troubled at how deeply he’d erred in so many ways. “Sascha, did the elder priest come with us?”

“He did,” Sascha said, still choosing his words carefully. “You want to see him? I can take you.”

“No.” Hirianthial stood. “Tomorrow, perhaps. It’s evening, by starbase time, is it not?”

“Yes….”

“Tomorrow, then. If there is a room prepared for me….”

“Well, you’ll laugh,” Sascha said, scratching his arm until the fur on it bristled.

Hirianthial glanced at him, brows lifted.

“This is your room, more or less. It’s a suite for the Queen, and she said you were family, so if you go through that door—” Pointing. “You get to your bedroom. Hers is on the opposite side.” He paused, tail sagging. “Hopefully you’re not going to find that inappropriate or something.”

“Inappropriate…” He shook his head slowly, feeling again the brush of hair against throat. “No. Once upon a time, I was a man who slept in a chamber adjacent to Liolesa’s, when I was not standing at her door. If anything, it feels like going back. And going forward.”

“How do you mean?”

“You said it once on Kerayle, arii. There’s no running from one’s problems.”

“And if I remember right,” Sascha said dryly, “You answered that it depended on whether you were running toward or away from them.”

Hirianthial paused, allowed himself a laugh. “I did, didn’t I?”

“You are good with the one-liners,” Sascha said, and added modestly, “It’s why I set myself up for them.”

He did laugh then. Then said, quieter, “I have spent almost six decades running from my problem, Sascha. And the Eldritch have spent over a thousand years running from theirs. Now all those birds are returning to the glove, and we can blame no one but ourselves for training them to it.” He shook his head again. “Well. I am done with running.”

Sascha’s ears perked. “Great. Does that mean we’re finally going to go kill the bad guys? All of them this time?”

The flare in the tigraine’s aura was like the coronal ejection of a sun. Hirianthial hesitated, caught off guard. “Are you so eager then?”

“No,” Sascha said. “If we could do it all without bloodletting, I’d be first in line. Battlehells, among Harat-Shar there’s a good chance we could have screwed them straight. But somehow I doubt pirates and slavers are going to respond to ‘make love, not war.’ Right?”

“Yes,” he said, quiet.

“Then whatever it takes,” Sascha said, meeting his eyes with that fierceness. “To make my sister safe, and my friends.”

What could he say to such ardor? Nothing. He offered his hand instead, saw the incredulity that flashed through Sascha’s gaze before the Harat-Shar stepped forth and took it. Warm fingers, bare skin on one side, furred on the other, but callused from the work of repairing a ship and strong from moving cargo. Had grief never driven Hirianthial from his world, would he have experienced such a touch? Felt the loyalty burning in it, stronger than stars? Been changed by it, and made more whole?

“For once,” Hirianthial said, because it would make the tigraine laugh, “We shall be the rescuers.”

It startled Sascha out of the intimacy of the touch; his laugh had a precipitous feel. “Reese will be so confused.”

“Hopefully,” Hirianthial said, “not as confused as our enemies.”

 

“So?” the Chatcaavan asked, lounging in a chair in his borrowed Eldritch shape, very like a noble in his indolence. Baniel thought it added significantly to the verisimilitude of the body, one that was flawless save for the eyes… and the fact that the Chatcaavan spoke only Universal. And his own language, presumably, which Baniel had not bothered to learn.

“So,” he said, setting the data tablet he no longer needed to hide on the table. “It is what I expected. The Well repeaters are gone.”

“Gone?” the Chatcaavan repeated, quirking a brow.

Strange how similar the expression was, and unlike the more limited espers that comprised the majority of his race, Baniel could read the alien’s aura, enough to tell that the emotions matched. Either skeptical Chatcaava arched whatever passed for brows on a dragon’s face, or the shape-change was even more complete than anyone thought. “Yes. I had wondered if the Queen had some sort of self-destruct for them, since the arrival of an unwanted ship would have been disastrous if it had been able to use them to send word of the planet’s location. Now I know. They’re definitely gone. If we want a message to go out, we will have to send the ship. It shouldn’t have to go far to reach a public Well repeater.”

“Then send it now,” the Chatcaavan said. “No use baiting a trap you can’t trip.” He flexed his fingers, as if unused to them, though from what Baniel had seen the Chatcaava had fine hands of their own. Tipped with scythe-like talons, perhaps, but not so different as all that. “Will we be able to keep our pets in check until then?”

“The others?” Baniel shrugged easily. “The new queen will serve us admirably there.”

The way the other canted his head, though… that felt alien. More a predator’s motion than a humanoid’s. “You think she has the strength to do this? A female?”

“Her sex is immaterial,” Baniel answered. “Her ambition and her naiveté are all that need concern us. She wants all the Eldritch to bow to her as their new sovereign and thinks that merely deposing her predecessor should be enough to ensure it.”

The Chatcaavan snorted. “Ridiculous. When one usurps a throne, one must kill one’s enemies and extirpate their families, possessions and allies. Nothing less will serve.”

“It would be the wise course,” Baniel agreed. “But I think she is too aware that doing so would deprive her of half the population of the existing Eldritch. She will try everything in her power to keep them from requiring that of her. And then she will fail.”

“Because her enemies will fight her?” the Chatcaavan said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Baniel said, looking out the window at the cold wind rippling the lake outside the palace. “It would be convenient for me if Liolesa’s allies took the battle to her. But you can never be sure with them, with the Alliance influence they’ve allowed into their heads. They might parley because they believe in talk. Or they might parley to keep Surela from attacking until rescue arrives. Or they might kill her. Or surrender. Who knows?” He shook his head. “No, I dislike leaving such things to chance. There is a man who has been paying court to Surela since she was presented, and whom she has been ignoring for just as long. He now begins to wonder if the Eldritch are ready for a king. I have arranged for him to advance his own plans.” He smiled thinly. “It turns out that he has a finer grasp of the potential uses of technology than the woman who’s spurned him.”

The Chatcaavan chuckled, a low, growling sound. “You are cruel. I approve.”

“I’m glad. So, shall we send the ship?”

“Let us,” the Chatcaavan said. “Though if it is only going as far as the next repeater, it would be pointless to send gifts… and I had anticipated sending the gifts.”

“Ah?” Baniel asked, curious.

“My patron would have enjoyed them,” the Chatcaavan said. “I would have sent him two, maybe three. Women, though. Your men are too much trouble.”

Baniel smiled a little. “Are they? I had no idea. Still, a pity not to make the gift. Unless you’d like it instead?”

The Chatcaavan yawned. “It would be pleasing. The body has needs.”

“I’ll arrange it,” Baniel said. “How many of the men must go with the ship, to fly it?”

“Oh, most of them,” the Chatcaavan said. “But then, between the two of us, we can control a great deal. Can’t we.”

“You are ready for another lesson in mind-magery then?”

The alien reached for him with an alacrity that was more akin to a serpent’s, and made a lie of his borrowed body. “Always.”

“Very good,” Baniel said, and extended his hand. “I love a willing pupil.”