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  “Where did the Odnallak disembark?” my husband asked.

  “That’s the reason I had you meet me here.” Davidov leaned over and tapped the view port. “The shifter got off right here, at Trellus. It’s still down there, too. Evidently it’s been hiding out on the colony ever since it was dropped off.”

  Reever frowned. “How could your friend be so sure that it disembarked on Trellus?”

  “He brought it here. Damn thing posed as a regularpassenger on his ship. He saw it change shape when it thought no one was watching, just before it strolled down the ramp.” Davidov grinned. “According to him, they’re the only species that can mimic other beings so exactly that you can’t tell the difference between them and the real thing.”

  Some of what Davidov said was true, but the Odnallak were not harmless, and neither was their ability to shift form.

  “We should go talk to the colonists on Trellus and confirm this rumor,” I said to Reever. When Davidov shook his head, I said, “We will be discreet, of course.”

  “They won’t let you land on the surface,” the Terran said. “That’s the other part of the nutty situation down there. Right after the Odnallak landed on Trellus, the colony went into complete and total isolation.”

  “Define isolation,” my husband said.

  “No one lands, and no one leaves,” Davidov replied. “If any ships approach the colonial docks, they’re fired on by the colony’s battle drones until they leave or they’re destroyed.”

  “How can they live like that?” I asked. “The surface is inhospitable. There is no land on which to grow crops or raise livestock. Even with the best synthesizers and recyclers, they must need some food, water, and other supplies.”

  “That’s where I come in,” Davidov said. “My friend recommended me to the Trellusan colonial council before they went into quarantine, and they hired me to make a monthly supply drop. They signal me with what they need, and I send a launch down to deliver the shipment. They have me dump it outside the domes, at a drop point near the old mines.”

  “Why have the Trellusans isolated the colony?” Reever asked.

  “I don’t know, my friend,” Davidov said, “but I think they’re in bad shape. This smells like a disease being quarantined to me.”

  “When a medical quarantine is initiated, an alert is sent out through the quadrant,” I pointed out. “We would have heard something.”

  “I don’t think it’s official. You know how paranoid colonists are—always afraid the League will come along and bomb an infected planet from orbit.” He gave me a speculative look. “Reever told me you stopped the plague on K-2. You can help these people. If you’re willing, I can smuggle you down there in an airtight cargo container.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” my husband said before I could utter a word. “At the very least, they may imprison Jarn for violating their isolation.”

  “But if they are fighting a contagion,” I said, “they may also be very grateful for the intervention. “ I turned to Davidov. “Have they requested any medical supplies?”

  He nodded. “Quite a few, considering that they have no doctor or medical facilities on the colony.”

  I started to ask another question, but saw Reever’s expression. He only looked that way when he wished to do the talking, and I lapsed into silence.

  “Have you confirmed the reason for the quarantine with the colonial authorities?” my husband asked.

  “I can’t ask them anything,” Davidov said with some annoyance in his tone. “They’ve shut down their communications array. The only time they send a signal is once each month, to my ship, with a list of the supplies they need. I’ve tried to return the signal dozens of times, but all they do is jam my relays.”

  Reever gave his friend a skeptical look. “There are many reasons for refusing to have contact with offworlders. They may be using it as a form of population control, or to follow the dictates of faith. The Skartesh recently founded a colony on one of K-2’s moons, to minimize contact with other species.”

  Davidov laughed. “I can’t actually see Trellus becoming a xenophobic religious outpost, can you?”

  Each time Davidov smiled or made a sound of mirth, he seemed genuinely amused. Until I looked into his eyes, which were as flat and unemotional as my husband’s expression. He also sat very still, as if he controlled every muscle in his body. Had I not seen the man’s chest move in and out, I would have thought him dead.

  Unnatural, for a man in such an apparent good humor to be so cold-eyed, motionless, and alert.

  “No,” my husband said. “It’s been a haven for every rogue, fugitive, and malcontent since the Hsktsktraided and destroyed the first colony.” Reever regarded his friend for a moment. “What puzzles me is your interest in their welfare.”

  The Terran held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Don’t shoot the messenger, Duncan. If you want to let all those people down there die, it’s no concern of mine. Just thought I’d mention it to the lovely doctor, in case she has the heart you never grew.” He leered at me briefly before he got to his feet. “I appreciate the meal, but I’ve got to get back to the Renko and make this supply drop. If I hear anything else about the bounty, I’ll signal you.”

  Four

  “We could try to contact the colonists ourselves,” I suggested as Reever secured the hatch and returned to the helm. “They may not be jamming every relay sent to them. If they are struggling with some form of contagion, I may be able to give them practical advice.”

  “I do not think that is the case here,” my husband said. “Something is wrong. Alek was trying to deceive us.”

  I knew it. The hair on the back of my neck was never wrong. “What made you think that?”

  Reever stared out at the trader vessel, and at Davidov’s launch as it disappeared inside the cargo bay. “I could hear the difference in his voice. When Terrans lie, their tone changes, ever so slightly.” He looked down at a light blinking on the com panel. “It’s the Renko. He’s signaling us again.”

  I felt unsettled. “He’s already said farewell. What else does he want?”

  My husband tapped some keys, and Davidov’s face appeared on the panel display. “Alek. Did you forget something, such as the truth?”

  “I tried to do this the easy way, Reever,” Davidov said, his features now as stony as my husband’s. “I want you to remember that.”

  “If you mean to attack us,” Reever countered, “think hard on it first. I came to you in friendship, Alek. I have never shown you otherwise.”

  “As a gesture of that friendship, I wish I could spend all day explaining the situation to you.” A tinge of remorse colored the Terran’s harsh voice. “But I’m afraid that time is one luxury that we can no longer enjoy.”

  “Alek.”

  Whatever Reever was going to say to him was lost as a burst of pulse fire filled up the viewer panel. As it slammed into Moonfire, the force of the blast threw me out of my seat and onto the deck. Reever grabbed me with one hand and lifted me by the back of my tunic into the copilot’s seat.

  “Strap in,” he said as he engaged the engines, and spun the ship around. “I’m going to try to outrun him.”

  I hung on to the harness straps as a second volley hit the side of the hull. Equipment panels began exploding and showering sparks all around us.

  “Why is he firing?” I forced the harness’s center buckle together and braced my hands against the console, trying to peer through the energy-scarred viewer. “What did we do?”

  My husband’s mouth thinned as his hands moved rapidly over the ship’s controls and he dodged several other blasts. “We said ’no.’ “

  As Reever tried to take Moonfire away from Trellus, Davidov’s ship flew past us, at the same time firing at the top of the hull. I didn’t realize my husband was sending a distress signal until the ship’s diagnostic unit politely informed him that the transmitter was not functioning. Space tilted and spun as Reever steered around two more volle
ys fired from the Renko and retreated into orbit above Trellus.

  “Get back to the escape pod,” my husband told me. “I’ll release it as soon as you’re secured inside. Land on Trellus. If nothing else, they will keep Davidov from taking you.”

  “The last time I left you on another ship,” I reminded him, “we did not see each other again for two and a half years.”

  “Jarn.”

  “I am not leaving.” I refused to look at him. “Not without you. Never again without you. In life or in death.” I had to look at him. “Do you understand me?”

  Love made his eyes turn bright blue. “It will be in death if he destroys the ship.”

  “Then we will journey together into the next life,” I assured him, reaching out and touching his cheek. “I am not afraid. Not when you are with me, Osepeke.”

  Reever started to say something, and then turned his face and pressed his mouth to my palm. “I love you, Waenara.”

  Osepeke, honored husband. Waenara, beloved wife. That was how we would die, together, as we were meant to be.

  Moonfire rocked as Davidov fired at the rear fuselage, and the engine array began to fail. Reever turned the nose of the ship toward the planet and began adjusting the controls for reentry.

  “I’ll attempt to land a few kilometers away from the colony,” he told me as he increased power to the ship’s hull buffers and stabilizers. “That may help us avoid any security weapons they employ. Trellus has no atmosphere, and the temperature is minus two hundred degrees Fahrenheit, so don’t try to leave the ship without an envirosuit.”

  “I’m not going anywhere without you.” I watched the planet swell until it filled the screen.

  Trellus appeared to be an ugly, lifeless world of brown, black, and gray rock, covered with jagged cliffs, dead volcanoes, and deep craters from meteor impacts. A silver-white smear of blobs near the equator grew into ovals of ice, and then I realized they must be the colony’s pressure domes. The sky pressing all around us, black and cold, looked no different than deep space except over the domes. There I saw flares of gold, blue, and green light emanating from within them.

  “I’ve found a place to set down,” my husband said. “Do you see any weapons being deployed by the domes?”

  I scanned the elliptical complex of the colony, but aside from the lights there seemed to be no activity. “None yet.” Had Davidov lied about that, too?

  Reever leveled out the scout as the surface spread out beneath us. Then, without warning, something inside the rear fuselage exploded. Lights and audio warnings created a flashing din for a moment, and then disappeared, along with the lurching sounds coming from the back of the ship.

  “Engines are offline,” Reever said, hammering the console’s keys as he tried to compensate. Moonfire began to drop alarmingly fast. “I can’t restart them. Assume crash position.”

  I bent over, covering my head with my arms, and closed my eyes. I felt glad that I had not allowed him to put me in the escape pod. I did not want my brief life to end, but if my death waited on this dead, ugly world, I would not have to enter eternity alone.

  We will not die, something said from a corner of my heart. Remember?

  Sweat slicked my skin, and my heart hammered with frantic fists under my breast. I was no longer on Moonfire, but in some black, cold space, unable to move or speak. An ensleg with an animal’s head curled claws around the circle of metal on my neck, choking me with it.

  You won’t die, Terran, the ensleg snarled, scalding my face with burning spit and breath like pulse fire. Not from the sickness, not from beatings. What will it take to kill you?

  I tried to answer him, but the silencer strapped to my face plugged my mouth.

  We’re going to crash. He said this bitterly, angrily, as if it were my fault. His claws jerked the collar up, completely cutting off my air. Maybe that will finish you. Do you wish for death? He released the collar and reached up to wrench the silencer out of my mouth. Tell me now.

  I said something in words I did not understand, and then I did.

  Don’t be afraid, Oforon. It will be quick.

  He curled his claws into a ball, and drew them back as if to hit me in the face. Then his eyes closed and he fell to his knees, his head back, a terrible howl tearing from his throat.

  I wanted to wrap my arms around him, to comfort him in these last moments. All I could do was rest my cheek against the top of his mane.

  The vision blurred, and then vanished.

  Moonfire bumped against the surface, once, twice, and then began tumbling over and over, wrenching me in all directions and pelting me with debris broken loose from the interior by the impacts.

  “Duncan.” I looked over at his seat, but something struck me in my face, whipping my head to the other side.

  The seat harness held me in place until the scout toppled over and slammed into something immovable. The force of the final jolt made the straps tear away from the seat. I was thrown backward into one panel and bounced to the deck to slide under another.

  I stayed where I was until I was sure the ship’s violent landing had finished, and then I crawled out from under the nav console.

  The main viewer showed a valley of rocks, dirt, and dust, which may have absorbed much of the impact. Not that it had saved Moonfire from being damaged; the interior resembled a derelict being torn apart for the salvage.

  A static buzz filled my ears, and blood and smoke blinded me momentarily as I pushed myself up on my knees. I wiped my face with my sleeve, shocked to see it turn red and wet. I pressed the heel of my hand against a gash in my forehead and blinked my eyes clear before I checked the area around me.

  “Reever?”

  The acoustic shock faded as I listened, but my husband did not answer. I stumbled over a collapsed deck strut and grabbed the pilot’s seat and wrenched it around. It was empty, the harness straps in shreds.

  “Duncan.” I looked all around the helm. “Duncan, are you hurt? Where are you? Can you hear me?”

  My husband didn’t respond, but a queer-looking thing rolled out from a gaping hole beneath the console. It looked like a child made of machine parts.

  Whatever it was, it bumped and pushed its way through the debris until at last it stopped in front of me. “My systems are seventy-three percent functional. “

  “Congratulations.” I stepped around it. “Duncan? Answer me.”

  I had to stop and clear my way several times before I reached the open hatch leading down into Moonfire’s second level, a long and narrow crawl space where different systems could be accessed for maintenance and repair. Reever could have been thrown down there, I thought as I looked over the edge, although the entire compartment appeared to have been reduced to a pit of snarled alloy.

  I heard a warning Klaxon, and breathed in. I didn’t smell fresh smoke, but the air seemed to be thinning. If Moonfire was leaking atmosphere, I would have to put on an envirosuit. But first I had to find Reever.

  Metal groaned and shifted, and I hurried toward the back of the cabin. The machine child followed.

  My husband lay under a heap of supplies that had been ejected from one of the storage units. His face was bruised, and his bottom lip had been split open, but by the time I reached him he had worked his body halfway out of the pile.

  “I’m not hurt badly,” he told me, and looked at the machine child. “Access vessel operations array.”

  “Working.” The thing’s body made several odd noises.

  Blood began oozing into my eyes again, so I tore off the cleaner sleeve from my tunic and used it to bind the gash on my forehead. Then I began clearingaway the debris on top of Reever. As I worked, I saw that the screens of all the viddisplays had been blown out, and most of the consoles were either smoking and sparking, or inert.

  “What is that thing?” I asked Reever as I helped him to his feet.

  “An automatic maintenance drone.” He winced as talking made the cut across his lip widen. “The crash must have activate
d its power unit. The Jorenians use them to clean decks and perform minor repairs.”

  I glanced around us. “It’s going to be busy for a very long time.”

  The little drone made high-pitched sound. “Vessel operations array accessed.”

  “How much damage to the ship?” Reever asked it.

  A panel on its chest slid away, revealing a small data screen, which blipped and scrolled. “Searching systems database. Engines offline. Navigation systems functional. Primary power cells, ninety-two percent drained. Hull, intact.”

  “We won’t lose atmosphere, but we can’t launch without refueling.” Reever pulled a fallen wall panel upright and shoved it out of the way. “The crash caused as much damage as Alek did, but something else happened to the engines.”

  “Just before the engines failed, I heard an explosion in the back,” I told him. “Did Davidov go back there before, when you were showing him the ship?”

  “He said it was too crowded for both of us, and had a look on his own.” Reever closed his eyes for a moment. “He must have planted a charge on the power couplings while I waited for him.”

  “Power couplings, ruptured. Atmospheric controls, offline.” The drone’s chest screen scrolled with numeric readings. “Transmitter, destroyed—”

  “End status report.” Reever inspected my garments. “Are you injured anywhere else?”

  “Just my head.” I grimaced. “As usual.”

  He pulled me into his arms and held me for a few moments, then kissed me. “Don’t forget me again.”

  We went over and looked through one of the side view ports. “You are an excellent pilot,” I told my husband. “We should have smashed into that range of cliffs over there. Where are we?”

  “Vector seventy-eight degrees,” the maintenance drone said, “three hundred forty east, plus seven solar, eleven point five kilometers outside colony settlement, Trellus, outer-eitri region, Varallan.”