SUB ZERO

ANGEL MARTINEZ

Amber Quill Press, LLC

http://www.amberquill.com

Sub Zero

An Amber Quill Press Book

This book is a work of fiction. All names,

characters, locations, and incidents are products of

the author's imagination, or have been used

fictitiously.

Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead,

locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

Amber Quill Press, LLC

http://www.AmberQuill.com

http://www.AmberHeat.com

http://www.AmberAllure.com

No portion of this book may be transmitted or

reproduced in any form, or by any means, without

permission in writing from the publisher, with the

exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes

of review.

ISBN 978-1-61124-313-0

Published in the United States of America

Also by Angel Martinez

Boots

A Different Breed

Fortune's Sharp Adversity

Dedication

This is for all the wonderful readers of SF, who

understand that sometimes things get strange,

with a special thank you to Ian, who said the

word "glycogen" at exactly the right moment.

Author's Note

The author readily admits that most dangpo

words have been borrowed from Tibetan, but

makes no claim that dangpo is identical to Tibetan

grammatically.

Chapter 1: The

Resurrected Major

"Sir, you all right there?"
Major Dalsgaard drew in a shuddering breath.

"Remember our agreement, Sergeant, please."

"Not smothering, sir. Just a status check."

Emma watched him closely. His hands stayed
steady, but he leaned heavily on the rail. While his
color had improved, he still needed a good few
kilos on his long-limbed frame. "It's hard, sir?
Seeing it again?"

Drass. There it loomed, larger by the minute on

the view screen, serene and beautiful in its frigid,
blue-white glory. Why did some idiot in command
think it was a good idea to send him?

"It's...hard." The major finally admitted. "Yes.

And wondrous and terrifying and glorious and
heartbreaking."

His aide, nursemaid, and confidante on this

trip, she worried. Her primary standing order, to
keep him healthy and as sane as possible, made
worrying part of the job. "You've had a lot to take
in, the last couple months."

A bitter smile twisted his lips. "I've been

through worse."

"Yes, sir. Not debating that."
He gazed at what she imagined were inner

planet-scapes rather than the one before him, green
eyes unfocused, handsome features tight with some
remembered pain. "It's just another investigation,
Sergeant. I have a job to do, and I intend to do it."

"Yes, sir."
Abruptly, the major executed a crisp about-

face and stalked out of the viewing lounge.

The lounge's attendant, a wide-eyed young

corporal, asked, "Sarge, why's it so tough for him?
Seeing Drass?"

Thought everyone knew that by now. "It'd be

hard for anyone, son. That's where he died."

* * * *

Aren sank into the single chair in his cabin.

Saying that the last few weeks had been "a lot to

take in" was akin to saying the universe was on the
largish side.

For everyone around me, it's been decades.
A scant few weeks had passed for him since he

held his Akar in his arms, watching the pain and
madness consume him. In the end, death had been a
relief. There had been such peace, such complete
serenity.

Lights, brighter than a hundred suns. Faces

leaning over him. The return of pain, of heart-
rending loss...

He leaned his head in his hands, rocking, trying

to silence the memory, the agony of waking. That
moment haunted his dreams, though, and yanked
him from the present reality at odd moments. Bad
enough to wake in a world where you know your
love is dead. Another order of surreal horror
entirely to realize everyone you know has been
gone at least a hundred years.

"Focus, idiot," he hissed. Just another

investigation, that's what he had reassured
Sergeant Wickstrom. He had to let go, had to start
accepting this new world, or they'd haul him back

for treatment. Enforced confinement and inactivity
would guarantee the scuttling of his sanity. What
was left of his sanity.

He tapped the arm of his chair to bring up his

personal display. The disembodied quote he had
chosen as an entry screen (Pray that your
loneliness may spur you into finding something
to live for, great enough to die for) hovered at
eye level while the system ran retinal verification.

"ID confirmed. Good afternoon, Major

Dalsgaard."

"Drass files, case summary JD-1364." He

hesitated, not keen on having the sickeningly
soothing CG voice read to him, but his eyes tired
so easily. "Speech mode."

"Drass Case Summary JD-1364, compilation

of first source reports, Judiciary Outpost Six, New
Stockholm, Epsilon Eridani system. At oh-two-
hundred, local time, Outpost dispatch received an
anonymous report of a corpse floating facedown
near the Alamont Street Bridge on the South Canal.
Corporals Alex Morelia and Jenna Hayes were
dispatched to investigate.

"Investigating officers found no witnesses at

the scene. Upon retrieval, the body was rigid but
not water-bloated. A circular, blue discoloration
on the victim's upper arm led the officers to
suspect murder. Toxicology reports confirmed the
victim, Emil Villa, a local businessman, had died
of zi chiwa poisoning, consistent with the blue
venom injection site on his left arm.

"Zi chiwa venom, used as a defensive weapon

by the native population (locally referred to as
goblins)..."

Aren cringed at the pejorative. No one had

called the dangpo that in his time.

"...is the result of genetic manipulation and

found only on Drass. Several locally employed
goblins were questioned but no clear leads
resulted. Since the death of Mr. Villa, two other
prominent local business owners, Karl Helmdahl
and Lois Tolomeo have died of zi chiwa
poisoning, both without witnesses. Each victim
was apparently stabbed by a goblin arm spur and
subsequently pushed or thrown into one of the city
canals. Local officials suspect a goblin conspiracy

due to the clandestine and vicious nature of the
crimes."

"End reading." Aren rubbed at the back of his

neck, fighting down his irritation. Someone needed
a lesson in objective report writing. Editorializing
had no place in investigation.

And what the hell's happened down there?

When had relations between the settlers and the
native population deteriorated so badly? The
dangpo mimang had been reclusive in his time,
yes, but the settlers had been on friendly terms
with them.

He touched the display to message his aide.

"Sergeant? Are you busy?"

"Just packing, sir. What can I do for you?"
"Could you step over to my cabin? I need a

word."

"On my way, sir."
At least command had done one thing right.

Assigning Emma Wickstrom as his right hand had
been a stroke of genius. A decorated war veteran,
the sergeant was stalwart, patient, competent, and
had the ability to reason for herself rather than

spouting jingoistic garbage like some of the
younger non-coms he had met in this new time.

He had expected changes in the Eridani Sector

alliance, but he had naively thought the changes
would have been for the better. He had died an
officer of a young, idealistic dream of a Republic,
and had woken in a bureaucratic nightmare where
idealism had died.

Probably not fair to lump everyone together

with those paranoid, power-twisted old geezers
on the Board... He stopped mid-thought and
laughed. Age certainly is relative, isn't it? None
of those bitter old men and women had been born
before he died.

The door hissed open. "Sir?"
Aren glanced up and frowned at her

expression. "Come in, Sergeant, and put away your
'I'm-concerned-but-don't-want-to-annoy-you-by-
asking' face."

"Care to share the joke, then, Major?"
"I just realized that I'm old enough to be Board

Supervisor Cahill's grandfather."

She frowned, her worry not alleviated one bit,

apparently. "Not biologically, sir."

"Right. Don't you find it encouraging that I can

laugh about some of this?"

"If it was a real laugh, sir, then yes, I would.

But that sounded like an unlubed bay door caliper
under too much stress."

"Ah. Sorry. Have a seat, Emma. Please."
She eased down onto the edge of the bunk.

"What's on your mind, sir? I see those gyros in
your head spinning."

"How much do you know about Drass

history?"

"Not my favorite subject, history. And Drass is

pretty obscure." She shrugged. "Andalusian
Corporation holding, back in the bad old days.
Defaulted to the Treaty planets after the revolution.
Pretty much shoved under the carpet until some
bright kid in records discovered the why of AC
wanting the planet in the first place."

"I meant more recent history. The

rediscovery..." He flicked a dismissive wave.
"Know all about that."

"Yes, sir. Since you were there. Sorry. Recent,

sir?"

"There's next to nothing in the files. My death.

A few riots. The accord. Dry stuff without any
detail."

The sergeant ran a hand over her short-cropped

gray hair. "Don't know if it's info suppression, sir,
or just lack of interest. Begging your pardon. But
except for the lumanium traders, no one's really
paid much attention to Drass."

"I suppose I can see that," Aren said. "Not

much of a tourist destination."

He tapped up a still image of a dangpo hunter,

the stock one the news outlets seemed to be using.
The blue-white skin glowed against the image's
dark background. The "artist" had made certain to
capture his subject mid-snarl, sharp teeth on
display, long hair blown back to expose his tiny,
flat-to-the-head ears.

"Goblins." It hurt to say the word. "When did

they start calling them goblins?"

"The natives, sir? I wouldn't know." Sergeant

Wickstrom nodded to the image. "He's a fierce
looking character, though. And I hear they have

these giant wolf things they ride."

"The khyi." Aren switched off the image.

"Which, apparently, the colonists have taken to
calling wargs." He leaned back in his chair,
suddenly bone tired. "They're not natives, you
know. Not in an evolutionary sense."

"Yes, sir, that's in the records. Poor sods the

AC transplanted to Drass hundreds of years ago.
Don't know where they found them, though."

"They didn't find them, Sergeant. The

Corporation made them. The dangpo are human,
but drastically altered to fit the environment."

"Custom-built settlers?"
Aren wrapped his arms around his ribs. Wish I

wasn't always so cold these days. "Custom built
mine workers."

"Ah. Sounds like those bastards. Used 'em,

then abandoned 'em on that ice hell."

"Perhaps so." Aren leaned his head against the

chair back and closed his eyes. "But where else
would they have made a life? They were designed
for an ice hell and they made it their own. Hearth.
Family. Chilok...khyimtshang chilok..."

"Sir, as your medic on this trip out, I need to

insist that you get some rest. Take something if you
need help sleeping, Major, but we can't have you
fading out like this." She stalked across the room
and took his wrist in a gentle grip. "And damn if
your temp hasn't dropped again."

"I'm sorry," he murmured as she tugged off his

boots.

"For what, sir?"
"For being so weak."
She helped him up and coaxed him the four

steps to the bunk. "Sir, you're the only person I've
met to come out of cryo whole and reasonable.
You're getting stronger every day, but you have to
remember you were pretty much dead for a long
time."

With a soft sigh, he stretched out and let her

cover him with extra thermaskin blankets. One
moment he felt almost normal, and the next all the
energy would drain from him, as if he had a slow
leak somewhere. "Why me, Emma? Why didn't
they let me stay dead?"

She went to the door panel to dim the lights,

her forehead creased in a dark frown. "Wasn't
there, sir. Can't tell you that. Guess someone
thought you had something left to do."

He curled up on his side. "Right. Please don't

let me sleep too long."

"I'll give you a wake-up call in plenty of time

for shuttle loading."

The door hissed shut again. The sergeant meant

to encourage him, to cheer him. He knew her well
enough now to understand that. Something left to
do. God, he hoped so. Otherwise, he was at worst
an abomination and at best a walking cosmic joke.

* * * *

Emma twirled her stylus, glowering at stills of

goblins. Dangpo. The major insisted on the
natives' name for themselves. His obvious
sympathy for them concerned her, objectivity wise.
If he went down there with his sympathies skewed
one way or another, he was less than worthless as
an independent investigator. The whole point to
their division was to come in with fresh eyes,
without the preconceptions someone too close to
the case might have.

"And didn't one of these critters kill you, sir?"

she whispered to the display. She had rumors,
hints, and suppositions, but the major wouldn't talk
about it. "What happened down there, Dalsgaard?
What the hell really happened?"

Chapter 2: The Goblin

Problem

"Eyes and ears open, Sergeant." Aren tugged

the cuffs of his uniform jacket over his gloves. "I
want you to be my silent shadow. Keep your
observations and your questions until later, when
we're alone. We've no idea what we're walking
into here."

"Understood, sir."
He nodded to a knot of people hurrying toward

them across the shuttle port lounge. "This looks
like the welcoming committee."

"Think you can manage a smile, sir?"
"That's the cavern calling the night dark, don't

you think?"

She picked up her bag and slung his

effortlessly over her broad shoulder. "I'm the non-
com. They expect me to hover at your shoulder and
scowl."

"Good point." Aren rummaged around in his

brain and found a smile, one he hoped didn't look
too plastic.

"Hell, Major, that's almost worse." Sergeant

Wickstrom nodded to the delegation descending
upon them. "The round man in front looks like you
should be able to use him as an interplanetary
mine."

As the man huffed toward them, his spindly

legs barely able to support his bulk, Aren sputtered
and let out a shocked laugh.

"There. That's better, sir. Your eyes kinda

crinkle when you manage a real smile. It's a nice
smile."

"Though it seems you'll have to say something

inappropriate to get one." He started them moving.
"Thank you, Sergeant. I needed that."

"Anytime, sir."
The huffing man reached them, hand extended.

"Major Dalsgaard? I'm Administrator Cisneros.
I'm so sorry we've dragged you all the way out
here, especially now that we seem to have the
murderer in custody--"

"Suspect in custody," the lantern-jawed man on

Cisneros's left broke in. "No confession yet.
Captain Underwood, sir. An honor to meet you,
Major."

A bit of awkward shuffling ensued as the

obligatory handshakes made the rounds, with the
third member of the planetside party, a tall young
woman with a severe demeanor, introduced as
Lieutenant Haverhill, the captain's second.

"I'd still be interested in the motive, Captain,

Administrator," Aren said as they began the walk
to ground transport. "The deterioration of relations
here puzzles me, to say the least."

"Does it, sir?" Underwood gave him an odd

look. "I've been the enforcement commander here
nearly five years, Major, and the goblin problem
just gets worse and worse every day."

"The...goblin problem." He cringed at how flat

and dry his voice sounded. Won't be a good thing
to offend our hosts this early.

"Yes, sir. I think of all people, you'd

understand that, since they murdered you, too."

"Julian, please!" Administrator Cisneros

sucked in a shocked breath.

"Quite all right." Aren patted the air with his

hand. "I can see how that might be the perception.
But my death was an accident, Captain. Not
murder."

Underwood graced him with another sideways

look. "If you say so, sir." He seemed to give
himself a mental shake. "All that aside, sir, do you
mind if we brief as we go?"

"Not at all. Brief away. How was the suspect

apprehended?"

Lieutenant Haverhill stepped up beside him,

reading from her notes. "Right on scene, sir. At
four-oh-eight this morning--"

"A fourth murder? Damn."
"Yes, sir. The suspect was apprehended

leaning over the half-naked body of one Leona
Tolliver. She has the same venom injection mark,
same area as the other vics, so we're confident tox
will show positive for zi chiwa, too."

"And other than being found at the scene, what

evidence suggests this suspect's involvement?"

"His right venom spur was still dripping, sir,"

the lieutenant said stiffly.

"I see." Aren's heart sank. All indications

pointed that way, but he truly didn't want one of the
dangpo mimang to be the murderer. "Has he been
questioned yet?"

"We've tried, sir, but his command of

standard's pretty limited."

"And that's just it, Major." Cisneros puffed

back up beside him. "This goblin just doesn't fit the
usual profile of a violent offender. He's not a city
goblin, doesn't show any signs of being a sugar
junkie--"

"Sorry, Mr. Cisneros, a sugar junkie? Is that

local slang for some new narcotic?"

"No, Major. Sugar. The goblins have narcotic

and hallucinogenic reactions to synthetic sugar. It's
become something of a crisis." Cisneros lowered
his voice, forcing Aren to bend down since the
man was several centimeters shorter. "But that's
just the problem. He doesn't appear to be a junkie,
so we think he's part of some Outland goblin
terrorist cell."

The weariness already tugged at Aren's limbs,

though he wasn't sure if it was the rampant bigotry
causing it or his own traitor body. "Do you have
any other terrorists in custody?"

"Not yet, sir," Captain Underwood offered

from behind him. "But we feel this is a crucial first
step to breaking up the cell. With your help, sir.
Since you're fluent."

"I see." He forced himself to take a few steps

in silence to give him time to unclench his jaw. "I
do want to stress, Captain, Mr. Cisneros, that SI's
standing orders are to act only on empirical
evidence and vetted testimony."

"Oh, yes, Major," Cisneros puffed, wringing

his hands. "Of course, of course. We're anxious to
have this matter closed, you understand. It makes
theorizing all too tempting, you see."

"Only natural, Mr. Cisneros. I do understand."
The plump face beamed up at him, obviously

grateful. "You're a born diplomat, Major
Dalsgaard. Were you in the diplomatic corps
before they tapped you for SI?"

"No, I was a linguistic and cultural xenologist.

Though I had been with SI for nearly ten years

before I arrived on Drass the first time."

An official-looking hover car loomed ahead. A

few more feet, just a few more feet. The lieutenant
opened the door for him and he collapsed
gracelessly onto the wide, forward facing bench
seat. Sergeant Wickstrom ducked under the
lieutenant's arm to clamber in beside him and
shove a bottle of fortified water into his hands
without comment.

He murmured his thanks and downed half the

bottle while Mr. Cisneros and Captain Underwood
took the opposite seat and regarded him with
anxious frowns.

"Not quite back in fighting shape yet," he

offered with a hint of a smile. "Death takes a lot
out of you."

They both managed polite, uncomfortable

laughs, but the tongue in cheek explanation seemed
to satisfy them. New Stockholm crawled by at the
speed of mid-afternoon traffic. Squat, drab
buildings shouldered each other for bits of
sunlight, their height restricted by the relatively
short apex of the blizzard dome. Here and there,

spots of color ambushed the eye from a shop sign
or a flash of clothing under more staid outer
garments, but these bright flickers only served to
make the surrounding grays and browns flinch and
cringe as if mortified by such garish displays.

Enforcement Outpost 6 lay near the center of

town, across a wide square from the
administrative offices. By the time the car settled
beside the curb, Aren's energy had returned to the
point where he could get out without assistance.
Sergeant Wickstrom stayed at his elbow, somehow
managing not to hover, but he knew her strong hand
would clamp onto his arm the moment he faltered.
At only a few centimeters shorter than himself, she
was better able to catch him than some of the
hospital orderlies had been.

Drab outer walls gave way to drab inner

corridors, not at all broken up by the men and
women in ESTO black and gray who hurried past
on workday errands.

"What's our suspect's name?" Aren asked as

they were waved through to the cellblock.

Captain Underwood's derisive tone spoke

volumes. "He's registered as Jack Waters, but half
the goblins here use the same damn name."

"Is he in solitary?"
"He's in his own cell, sir. Unless we've raided

a sugar house, we don't normally have enough
people in custody to fill the cells."

As they passed through the security doors,

Aren pulled Sergeant Wickstrom back a step to
murmur. "Earpiece in, Emma, on my personal
translation channel. It's possible I might not want
our local friends to understand every word I say,
but I don't want you to miss a syllable."

"Yes, sir."
The lights grew brighter as they rounded the

corner into a corridor lined with the cell viewing
windows. Captain Underwood stopped at the third
on the left, with a nod to its occupant. "There he is,
Major."

Oh, yes, he looks like a dangerous character

to me. The dangpo male lay on his side, hands
cuffed behind him, cheek pressed to the plasticrete
floor. Slender, with delicate features, he appeared
hardly more than a boy. His chest rose and fell in

uneven pants. His long, white hair lay plastered
against his skin in damp strands.

"Captain, what's the temp in this cell?" Aren

fought to keep his voice soft and even.

"A little warmer than it is out here, sir."
"I assume you know that's not healthy for him."
The captain gave him another of those odd,

bland looks. "Helps soften them up for questioning,
Major. We don't believe in coddling criminals
here."

"Lower it, please. I'd prefer to have a

conscious suspect to question." He stripped off his
coat and gloves, which the sergeant retrieved with
quick efficiency. "Ice. Water. This boy looks a bit
past softened to me."

To their credit, his escort didn't grumble over

his orders. The lieutenant returned quickly with the
requested items and a report that the cell
temperature was dropping.

"Have the door opened for me, Captain," he

ordered and then held up a hand when the whole
delegation would have followed him. "I need to do
this alone, please. He won't say much of anything

with a whole squad looming over him."

"But he's dangerous, Major!" Mr. Cisneros

protested. "He's killed four people!"

"Allegedly killed four people, sir. He's cuffed.

He's half my size. I think I can manage."

"Sir?" Sergeant Wickstrom broke in. "If you--"
"I'll signal if I need you, Sergeant. I assume

these are standard viewing panes? One way?"

"Yes, Major."
"Then you all can keep an eye on proceedings

and rescue me if our desperado gets out of hand."

The young man barely twitched when Aren

stepped into the cell. Not good. He pressed the ice
pack to the prisoner's forehead and waited for his
eyes to open.

"Good afternoon. My name is Major Aren

Dalsgaard, and I'm here to ask you a few
questions."

"Registered," came the faint reply. "Jack

Waters. Registry band. Please..." Frightened black
eyes stared up at him. "Registered."

"Yes, I know." Aren slid an arm under the

young man's shoulders and helped him sit up.

"Here, drink. It's just water. Nice and cold."

"Jack" drank in desperate gulps, and then sat

back, staring at him from behind his curtain of
disheveled hair.

"Do you know why you're here?"
The young man shook his head, though whether

that meant he didn't know or that he didn't
understand the question was unclear.

Aren sat cross-legged on the floor facing him

and switched to dangpo. "You're name is not Jack
Waters, is it?"

The dark eyes narrowed and he persisted in

answering in standard. "Registered. Have band."

Talk to me, please. God, I've missed hearing

the language. "Child, you are too young to be
chilok khyimtshang."

"I am not a child!" the young man shot back in

his native language. "I have seen twenty and four
summers!" He scooted back, derision coloring his
soft voice. "Did you learn to speak dangpo from
old tapes? You sound like my great-grandmother."

"It's possible that I knew your great-

grandmother."

A toss of his head cleared half the hair from

his face. "You are not so old."

"I am somewhat older than I look." Aren

placed his hands on his knees, palms up, hoping it
still meant he wished peaceful negotiation. He
jerked his head to the cell door. "The chigyel, they
think you killed that woman last night."

The young man's mouth dropped open on a

strangled squeak. "What? No! I was trying to
help!"

Aren tilted his head one way and then the

other, a gesture of understanding. "Tell me what
happened. From the beginning. Perhaps you could
start with your name."

"Why should I trust you?" the young man cried

out. "You, a chigyel who smells of offworld
things, who tries to imitate our speech, our
manners! You try to make me think you are a
friend, but you are no different from the rest!"

"You're too young to remember, of course. But

I had a family, once. I made my home with the
Changki pod, adopted as one of their own." He
raised his right hand, index finger curled under his

thumb to indicate a sworn truth. "I am Serpodom."

The prisoner let out a hysterical laugh. "Now

you think me stupid. Serpodom died a hundred
twenty and three summers past."

"Yes. I did. In pain and anguish, I died." Aren

unbuttoned his uniform jacket and slid out of it as
he spoke. "I am Serpodom, the voice of the
dangpo. My beloved's name was Akarnyima, the
hunter."

The youngster's eyes darted back and forth,

uncertain and off-balance. Aren undid his shirt
cuffs and continued. "Akar taught me to live here,
to speak, to love. He gave me my first hunting knife
and a khyi pup named Dawanying. Do you know
the story? Do I have it right so far?"

Black eyes wide, the young man nodded.
Aren started on his shirt buttons. "A day came

when Akar and I were fishing. The sun was bright.
The fish seemed to leap into the nets. We laughed
and chattered, distracted by our happiness. We
heard the ribul slithering through the snow too late.
I killed it, but it had bitten my Akar. He wasn't one
of those who survive a ribul bite. My beloved

died screaming."

"But before he died, he went mad," the young

man said in a breathless rush, obviously caught up
in the story. "Raving and half-blind, he struck out
with his venom spurs and stabbed his Serpodom in
the shoulder."

His hands shaking in the chill room, Aren slid

off his shirt. The young man gasped when he
revealed the blue circle of the zi chiwa venom site
on his shoulder. "And his Serpodom lay down
beside him to die. Do they tell what my last words
were before I died?"

The white-haired head nodded rapidly.
"I said to the Changki, my family, 'Don't weep.

My place is with him.' Is that what they say?"

"Yes." The young man's complexion had faded

to an unhealthy shade of gray. He curled over his
knees with a little moan. "How can this be? How...
I don't feel well."

"Should I help you to the bowl?" Aren asked in

a gentler tone as he pulled on his shirt.

"No... I... no. Just... how are you here? Only the

Changki know those final words."

Longing stabbed through Aren, sharper than

any surgical blade. "You're Changki? What's your
name, little one?"

Rocking, with his head against his knees, the

young man murmured, "Nyachung."

Little fish. It suits him. "The chigyel have a

way of freezing the body, of preserving it so it
remains undamaged and unchanged. When they
found a way of reversing what the venom did to
me, they thawed my frozen body and woke me."

"They ripped you from death? From your rest?

From your Akar's side?"

"Yes." Aren finished his buttons and stared at

his hands. "Though I don't remember anything
about death. So maybe I wandered lost and never
was beside him."

Nyachung lifted his head, swallowing hard. "It

is an evil thing they did. I sorrow for you, for your
loss."

"Thank you. Though I am pleased to meet

Changki again." Aren resumed his open palmed
position. "Nyachung, I want to help you. To try to
protect you. But you must tell me only truth. Why

did you come to the city?"

"On family business. The khepa bumé sent

me."

All right. Evasion, I think, but not a lie. "Tell

me what happened last night."

"I have a room near the stone river. Walking

back to it, I saw someone dragging a heavy bundle.
He put the bundle down and began pulling things
off. As I moved closer, I saw the bundle was a
woman. He was pulling her clothes off. I
thought...thought he was taking her by force. I
didn't know she was dead."

"You had no reason to. Can you describe the

man?"

"No. It was dark and he had a scarf wrapped

around his head."

Of course. That would've been too easy.

"What happened then?"

"I yelled. I wanted to frighten him off. He

pulled a long knife from his coat. I was...I was
afraid."

"A sensible person would be."
"Yes. And I know it was wrong. We are

forbidden to extend the venom spurs in the city.
But he lunged at me. I...I had no other weapon."

"Did you strike him?"
Nyachung ducked his head. "No. I tripped and

struck a metal post. The man ran off." His white
ears turned a pale blue, showing his acute
embarrassment. "And then the city guards came
and shouted at me and threw me to the ground."

Aren fought against a smile. The situation

wasn't at all funny, but Nyachung's mortification
was endearing. "You're not a hunter."

"No. I am the pod's third tale-singer."
"And I think you were sent here to ask

questions, to negotiate, to trade, whatever the
reason, because you are a good speaker,
persuasive and gentle. You speak the chigyel
language better than you pretend, don't you?"

That got him another shame-faced nod. Oh, to

be so young again. "They speak so fast here, and
when I didn't understand, they spoke fast and loud,
which only made things worse. I pretended to be
stupid."

"It must have been frightening. Be patient. Be

brave. I will go speak with the chigyel." Aren
clambered back to his feet, gratified that he
managed without calling for help.

"I will try."
He made a gesture toward the viewing pane,

confident his observers monitored every move,
and the cell door clicked open on cue. "Do what
they ask. Answer their questions honestly. If you've
done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear."

While he wished he had more to offer,

fervently wished he could order the cuffs taken off,
it was the best he could do for the moment. Steady.
Stay focused. Empirical evidence. You're feeling
protective because of his family associations,
and you're not here to be a white knight.

When he rejoined them, the little group in the

hall watched him attentively, in some cases, he
thought, a bit too avidly.

"Have you taken a venom sampling from him?"

he asked Underwood.

"A sampling, Major?" Mr. Cisneros asked in a

hushed voice. "Why would they?"

Heaven save me from procedural idiots. "Just

like any other bodily fluid, it would be genetically
traceable. I have my doubts whether our prisoner
is the murderer, but a cross-check with the venom
taken from Ms. Tolliver will tell us one way or
another. You should be able to charge this boy or
release him within the hour."

The locals exchanged looks that Aren read as

annoyance and chagrin.

"Is there a problem?"
The lieutenant cleared her throat. "We only

have two techs, sir, and the day rotation one's out
sick."

"It's not something we would have overlooked,

Major," Underhill said, clearly offended.

Well, there's usually a reason someone's

assigned to command such a remote outpost. "I
don't suppose we could call the night tech in a bit
early?"

"It's not usual procedure, sir."
"I appreciate that, Captain, but this is an

unusual case, wouldn't you say?"

A short whispered conversation sent the

lieutenant dashing off to do as Aren requested. He

tried not to shake his head, unsure if local
enforcement was incompetent or simply apathetic
about prisoners' rights. Upon Sergeant Wickstrom's
insistence that the major really shouldn't be kept
standing, they were led to Underwood's office to
wait.

"Thank you," Aren said when their hosts had

left them to their own devices. "I was feeling a
little wobbly. Don't suppose we brought anything
to snack on?"

"We didn't, sir, but I did," the sergeant said at

her driest as she rummaged in her coat pocket.
"Protein bar, Major? It's the caramel kind you said
tasted less like wall insulation than the others."

With a soft sigh, he tore open the offered

packet and tried to be stoic about the gritty,
tasteless offering, knowing he needed the extra
fuel.

"Sir?"
"Yes, Sergeant?"
"I didn't know. About your time before here.

I'm so sorry. I wish..."

"Nothing anyone can do, Emma. All long past.

But thank you."

* * * *

Nyachung stared at the door as if the intensity

of his gaze might cause it to open. It was better
now. Since the man claiming to be Serpodom had
come, it didn't feel as if his captors were trying to
boil him alive. He wished the man would come
back, even though he couldn't say whether he
believed him or not. The things he knew, no
chigyel should know. The way he moved and
spoke was as if one of the dangpo inhabited a
foreigner's body.

But to be dead so long, and then return...one of

the old ones would have to determine the truth of
it. It hurt Nyachung's head to think about it. Surely
even the chigyel couldn't be so cruel. But there had
been such deep shadows in his eyes, such bleak
sorrow lurking in his soft voice, perhaps it was all
true.

Such beautiful eyes. Green, like the bloom of

summer lichen. He had never seen eyes like those.

Hope leapt in his heart when the door clicked

and then died abruptly when one of the guards

entered rather than the green-eyed man.

"On your feet, boy!"
Why do they all have to shout? He struggled

to rise with his hands locked behind his back.
"Where--"

"No yapping out of you, gob." The guard jerked

him out of the cell. "Just behave and we won't need
to get out the stun batons."

Be brave, Serpodom said. They will not see

my fear.

Chapter 3: Custody

Booted footsteps, running, echoing along

endless corridors...

Aren jerked out of a light doze. He blinked,

disoriented until he recalled he'd stretched out on
the sofa in Captain Underwood's office. Then he
bolted upright when he realized the boots pelting
down the hall were not part of an anxious dream.

Someone hit the door pad hard. The panel slid

open.

"Sergeant?"
"Sir, I think you better come. Wouldn't

normally try to rush you, but any speed you can
manage, Major."

He grabbed his jacket and hurried out in her

wake. "Is the building on fire?" He didn't hear any
alarms.

"No, sir. It's that dangpo kid. They're taking

that venom sample you asked for."

"Yes? And this is cause for alarm, why?"

"I don't think what they're doing is what you

intended, sir."

"Damn it."
He managed a jog, and even then, Sergeant

Wickstrom had to slow down for him. This can't
be good. I've never seen Emma so unnerved.

Thuds and muffled screams came from the lab

up ahead, only serving to underscore the sergeant's
anxiety. Aren bulled through the door and skidded
to a stop, speechless in shock. Nyachung lay on his
back on the gurney, stripped to the waist, arms
stretched out to either side and strapped down to
extensions. The staff had shoved something soft
between his teeth, either to keep him from breaking
them or to keep him from screaming too loud, and
they had electro-pulse leads attached to his
forearms, directly over the venom sacs and spur
pads. The shocks from the hookup came in pairs,
the first forcibly extending his arm spurs and the
second zapping the sac in an attempt to force the
venom out.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Aren bellowed.

The tech stared at him, nonplussed. "Getting

your venom sample, sir."

"By torturing him?"
"It's standard operating procedure, sir."
"Since when is physical abuse standard

procedure in any branch of the service?"

Sergeant Wickstrom gave him a little nudge.

"Sir, use of force in the obtaining of information or
cooperation is up to the discretion of the facility
commander. It's in the manuals."

"In the--you must be joking."
"Afraid not, sir."
Aren rubbed both hands over his face. "God.

Barbaric century." Then he stalked over to the
tech. "Unhook him, please. Not only is this
inefficient, it's inhumane. Do you have any idea,
Corporal, how sensitive those venom sacs are?"

The hapless corporal gulped a breath. "I...don't

know, sir."

"Imagine hooking one of those damn things up

to your testicles and then shoving another up your
urethra. That should give you some idea."

"Yes, sir."

The poor tech had turned green. Aren patted

his shoulder, not wanting the boy to pass out. "Just
turn it off. Unhook him. There's a better way to do
this. Several, actually. You could have just asked
him for a sample, but now that he's a shuddering
mess, he'll need some help."

While the tech unhooked the leads, Aren went

around the gurney undoing straps.

"Sir, you know he's a murder suspect, right?"
"Oh, yes. Terribly dangerous, I'm sure. Maybe

you should stand back. Safety first." Aren perched
hipshot on the edge of the gurney and gathered
Nyachung into his arms as he switched to dangpo.
"Are you with me, little one?"

"Why are they doing this?" Nyachung tangled

both fists in the front of Aren's jacket, shaking
uncontrollably.

"Sh, sh, they want some of your venom. To

compare it to the venom in the woman you found. If
it's not your venom, then you didn't kill her."

A hoarse sound, more sob than laugh came

from the little tale-singer. "They could have said
so."

"Yes, they should have." Aren held up a

collection tube. "Can you do it on your own?"

Nyachung held out one shaking arm, well away

from Aren. He curled his fingers, forearm muscles
contracting. "I can't," he gasped out.

Gently, Aren placed his hand under Nyachung's

elbow. "Will you let me help you? I know we're
strangers and this is in front of others, but it would
be better than their way."

Black eyes gazed up at him, wet with unshed

tears of pain. "All right. Do you... Have you done
this?"

"I have." Aren massaged his thumb over the

tense forearm muscles a moment. Then he reached
around, encircling Nyachung with his arms,
partially hiding him from prying eyes. He pressed
gently on the pad with his thumb, pushing the arm
spur out as one would a cat's claw. Keeping the
pressure constant and the collection tube held over
the spur in two fingers, he turned his attention to
the venom sac. Besides the obvious places, this
was the most sensitive spot on a dangpo male's
body.

He caressed the tender, abused skin, barely

holding back the urge to curl forward and kiss the
spot where the electro-pulse had been. Nyachung
made a sweet, whimpering sound that shot straight
to his balls and Aren hoped he was holding the
stone-faced expression he was trying for. He began
to massage the sac, his thumb describing slow,
gentle circles. Nyachung twitched in his arms.

"Easy, little one, easy. As soon as you're able."
With a soft cry, Nyachung hid his face against

Aren's chest, his body shuddering with pain as he
released his venom. His poor sacs would most
likely be tender for days but he had managed
enough to fill the tube.

"There. Not so terrible, was it?"
The young man shook his head, still clinging to

the front of Aren's jacket.

"Here. Run this as a priority." Aren held out

the collection tube for the tech to take.

The lab tech took it gingerly, as if it might burn

him. "Are you, ah, escorting the prisoner back to
his cell, Major?"

No, I'm going to hold him until he stops

shaking like he's coming apart. "He needs to be in
medical, Corporal, not a cell. Still a chance he
might go into shock."

"Yes, sir."
Crisis averted and prisoner carted off on a

stretcher to medical, Aren leaned against the
corridor wall, the bridge of his nose pressed
between thumb and forefinger.

"That was a brave thing to do, sir," Sergeant

Wickstrom offered.

"But?"
"Wasn't being critical, Major. It was just

courage, plain and simple, doing what you know is
right."

He lifted his head to meet her steady gaze.

"That almost sounded like admiration, Sergeant."

"Yes, sir. But don't let it go to your head."
"Never, Sergeant. Heaven forbid."

* * * *

Later that evening, Aren put his feet up on the

sofa in the visiting officers' quarters. He felt a bit
guilty that his sergeant was still on her feet,
unpacking, but she had snorted at his suggestion

that he help. Actually snorted, as if being an officer
made him completely incompetent in the realm of
physical organization.

When she finally brought in a couple of bottles

of surprisingly good local ale and settled in the
armchair opposite, his guilty conscience finally
stopped yammering.

"Emma, does anything strike you as odd about

this investigation?"

"Aside from the whole damn investigation?"

She leaned back and toed off her boots. "Yes, sir.
It occurred to me that they have dead bodies piling
up and they're not trying very hard."

He stabbed the air with one finger. "Exactly.

This pet theory about a goblin conspiracy is
nonsense. They've yet to point to a single known
terrorist or even a past case file regarding one.
And at this point in the investigation, with precious
little to go on, it's much more likely we're dealing
with a serial killer rather than some anti-
offworlder terrorist group."

"Feels more like a serial killer, sir, I'm with

you there. Same MO every time. Same types of

victims."

"And our local enforcement personnel aren't

treating it that way. In fact, they're doing as little as
possible, as far as I can see, except for arresting
one innocent, scared to death Outland kid."

"You seem pretty sure of that kid."
"Call it instinct. That kid is not a murderer. But

that's beside the point."

"Is it, sir?"
He flicked a hand in dismissal. "Beside the

point I was trying to make. The local office is
botching the investigation, which points to several
possibilities. One, Captain Underwood is an idiot
and is incapable of running an enforcement office."

"He doesn't strike me as an idiot, sir."
"Right. Bullheaded, bigoted, and bombastic--"
"Nice alliteration, sir."
"Thank you. But I have to agree with you. I

don't think he's stupid. Two, the local office is
protecting someone they believe is involved."

"Certainly possible, sir. Wouldn't be the first

time."

"Sadly true. Three, Captain Underwood is the

murderer."

"Going a little far off target there, sir."
Aren took a sip and crossed his ankles.

"Stranger things have happened. We need to keep
an open mind here."

"Trying, sir. Not a city that inspires open-

mindedness. I feel like there's a four coming?"

"Yes. Four, there is a conspiracy, but it's not

dangpo driven. One designed to implicate the
dangpo."

Emma's forehead creased. "The problem with

that, sir, is there has to be dangpo involvement. It's
their venom killing these folks, even if it's not your
little storyteller in lockup."

"Right. And that's where my beautiful logic

turns round and eats its own tail again."

"Sounds like it's time to turn in, sir." She held

her hand out for his empty. "We need more to go
on. Till we have that, we're just spinning our
wheels."

In his lonely, cold bed, Aren couldn't help the

wheel spinning for another hour. Something
seemed just out of reach, something he should be

able to grasp. All his attempts at walking through
the pieces failed miserably, though. Thoughts of a
pair of bright, black eyes kept distracting him, and
the muscle-memory echo of a hard, slender body in
his arms.

* * * *

Aren slammed his palm down on the captain's

desk. "You have no legal right to hold him,
Underwood! No genetic match, nothing to charge
him with!"

"Major, I appreciate your sensibilities."

Captain Underwood sat rigid in his chair, fists
clenched. "Things were different in your time. But
this is my command and my century. Maybe the
boy's not the murderer, but he wasn't there by
accident. He knows something and he's not
cooperating."

His elation that morning upon discovering that

Nyachung's venom was not a match for the
murderer's had taken a swift downward spiral into
rage when the officers on duty made it clear he
still wouldn't be released.

"And his cooperation will be gained how

exactly, Underwood?" Aren growled. "I have no
intention of interfering with your command, but this
is my investigation, by special Judiciary authority.
There's no evidence on which to hold the boy. I
want him out of that cell."

"Major, with all due respect..." Underwood's

frown creased his forehead into valleys. "I let that
boy out and he melts into the wastelands like so
much snow. He is a material witness in this
investigation and you're suggesting we simply let
him vanish."

Despite his anger, Aren had to concede the

point, at least from a procedural view. He
drummed his fingers on the back of the visitor's
chair.

"I'll take responsibility."
"Sir?"
"Release him into my custody. I'll take charge

of him. My investigation, it's my questions he
needs to answer. I want to know why he really
came in from the cold and what the hell he was
doing out at such an odd hour. He needs an
environment where he's comfortable, a building of

trust, and we might get somewhere."

Captain Underwood's dark brows reached for

his hairline. "And when he stabs you in your sleep,
sir?"

"Nonsense." Aren waved off the objection.

"This young man might be hiding things but he's not
a murderer."

"It's your funeral, sir," the captain muttered and

then his head snapped up, eyes wide, apparently
belatedly aware of his gaff.

Aren only offered a chill smile. "Ha. Yes,

well, how many people get more than one, after
all?"

After what seemed a snowstorm of paperwork

and bureaucratic procedure later, he had the
opportunity to see his new charge on his feet and
fetter-free for the first time. Nyachung was small,
even by dangpo standards, and he still appeared a
bit gray, but he held himself straight, head up,
weight balanced as if he might need to defend
himself at any moment.

The spirit outstrips the frame. Stand down,

little one; this isn't the place for a fight. Aren

held a hand out, fingers spread, to indicate that all
was well. Nyachung stared at the offered hand, and
then around at the officers in the room. When his
gaze returned to Aren, he seemed to reach a
decision. He squared his shoulders and pressed
their palms together. While a bit of warmth
traveled up Aren's arm from the contact, that white
hand against his drove a spike of pain through his
gut. It should have been another hand, one he
would never touch again.

Frozen. I'm still frozen and must remain so,

or I'll shatter.

Aren gave him a nod and spoke in dangpo.

"Good. You are my guest while you are here,
under my protection. Do you understand me? You
must stay with me."

"So now I am your prisoner." A sad note tinged

Nyachung's voice rather than bitterness.

"No. My légen, my charge."
Nyachung frowned, his dark eyes sparking with

something that might have been anger. "I have told
you I'm not a child."

"At home with your pod? No. You have a

place and responsibilities. You are skilled and
understand how things are done. Here? You have
shown yourself a child, stumbling into things
unawares."

That statement would have annoyed a truly

immature person even more, but Nyachung hung his
head. "It is a strange place."

"True." Aren had more to say, but Lieutenant

Haverhill hovered at the door to the infirmary.
"Lieutenant?"

"Major?" She shifted from foot to foot, her

eyes darting around the crowded room. "Could I
have a word?"

Aren switched to standard. "Of course.

Nyachung, wait for me a moment, please." He
motioned for the sergeant to wait as well while he
stepped into the hall. "Yes? What's happened? You
look like you've seen Hamlet's father."

"Pardon, sir?"
"Never mind." He waved to her to begin.
"The venom, sir..."
Aren's guard went up, anticipating some ploy

to take Nyachung back into custody. "It's not his,

you said."

"Not his. Yes, sir. None of them are. That is,

none of them match."

He leaned his back against the wall, arms

crossed over his chest. "Why would they,
Lieutenant? I think you need to take a breath and
put your statements in order."

She twisted her hands together. "I thought it

would be best if we did a cross-check on all the
vics, sir. Just to get the venom's genetic sampling
on file for the records. They're all different. Every
victim had a different genetic result for the
venom."

"All four?"
Her head bobbed up and down as if on a leaf

spring. "Yes, sir. Four murderers."

"I...see. You do keep things interesting down

here, don't you?" He turned on his heel and strode
back into the infirmary anteroom, his gaze pinning
Nyachung. "Did they give you your things back?"

The young man held up a hide pack.
"And are you feeling better? Any residual

pain?"

Nyachung tilted a hand back and forth in a

dangpo shrug. The hospitable thing would have
been to take his new ward back to their quarters
and let him shower and brush his hair, but the
scruffy look might not be a bad thing where they
were going.

"Major?" Sergeant Wickstrom closed ranks

behind him. "New intel?"

"Yes, I'll explain as we go." He gestured to

Nyachung and spoke in his language, "Come. We'll
go for a walk so you might show me where you
found your trouble the night before last, eh?"

The young man walking beside him wasn't the

one who should be there. The unfolding of this
investigation proceeded from tangle to tangle,
making less and less sense every moment. He had
walked into some strange shadowy land where the
rules shifted and nothing was as it should be. Not
for the first time, he wondered if he had truly
woken or if these were the strange dreams that
accompanied the dead.

Chapter 4: Something

Rotten In New

Stockholm

The major was old-fashioned in more ways

than he realized. Emma didn't mind an investigator
who preferred on-site work rather than detecting
through data and report crunching. Command had
assigned her too many of the latter, hard on an old
field sergeant accustomed to active service, but
Major Dalsgaard was a little too enthusiastically
hands-on for comfort sometimes.

How do I keep him safe when he hares off

into the worst part of town? And how do I get him
to rest when he bounds off in a dozen directions a
day?

When she'd first met him, he'd still been in the

physical rehab unit at the military hospital,

incapable of walking across the floor unassisted
and unable to recall her name at times. Even then,
she felt they understood each other in many ways.

While she knew him better by now, this dry

intellectual with his cultivated speech and his
political views that would most likely kill his
career, he still kept so much carefully guarded. It
made him difficult to anticipate sometimes, and
nearly impossible to advise. With the dangpo kid,
she'd witnessed his wounded, compassionate heart
trying to reassert itself, but then he'd shut right
down again. It was as if the real man lay trapped
beneath the surface of a frozen pond, visible, but
unreachable.

At least he'd agreed to take the car provided

for them. That much advice he'd taken, much to her
relief. She should have known better than to relax.

"Stop here!" Major Dalsgaard called to the

driver.

They'd reached the edge of the business

district, the next block populated by older,
shabbier buildings.

"Sir?" the driver asked, his concern all too

clear in his expression. "Am I to wait for you?"

"I'll call if we need you, Corporal," the major

said as he opened the door. "That's all for now.
Thank you."

Emma knew it was useless, but had to try. "Sir,

I need to advise against this. Both the walking and
the where we're walking."

"Duly noted, Sergeant. But not a soul will talk

to us if we drive up in a staff car."

The kid tipped his head to the side, black eyes

wide. "Staff car?"

"A car that belongs to the chigyel government,"

Major Dalsgaard explained.

"Ah. People who have guilt would be

frightened." The little guy nodded, apparently
satisfied.

Emma had no idea why the locals called them

goblins. Sure, the dangpo looked odd, but they
looked more like cute, white seals when you saw
them in person than fairytale monsters.

"Even people who do not have guilt might be

frightened," the major said at his driest. "Come.
Show me where you were that night."

The major knew exactly where Ms. Tolliver

had been murdered, of course, but he probably had
his reasons for wanting the kid to lead. Maybe to
see how well he knew the city or to determine how
good his memory was. With a prickly unease
running over her scalp, Emma followed,
determined to keep a hand near her holster as she
watched the major's back.

* * * *

"Where were you when you first saw the

man?" Aren leaned a hip against the bridge rail.
His legs already trembled but he wasn't about to
tell the sergeant that.

Nyachung pointed, speaking in standard for the

sergeant's benefit. "There. I came between those
buildings."

"You said it was dark. How did you spot

him?"

"The..." He waved at the nearest streetlight,

apparently unsure of the word. "He walked under
that. I saw him then."

"How do you know it was a man?"
"I..." Nyachung frowned. "I do not. From the

moving. Size and shape. It looked so."

"What size?"
Nyachung held a hand above his head. "Yours.

A few fingers smaller. Maybe. More..." He held
his hands apart to show breadth.

"Not as thin as I am? Broader than, say,

Captain Underwood?"

"No. Not bigger."
"Huh." Aren tapped his forefinger on his arm.

"That would be an unusually large dangpo,
wouldn't you say, Sergeant?"

"Suppose so, sir. They do seem to run small.

But that doesn't erase the venom problem."

He lifted his head, squinting at their

surroundings, trying to see it as it had been. The
canal district had been the city's trade center a
hundred years before, vibrant and as prosperous as
such a far-flung planet could manage. Now, many
buildings stared out of sightless, broken windows.
Trash dotted the street in little windblown
colonies. Some of the doorways sheltered bundles
of dirty cloth that turned out, on closer inspection,
to be dangpo strung out on sugar.

"Right." Aren turned to his companions.

"Though we can be fairly certain both settlers and
dangpo are involved."

Nyachung's shocked expression might have

been amusing if he hadn't turned gray and clutched
the rail. "But...why? Ma-jor, what reason?"

"Desperate people will do terrible, stupid

things sometimes, little one." Aren patted his
shoulder. "And I see plenty of dangpo in this city
with reason to be desperate. Cisneros wasn't
exaggerating when he said the sugar problem had
become epidemic."

The sugar addicts. While it was premature to

jump to the conclusion that someone had coerced
or tempted addicts into murder, they did tend to
live largely invisible lives. They saw things, heard
things respectable citizens didn't.

"Sir? Spinning gears. Care to verbalize?"
"We need to talk to someone with intel on the

sugar trade. With an ear to the ground, so to
speak."

He tucked his earpiece in and put in a call to

the enforcement outpost. A few reroutes later, he

had spoken to a couple of the veteran sergeants
who had some thoughts on who would be safe and
reliable contacts. As expected, the veterans'
personal views were limited to comments about
"damn junkies" and "should just toss 'em all out
into the wastelands," precisely why he wanted
information from a nonenforcement source.

"We're going to go look up a man at the Sugar

Support Center."

scritch, scritch, scritch
"The sergeants say he's a bleeding heart, but

that he's not a dangerous type."

scritch, scritch, scritch
Distracted, Aren flicked his gaze left where

Nyachung scratched fretfully at his arm. His soft
bachuk hide shirt offered some protection, but the
ferocious intensity put the young man's own hide in
danger.

"People may think you have ice mites," Aren

offered softly in dangpo.

"I'm sorry." A blue flush crept up Nyachung's

cheeks. He wrapped his arms around his own ribs,
clinging white-knuckled.

Nervous tic? Compulsive disorder? Though

this city makes me itch, too.

"Right. Let's move while we still have light.

We're only a few blocks away."

On his link's little map projection, the distance

seemed paltry. In practice, city blocks stretched in
nightmare-endless ribbons of plasticrete and stone,
daunting on a planet just primitive enough to lack
pedestrian zipways.

By the time they reached the address, he had to

lean against the building, fine tremors stealing his
breath. A gray curtain threatened to blot out the
world as he tried to pull in enough air. He
twitched when a hand grabbed him from either
side, the sergeant's firm grip on his right arm and
Nyachung's more gentle support under his left
elbow.

The sergeant's voice reached him through the

blood-tide in his ears. "Sir? Can we get you
inside? Maybe there's a chair."

"Chair...yes."
There were, indeed, several cheap plastic

chairs in what appeared to be an intake room,

though no one manned the front console. Once he'd
collapsed in the nearest chair, his blurred senses
began to clear. Nyachung crouched in front of him
as if afraid he might pitch forward onto the floor.

"He is ill?" The hushed anxiety irritated and

touched him.

"No, just still recovering from death."
"It is truth, then. His death."
Aren pulled in a slow breath. "I'm right here in

the room, you two, if you don't mind. Please don't
look at me like that. I'm just a tired, bitter man, not
some mythical beast."

Nyachung dropped his awestruck gaze to an

all-important kink in his pack strap. "Yet you tell
me you are a man out of the stories I sing." He
spoke in dangpo again, a tinge of indignation
coloring his breeze-soft voice. "Perhaps you are
too bitter to be amazed by such things. I am not."

There's the sharp tongue I expect from a tale-

singer. "Forgive me. My weakness makes me
angry, not you."

A little head tilt acknowledged his apology and

Aren wondered, yet again, who he had here.

Nervous and out of his element, Nyachung was at
times self-effacing and easily mortified, but
glimpses of a titanium core sparked through from
time to time, hints of a man with a purpose. And
what is your purpose, little one?

Footsteps sounded in the hall behind the desk.

Middle-aged, paunchy, with a three-day growth of
scruff, the man eyed them with obvious suspicion.
"Can I help you, officers?" he asked in standard.
Then to Nyachung in dangpo, "Need help, young
sir? Trouble?"

Nyachung lifted a hand palm down with two

fingers extended to indicate confusion. "I am with
my chokyong. Why would I need help?"

The man's eyes narrowed. "You walking with

him? A chigyel prison-keeper? You hate you
people?"

"Sir, your grammar is terrible," Aren

interrupted in standard. "And I'd thank you, first, to
speak so that everyone in the room might
understand, and second, not to insult a young man
about whom you know nothing."

"Look, we paid our licensing fees and I don't

let dealers in here. You've got no call coming
around harassing my staff or my clients."

Carefully, Aren rose, absurdly pleased that he

overtopped the surly man by a good few
centimeters. "We're not here to harass anyone. I'm
on special assignment, investigating the recent
murders here--"

The man dropped his stylus. "Oh...my God.

You're him, aren't you? The officer they
resurrected?"

"I'm Major Aren Dalsgaard, and, yes, I'm

recently revived from cryo. I'm looking for George
Hendricks."

Nyachung put a hand on the man's arm. "He

says he is Serpodom."

"He says--" The man cleared his throat.

"Young sir, if this is Dalsgaard, then he really is
Serpodom, heaven help him." He held out a hand
to Aren. "I'm Hendricks. Sorry about the nasty
greeting. Thought you were more goons come to
arrest my clients."

"Your clients?"
"Yes, Major. Despite what local enforcement

probably told you, this is a treatment center." He
gestured toward the hallway. "Come on back. I
don't think you want to talk in the lobby."

They passed rooms with the floor beds favored

by dangpo. Some effort had been made to brighten
the rooms with woven kar ma rugs and wall
hangings, but the lack of windows and the air of
general decrepitude muted the colors and rendered
them dingy. Dangpo occupied some of the beds,
huddled in blanket nests or rocking fretfully. One
young woman stared at them with red-rimmed,
lunatic eyes as she muttered to herself and picked
apart her blanket.

Aren averted his gaze quickly, feeling as if he

intruded on some private tragedy. "I'm sorry, Mr.
Hendricks. I'm a bit confused. Why would
enforcement raid a treatment center?"

Hendricks ushered them into an office,

differentiated from the other decrepit rooms only
by its furnishings. "They've passed new sugar
ordinances lately. Sometimes, I think, just to make
things harder for us."

"Is it illegal to possess sugar, then?"

"For you and me? No." Hendricks flopped

down in the chair behind the desk. "For the
dangpo? Yes. Providing sugar synth to dangpo is
likewise illegal now, but only in its pure form. A
shop owner's welcome to sell food products
loaded with sugar synth to them. But giving addicts
medically approved amounts to wean them down?
Illicit dealing!"

Aren took one of the chairs across from him

while Nyachung settled in the other. The sergeant
stood at parade rest, his silent pillar of support.
"How long has this been going on?"

"Oh, about forty, forty-five years now. After

the accord, there were dangpo who moved to the
city to set up businesses. Most failed because of
the language barrier and settler prejudice. Within a
few years, the only dangpo coming to the cities to
live were the disaffected, the ones who, for
whatever reason, left their pods. Without galactic
education, they could only work menial jobs."

"And so became the underclass." Aren rubbed

at the back of his neck. I know where this is going.

"Exactly. Fine as long as they stayed in their

place and kept quiet. Labeled as troublemakers
and criminals if they dared to want more. Each city
has ordinances now about where dangpo can live,
what sorts of jobs they can safely do, and so on.
As more and more dangpo businesses failed, they
were forced to frequent settler markets, and to eat
our food."

The steady tapping behind him let Aren know

Sergeant Wickstrom was taking diligent notes.
Once again, he thanked the powers on high for
giving him such a competent non-com so he could
concentrate on the man before him and his
reactions.

"The effects come from negligible amounts?

Say, what might be found in a loaf of bread?"

Hendricks nodded. "Unnoticeable at first, but

their bodies begin to crave it in larger and larger
quantities. Once they hit a couple of grams
consumption at one go, the hallucinations start, the
loss of motor function, the euphoric state, the
depressed vitals. The addiction cycle's pernicious
and built into the food supply."

"But it's only the synth. Shouldn't it be easy to

avoid? Buy grown sugar items rather than
manufactured?"

"Major," Hendricks said on a huff of breath.

"You have been out of touch, haven't you? We're
on the ass end of the civilized galaxy here. Grown
sugar is a luxury import item. Something for rich
folks. Have you seen any wealthy dangpo while
you've been here?"

"Ah." He had suspected as much, but

Hendricks's reaction was telling. "It's not a
nutritional necessity. Has the government made any
efforts to outlaw synth manufacture?"

"And infringe on settlers rights?" The bitter

laugh could have put alum vendors out of business.
"Hell, no. Easier to criminalize the addicts. More
convenient, anyway."

Aren understood. His own anger piled up

block by block with every revelation. This wasn't
how he had left things. This wasn't how it was
supposed to be. "What do the dangpo
representatives say about all this?"

Hendricks's jeering expression smoothed into a

sympathetic frown. "This must be tough for you,

Major. The negotiations that you started, the
accord that was signed after you died, those were
good, solid ideas in there. Shared government.
Fair representation." He leaned back in his chair,
appearing more weary than aggressive now. "It
was the shared profit that did it, Major. Greed.
The settlers didn't want to share. Fixed elections.
The dangpo slowly eased out of government. Laws
rewritten."

"Sergeant, you're getting all this?" Aren turned,

more to confirm that she was disturbed, too. She
was.

"Yes, sir."
"A slow slide from planetary self-government

to complete disenfranchisement." Aren forced his
hands to unclench. Here to do a job, not to be a
paladin on a snow-white charger. Those days are
over a century gone. "With all that in mind, Mr.
Hendricks, have you heard anything from the
dangpo, any rumors that someone has been
offering sugar synth as payment for criminal
activity?"

Hendricks shrugged. "Oh, sure. Happens

sometimes. Petty theft. A bit of thug vandalism.
Anything the settler types don't want to touch,
they'll see if they can get a gob to do it."

"Violent crime as well?"
"Look, Major, if you're edging around whether

I know who the killer is, I can't help you. Far as
I'm concerned, the murdered business tycoons
brought it on themselves. Those four who died
were the worst of them. Sweatshops. Shady import
businesses. The kind of people who weren't above
using the sugar trade for their own gain. I'm not
shedding any tears for them. But, no, I haven't
heard of anyone being solicited for murder."

"Do you know about the black boxes, Mis-ter

Hendricks?"

Aren's head whipped around at the soft voice.

Nyachung sat pole straight, jaw clamped,
scratching at his arm again, but he had definitely
spoken.

"What black boxes, young sir?"
Yes, damn it, what black boxes?
"In the Outlands. Black boxes about..."

Nyachung's hands described a shape about half a

square meter. "So. Spaced apart. Many of them."

Hendricks shook his head and Aren thought his

laugh sounded strained. "Probably old weather
monitoring stations."

"No one speaks of them?"
"Don't know anything about them." Hendricks

shrugged again and rose. "Was there anything else,
Major? I'm sorry I haven't been much help."

Aren offered his hand. "You've been a great

help, sir. Definitely have a better feel for the lay of
the land."

"Oh, well, you're welcome, then." A smile

actually wandered onto that dour face. "I used to
work at one of the mil hospitals on Terranova.
Never saw a good cryo revive. Either the body
didn't come back right or the mind was gone.
You're something of a miracle, Major."

"So I've been told." Over and over. "We'll be

in touch, Mr. Hendricks. Thank you for your time."

Back out on the street, Sergeant Wickstrom

favored him with a thunderous frown. "He knew
something, sir. Why'd you let him off so easy?"

"Oh, yes. He knows a few too many things. But

questioning him further wouldn't have gotten us any
more." Aren turned to Nyachung, who carefully
avoided his gaze. "And I think we need to sort
some things out before we continue." He switched
to dangpo, "Do you wish to tell me something?"

"The boxes... I was sent here to ask about them.

They lie buried in the snow, but lately we have
found more and more."

"Near the gunkha nang?"
Nyachung raised his head, worry making his

dark eyes huge. "In a circle around it."

That was disturbing, especially in light of

everything he'd heard that day.

As they passed the mouth of an alley, a flash of

blue streaked out. The sergeant tried to intercept,
but the ragged bundle of clothes ducked under her
arm and fastened onto Nyachung. The shock of the
sudden assault sent adrenaline singing through
Aren's veins, but no weapon appeared. Harm
didn't seem the intent as the accosting individual
began to whisper in rapid dangpo, so he waved
the sergeant back.

"Dangerous...you mustn't. The demon blades

come. They come. In the black, in the quiet. No one
knows. No one hears. Then it's too late. The boxes.
They ask about boxes, too. Swift wings and
crimson. There are no more voices. They hear
you. They will hear you."

"I don't understand you." Nyachung tried to jerk

away, but the strange man clung tighter, tugging at
his arm. "What do you want?"

His panicked eyes met Aren's, and the strangest

tremor of rage rippled through Aren. He
envisioned himself backhanding the stranger away
from Nyachung, the sudden, primitive urge to
protect him nearly obliterating common sense.

By force of will, he kept his voice calm,

"Easy, easy. It's the sugar. He must have overheard
some of the conversation and followed us out of
the treatment center. He's obviously hallucinating."

The tugging became insistent. "Come, little

brother. Come and see. You mustn't ask. I will
show you."

Sergeant Wickstrom edged closer, hand on the

butt of her weapon. "Sir?"

"Let's see where this goes." Then Aren spoke

quietly in dangpo, "Lead us, good sir. We will
follow."

The stranger startled as if he hadn't noticed

Nyachung's companions before. "Death hunts with
you. Yes. Yes. This is for you."

He seized Nyachung's hand and dragged him

into the alleyway, leaving Aren and Sergeant
Wickstrom to keep up as best they could. The old
colonial buildings gave way to a shantytown,
rickety structures cobbled together from scavenged
scrap metal and construction debris. Some
residents eyed them with suspicion and hostility.
Most vanished into the ramshackle shelters and
makeshift alleyways, smoke and moonlight to the
unobservant.

The light was fading and here, the street

illumination was spotty and dim at best. Their
guide took them down an alley where even the
light feared to go and stopped at a makeshift door
of corrugated steel.

"Here, here." His hands shook in the beam

from the sergeant's palm light. "We must be quick.
If they see...they mustn't see. Crimson fire.

Devourers. They take the strands of gold from
everything."

"Sergeant, stay sharp." Aren put his gloved

hands on the door edge. "Cover me. Just in case."
He heaved, and the door slid sideways with a
pained moan. An appalling stench rolled out from
the shelter, forcing him back a step as he coughed
and gagged.

"Something has died in there," Nyachung

offered in a choked voice.

"Oh, hell, yes. The question is what and how

long ago. Sergeant, your light, please."

He swept the inside of the shelter, a pitiful, dirt

floor dwelling with a single, crooked chair and a
filthy floor bed. Aren had hoped to find some
animal carcass, but his heart sank at the bundle of
blue and gray cloth on the bed. That's no animal.

"Sir? Calling enforcement?"
"In a moment, Sergeant. Give me a moment.

Nyachung, stay there." With his sleeve covering
his mouth and nose, he advanced into the room,
steeling himself for what he assumed was a body
in an advanced state of decay. Not all his years in

the service and in investigations prepared him.

The body lay twisted, half on its back,

sightless, sunken eyes staring at the ceiling.
Dangpo, male, the age was difficult to determine.
But something was wrong with the shape of the
corpse. As if...

He lifted a corner of the blanket and staggered

back a step in horror.

"Sir?" Sergeant Wickstrom's voice was a sharp

whip crack behind him.

"I'm...come take a look at this."
She was beside him in half a heartbeat. "God.

Someone's cut off his arm."

"If you were to examine the other side, I think

you'd find it's both arms." He staggered out,
leaning with a hand against the shelter as he gulped
for relatively cleaner air. "Call in the locals,
Sergeant."

The addict was tugging at Nyachung again.

"Come away, little brother. The prison-keepers
will be here. You must come away."

The unreasoning anger threatened again. Aren

swatted the persistent hand away from Nyachung's

arm. "Leave him be, good sir. He's safe with me."

The man stared at him, red-rimmed eyes

darting back and forth. "There is no safe. Blood
and death until they have come for us all." He
backed a step, and then abruptly turned and fled,
melting into the visual obfuscation of the
shantytown.

"Sir?" Sergeant Wickstrom emerged from the

shelter. "You want me to pursue?"

"No. Let him go. Probably not safe for us to

split up in this part of town."

She nodded approval of his moment of good

sense. "You were right, sir. Both arms, sliced
clean off at the shoulder. No sign of the missing
limbs, though--"

A distressed whimper slipped from Nyachung.

He took a hurried step away from them and
doubled over to lose the contents of his stomach. It
was the quietest, most dignified bit of vomiting
Aren had ever witnessed.

"Sergeant," he said in a dry tone. "Perhaps

leave the details for the official report."

"Sorry, sir. Poor kid. Probably not used to all

this."

He handed Nyachung a tissue from his pocket

and gave the sergeant a long, hard look. "God
forbid that anyone ever gets used to all this."

Chapter 5: Going

Outland

"Major, you look done in." Cisneros fussed

about, huffing and puffing. "Please, sit. Please."

The major pulled off his hat. "It's been quite a

day, Mr. Cisneros, I won't deny that."

Looking every moment of his hundred and fifty

odd years, he eased into one of the overstuffed
wing chairs in the Administrator's sitting area.

Emma scanned the multiple exits with a frown.

Posh and comfy the place might be, and she knew
the major was thankful for the climate-controlled
air, but the suite was a security nightmare. Would
have been easier to defend the major in the tiny
Sugar Support Center office than this pretentious
rat-maze.

She didn't approve of the whole visit. The kid

needed a shower, dinner and bed, in that order,
and the major was at the end, shaking and

struggling to keep his eyes open, but he had
insisted.

Anything to get this case wrapped up and us

out of this godforsaken city. At the enforcement
outpost, Captain Underwood had pretty much
dismissed the grisly shantytown murder as "goblin
on goblin violence." He'd also thanked the major
for reporting it, but made it crystal clear that this
murder was out of the major's jurisdiction and
none of his business.

Bullshit. The case was still wide open and

everything suspicious was Major Dalsgaard's
business. Whole damn place was suspicious, if
anyone asked her.

"Can I offer you a drink, Major?" the fat little

man asked in a convincing tone of concern.

"Water, please. For Nyachung as well, if you

don't mind."

"Sir." Emma held out her hand for the bottles

so she could scan them.

"Oh, now, see here, Sergeant. That's not

necessary," Cisneros huffed.

"Sorry, sir. Major Dalsgaard can't have certain

things this late in the day." She finished her
analysis and handed the bottles over to their
intended recipients. "No stimulants, sir. No sugar
synth, either."

Cisneros's face flushed. "I should hope not!"
Just when she believed he might be worried

about poisoning the little guy...

"I certainly would not serve cheap synth to

guests!"

Never mind.
"Bad business today, Mr. Cisneros," Major

Dalsgaard began. "I assume you heard?"

"About that rather grotesque discovery you

made, Major? Oh, yes. Terrible. Just terrible.
What's the universe coming to?"

"About the same thing it always has, sir. I had

hoped you might answer a question for me, though,
since it's most likely a matter of historical civil
engineering."

Cisneros settled in the chair opposite the

major, careful not to touch the dangpo kid as he
went by. "Glad to, Major. I am something of a
local history buff. But Underwood probably told

you that."

"He did." The major rested his water bottle on

his knee, his pose relaxed and open. Emma could
practically hear the tension humming off him,
though, as he took in every twitch, every nuance of
speech. "I'm hoping you can help with a puzzle, sir.
There have been several mentions of black boxes
planted in the Outlands, supposedly at regular
intervals. Are these some recent survey device, or
something older, would you know?"

"Boxes? Well, now...let me see." Cisneros

furrowed his brow as if deep in concentration.
"About a half meter or so square? Do they have
small dish arrays?"

"I haven't had any sending or receiving

apparatus described to me, but details have been
sketchy."

"Well, without actually seeing an image, I'd

say there are two possibilities. One, the Outland
gob--ah, dangpo have come across the old survey
equipment from the original Treaty mission, or,
two, these are ancient weather alert stations from
the Conglomerate days."

"No chance they could be anything more

recent? Say, from a private venture?"

Cisneros took a sip from his drink, something

definitely stronger than water, and shook his head.
"Not during my administration, Major. All Outland
ventures must be approved by the land resources
committee, which I oversee. If anyone had made
such a request, I would know. No, those boxes
precede my time in office."

"An illegal expedition?"
"I suppose it's possible." Cisneros shrugged.

"But to what end, Major? There's nothing out there
beyond the lumanium mines. It seems absurd, to
say the least."

Major Dalsgaard had stretched his long legs

out in front of him. He stared at his shoes with a
puzzled frown.

Damn. We're losing him. "Sir?" Emma

touched his shoulder and waited until he raised his
head, blinking up at her. "All right there?"

It took him a moment to answer, a clear sign he

was fading out. "I'm...a bit tired, Sergeant."

"Sorry, Mr. Cisneros, we've got to get the

major to quarters." She took him under the arm and
helped him up. "He's beyond exhausted."

"Oh, dear. Of course, Sergeant. Please, please,

don't let me keep you. Very inconsiderate of me to
keep him talking. I'm so sorry. Do you need some
help?"

"No thanks, sir. I can manage him. Done it

before." She jerked her head. "C'mon, kid, take his
other side. Let's get him down to the car."

On the way down in the lift, the major roused

enough to say, "Emma. Damn it, I'm sorry."

"Doing my job, sir. Don't need to keep

apologizing to me." She dragged his arm over her
shoulders and gave the kid a nod of approval when
he did the same on the other side. "Did you believe
him, sir?"

"No. We'll...talk it through tomorrow."
I can't wait. Even exhausted, she knew the

major's gears were turning full tilt. Things would
get interesting when he woke in the morning,
interesting being the polite way to say all hell
might break loose.

* * * *

Nyachung sat on his makeshift floor bed

untangling his sadly snarled hair. After the major
had been put to bed, the big woman, Emma, had
been more than kind. She had fed him and shown
him where he could bathe, and then had pulled the
seat cushion from the longest piece of furniture in
the front room and set it on the floor for him. It was
surprisingly comfortable.

Now she sat in one of the chairs, polishing

boots to a glassy sheen, a companionable quiet
between them. He was hesitant to break the
silence, but if he didn't ask, he might stumble into
more terrible errors.

"Emma?"
"Yeah."
"Are you his...ah..."
"His what, kid?" Her chuckle was warm rather

than mean-spirited. "His lover? Good God, I'm
twice his biological age. No. I work for the major.
I look after him. Watch his back. Keep him safe."

He knew most of the words, but some of the

ways Emma used them confused him. He thought
he understood the meaning, though. "You are his

rokpa...his helping friend...his hunting partner?"

She stopped polishing and gave him an

appraising look. "That sounds about right. His
hunting partner. Pretty much covers it."

"He is..." Nyachung put his brush down,

hesitating. He didn't want to offend. "He is not
what I imagined."

"You mean Serpodom's not as advertised? The

man doesn't match the stories?" She put the boot
down, her rough voice oddly gentle. "He's a man,
kiddo. Not a legend."

He nodded. "Yes. But the stories say

Serpodom was...he laughed much. Smiled much.
Friendly and...and everyone liked him."

"You don't like the major?"
"I do." Nyachung picked at the brush bristles,

trying not to squirm. "He has been kind. But he is
so unhappy."

"Got it. Not what you expected." She clasped

her hands between her knees, leaning forward.
"Waking up wasn't what he expected either. I know
what it's like, expecting to die and then waking up
instead with half your heart ripped away."

"You...also were dead?"
"Not exactly. But I thought I would be. I've

been a soldier a long time, back when the Treaty
planets were at war with Altair. Me and Gwen, we
were pinned down on an asteroid. We said our
goodbyes, sure we wouldn't make it. The shell that
finally took out our position, it killed Gwen. I
woke up a month later in hospital, busted up all to
hell. And she was gone."

"I'm sorry, Emma."
She waved a hand, perhaps to hide the water in

her eyes. "Long ago, kid. It's okay. But the major?
Think about it. He wakes up and not only is the
love of his life gone, but everyone he ever knew.
Everything he ever knew. Think about that, how it
would feel to wake up in your home and not
recognize anything. To know that everyone you'd
ever met, ever talked to, ever even laid eyes on,
was long dead."

"Oh. How...what is the word? Terrible?"
"That's a good word for it. Now tell me if

you'd feel like laughing after that."

"No. I would not."

She ran a hand back through her close-

cropped, gray hair. "He tries to play it like he's all
hard. Like he doesn't feel anything. It'll catch up to
him someday, though."

"He is alone at a meal with strangers. He

guards his words, his actions. He does not know
these people. Their thinking." He pulled his knees
up under his chin. "Good he has you."

"Yeah. He's damn lucky there." She shot him a

quick grin as she rose. "I'm off to bed, kid. You
have everything you need?"

"Yes. Thank you." He curled up on his bed

when she had turned down the lights and gone to
one of the other rooms. Such despair had
consumed him only the day before. In chigyel
bonds, certain he would gasp out his last breath
alone in an overheated prison cell, hope had
abandoned him. Now, confusion replaced despair.
He felt some discovery over the horizon, just out
of sight. If only he knew which direction would
take him there.

Sleep pulled him under quickly, his exhaustion

nearly matching the major's. When he startled

awake in a still-dark room, he had no sense of the
passage of time, whether he had slept minutes or
hours. He bolted upright, heart hammering. Why?
What had woken him?

Soft sounds of distress came from one of the

rooms down the hall. He snatched the blanket from
the foot of his floor bed, since he had gone to sleep
naked in the warm room, and padded to the major's
door.

The door across the hall opened and Emma

peered out. "Damn. He woke you, sorry."

"Is he...well?"
"He has nightmares. Hard as hell to wake him

up, though. And I hate to do it, since then he doesn't
go back to sleep. He usually stops after a bit."

The soft cries put hooks in his heart, though,

pulling him forward. "Could I try? It sounds..."

"Terrible. Yeah." She put her palm to the pad

beside the door. "Go ahead, kiddo. Can't make it
any worse."

He knotted the blanket at one shoulder and

made his way to the bed. Strange beds the chigyel
used, high up off the ground as if they were afraid

of something snatching at them. Perhaps they were.
Maybe something from their home worlds attacked
people in their sleep unless they slept off the
ground. I would be afraid of falling out.

The major tossed fitfully, his brow furrowed

as he did battle with creatures of smoke and
moonlight. Even anxious, his face appeared
younger in sleep, a beautiful vulnerability apparent
that was not in his waking moments. Nyachung
perched on the edge of the bed and smoothed a
stray lock from his forehead. Such unusual hair,
golden-brown like some of the darker khyi, and as
soft as their fur. A good face, too, strong-featured
and handsome. Even the chigyel ears, often so
ridiculous and huge, as if they were meant for
sailing, were well shaped. They suited him.

Serpodom. The yellow bear. This was the man

who had spoken for them, who had ridden his khyi
to the middle of the chigyel road and declared he
would not move until the settler officials came out
to deal with him. This was the man who, despite
his own heritage, had insisted that Drass belonged
to the dangpo, by right of first occupancy and by

virtue of the horrendous injustices done to them.

Brave, outspoken, a singer for justice, that had

been Serpodom. In a way, he felt cheated that he
encountered this battered, reduced version of the
hero. He had sung of him for so many years,
honored him, and extolled his virtues, only to meet
what remained of the man after disaster upon
disaster.

Serpodom.
And yet...and yet...this was still the same man.

Wounded and life-weary, ailing and lost, but the
hero lived in there still. In the room with the
electric needles...

The major had roared in like an avenging storm

spirit, furious at the callous abuse, commanding
and forceful. In that moment, Serpodom truly rose
from the dead. And then...oh, sweet mother. Those
long arms had wrapped around him, the deep voice
murmuring softly in his ear. Skilled fingers had
caressed his venom sac with practiced, sensual
ease. Even through his fear and pain, the tide of his
blood had yearned toward his rescuer.

No lingering hint of that tender moment

remained when he saw the major again. Inwardly
mortified that he had even entertained the
possibility, he pretended he had been unaffected. It
was wrong, oh, so wrong, to have such thoughts
about him in any case. The man was grieving, or
more accurately, was not grieving as he should be,
all his sorrow buried deep in the private caverns
of his heart. He belonged to another, a man
decades dead.

You always look to the next horizon and the

next, Nya, the khepa bumé had said to him. You
will trip over your own feet because you never
want what is in front of you.

But he did not, would not, long for the major.

Sexual attraction was not longing and he would go
no farther into that storm. Still, he wouldn't
abandon someone who seemed to need his help.
Nyachung settled at his head, back against the
wall. He stroked a broad shoulder and began to
sing a children's lullaby, soft, soothing nonsense
words.

The major quieted, his features smoothing as

the howling winds of his nightmare settled.

Nyachung thought to slip away then, but a moment's
hesitance foiled his plan. The major turned, rooted
closer, and planted his head squarely in the center
of Nyachung's lap.

Why do I find him so beautiful? I am an idiot,

that's why. Though it fit with the pattern of his life.
After all, how much farther over the horizon could
he try to reach than a man from the stars whose
heart had died?

* * * *

"We're going Outland."
"Would like to say I'm shocked, sir, but that'd

be lying." Sergeant Wickstrom plunked his coffee
in front of him and took the chair opposite at the
table. "Explanations?"

Nyachung intermittently sipped at his water

and scratched at his arm. He had been more
reticent and reserved than ever that morning,
keeping his face averted, but now his head jerked
up, big black eyes threatening to swallow his face.

"First, I think there's more to this issue with the

black boxes. While I'm not certain it's tied to our
case, the mere fact that people are dying for asking

about them makes them significant."

"Won't argue that, sir."
"Good. Second, we won't get answers here in

the city without endangering more lives and I don't
think I'll have my answers until I see them
firsthand. All that nonsense about old survey
stations left me cold, Emma. The dangpo know
damn well what's out there. If they're asking about
a sudden influx of boxes, those boxes were not
there previously."

"Duly noted, sir."
"Last, and perhaps most important, Nyachung

isn't safe here. Enough people know he asked by
now."

"Sir, we don't know if that other man was

killed because he was asking questions."

"No, but there's enough reasonable threat that

we need to take it seriously."

The sergeant managed, almost, to suppress a

sigh. "We're not equipped, sir."

"We'll get what we need. Quietly."
"With what funds, sir? Command didn't give us

much of an expense budget."

Aren choked on a caustic laugh and had to put

his coffee down or risk having it end up on his lap.
"Funds? We have funds, Sergeant, don't worry."

"Sir?"
"When I was in cryo, the government wouldn't

classify me as deceased. All this time, I've been
pulling down an officer's salary. One on disability,
and a salary from a hundred years ago, yes, but I
haven't had a lot of expenses. Being not quite dead,
you see. Oh, yes. We have funds."

"May want to get hold of yourself, Major." The

sergeant nodded to Nyachung. "I think that noise
you keep trying to tell me is a laugh is scaring the
kid."

Nyachung's complexion had gone a bit gray.
"Forgive me." Aren tried a little smile, an

apologetic one. It seemed to help. "I should try to
find humor in things less black, eh?"

"Perhaps." Nyachung favored him with a long,

searching look. "Though I think you are simply out
of practice."

"Hmm." Aren switched back to standard.

"What merchant would you go to for supplies?

Here in the city?"

"There is a man. Near the dangpo quarter. He

sells the things we need."

"Good." Aren finished his cereal and rose to

put his dishes in the autosteri. "Sergeant, we're
doing this WLI. Quietly as possible. We don't want
pursuit and we don't want surveillance, if we can
help it."

Nyachung's nictitating eyelid described a slow

blink. "Double you ell eye?"

"The major's using SI jargon, kid," the sergeant

said. "WLI stands for 'without local interference.'
If the situation on the ground's messy enough,
sometimes investigators can't rely on the local
authorities."

"And you cannot." Nyachung nodded as if all

his questions had been answered in those spare
two sentences.

Aren found himself staring at his young charge

again. Sensible, keen in his observances despite
certain naïve blind spots, Nyachung appeared to
harbor few illusions about human nature but an
innate gentleness still wrapped the sharp intellect.

He disturbed Aren profoundly...

Why? It's not that I don't trust him. It's not

that he's one of those vapor-crazed tale-singers
who claim to see the future. He's so unlike my
brash, brazen Akar, though I've certainly met the
type before in dangpo families. A little odd, yes, a
little off balance perhaps, but not to an abnormal
degree in light of the circumstances.

And yet...and yet...
The hairs on his arms stood on end when

Nyachung looked at him a certain way. His
spinning brain ground to a halt as those expressive
black eyes threatened to drown him.

"Well, then." He cleared his throat. "Let's pack

what we need. We won't be returning here today."

A laconic, stone-faced man who exuded retired

fleet ran the shop in question, an establishment
with peeling paint and a door resembling the
scavenged shantytown items. He perused Aren's
list without comment, handed the link back, and
proceeded to plunk items on the counter. EM-float
shoes joined a tightly packed tent cube. Foils of
field provisions lined up in regimented rows

beside a pair of snow poles the sergeant's size.

Nyachung frowned at that last item a moment,

turned to the wall, and retrieved a longer pair of
poles to set beside the first.

"I don't need those, you know," Aren said with

what he hoped was an indulgent smile. "Perfectly
capable of using the shoes hunter style."

"You will tire," Nyachung said in his softest

dangpo. "And will need them."

Aren pulled back, bristling. I'm not some

damn, ignorant...

Right. Before his death, he had skated the

snowfields all day. That was before. He wasn't
that man anymore. "Yes. Very sensible. Of
course."

"You will grow strong again," Nyachung

whispered. "If you allow it."

"Major." The proprietor finally spoke in a

voice of surf on gravel. "You have permits?"

"Why would you ask?"
The man glanced between the three impromptu

travelers. "Just seemed possible. Not having them.
Could get them for you."

"For a price."
"Reasonable one."
Aren gave a dismissive wave. "We're SI. No

need to bother yourself on that account." He gave
another little flick of his fingers when the man's
eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion. "No intention
of reporting anything that's happened here, either.
As a matter of fact, I'd appreciate it if it could be
arranged that we were never here."

"Could be done."
A smile tugged at Aren's mouth. "For a price?"
He received a sudden, fierce grin in answer.

"Reasonable one, sir. No worries."

With supplies and gear distributed between

Nyachung's bag and two new field packs, they left
the shop, the proprietor assuring Aren that all
record of their visit would be erased from the data
stream.

"What now, sir?" Sergeant Wickstrom hefted

her pack, searching the street as if she expected
pursuit. "We hole up somewhere until dark?"

"No. Even the hunters don't like to travel the

ice at night." Aren glanced up at the partially open

blizzard dome above the city. Brilliant sunlight
poured through, all indications and forecasts
predicting fair weather for the next two days. "We
simply walk out."

"Without permits? With the kid in tow, who, I

shouldn't have to remind you, sir, is still officially
in custody?"

"Our custody, Sergeant." Aren started walking

toward the city's edge. "The best way to avoid
suspicion is to look like you're on legitimate
business. Which we are, of course. Just without the
data trail."

At the security checkpoint on the north road out

of the city, Aren had the great pleasure of
surprising his unflappable sergeant as he flashed
his SI credentials, barked some vague and ominous
explanation about checking dome integrity, and got
them waved through without question.

"Major." She shook her head as they filed off

the road to strap on their EM shoes. "If you're not
careful, I might start believing all those old stories
about you."

Chapter 6: Across The

Ice

Without the dome acting as a filter, the sunlight

shattering on the endless fields of snow could
blind the unwary traveler. Emma lowered her face
shield to half-mast, protecting her eyes and the
upper half of her face from the frigid wind. Beside
her, the major drew in a deep, satisfied breath.

"Beautiful," he said with an odd smile.

"Especially this time of year."

Sure, if you like polar temps and nothing but

snow waste into infinity. "Don't know how you
can tell one season from another, sir, when it's
always white on white."

"Isn't always. Summer's coming," he answered

at his most uncommunicative. "The ice sings."

Nyachung gave him a little approving smile. At

least someone knows what the hell he's talking
about.

Then the kid did something to mystify her as

well. He pulled a little tube out of his coat and
held it up for the major to see, a question in his
eyes.

Major Dalsgaard nodded. "Of course. I

couldn't ask you to travel without."

"He would follow."
"I know," the major said with a wave at the

snowfields.

The flute or whistle or whatever the hell it was

made no sound when Nyachung put it to his lips
and blew hard. He took a deep breath and did it
again; eyes squeezed shut, blue suffusing his face
with the effort.

Then the two of them stood staring out over the

sea of white as if they'd turned into companion
pillars of salt.

"Begging your pardon, sir, but what in hell's

name are we doing?"

"Waiting, Sergeant."
"Yes, sir, I see that."
"Won't be a moment." That ironic smile tugged

at the major's lips, though she could have sworn he

looked more wistful than bitter for once.

Here at the planet's equator, the snowfields

lacked the drifts and rugged terrain that would
have made the landscape a security nightmare. It
should have been easy to spot the thing before it
was nearly on top of them but its white and gray
coloring tricked the eye. Sergeant Wickstrom only
spotted movement when it was fifty yards out.

"Holy mother of fusion!" She thrust the major

behind her and whipped out her pistol, laser safety
off. A thing out of nightmare bounded toward them,
blue tongue lolling from its huge jaws, spread-toed
paws the size of dinner plates pounding the snow.

Major Dalsgaard's hand closed over her firing

arm. "Steady, Sergeant. It's just a khyi."

"Just?" she sputtered. The vids and stills of the

things hadn't given any indication of scale. Bio-
engineered as sub-zero temp working dogs,
apparently the dangpo had taken the breeding into
their own hands after arrival. The khyi hurtling
toward them rivaled a small APC in sheer mass,
more closely resembling artist renderings of Old
Earth dire wolves than the Samoyeds from which

they'd been engineered.

"Put the weapon up, please." The major's voice

was at its softest and she wondered if he was
trying to soothe her or the beast coming at them.
"Stand still."

Nyachung wasn't standing still, though. With a

shockingly loud whoop for such a small body, he
launched himself at the monster. The impact didn't
slow the khyi, but it only dragged Nyachung a few
feet before it dropped to roll with him in the snow.
Reluctantly, Emma holstered her pistol when the
kid started to laugh, looking happier than he had
since she'd met him.

"His, I guess?"
The major nodded, a suspicious glisten to his

eyes. Tears? No, the major never cried. She wasn't
sure he remembered how.

"Emma! Ma-jor!" Nyachung rose from the

snow, arms still around his monster's thick-furred
neck. "This is Karpotrinpa! Come greet him so he
knows you."

Major Dalsgaard removed a glove and

advanced toward them at a steady, nonthreatening

pace. "White Cloud--it's a good name for him. He's
beautiful."

Jaws large enough to snap off the major's head

lowered to his exposed hand. The huge head
snuffled delicately at his palm and then moved on
to his face and throat. With a soft whuff, the
monster butted at the major's chest, nearly
knocking him off his feet. Instead of mustering
some sensible amount of alarm, Major Dalsgaard
smiled, reached up a hand, and ruffled the tufted
white ears.

"Trashi delek, Karpotrinpa," the major

murmured close to the thing's ear. "Good to have
you with us."

Emma approached with considerably more

caution, keeping the kid between her and the beast
as a buffer. The khyi seemed to accept her
presence as well after Nyachung introduced her.
Scary, freaky thing but she could certainly
understand how such a monstrosity would be an
asset in the wild.

The EM shoes hummed as they powered up

and then their motley squad took off across the

snowfields, following Nyachung's lead. Emma
fought to find her balance at first. The damn shoes
were tricky, threatening to pitch her on her face
with every step as she shuffled along with her
poles for balance. Both the major and Nyachung
skated ahead, one on either side of the white khyi.
They used the shoes dangpo style, without the
poles, one arm behind the back, using a front shoe
edge to push off and glide on the opposite foot,
more ice-skating than walking.

She tried to emulate them so she wouldn't slow

them too much, tough going at first. With the help
of the poles, though, she kept her nose out of the
snow and her carcass moving forward at a fair
clip.

Major Dalsgaard took pity on her and fell back

to antigrav skate beside her for a bit. He wouldn't
last the whole day at that pace, but so far, his
coloring and his breathing were better than she'd
seen from him during exertion.

"Sir? Do they all have those great beasts?"
He shook his head. "No. They're choosy, the

khyi. Not everyone gets one to attach to them.

Dangpo who do have khyi companions tend to be
hunters..."

She held her breath as his face twisted in pain.

He caught himself before any actual show of
emotion, though.

"Or travelers, like Nyachung. Tale-singers are

sort of historians, messengers, and ambassadors
rolled into one. They keep the pods connected."

"But there are a good number?"
He raised an eyebrow at her. "What are you

getting at, Emma?"

"If they have these protectors..." She hesitated,

unsure she could say it without offending him.
"How did all this...happen?"

His voice was tight with anger when he

answered but it wasn't his frosty voice of personal
offense. "How did they lose control of their own
damn planet, you mean?"

"Yes, sir. That."
Once again, he clamped down on his emotions,

just when she thought they might have a
breakthrough. He drew in a slow breath through
his nose and said calmly, "The dangpo aren't

bellicose by any standard. They never had wars or
raids while they were isolated from the rest of the
universe. It took a lot of explaining to get the
concept across. Individual violence happens,
certainly. But revenge or conquest? Never
occurred to them."

"Got it, sir." Dear lord, did she ever. Fresh

from the end of the glorious Revolution, he came
here as a young officer, still full of freedom-fighter
idealism, the perfect soldier to stand as the
champion of a people who didn't understand that
someone might want to take what was rightfully
theirs.

Sorry it got all screwed up, Major. Damn

sorry.

Toward noon, the major was flagging, his

movements slower, and his complexion edging
toward gray. Emma increased her pace to pull
even with Nyachung.

"How much farther is it, kid?"
The little guy glanced back, chewing on his

bottom lip. "Another day's travel for me."

She got the hint. On his own, the kid could

make time. Towing them along, it might be three
days or more. Damn it.

"Don't know how much more he can do today."
"Will he be...angry if we stop?"
"Probably. We'll give him another hour and

then suggest it."

The first time Major Dalsgaard fell was well

before the hour was up. Emma suggested they stop,
but her timing stank since the major's pride stung
from his nosedive into the snow. Of course, he
insisted they go on.

She helped him knock the snow out of his

gloves. "Your hands are gonna freeze if they're
wet, sir."

"Fussing, Sergeant. Stop it."
"Sorry, sir. Damn kid isn't even wearing

gloves. Hasn't even put his hood up."

Major Dalsgaard accepted the snow poles

from her, with bad grace, but he did. "This is his
element. His blood is glycogen, in part. Doesn't
freeze as fast as ours."

Not forty minutes later, he fell again. Slower to

rise this time, his breathing had picked up an

audible wheeze.

"Major, I'd like to respectfully suggest--"
"Don't." He held up a warning hand. "Do. Not.

I refuse to be a liability on this trek. We go on until
dusk."

You'll be a liability when we have to carry

you. She held onto that thought for later, hoping his
good sense would overrule his pride as it so often
did. It seemed, though, that the major had been left
behind in the city and Serpodom had something to
prove.

The third time he fell, it was actually nearing

dusk. She waited politely for him to pick himself
back up, but this time was different. He lay
facedown in the snow, unmoving.

"Aw, shit and shells," she spat out as she

turned back for him. "Nyachung!"

The kid sped by in a flash of blue and gray,

reached the major, and had him turned over before
she could get there. "I don't think he should be this
color."

"Nope. Gray's not a good look for him. But he's

breathing, so we're still ahead of the game." She

went down on one knee to check the major's vitals.
Depressed but steady. "I think this is as far as he
goes today."

"I will make the tent." Nyachung patted both

hands toward the ground. "Stay with him, Emma?
Please?"

His plea caught her off guard, the frantic

concern bringing a lump to her throat. "'Course I'll
stay with him, kid. It'll be all right."

The khyi settled beside them, curling around

the major in an instinctive attempt to shield him
from the wind.

"Attaboy," she murmured as she propped her

stricken officer up against the furred side, trying to
borrow some warmth for him. The khyi nuzzled at
the major, nudging him closer. "Good to see your
ugly mug's good for something besides chomping
bone." She patted Major Dalsgaard's face. "Sir?
Can you hear me? Major? Aren!"

Nothing. Not a twitch.
The kid had the tent cube out and an

entrenching tool to dig a depression for it in the
hard pack, making a few minutes work out of what

might have taken her an hour. This is his element,
the major had said. Sure as hell was. Once he
finished the rectangular hole, Nyachung placed the
tent cube in the center and pressed the "pitch"
button on top. With flutterings of thermaproof
fabric and the soft clank of the polyceramic frame,
the shelter expanded in a matter of seconds. Emma
joined in the final step of securing the tent in its
depression with a layer of snow around the base to
keep the winds from tumbling it across the
snowfields.

"Good work." Emma tried to roll the tension

from her shoulders. "You grab his feet. Let's get
him inside."

Passed out from exhaustion, hypothermia or

both, Major Dalsgaard was deadweight as they
laid him out on the tent floor. Emma kept her "I
told you so's" behind her teeth as she worked off
his half-soaked gloves, while Nyachung fought
with his boots. She was so intent on getting the
snow-laden thermaskin off the major's fingers, she
missed the exact moment when Nyachung stood
and started to strip.

She blinked up at him as he peeled out of his

over-shirt and tee. "Um, kid? What're you doing?"

"We must warm him." Nyachung's hide pants

hit the floor under their own weight.

"True, I'd say. But why are you shimmying

down to what you were born in?"

"Skin to skin." In nothing but his skivvies,

Nyachung knelt again and started on the major's
clothes. "Wrap us together in one of the night bags.
I am not as warm as a chigyel, but I am warmer
than him now."

He had a point. More than one, though he hadn't

made them. Knowing the major's preferences and
in light of their professional relationship, he sure
as shit wouldn't be comfortable with the thought of
snuggling with his sergeant.

"You sure this is a good idea?"
"Emma, he looks next to death."
"Don't think it's that bad. Not yet, anyway."
A white hand closed over hers, a tremor

running through Nyachung's grip. "Changki let him
die once. We can't be Serpodom's death again."

Family honor. She was surprised that a culture

without warfare had developed a sense of honor,
but there it was. Instead of arguing further, she
helped get the major down to his skivvies and
rolled onto an unfastened thermal bag. When
Nyachung had stretched out next to him and hugged
him close, she flipped the bag over them and
pressed the seam shut.

"I'm stealing some sleep while I can, kiddo.

Yell for me if he gets worse. Or even if he doesn't
get any better."

Some muffled affirmative came from the bag.

God help me, I hope I'm doing the right thing.
The major would simply have to deal with any
embarrassment himself. She could save him from a
lot of things, but not that.

* * * *

Nyachung dozed off and on, restless and

sweat-damp, too warm in the bag's confines for
real sleep. As the major's body warmed, the close
quarters became more uncomfortable, not so much
due to the added heat, but because of his hyper-
awareness of the body beside him.

He is too thin, he fretted initially with the inert

frame nestled up to his. Every rib, every vertebrate
felt too prominent under his hands. When the major
passed from unconsciousness into real sleep some
time after the moons had all risen, Nyachung's
thoughts turned from anxious concern to fighting
sexual distraction. Most likely unaware of what he
did, the major wrapped his long arms around
Nyachung, wonderfully large hands stroking his
back.

Trying to ease his insistent erection away from

the major's stomach brought a hand down to cup
his buttocks, surprising strength in the lean arm that
yanked him close again. He lay still, unwilling to
risk waking his companion, and thought hard about
gutting fish and shoveling bachuk dung, anything
that might cool his growing excitement. It worked
to some extent. At least he didn't shame himself by
humping the major's thigh for relief.

The breaking point came toward dawn, when

the major began to nuzzle at his throat and jaw,
murmuring soft, sweet words in dangpo.

"Akar..." he breathed against overheated skin.

"My Akar..."

The ache lodged in Nyachung's chest made no

sense. He was nothing to this man. Akarnyima had
been everything. But still some bit of his heart
chipped off to realize the words had not been for
him.

He struggled to free an arm so he could

unfasten the bag even as the major's hands traveled
south. "Please. Please wake. I am not your Akar."

With a snort, the major reared back. His green

eyes snapped open to regard Nyachung first with
confusion, then with growing anger. "What the
hell?"

Fighting the tremor in his voice, Nyachung

struggled to extricate himself. "You fainted in the
snow. You were half-frozen..." He scrambled out
of the bag in an ungainly flurry of limbs, kicking
the major in his frantic haste. He snatched his coat
from the floor to hold over his mostly naked body
and to clutch to his equally naked heart. The
outside corners of his eyes stung. Do not weep,
you fool. Haven't you shamed yourself enough?

"I feared you might die." At least the hitch in

his voice was a small one and he saw now that the

sergeant was not in the tent to witness his
mortification. Small favors from the universe.

"Oh." The major levered himself up on one

shaking arm. While he had taken a few steps back
from death's hearth, he still didn't look well.
Worse, now his face flushed with chigyel
embarrassment. "Forgive me. I was dreaming, I
suppose. Did I...?" He glanced down at the floor,
unable to finish his question.

"You have no cause for shame," Nyachung

hurried to fill the gap. "You slept and grew warm
again. Nothing more."

"Thank you." The major offered him that ironic

quirk of a half-smile. "You have a kind heart. And
thank you for saving me from myself."

Nyachung turned his back to pull his pants on,

buying some time before he had to face those too-
aware eyes again. Kind, yes. That's all I should
be, nothing more. But, oh, those long fingers
tracing over his skin...

He switched to the chigyel language, easier to

hide emotion when one struggled with grammar. "I
could not watch you freeze. That tale I could not

sing, to be the cause of your second death."

"You would not be the cause." The major

replied in dangpo. "To sing truth, you would have
to compose a ballad to my stupidity and
stubbornness."

Nyachung sat cross-legged beside him. "You

are far from stupid."

A little chuckle came from the major,

surprisingly warm. "But you carefully don't
mention the other."

"Only a stubborn man could return from death."

Nyachung fiddled with his shirt, fighting the
nervous urge to scratch at his arm. "You rescued
me. Someone you did not know. I would be your
friend...Aren. A man should have friends."

"'To keep back the dark, to speak the truth, to

hold remembrance close.' Is this still said?"

"It is."
The major...Aren...reached over to grip his

knee. "Thank you."

Emma returned while Aren tried, with shaking

hands, to dress. "Good to see you up, sir. You're
not thinking of getting up, though, are you?"

"We can't simply squat here, Sergeant. Our

supplies will only reach so far and we have
matters that can't wait."

She closed the tent flap and squatted by them.

"All due respect, sir, I'm not trying to be difficult.
But we came close to losing you yesterday."

"I'll use the poles." Aren's brows drew

together, his jaw clenched. "Try for a more
sensible pace. But we can't stay here."

Nyachung exchanged a worried glance with the

sergeant, but since it appeared Aren would leave
without them if he had to, they packed up and
prepared to go on.

Another glorious day of sun-jeweled snow

stretched before them, though Nyachung smelled a
squall on the way, perhaps a day or so out. He
hoped it would wait until they had reached the line
of boxes. Perhaps if Aren saw them, he would
agree to camp and rest while they rode out the
storm.

He set a slower pace, agonizing for him, but

better for the major. Even with the poles, Aren
began to show signs of strain after the first hour,

his lungs struggling for air. When they reached the
first expanse of ice field, he fell farther and farther
behind, despite Nyachung's efforts to slow his
steps. Even Emma struggled on the ice, forced to
drive the point of her pole in at every step to gain
enough purchase to move the shoes forward.

Karpotrinpa went back to nose Aren along,

pushing him forward when his arms began to fail.
His actions sparked a marvelous idea.

"Aren!" Nyachung skated back as fast as he

could. "Give me the poles."

Green eyes blinked at him behind the chigyel

face shield. "Hard as it is for me to say, I think I
might fall on my face without them."

"Yes, yes, I know." He took the poles from

Aren's trembling fingers and collapsed them for
carrying in the pack. Aren still stared at him,
obviously mystified. "Hold onto Karpotrinpa. He
will pull you across the ice."

"Ah. You're a genius, little one."
The khyi's shoulder stood almost even with the

major's, so it was no strain for Aren to reach out
and wrap both hands in the thick fur of his ruff.

"Kee-yah! Go!" Nyachung waved at

Karpotrinpa and the khyi trotted off, hard nails
digging easily into the ice where snow poles
failed.

With Aren khyi-propelled and Nyachung

helping to push Emma along, they reached the other
side of the Sharlok ice field in a little over an
hour. The push-pull method didn't work as well on
the increasingly uneven ground of the snowfields,
though, Aren's ever-increasing curses witness to
how difficult it was to hang onto Karpotrinpa over
each hillock and short rise. After half a mile,
Nyachung conceded and gave the snow poles back
to him.

The major called a halt at noon, ostensibly for

lunch, but he trembled so badly by then, Emma had
to open the food packet for him. He curled up for
what he called a "catnap" against Karpotrinpa's
side and then couldn't be roused when the time he
had allotted expired.

"Emma, he will not last. I fear for him."

Nyachung found himself stroking Aren's shoulder
and he snatched his hand away, unsure if such

contact would have been welcome.

"Yeah, me, too, kid. Another month or two, he

probably would've been strong enough. Right
now? He was barely making it through a whole
day without all the exertion."

"There is a storm coming. Even in the tent, he

might not survive."

Emma raised her head to squint over the snow,

her age-seamed face lost in thought. "Hey, kid?
You ride those beasties sometimes, don't you?
Your khyi?"

He tipped his head to one side, considering.

"Yes, but we are small, and Ar--the ma-jor can't
hold on."

"He doesn't weigh much more than you right

now. Besides, the stories say he rode his, right?
Blocked the road into the city and all that."

"He--" Truth. Dawanying must have been a

huge male to carry Serpodom in his prime, but he
had. "Could we..." He gestured to indicate tying a
knot.

"Strap him on? Worth a try."
Nyachung took one of his extra shirts from his

bag and tore it into strips. While he hated the loss
of a good shirt, Aren's survival outweighed such
things. He explained what they were about to
Karpotrinpa, who seemed to understand, wagging
his tail and standing patiently as they lifted Aren
onto his back. They secured him facedown with his
arms circling the khyi's neck, legs tied under the
barrel of his ribcage.

"He could still slide sideways." The thought of

Aren slipping off to be dragged through the snow
made him shudder. Friend, yes, he had said that,
and he had meant it, but somewhere in the night, he
had crossed an invisible boundary. To lose Aren
would be to lose more than a friend. How much
more, he was unwilling to look at yet.

"Guess it's like securing cargo to the roof of a

hover truck." Emma fished in her pack and came
up with a length of rope. "Just have to get him
lashed down good and tight."

She fashioned a harness that looped around

Karpotrinpa's front legs and chest, and then
secured the ends under Aren's shoulders and
around his waist.

"We must go, Emma." The sharp scent of

threatening weather had strengthened ominously
while they had rested. He wished, now more than
ever, that his command of the chigyel language
were more complete. "The storm...rides a faster
khyi."

"Gotcha. Is there somewhere we can go for

shelter?"

"The gunkha nang. The...winter place.

House." No, that wasn't quite right, but he couldn't
find the word.

"I thought your folks were nomads."
He gazed at her long and hard, as if somehow

he could read her soul. There were things no
chigyel was told. None but Serpodom. If they
reached his goal, she would know soon enough,
though. "In summer, we take the herds." He took up
Aren's pack as well as his. "But even dangpo
won't live through winter on the ice."

"Go, kid." She pointed north with her chin. "I'll

follow fast as I can manage. You take your beastie
and make time."

"But--"

"I've got your trail if I lose sight. Move!"
He jumped at the whip crack of her voice and

his feet moved before he could tell them not to,
Karpotrinpa bounding beside him. She was right,
of course. Serpodom had reason for returning to
life, and he could not die again before
accomplishing it.

Chapter 7:

Remembrance

The world lurched and spun in dim snatches of

half-seen images. Snow. Sun. White fur. Rising
cliffs. A dangpo in Changki gray run-skated
beside him, but the angle of view was wrong. He
couldn't move, couldn't call out to ask questions.

Light faded. He faded. Storm clouds?

Emma...where was Emma? Head pounding, Aren
closed his eyes, willing the nauseating lurching to
stop.

So damn cold. I'm dying again. How many

times does a man have to die?

Rock replaced ice. Soft voices near his head.
"...gone mad? To bring him here?"
"He is ours, khepa bumé. This is Serpodom."
That voice he knew. Whose was it?
"What lies have they told you, child? Ach, how

could I have sent you to those people?"

"Grandmother, he knows the stories. He knows

Serpodom's last words. He told them to me. They
have a way of keeping the body whole, the
chigyel. They dragged him back from his rest."

A hand fisted in his hair and lifted his head. He

struggled to focus, but all he could piece together
from the dim, jerking images was a khepa bumé's
bone necklace.

"He is not well." The female voice sounded

resigned. "We won't be known as the pod who
throws ailing strangers out into the storm."

The lurching became mild rocking, which then

faded into soft, blissful oblivion.

When he opened his eyes the next time, he lay

on clean, soft furs in a proper floor bed. The khepa
bumé sat beside him, watching over him.

I know this chamber, this place... He smiled

for her, a sudden lump lodged in his throat at the
rush of relief. "It's all been a vile, evil dream.
Grandmother, I'm so glad to wake up at home.
Where is Akar?"

Her snow-white brows drew together. "Poor

boy. I think you are what our little fish says.

Akarnyima is long gone to his rest. We had thought
you gone with him."

The nose was too long, the ears too small...

"You're not Erbe khepa bumé. Where is she?"
Panic clawed at his chest. He was home.
Everything should have been right again. He
couldn't go back into black despair. Not again, not
again...

"Erbe was my grandmother. She has been dead

many years."

Grief rushed through the void of shock, the

chamber's air suddenly soup-thick and impossible
to breathe. He struggled with the furs, fighting their
insistent clinging. "Where is Akar? Where is he?"

Instead of answering him, she turned her head

and called, "Nyachung!"

Bare feet slapped on stone out in the corridor

as a young dangpo male careened into the
chamber. Aren knew him. Had known him. Would
know him. Time bent and twisted back to hover
around the anxious figure in the door arch.
Nyachung. My friend. Oh, God...all lost...they're
all gone...

An adrenaline burst of energy propelled him

off the bed. He scrabbled on hands and knees to
Nyachung and seized his wrist. His voice hoarse
and cracking, he demanded, "Take me to see him. I
need to know where he is. You know where he is."

The khepa bumé shook her head. "He is lost,

grandson. They woke him and he cannot tell one
season from another."

Nyachung covered his hand in a gentle grip,

eyes searching Aren's face. "No. He knows. I am
certain of it. And he knows what I keep in my head
as tale-singer." He put a hand under Aren's elbow
to help him up. "I know all the names. All the
places. Of course I will take you."

Aren clawed his way up that slender body,

using it as a ladder to regain some of his dignity by
standing upright. The loose pants, the courtesy
sleeves that covered his arms from wrist to elbow,
these were the only clothes Nyachung wore, all so
achingly familiar and so terribly strange to cling to
someone dressed this way who was not his love.

"Slow breaths," Nyachung murmured. "I have

you." White arms slid around him, keeping him off

his knees. Step by slow step, they made their way
into the corridor. The hall sloped downward,
warmth under his bare feet from the geothermal
duct tunnels running beneath the floors. Stone worn
smooth from generations of feet crossing this way
eased his shuffling passage.

All so familiar. All so wrong.
They passed chamber after chamber, cross-

corridor after cross-corridor. A people bred for
mining, the dangpo had tunneled far under the
northern mountain ranges, each gunkha nang
honeycombed out of the native stone. Here the
winter winds couldn't reach. Here the ground
would never give way beneath your feet as it might
on the ice.

Finally, they reached the level where living

spaces gave way to larger chambers: the gathering
hall, winter stores, bachuk corrals, the smithy, and
the potters' and weavers' workshops. A long,
curving corridor stretched past the workplaces,
muffling the sounds of industry by slow degrees.
Only their own footsteps and the labored, self-
conscious sounds of every drawn breath

accompanied them around the last curve.

The walls opened suddenly into a space so

vast it stole breath and thought; no matter how
many times one witnessed it. The vaulted stone
roof disappeared into the shadows. The walls
arced in sinuous waves without a recognizable
pattern, creating grottoes and outward curves,
small side chambers and hidden nooks.

Past generations had carved steps all along

these curling walls, up and down in dizzying
arrangements, all with a single purpose: to reach
the hundreds upon hundreds of niches carved in the
stone.

Aren let his gaze wander up the walls, into the

shadows. "I hope he's not up high. Akar never
liked heights."

"I think they knew."
Nyachung steered him gently onward, farther

into the remembrance cavern. Around a bend in the
wall, they reached a spot where two niches near
the cavern floor sat in respectful isolation. Painted
scrollwork surrounded both niches but no others
interrupted the walls for some meters on either

side.

They spoke no words. Aren didn't need any. As

tradition dictated for hunters, the deceased's knife
had been driven into the stone in the niche's center.
He knew the carvings on the bone handles of these
two knives better than he knew his own hands. The
dangpo had placed their remembrances side by
side. Akarnyima on the left as the elder of the pair,
Serpodom on the right.

I'm staring at my own grave.
He reached out to caress Akar's knife, the bone

worn smooth by his hand, that beloved hand...

The hand that would never touch his again.

Never rest against his back in sleep. Never caress
his face to calm him. Gone. The body given to the
scavengers as tribute to the spirits, his own spirit
long gone. All that remained were two knives,
standing side by side, as they had in life. Two
graves. Cracks and seams ran along the leather
wrapping on both hilts. Old leather. Brittle.
Leather that had stood in the dry cavern for a
hundred years.

He dropped to his knees. "I shouldn't be here,"

he whispered.

Pain swelled around his heart, black streaked

with red, a sudden flood of agony surging through
him. He curled over his knees. A keening sound
forced its way through his constricted throat. The
flood grew to a torrent, a deluge; he was drowning
in it, all the debris of memory slamming into him
repeatedly as his heart cracked and the empty ache
of something missing transformed into searing
anguish.

He beat his fists against the stone, bellowing

his grief, all his pain pouring out to fill the cavern
with his echoing cries. "I can't be here! I can't be
here! He's gone and I'm still here!"

A soft hand landed on his shoulder. A pair of

white arms wrapped around him. He roared in
fury, trying to break free, but the arms, the wrong
arms, only held tighter.

"I will stay beside you, Aren," Nyachung

whispered near his ear. "I will not abandon you,
even if you strike me. Your friend. I am your
friend."

The sharp crack inside him felt as if his spine

had snapped. He clung to the body supporting him,
broken, shattered into a thousand spun-glass
fragments. The void yawned beneath him, no
comfort, and no end. No longer able to speak, he
howled like an animal, his surroundings faded to
gray half-awareness.

Tsewa, are you happy? Akar had surprised

him with that question one night in their bed. Do
you long for those like you?

Never. He had answered like the love struck

fool he had been. I have no need for chigyel when
I will always have you.

Always. How short "always" had turned out to

be.

His cheeks were wet. His head rested on a

slender shoulder. Storm swells of sobs heaved
through his body.

A soft voice, a stranger's, spoke, "Shall we

help you, singer? Perhaps get him to bed?"

"No, let him be," Nyachung murmured against

his hair. "He has gone too long without this."

Soft footfalls moved away, leaving them alone.

Nyachung rocked him, stroking his back and his

hair, but he uttered no word of false comfort, no
admonishments to be silent. Somewhere in the
substrata of pain, a spark of anger grew. He clung
to it and rode it up from the depths.

"They stole my death," he whispered. "Why

did my family let them do this? Why wasn't I given
sky burial with Akar?"

Nyachung adjusted his hold, letting Aren lean

his full weight against him. "Erbe khepa bumé
used your speaking link to call your people. They
said feeding your body to the jago and jalak was
barbaric and would not allow it. The Changki met
them on the ice and gave you back to them. It
seemed right to them then."

It must have seemed right. My grieving

family...they couldn't have known.

He sat back on his heels, shivering, arms

wrapped tight around his ribs. "He didn't know me.
At the end. I think he only saw his own terrible
nightmares. I stayed by him knowing...no, I refused
to know. I told myself he would be one of those
who lived through the fever."

"Of course you hoped." Nyachung put a hand

on his knee, anchoring him.

He looked up into those black eyes. "He struck

out again and again. I knew the risk. I think part of
me...wanted to die."

"And now?"
"Now..." Aren's gaze wandered back to the

remembrance niches. "I don't know. Now is so
very far away from then. So long gone. I am a
walking corpse."

"You breathe. You sleep. You speak."

Nyachung touched two fingers to Aren's forehead,
chest, and stomach. "You have mind, heart, and
fire. A corpse is merely a shell, what is left when
the occupant has gone. You are still here."

"It's hard to tell some days. I'm so hollow."
Nyachung took his hands, thumbs caressing the

backs. "You are so tired still. And your body
starved from whatever method they used to keep
you...whole. How many men can say they have
been gifted with a second life in the same skin?"

Aren could only nod mutely, watching those

white fingers whisper across his skin. Heat pooled
in his belly, his traitorous body yearning toward

the sensual comfort offered. There was no doubt
now of the offer, with Nyachung's lower lip caught
between his teeth and his ears blue-tinged.

"Aren..." The word came out on a hard breath

before Nyachung shook his head. "Do you need a
few moments here? Should I return for you?"

"I've seen what I needed to see." The physical

evidence of a century passing had shaken him more
than he cared to admit. "I'm...pleased he was so
honored." And I'm lost and confused as hell.
"Where's the sergeant?"

"Emma is resting. The hunters brought her in

from the storm, but she is well."

Aren struggled to his feet, a task possible only

with Nyachung's help. "Why was she out in a
storm?"

"She sent me ahead and said she would follow.

She is a skilled tracker, your Sergeant Emma, and
had nearly reached the gunkha nang on her own."

Aren frowned as he took the first unsteady step

to leave the chamber. "I'll need to speak with her.
She shouldn't have risked herself that way."

"Later. After you both have rested."

Nyachung's arm curled around him again. "I'll take
you to my chamber. Quieter there than the khepa
bumé's. You should eat, too, if you have any
stomach for it."

The walk back to Nyachung's chamber was

shorter, his quarters farther down in the caverns.
Karpotrinpa lifted his shaggy head from where he
napped in the corner, and gave a sniff and a soft
whuff of greeting before he lay back down. Thick
carpets of warm red and gold covered the floor.
The tools of the singer's trade were arranged with
painstaking care around the room. A delicate kupa
rolcha rested against the wall by the head of the
bed, the curving silver necks polished to gleaming,
the gut strings carefully slack, ready for tuning.
Several tamaru sat in a precise pyramid against
the far wall, the little hide drums stacked by size.
A long, thin leather pouch, most likely containing a
shugyak, the singer's traditional flute, sat precisely
parallel to the table edge on which it lay. Unlike so
many bachelors' quarters across the galaxy, there
were no discarded dishes, no half-eaten bits of
food, not a scrap of cloth out of place.

Such a desperate need for order, my friend.

I'm so sorry. What all this must have done to
you...

He felt light-headed, disconnected, and didn't

resist when Nyachung pushed him down onto the
bed furs. Glancing up into that worried face, a
realization hit him like a sledge blow to the heart.
It truly had been a hundred years, but he was home
with family now. He thought it had been self-
preservation to hide from his grief, but it had been
an inability to feel the reality of his situation bone-
deep. Intellectually, certainly, he'd understood, but
he had refused to accept it in any way that
mattered.

Akar was only a song here, a memory handed

down from past generations' singers. But all
around him now, the beautiful young man standing
over him, in caverns above and below, were
Changki, people who carried Akar with them, if
only in a chromosomal sense, in their very cells.
Family. He had come here thinking to do his duty
as an officer to the best of his ability. While he
still intended to, the mission paled beside his true

purpose. The grief remained but tempered with
resolve. Nyachung had brought him a better
mission.

I'm here to help my family.

* * * *

Nyachung closed the carved stone door to his

chamber as soundlessly as possible. After a bowl
of bachuk stew and a few songs played for him on
the kupa rolcha, Aren had dropped off to sleep.
Nyachung had gazed down at his handsome face,
finally peaceful again, and had forced himself to
leave before he could lift the furs and crawl into
bed beside him.

Leaning against the corridor wall, he closed

his eyes, scratching fretfully at his arm and trying
not to think.

A hand closed over his. "Nya, stop. You have

not done this since you were small."

His eyes flew open to find his mother had

stopped his scratching, humor and concern warring
on her wind-seamed face. "Ama--" He broke off
when his voice cracked.

"What is it? What makes you weep?"

"I'm not..." The fingers he touched to his cheek

came away wet. "I don't know what to do."

His mother slid her arms around him to hold

him tight. It still gave his heart a turn that she was
half a head shorter than he was now. "About your
visitor? Does he bring such a heavy burden with
him?"

"I would lighten all his burdens if I could."

When his mother pulled back with a quizzical
look, he went on, "He...I took him to see where
Akarnyima's knife rests. It was so sad. Ama, he
howled with grief. Howled."

She reached up to wipe fresh tears from his

face. "It takes some men that way. Sometimes the
quietest ones do."

He shook his head, not to negate her statement,

but to try to force his next out. "I know it's foolish,
but I wish... I..."

"That someone would howl like that for you?

That he would?"

Mouth open, he stared at her but couldn't come

up with a denial. It would have been a lie.

She stroked his hair back from his forehead.

"He does not need more grief, Nya, does he? Has
he shown any interest in you? Will he be staying
with us?"

"I don't...it's not as if..."
"Our Nya. You have grown into a brave,

forthright man, but some things remain unchanged."
She swatted his chest. "So much agony over
questions unasked."

He still stood with his mouth hanging open as

she walked away, shaking her head. I can't simply
ask such things. Can I? To risk humiliation, to ask
such selfish things of someone recovering from
terrible shocks, it was unthinkable. Wasn't it? Or
was he simply hiding behind courtesy again, as the
grandmother said he so often did?

Hiding. Out here in the hallway. I am.

Coward. If Aren didn't want him, or was still too
grief stricken to accept comfort, well and good.
Let the man say so. His lonely, wishful brain might
have imagined it, but he thought more than once
there had been some flicker of attraction, some
spark of recognition showing through the thick ice
walls Aren had built.

He slipped back inside his chamber, leaning

his shoulder against the door to close it. One of
Aren's arms had slid from beneath the furs and
trailed on the floor, his sleeve pushed up to his
elbow. Nyachung's heart turned to see how thin
that arm was. He wanted to care for this man,
nurture him, and protect him from the demands of
the outside world until he was well and strong
again. He ached...oh, spirits he ached for this man,
in ways both familiar in their carnal longing and
strange in their heart-wrenching poignancy.

Finally resolved, he tucked the wayward arm

back under the furs and slid into bed after it to
keep Aren's nightmares at bay. This time, if they
woke with limbs tangled and hands twined, he
would not leap away like some guilty child caught
with forbidden sweets. Perhaps Aren would shove
him away, but he would have to make that choice
himself.

* * * *

Aren jerked awake, the frightened cry still

resonating in his chest. He lay paralyzed, breathing
in shallow gasps. The dream--yes, it had been a

dream--faded quickly into a jumbled mosaic of
images, but Akar had been there, standing on the
ice. The ice had cracked and swallowed him
whole but it hadn't been ice. It had been plastiplex,
the kind used in trauma ward beds, and Aren could
still see him far down under the layers somehow
swimming away from him as the ice caved in...

It's all right, a soft voice had murmured.

You're safe.

He blinked the room into focus. Red and gold

wall hangings. Golden brown furs. The kupa
rolcha by the wall. He was warm, though cool
skin lay against his. "Nyachung?"

"I'm here. It was only a dream."
Confused, Aren pulled back far enough to see

his friend's face, black eyes regarding him with
some emotion he couldn't puzzle out. "I...was I too
cold again?"

"No," Nyachung whispered hoarsely. "I wished

to lie beside you."

"You..." Aren became aware of the hand

stroking his back, the thigh pressed close to his, the
arm on which his head lay pillowed. "Little one,

I'm not..." The man you think I am, the man you
want me to be. "I don't think this..." He reached
behind his back and stopped the passage of that
distracting hand. "Nyachung, what's happening
here?"

Nyachung swallowed hard but didn't withdraw

his arms. "Nothing you don't wish to happen. You
have my word."

A singer's word was more than a promise. It

was sacred. "I'm not Serpodom. Not anymore. If
you're hoping for a hero--"

A finger on his lips stopped him. "You are Ma-

jor Aren Dalsgaard. My rescuer. My friend. The
man sleeping in my bed. The man I find myself
drawn to more and more every moment. The man
who was angry with me for withholding
information and who wept in my arms. I do not
want or hope for anyone other than who you are."

The signs had all been there. It wasn't as if he

hadn't noticed the younger man's growing interest.
He had simply ignored it, unable to look at it for
fear of leaving himself exposed to emotions he
couldn't allow. Somewhere in the back of his mind

he'd known the attraction would have to be dealt
with, but he hadn't expected such calmly
expressed, mature desire.

Aren curled his fingers around Nyachung's,

pressing the backs to his lips. "I'd be lying if I said
I didn't find you beautiful. You are." He waited
while Nyachung's eyes closed on a little shiver.
Not good. "I like your company and I'm grateful for
your patience with a stubborn fool and for your
care. But I'm not strong enough, in any respect, for
a pairing. Not in mind, body or heart. You
understand?"

"I do. Your grief is fresh. Your body

recovering from its long sleep. I won't force my
way into your embrace if you don't wish to have
me here. I won't ask for anything you can't give."
Nyachung took Aren's face between his hands, his
thumbs gently caressing his cheekbones. "But let
me lie with you and hold you. Let me hold back the
dark for you."

"I..."
The hands fluttered away from his face like

wounded birds, the confidence draining from

Nyachung's expression. "Or send me away if you
cannot bear to have me so close. I will still watch
over you."

"Nya." He used the short form as much as an

endearment as to hide the quake in his voice. "I
don't want to send you away. But I don't want to
hurt you."

"If you do, I will live on. My decision to risk

such things."

Aren opened his mouth to object and found he

couldn't. He had made the mistake of thinking of
Nyachung as a boy because he was small, even
when he knew better. This was a grown man,
stating he would make his own decisions, thank
you. He relented and folded Nyachung in his arms,
pulling him in close to his chest. "Stay with me,
then."

I didn't know how badly I needed to hold

someone. To be held.

Nyachung surprised him one more time that

afternoon, tipping his head back to lick at the
stubbled underside of Aren's jaw. The shivering
huff of breath he let out had nothing to do with cold

and everything to do with lonely desperation. He
caught Nyachung's face between his hands and bent
his head to capture soft, blue-white lips in a
searching kiss. The answering press of lips echoed
his own loneliness. Nyachung's arms slid around
his neck, his body pressing close, chest to chest,
groin to groin. His teeth tugged at Aren's lower lip,
and then released as Nyachung's tongue plunged
into his mouth.

Chest constricted, Aren pulled back to drag in

a gasping breath, and to his utter horror, let out a
jaw-cracking yawn.

Another man might have been angry or

offended. Nyachung choked back a laugh. "Forgive
me." He combed his fingers through Aren's hair.
"You woke too soon. Go back to sleep."

"I have things I should be seeing to."
"The storm howls outside. What would you

do? When you wake again, I'll take you to Emma,
and then you can decide what next to do."

He couldn't argue against good sense. With

Nyachung's head cradled on his shoulder, he
drifted back into a quieter sleep.

Chapter 8: Tale-Singer

"Clever little mites," Emma muttered as she

poked at one of the polished stones that acted as
lamps. Recessed into the walls at intervals, they
emitted a soft, amber glow, making luminescent
pools of the surrounding rock. So far, she'd been
unable to divine their power source or means of
illumination. "Low tech subsistence culture, my
ass."

She limped back to her floor bed in her thick

fur slippers. When the hunters had found her, she'd
been getting desperate as whiteout conditions
closed in and the temperature plunged below what
her thermal gear could handle. She'd been lucky.
Her feet sustained some frostbite but it didn't look
like she would lose any toes, especially with the
miraculous paste her dangpo hosts had slathered
all over her hands and feet the moment they
brought her in.

Not ready for a twenty-mile full pack march

yet, but I could if I had to.

The kid... no, she had to stop thinking of him

like that. Nyachung had stopped by with regular
updates about the major. By the way people
deferred to him, it was obvious he was a respected
member of the community, a man with at least
some authority. Odd to see their shy, nervous
friend in his own element. Not that he was
suddenly a loud, strutting peacock, but he spoke
with more confidence, even moved with greater
surety here than he had in the city.

"Emma?"
Speak of the devil... "Hey. How's himself this

evening?"

Nyachung ducked his head, a blue tinge

spreading over the tops of his ears. "He is...much
recovered. And asks for you."

"About damn time," she muttered as she heaved

herself to her feet again. "Lying around like we're
on shore leave."

"He has not been well," Nyachung said stiffly.

"And then he..." He waved a hand and looked
away, apparently abandoning his moment of

offense.

"He what, kiddo? He is all right, isn't he?"
"Better. Yes." He took her arm to help steady

her. "I took him to the... I do not know the word
you use. The place you go to visit the dead."

"Took him to Akar's grave, sounds like." She

tried to picture the scene, with what she could
glean from Nyachung's reactions. "Didn't take it
well, did he?"

Nyachung's lips compressed. "It was difficult.

A second storm for him to battle."

"And now?"
"He is..." Nyachung cocked his head to one

side like a little bird, a habit she'd noticed when he
searched for a word in standard. "Steady.
Steadier? Does one say that?"

"Steadier works for me." She concentrated on

walking normally instead of as if she was treading
on transistor filaments. "Health wise?"

"He has slept much. Has eaten well. For him."
She knew what he meant. The major needed

constant refueling, but she'd never seen him eat
more than a bird's portion at any sitting. There

were old stills and vids of him; he'd been a big
man. Hard to see how he'd ever regain his former
mass at the rate he was going.

When they got to Nyachung's room, the major

glanced up from his perusal of a complicated metal
contraption that looked like a stunted metal tree.
He sat in his shirtsleeves, more relaxed and rested
than Emma ever remembered seeing him. He even
managed a smile, and damn if he didn't actually
look happy to see her.

"Emma!" He rose, the smile fading. "Are you

all right?"

"That fussing thing goes both ways, sir," she

warned him. "Feet are a little frost burned is all."

"Of course, Sergeant."
He turned to put the contraption down,

probably a musical instrument, and looked
unaccountably flustered, as if he couldn't puzzle
out how to put it down. Nyachung patted his arm,
took it from him gently, and placed it against the
wall at the foot of the bed, making minute
adjustments to its position until he seemed
satisfied.

When the major said something in dangpo, he

looked almost...sheepish. The soft smile and softer
answer he received along with a caress to his
shoulder had Emma blinking hard. The things you
miss when you're stuck in bed.

"Nyachung's asked that we join the family for

dinner this evening."

"That a good idea, kiddo?" She turned to their

host. "We won't scare the kids?"

"The children have seen chigyel."
It wasn't so much the kids that concerned her,

though. From what she'd seen, the dangpo had
secrets and probably wanted to keep it that way.
"Wouldn't want to feel like we're intruding."

"This is my family," Major Dalsgaard said as

he pulled on his jacket. Something had crept into
his voice that had been missing before, a hint of
fire, maybe. "And you are a guest."

"I'll tell Mother you will both come."

Nyachung threw a last look over his shoulder, the
longing unmistakable, before he hurried off.

Emma waited until his footfalls faded out of

earshot. "Not getting it, sir."

"Hmm? What would that be?"
"The whole nomad front. Why do they do it?"
He glanced up from fastening his boots, his

brow wrinkled. "It's not a front, Emma."

"But they have all this." She waved a hand at

the chamber, indicating the lighting, the plumbing,
all the comforts of home.

"True. But they depend on the herds for so

many things. It's not possible to grow enough food
underground to sustain them year round. So during
the green season, they travel to the equatorial
region to let the bachuk graze and to restock the
vegetative supplies."

"None of the files I saw mentioned any of this,

sir." She failed to keep the accusation out of her
voice.

He sat on the floor bed. "No. They did not."
"When you came here the first time--"
"The first time, I came to handle a murder case.

One the local authorities wanted to call an
accident. A simple matter of professional jealousy
that got out of hand. But while I was here, I got to
know some of the dangpo. I requested an extended

assignment, to study their language and culture."

"And you never realized they had tech?"
His forehead creases deepened. "I knew. I

lived here. Shared a chamber with Akar."

"Sir...you..." She didn't want to make the

charge, not against an officer she genuinely liked.
"You withheld information from Command?"

He wrapped his arms around his ribs, the

defensive position he took against the constant
chill he always seemed to feel. "I made decisions
as the man in the field, yes. I chose to protect the
dangpo. To preserve their privacy."

"The brass never knew?"
"I think..." He shrugged. "They had what was

left of my personal files after I died. I'd deleted so
much, but I think there were enough hints, enough
damning omissions, that they guessed the data was,
ah, less than complete."

"Were you reprimanded, sir? When they woke

you?"

"Rather long time to wait for a reprimand,

don't you think?" A visible shiver ran through him
as he took her elbow and steered her into the hall.

"I'm starting to piece things together now, though. I
think their suspicion about the dangpo's actual
level of tech is one of the reasons I'm here and not
some other investigator."

"Not sure I follow, sir."
"Not sure I do yet, either. Not at all. It could

all be post-cryo paranoia."

"Can't help you, Major, if you keep me in the

dark."

"Let me hang onto this just a bit longer. Just

until we get out there and get a look at those damn
boxes."

She let her silence serve as her statement of

discontent, but she knew Dalsgaard by now. Push
him, and he just got mulish; let him arrive at things
on his own terms, and everyone was happier.

The silent treatment only lasted until another

thought hit her. "Sir? Is it old tech? Corporation
tech? The rock lights, the heating?"

His eyes took on an unfocused look, the one

that meant he was trolling back through his
considerable mental files. "Possible that some of it
is. The dangpo were brought here as mine slaves.

No autonomy. Divided into workers and breeders.
But the Andalusian Corporation pulled out of the
operation here very suddenly. Abandoned the
dangpo. Marooned them here."

"Nice of them. Not cost effective?"
"At the time, the first uprisings had started. I

think they needed to consolidate military forces
and fully expected to return to the venture
someday. It's all speculation at this point, of
course. Left to themselves, the dangpo adapted.
They have a deeply ingrained wariness toward
high-tech cultures, so presumably they picked and
chose what they felt was practical, necessary, and
safe, tech-wise."

"No comm equipment. No data storage."
"None at all. Hence the singers."
She turned that over a moment. "Because data

storage can be hacked. And comm signals traced.
And the slave-owners were expected back
someday."

"Yes."
"And when someone else showed up instead?"
"They were understandably cautious. The

Treaty settlers knew there had been a race of
miners dumped here. They had the Corporation
records. But they assumed the dangpo had all died
out when they didn't show on initial scans. Imagine
their surprise when the first dangpo hunters
wandered up to the settlements, speaking halting
standard and offering part of their catch to settlers
they saw as woefully unprepared for the oncoming
winter."

Cautious. Sure, she could see that. The new

generation still well versed in their parents' stories
of slave-owners, unsure if these strangers were
different, or possibly worse. "So they staged a
tactical retreat to the Outlands. Limit contact. Limit
information."

"A culturally unanimous decision to shield

themselves. Just in case."

They passed a workshop with huge threaded

frames that Emma thought might be looms. The next
chamber held potters wheels and kilns. A practical
people. Self-contained. She respected that. "So
why deal with the settlers at all?"

"It always comes down to economics, doesn't

it?" the major said in a dry tone. "One could say it
was a matter of land use rights. The settlers had
plunked their buildings down in the equatorial
zone, so the dangpo had to deal with them to
ensure safe grazing for the herds in summer. The
dangpo knew where and when lumanium could be
mined safely, since the geology of the planet's a bit
tricky and instrument readings are often unreliable
here."

"So what happened, sir?" Emma prompted

softly. "Sounds like everybody was on equal
footing."

"Linguistic barriers. Cultural

misinterpretations. By the time I arrived, a good
deal of contempt was already building in the cities
for the dangpo. Uneducated savages, that sort of
thing. When they started to write the charter for
Drass to become a Treaty planet, there was a lot of
maneuvering to cut the dangpo completely out of
the process, to leave them without official
recognition as Treaty citizens."

"Until you stepped in."
"Yes." The major halted, his eyes squeezed

shut as if he fought against a sudden, stabbing pain.
"Yes. Forced the settlers to deal fairly and set the
stage for contempt to grow into racial hatred."

A sudden need to erase that desolate

expression hit Emma hard. It wasn't as if she could
hug him, pat his back, and make everything
magically better. But damn it, if more men were
like him... "You're only responsible for your own
actions, sir. You can't be responsible for other
people's."

His dry snort signaled the return of his ironic

façade. "I'm a Fleet officer, Sergeant. I sure as hell
can be."

"Suppose there's something to that, sir."
Echoing voices ahead of them heralded a place

where the rock opened up into a larger chamber.
The bends in the hallway misdirected the ear,
though, and Emma thought it had to be a few
hundred yards off when suddenly the rock opened
on their left to reveal what Nyachung had called
the "gathering space."

Though the chamber extended a good fifty feet

back from the corridor, the lower ceiling gave it a

more intimate feel than the workspaces they'd
passed earlier. Complex carvings danced over the
walls, whiplash curves and ornamental arabesques
twining in an exuberant ballet of delicate
stonework, much of it painted in bright colors. The
dangpo seemed to work entirely in geometric and
curved designs, no depictions of living things,
plant or animal, interrupted the patterns.

Major Cultural-Linguist would be tickled

that I noticed.

The dangpo, gathered in such numbers, echoed

their artwork. Graceful, exuberant in their quiet,
elegant way, they seemed to fill the space as the
younger men and women moved about setting
dinner out in a lovely, joyful dance, sidestepping,
whirling, laughing, effortlessly avoiding collisions
where they seemed inevitable. Barefoot, from the
tiniest children to the oldest crone, their delicate
feet made Emma mortified over her clumsy fur
slippers and her huge, by comparison, offworld
clodhoppers. The males dressed like Nyachung, in
loose trousers and those odd, tight glove-sleeves
that covered their arms from wrist to elbow, and

nothing else. The females had sheath shirts to go
with their sleeves but otherwise dressed as their
menfolk did.

The colors astonished her. In the city, the

dangpo had dressed in muted grays, whites, and
blues. Out on the ice, and even in the city, she
understood practical camouflage against predators.
But here, safe at home, they had no need for
camouflage. Nyachung's bloodred pants and
goldenrod sleeves seemed positively staid in this
riot of color.

Nyachung materialized from the crowd of

swirling dangpo to lead them to one of the long,
low tables. On thick floor cushions, he directed
them to sit with Major Dalsgaard in the middle.
Bright stoneware platters came around with
flatbread and various bits of vegetable matter
Emma couldn't begin to identify, while a few of the
young people still circulated to deliver bowls of
soup to each table. The adults began to eat,
engaging in quiet conversation and discreet
glances toward their party, but the children still
ran between the tables, apparently unable to settle.

"There a kids' table around here I'm missing?"

Emma asked as another group of children tumbled
by, giggling and chattering.

"A kids'...I'm not sure I understand," Major

Dalsgaard said as he picked a few slivers of meat
from a platter, plunked them in his soup, and
passed the tray on.

"Why isn't anyone telling the rugrats to sit

down and eat?"

"Ah. The children have already eaten, so now

they're free to do as they please instead of being
forced to sit through boring adult conversations.
It's difficult for dangpo children to sit still for too
long."

The contrast between these bold, lively tribes

of children and the few shy, hollow-eyed kids she
had seen in the city was astonishing. There, the
kids shrank away from everyone, trying to be
invisible. Here, they flitted from grownup to
grownup, tugging on sleeves, crawling into laps,
and using the adults as obstacles in games of tag.
Part of her wanted to decry the lack of discipline,
the complete absence of decorum, but the larger bit

of her was just pleased to see them happy and well
fed.

Eventually, the inevitable happened and one of

the little ones, a girl of perhaps three or four,
slipped and fell right behind the major's floor
cushion. While she couldn't have hurt herself on
the soft rugs scattered about the chamber, she
wailed as if someone had cut off her toes. Worried
about the major's nerves, Emma was just about to
see if someone would take the kid when he
shocked the stuffing out of her. He turned, scooped
the child up, and set her, wails and all, in his lap.

He spoke softly to her, distracting her with

little boats he made of moss greens that he floated
in his soup, blowing them about as if they were at
sea. The little girl laughed, misery forgotten, and
reached up to pat at the major's face. He said
something in dangpo and then growled, pretending
to eat her fingers, at which she shrieked in delight
and ran off to join her playmates.

Throughout this exchange, Nyachung watched

him with shining eyes, a little smile tugging at the
corner of his mouth.

Emma returned her attention to her own soup, a

spicy, rich broth that made her scalp tingle. "You
break that boy's heart, sir, and I'll break your
skull."

Major Dalsgaard turned to her with narrowed

eyes. "Pardon, Sergeant? What was that?"

"I said, 'Best eat your soup, sir. It's getting

cold.'"

"Right. That's what I thought."
"We're going out tomorrow, sir?"
"First light, as long as the weather holds. The

hunters assure me it will."

"You feel up to it, Major?" She held her

ground when he glared at her. "Seriously, sir. Put
the ego away a minute. You scared the hell out of
us."

He looked away and seemed to regroup, the

bristle fading behind his normal calm demeanor.
"Yes. I'm so damn sorry about that. But I'm well
rested and Nyachung says the boxes aren't far,
maybe less than a kilometer from here."

"Don't mean to pick on you, sir. Just wanted--"
A call went up from some of the young adults

sitting at the table behind them. Emma couldn't
understand a word of it but the kids soon joined in,
clamoring around Nyachung. He tipped up his soup
bowl to drain it and stood with an indulgent smile,
patting the air with both hands, apparently asking
the kids to settle down.

An elderly woman pulled a hand drum from

under the table and a middle-aged man lifted a
flute from beside his bowl. Right. Our boy told us
he's the family's third singer. Those must be
singers one and two.

The young people hurried to clear the dishes

off their table while all the children found places
to settle. The previously crying little girl
clambered back up onto Major Dalsgaard's lap,
her cloud of white hair like a miniature blizzard
against the gray and black of his uniform jacket.

Nyachung leaped up on the cleared table. The

elderly singer began a steady beat on her drum,
soon taken up by dozens of palms smacking stone
tabletops. An astonishing transformation swept
over their shy friend as he shook himself, threw
back his head, and uttered a long, wild ululation.

His listeners answered in kind until Nyachung
shouted out, "Kee-yah!" and the room fell silent.

He began in a soft tenor, singing in a haunting,

minor-key chant. The chant gave way to more
complex melodies, sometimes interspersed with
spoken words, all accompanied by elaborate,
theatrical gesticulation. Emma couldn't follow the
story, but through the gestures and accompanying
actions, she picked up on a chase scene and
something about huge fish and possibly even larger
birds. A legend, probably. Something for the kids.

Every so often, Nyachung would swing an

open palm in an arc toward his audience, posing a
question. The answers were obviously part of the
song, call and response, since they were given so
perfectly in time. Even the major joined in at all
the appropriate places, so Emma knew the story
was an old one.

He not only joined in, but also appeared lost in

the story. His eyes shone as he followed every
graceful arc of Nyachung's hands, every stomp of
his feet. His lips parted, he leaned forward,
completely enraptured.

Oh, God, I'm sorry for doubting your

intentions, sir. Guess it's not the kid's heart I
should be worried about, after all. It's yours.

The singing increased in tempo, the flute and

drum wrapping around the steady beat of hands,
sweeping the audience along to the finale where
Nyachung finished with a stomp of feet and an
echoing shout. For a moment, he stood panting,
smiling, drinking in the whoops and cheers of his
family, and then his eyes locked with the major's.
Emma swore she could hear a live wire crackle
between them.

Damn the universe anyway for always making

things so complicated.

* * * *

Body still thrumming from the vibrations of the

tale singing, Aren flopped down on the bed to take
off his boots. Grateful for the moment alone, he
fought to bring his reeling thoughts to a standstill.
The story of Marpodri and the Fish King was one
of his favorites, the way the clever hero outwitted
his adversary and made a pact with the sea
kingdom.

Nyachung's telling had been masterful.

Spellbinding. His whole body came alive with the
story, broadcasting every emotion. Was Marpodri
afraid? Nyachung had sung. Yes! Yes, he was! his
audience flung back, edging toward him, caught in
the tide of his telling. And what did he do with his
fear? Nyachung had closed his fist on the question,
pulling the answer from his listeners. He climbed
atop it and rode it onward!

This was the true Nyachung, whole and well,

not the angry, frightened young man in the holding
cell, not the uncertain, nervous one in the city, but
the core of him, doing what his natural gifts
dictated, and he was breathtaking.

Aren put his boots to the side, neatly lined up

with the end of the bed, and peeled out of his
jacket. "What the hell are you doing, Dalsgaard?"

From the corner, Karpotrinpa gave him a look

and a snort before he heaved his bulk up and
padded out the open door.

"Thanks for deserting me," Aren muttered.

Nyachung had gone to help Emma back to her
chamber, promising to return soon, the promise full

of smoldering possibilities.

He knew perfectly well what would happen

when Nya returned. Sex between men and the
signals preceding it changed remarkably little from
culture to culture. The problem wasn't Nya. He
was lovely, brilliant, and kind. Aren truly had
grown fond of him. More than fond. Even with a
hundred years separating them, he felt conflicted
and disloyal, though, Akar's shadow still at his
shoulder.

I miss him. His humor. His levelheaded calm.

I think I'll always miss him.

His throat closed over and he buried his face

in his hands. He had to start concentrating on the
case, stop all this wallowing in personal issues.
There was no more room for grief, no time for
regret. He needed... He needed...

"Aren?" Nyachung knelt in front of him, a hand

on his thigh.

"I'm sorry, little one." He rubbed his hands

fretfully over his face. "I'm... You were marvelous
tonight. Your story."

The white head tipped in a thank you. "It

helped to have you watching. A new listener
inspires the singer." He took Aren's hands in a
gentle grip. "We might just sleep, if you like."

"I..." He stared down at the white hands resting

in his. Hard to tell another man about his
confusion. Hard to explain all the things he wanted
and why he shouldn't want them. "You know I can't
stay."

Nyachung reached up to stroke his hair.

"Would you wish to?"

Stay or go back to Command? A life with

family and familiar things, or a return to cold,
unfeeling duty, of shutting himself off from
everything because he couldn't bear to face the
memories. "They probably won't give me a choice.
My life doesn't belong to me."

Nyachung's white eyebrows drew together.

"Perhaps it's past time that it did." He held out a
hand, palm up, indicating a concession to Aren's
unspoken arguments. "I know. You would tell me
of obligation and duty. I've heard you speak of
such things enough by now." He turned to sit
beside Aren on the bed. "But your eyes are so

empty when you speak those words, your voice so
bitter."

"Just because I'm displeased over the

circumstances doesn't make the obligation any
less."

Nyachung tilted his head back and forth in a

dangpo nod. "Truth. Though it's also truth that they
let you stay before. When you asked."

"Yes, but circumstances were different then."
"I've been reminded recently that much misery

can result from unasked questions."

He turned to take Nyachung in his arms,

settling the white-haired head on his shoulder, his
fingers splayed over the cool, smooth skin of his
back. "If I allow this..." he whispered against a
tight throat. "If I do and then I leave you, what will
that do to you?"

"I will grieve." Nyachung's arms slid around

his neck. "And hope for your return. Enough to
know you are well, somewhere out among the
stars. I would not die from it."

I'm not so sure I wouldn't. The terrible, bitter

laugh bubbled up before he could cut it off.

A gentle finger over his lips, Nyachung leaned

in to brush a kiss over Aren's jaw. "Let me do this
for you. Let me help you feel warm inside again."

"Nya..."
"Please."
That please, that single word, held such a

universe of desolate want, Aren gathered he wasn't
the only one who needed to feel warm again. He
took Nyachung's face between his hands. "How
long has it been?"

"How long?"
"Since you were paired. Since someone shared

your bed."

Nyachung dropped his gaze to where his

fingers worked on shirt buttons. "Two years," he
whispered.

"Ah." Two years... When you're twenty-four,

it might as well be a hundred. "He abandoned
you?"

"He was Nakpo-wa pod." Nyachung stopped

unbuttoning to turn his hand in a dangpo shrug.
"Promised to a Lungta girl. I knew he would go.
Knew I could not change him."

"And still you hoped."
"For unreachable horizons. Grandmother says I

have always been this way."

Unconscious sabotage, picking the wrong

men. But if I didn't have to leave, would I be the
wrong man? If I ever reach normal again, would
he still want me whole and well? "I don't--"

Nyachung seized the edges of Aren's now-

unbuttoned shirt, tangling his fingers in the black
synth-cotton. "You mustn't treat me as if I were
spring ice. I will not shatter. I want you. It need not
be more or less than that."

His breath ghosted across Aren's cheek, they

sat so close. The trembling of his hands
telegraphed through the material, as if the air
vibrated between them. Comfort and pleasure,
freely offered...fool to accept, more fool to refuse.

Aren ran a hand down Nyachung's arm, over

his right sleeve. He hooked his forefinger under the
edge and pulled the material down just far enough
to expose the little bulge of venom sac on the
underside of his forearm. Slowly, giving Nyachung
time to pull back if he changed his mind, he leaned

down and touched the tip of his tongue to the
tender sac. Nyachung's head dropped back on a
sweet, melodic moan. Aren took it a step farther
and closed his lips over the sac, sucking gently.
The moan became a hitching gasp as Nyachung's
body arched in his arms.

"Aren... oh..." Fingers clenching spasmodically

on Aren's biceps, Nyachung twitched and
shuddered as Aren licked enthusiastically at that
second most sensitive organ.

With a swiftness and ferocity that shocked

Aren breathless, Nyachung gripped his shoulders
and shoved him on his back. Panting, hands pinning
Aren's hands to the sheets, Nyachung attacked his
throat with fierce, rough kisses, dragging his
tongue down the jugular.

"Did you neglect to eat dinner?" Aren

whispered as he peeled off Nyachung's right
sleeve and then his left. Normally, he would have
flung them across the room, but out of respect for
Nyachung's sensibilities, he folded them and set
them on the corner of the bed.

"This hunger has little to do with my stomach,"

Nyachung murmured against his jaw. His lips
seized Aren's, their cool softness soothing his
suddenly overheated skin.

Heat, oh, God, when was the last time I felt

warm? His trembling fingers undid the drawstring
of Nyachung's pants. His haste surprised him,
diving right for the prize as his fingers curled
around that cool, white erection. Not that
Nyachung protested. Their mutual rush spoke of a
terrible, aching loneliness, of voids that howled to
be filled, if only for a short while.

Nyachung rocked against his hand, clawing at

Aren's clothes, making the most wonderful,
desperate grunts. He caught Aren's hand, panting,
and then pulled it up between them to kiss his
knuckles. "We go too fast," he said on a breathy
laugh. "I have not even seen all of you yet."

Aren lifted his hips so Nyachung could slide

off his pants and briefs. Though completely
unbuttoned, he left the shirt on, perhaps afraid
Aren would chill. Dark eyes traveled over Aren's
body, survey mapping every detail. Hard not to be
self-conscious under such intense scrutiny--he

knew he was too thin, knew that certain scars
slashed ugly, jagged lightning across his skin--but
Nyachung seemed to enjoy the view.

He combed his fingers through the thickest part

of Aren's chest hair. "You are furred, like a khyi."
Blue tipped his ears as he glanced up. "Is that rude
to say?"

"No, not rude. Simple truth." Aren traced a

finger over the top curve of one delicate, flat ear.
"But you've seen me before this."

"I was a bit too anxious over you then."
"It's the reason for my name. Furred, like the

descriptions of old Earth bears in stories." He ran
a hand over Nyachung's shoulder, hard muscle
under silken skin. "Does it disturb you?"

Nyachung shook his head, bottom lip caught

between his teeth. He leaned in to nuzzle at the fur
in question. "I find it exciting. Beautiful." He
rested his head on Aren's shoulder. "Is it some
strange perversion, do you think? A wish for fur?"

"Maybe some would think so." Aren wrapped

him tight in his arms. "But not where I was born.
There, many people think a furred man more virile,

more desirable."

Nyachung nosed at his neck, breathing deeply.

"Your scent is wonderful, too."

He began his campaign again, lips tracing over

collarbone, down through the forest of chest hair.
Aren arched and groaned when lips fastened hard
around his nipple, sharp teeth teasing at the nub.
Firefly sparks raced through him and danced
around his groin when Nyachung sucked harder.
His hands slid down to part Aren's thighs, and he
eased his way down, kissing and licking as he
went.

"I like this, too," he whispered over Aren's

jewel line. "It is like a trail marker, pointing to the
best grazing."

With a moan that sounded like a hymn of

benediction, Nyachung's lips closed over his cock-
head. The heat pooling in Aren's balls instantly
shot up to molten. He gasped and fisted both hands
in the fine, white strands of Nyachung's hair to pull
him off.

"Fuck..."
"Did I hurt you somehow?"

"No, no. Sweet wind spirits, no." Aren eased

his tight grip, caressing the worried face hovering
over his crotch. "But it won't be more than a few
seconds that way."

Nyachung leaned his head against Aren's touch.

"You are my guest. It's only right I take care of you
first."

"Polite and proper, yes. If you do, though, I'll

most likely drop off to sleep and leave you
disappointed."

"Ah." Nyachung rose up far enough to shimmy

out of his pants, which he left neatly draped by his
discarded sleeves. "Would the eternal circle
please you?"

Aren swallowed against a tight throat. The

position had been one of Akar's favorites. "Yes. It
would." He wrenched his thoughts into the present,
back to the beautiful young man in bed with him.
Here. Now. This is where I am. "Let me have that
lovely little backside up here, then."

Nyachung's soft laugh was a gentle rain on his

raw nerves. A turn and a few careful limb
placements soon had him straddling Aren's head,

his hands on either side of Aren's thighs. His
words hadn't been mere flattery. While dangpo
rarely ran to fat, many tended toward scrawny.
Nyachung was sculpted perfection, every inch of
him beautifully proportioned, with a lovely ass,
well rounded and muscular. Aren smoothed his
hands over the offered globes and lifted his head to
nip at one firm, white cheek.

A sip of breath through teeth answered his

efforts and he took it farther, letting his tongue
slide from the smooth skin of perineum to the
puckered ring. Nyachung's desperate moan rolled
from him, his head thumping down on Aren's thigh.

"You will end it too quickly for me that way."
"Ah, but I have faith that you'll stay awake for

a few minutes," Aren murmured against his skin.

His fingers traced the underside of Nyachung's

cock while he tongued the hole, his new lover
squirming above him, letting out soft cries of
pleasure with each new sensation. As Nyachung
began to lick at his balls, he fought hard to
concentrate when his own cock twitched and
ached. Aren closed his right hand in a tight

embrace around Nyachung's erection, pumping
slowly. When the hips above him picked up his
rhythm in counterpoint, he changed tactics again
and replaced his tongue with his left pinkie, easing
it inside Nyachung's tight, cool passage to the
second knuckle.

He stopped to see if Nyachung would react

with discomfort, but what he got was a long groan
and a hard rocking of hips to drive his finger
deeper. With a soft chuckle, he added a second
finger and began a relentless sensual attack,
tugging harder on Nyachung's cock while impaling
him and sucking on his balls in turn.

Above him, Nyachung trembled and bucked,

his moans escalating to sharp, barking cries of
pleasure. His lips closed around Aren's cock,
plunging down, his cries vibrating against the
oversensitive shaft. Aren closed his eyes, his
breaths coming shorter until he had to yank his
head away from Nyachung to gasp a whole breath.
Nyachung shoved back hard, his hips jerking and
twitching as ropes of pearly ejaculate decorated
Aren's chest and stomach.

With a lung-rattling bellow, Aren let go, his

climax slamming through him like a forty-ton pile
driver. His sight darkened around the edges, the
pleasure, the relief so intense. For a moment, he
seemed to float, cocooned in a strange, quiet space
free of pain and memory.

Nyachung hovered beside him again when he

returned to himself, cleaning him gently with a soft
rag.

"Are you well, Aren?"
It was probably the leftover endorphins

zipping around his bloodstream, but he felt less
raw, as if some part of him had slipped back into
its proper place. "Quite well, little one."

He shivered and Nyachung tucked the furs

around him, sliding on top of the covers to lie next
to him.

"You won't be cold?"
"Not with such heat beside me," Nyachung said

with a little chuckle and a pat to his chest.

Aren opened his arms and pulled Nyachung

down, settling the white head on his shoulder. He
realized then what the shift had been. He no longer

thought of the arm draped around him as the wrong
one.

Chapter 9: Black Boxes

Nyachung woke the next morning to an empty

bed. Panic seized his heart until he heard humming
and splashing from the bathing alcove.

Someone sounds recovered this morning.
Drowsy and lethargic after sex, Aren had

quickly chilled when he fell asleep. Worried,
Nyachung had piled extra furs atop him and stayed
outside the blankets so his cooler body wouldn't
make the chill worse. The bed grew too hot as
Aren stayed by him, Nyachung's arms around the
fur-wrapped bundle.

He sat up, pushing the sweat-damp hair from

his eyes. How had it been managed before? Had
Akarnyima slept apart from his lover? Or had he
simply allowed a little distance between them in
the bed?

Stretching out cramped limbs, he rose and

made his way to the alcove to lean against the arch
and admire Aren. He stood at the fountain basin in

only his pants, moving a little buzzing ovoid over
his face.

"What is that?"
Aren turned and graced him with a smile.

"Sonic depilator. You've never seen a chigyel
shave?"

"No. Though I know they...you do. I suppose I

never thought how it was done."

"Would you like to try?" Aren held the little

device out to him.

"I have no need..." Nyachung felt his ears burn

as he realized his mistake. "Ah. Not what you
meant." He took the ovoid, turning it in his hands.
"Is this something one...does?"

Aren lifted a hand and tilted it in a shrug. "Just

as some men like to wash their lovers, some like to
help them shave. Does the thought distress you?"

Distress? Only in light of the fact that I'm

stark naked and you said you had things to
accomplish this morning... "How do I make it
work?"

Aren guided his thumb on the side of the

device. "You press here. It will hum, but it won't

hurt you."

The thing sprang to life, buzzing against his

palm. Nyachung jumped in surprise and laughed.
"It tickles the skin."

"Mm, yes. A bit." Aren lifted his chin and

guided Nyachung's hand, moving the ovoid over
his skin in little circles. The dark, scratchy stubble
vanished wherever it touched, leaving smooth,
golden skin behind.

"Does one shave...other things?"
"Some men do."
"Aren't they cold without their fur?"
A soft laugh rumbled in Aren's chest. "Not all

planets are made of ice, Nya."

"Oh. Of course." He traced a fingertip through

Aren's chest hair. "Do you?"

"I never have. Would you want me to?"
Nyachung tried to picture Aren without his fur.

The image struck him as terribly wrong. "No," he
answered, the word coming out with more force
than he intended.

Aren lifted his hand to kiss his knuckles.

"Good." His long arm snaked around Nyachung's

waist and yanked him close for a swift, fierce kiss.
"Perhaps I should finish this myself or I'll never
get dressed this morning."

"This would be a bad thing?" Nyachung leaned

against him, his body pressing close, seeking that
forge heat.

"Emma will be very annoyed if I make her

wait."

"Ah. Your pardon. Of course." He stood on

tiptoe to kiss Aren's cheek and backed out of the
alcove to let the man finish his morning
preparations. Nyachung busied himself while he
waited for the bathing alcove, putting the room in
order and setting out the clothes they would both
need to go out on the ice.

Aren had work to do. Nyachung had every

confidence in the sharp mind behind those
beautiful green eyes. He would solve the puzzle
soon and then he might well leave. I will be calm
and helpful. I will not cause him a moment's
anguish.

But swallowing his own anguish proved harder

than he thought. He hoped he had enough dignity

left to keep his promises.

* * * *

"You sure you're up to this, Sergeant?" Aren

winced in sympathy as Emma pulled on her boots,
her jaw set and tight.

"Better not be thinking of going without me,

sir."

He didn't want to be without her, but he didn't

want her to feel obligated, either. "I won't be
alone."

She turned her back to retrieve her coat,

muttering something that sounded very much like
"Major Multiple-Face-Plants-In-The-Snow,"
though her respectful demeanor was back in place
once she faced him again. "Yes, sir. I'm aware of
that. But you don't know what you'll find out there.
Let's face it; you're not exactly an expert on
modern Treaty tech."

He drummed his fingers on his arm, debating

whether he should order her to stay.

"We're not going far, Major," she went on in a

gentler tone. "And like you said, we won't be
alone."

I suppose someone could carry her back if

need be. "Right. Onward, then. I don't want to risk
losing the light."

At the entrance to the gunkha nang, they

collected Nyachung and the four hunters who
would accompany them. The snow had been
cleared from the huge stone door and a ramp built
to reach the slightly higher surface from the half
meter of storm snow. No other evidence remained
of the blizzard. High white clouds painted scarves
and feathers around the sun. A soft breeze had
replaced the howling winds and the unmistakable
hint of spring teased the air.

Sun on his back, easy dangpo banter on either

side, skating across the new snow with practiced
ease, Aren felt a strange fullness in his chest. He
drew in a shuddering breath, aware of each sound,
amazed at the prism of hues on the sun-drenched
snowfield. Alive. By God, I'm alive.

He laughed, caught up in that absurdly simple,

glorious epiphany. He had known it before, of
course, but he hadn't felt it. Shambling from one
necessary task to the next, he hadn't experienced

this since waking, this surge of joy, this avalanche
of wonder.

Nyachung skated closer. "It's good today?"
He reached across the short distance to grasp

Nya's hand a moment. "It is a day for marvels. A
day from which to make songs."

The happy laugh he received tingled across his

skin and settled warm and comfortable in his belly.
Yes, he had a job to do and he would need to
focus, but the times were precious and infrequent
when he could enjoy the now.

All too soon, the hunters slowed. Though the

snow would have reburied the black boxes, they
knew without compass or chronometer when they
drew near the site. Aren turned his head to check
on Emma. He spotted her a few meters back where
she doggedly plodded along.

"Here." The senior hunter, Lungdri, swept an

arm toward the snow in an arc around them as they
stopped. "They are all around us."

"I must ask that one be dug out. Could I have

this favor?"

Lungdri waved off the formal request. "A

simple thing. Rest, Serpodom. We will clear the
snow."

From the depths of his bag, Nyachung

produced a ground cloth, an act that showed both
his forethought and his concern. Aren caught Emma
by the arm to steady her when she skated up and
they helped each other to sit, neither grumbling
over the necessity of a bit of help.

"Managing, Sergeant?"
She puffed out her cheeks. "Just about, sir.

Good thing it wasn't farther. You?"

"Fine so far."
"Hungry?"
He hadn't noticed it before, but now the

familiar light-headed ache crept up on him. "A bit.
I don't suppose..."

She reached into her pocket with a soft snort

and produced a cloth with a few carefully
wrapped moss rolls.

"How do you always know?"
"You get sort of...unfocused, sir. Like someone

turned the lens just a hair."

He bit into one of the butter-soft, spicy rolls

with a pleased growl. "Just the thing. Here. Try
one."

Emma eyed the gray-green spheres dubiously,

and then picked one up with a shrug. As a field
sergeant, she had surely eaten worse looking
things.

"Hmm." She nodded with her mouth full.

"S'good. They trade in town for peppers or
something?"

Aren popped the rest of his roll in his mouth

before answering. "No. Drass provides. Salt
comes from the sea, but most of the spices come
from native plants. We call the local flora moss,
lichen, and fungi for convenience's sake, but the
native plant life is immensely diverse. Small,
mostly asexual, but diverse. The dangpo use every
edible plant possible, some of which mimic
peppers."

"Anyone catalog it all yet?" Emma finished her

roll and held up the cloth to urge a second one on
him, which he took without hesitation.

"One would have to look into it. Certainly not

in my first life. Are you a botany hobbyist,

Sergeant?"

"Always had an interest--" Emma broke off

and nodded toward the rest of their party. "Think
they've got one, sir." She tucked the remaining
rolls back in her pocket and offered him a hand up
as she stood.

Aren winced as a dangpo shovel clanged

against the box. "Careful, kucheya! We don't know
what it might do!"

The five khyi paced around the newly

uncovered box, snuffling and whining, obviously
agitated. Not a good sign, that they sensed a threat.

Nyachung waved a hand at it, speaking in

standard, "They are all like this. Every pod."

"Have the other pods tried to find out what they

are?" Aren asked as he peered over Nyachung's
shoulder.

"Two others tried. One came back saying the

city people had no ears. The other..." Nyachung
chewed on his bottom lip. "The other did not come
back."

"Ah." He put a hand on Nyachung's shoulder,

gently pulling him back from the little snow crater

around the box. "Sergeant, think you can puzzle this
out? I'll tell you up front, I don't like the looks of
it."

Emma took off her EM shoes, eased into the

depression next to the box, and took a little toolkit
out of one of her endless pockets. "I've got this, sir.
Best keep our friends and the pups on the outside
of the circle while I work here, though. May want
to move everyone back a bit."

"Not a weather station, is it?"
"No, sir. Not even close."
While Emma took out her magnetic

screwdriver to remove the outer housing, Aren
gestured everyone back a few yards and had them
all settle with their khyi. Karpotrinpa lay down
behind Nyachung, making certain to include Aren
in the half-circle of his huge, warm body. Even so,
Aren shivered, a chill settling in more from
realization than actual cold. If they weren't weather
or survey stations, he had a short list of alternative
things they could be, none of which he liked. The
question gnawing at his brain now, though, was
why.

"Sergeant?" he called over as he brought his

personal link online. Out here in the open,
communication with the planetary sat-net was
possible once again.

She didn't look up from her work. "Sir?"
"Can I get a secure, direct uplink into

government files do you think?"

"Yes, sir. Use your SI overrides. The ones I

showed you. Shouldn't be anything you can't
hack...er, access from there."

He suppressed a smile at her half-intentional

slip. ESTO data privacy laws had never applied to
SI, one of the reasons investigators were chosen
with such care, though often evidence gathered
under the cloak of SI data privilege was
inadmissible in criminal proceedings. It was a
double-edged sword, but sometimes one needed
intel to move forward, even if the eventual
damning evidence would still need to come the
hard way.

"What do you search for?" Nyachung asked

softly.

Aren grunted in frustration as he hit another

dead end. It was ridiculous how many bureaucratic
layers had been added in a hundred years. "I'm not
certain yet. Sergeant? Where do I look for permits?
Venture filings?"

Emma's voice came back muffled from where

she bent over the mysterious box. "Government
offices. Planetary Economic Policy. Then Office of
Licenses and Inspection. Then the permits would
be under whatever administrative arm oversees
that business type."

"Damn convoluted mess is what it is," he

growled as he tapped through her instructions.
"Ah. Here we are."

He had expected to find mine permits, no

surprise there. The settler presence on Drass
stemmed from mining, after all. But he began a
systematic data run of permits crosschecked with
satellite confirmed locations and dates filed. From
these, he compiled a comparison of permits per
decade. Per year. Per month.

His jaw clenched as more and more pieces fell

into place. "Sergeant? I have a bad feeling--"

"Major! Move those boys back farther! Now!"

"What is it?"
She stood in the depression with the housing in

her hands, staring down at the box with a
thunderous frown. "It's a goddamn thermazine
explosive, sir."

"You can't be serious..." Even as he said it, he

scrambled up, moving the dangpo back farther
with gestures and spare, soft words, trying to
alarm them as little as possible.

Nyachung touched his sleeve. "What does it

mean? Aren?"

"It's a chemical bomb. Burns for days, even

underwater." He switched to his comm rather than
yelling across the snow. "Emma, get out of there."

Her tiny image hovered over his wrist. "I think

I can disarm it, sir."

"Think? How sure are you?"
"About ninety-five percent."
"And the remaining five percent?"
She hesitated. "Calculated risk, sir. If I can

disable this one, we can disarm the rest, and I can
show the dangpo boys how to do it so they can
show the other pods."

Eyes squeezed shut, Aren fought down panic.

This was precisely why he hadn't been chosen as a
frontline officer. The thought of ordering men and
women to their deaths made his brain shut down.

"Sir," the sergeant's voice was soft and

earnest. "We're talking kids and old folks. Whole
families in those caverns. A small risk for me set
against all those lives..."

Emma...damn it... "Do it," he grated out. "But

be sure. And don't die."

"I'll do my best, sir, since it's an order."
Her image winked out, forcing him to watch

from a distance as she crouched in the snow
depression, considering the deadly apparatus.
Nyachung's fingers closed around his gloved hand
and he clung to them, letting that grip anchor him
against the plummeting sense of dread.

Aren found himself craning his neck in a futile

attempt to watch as the sergeant removed another
tool from her pouch. It must have been some meter
or tester since she touched it to several spots on
the uncovered device before replacing it in her
toolkit. Then she brought out a delicate pair of

wire cutters. Aren held his breath, blood pounding
in his ears.

The sharp snip of the cutters carried across the

snow. Time hung frozen in the sub-zero air.

Nothing happened.
In a too-calm tone, Emma's voice came through

his comm unit, "Done, sir."

"That's it?"
"You wanted fireworks, Major? Just a matter

of a couple of connections."

With a sharp exhale, he skated back to her,

managing to come to a relatively dignified stop
beside her. He stuffed his hands in his pockets to
hide their shaking, though what he wanted was to
throw his arms around her. "Good work, Sergeant.
You think they're all the same?"

"Have to see, sir. But from what we've been

told, there are lots of these things. You'd want to
have them all the same if you built a pile of them.
Avoids accidents that way."

"That certainly makes sense." He plunked

down on the edge of the snow depression. "Was it
on a timer?"

She glanced up as the dangpo skated over to

join them and let Nyachung pull her up onto the
snow surface. "No, sir. There's a receiver in that
mess of wires, though. Remote detonation. I'd bet
my boots it's satellite enabled. Could probably set
it off from some cushy office under one of the city
domes if you wanted."

Her conclusions had, for one reason or

another, followed his. "Sergeant, from the
placement of these explosives, the size, the
presumed number, what would you say the result
of detonation would be?"

"We're not looking at kilotons here." Emma

fumbled with the closure to her toolkit, the only
sign of nerves she had shown so far. "But this one's
enough to take out a platoon standing nearby. It's a
directional charge, so the heat effect would be
concentrated in one direction." She pointed back
the way they had come, toward the gunkha nang.
"So if our friends are right and these go in a half-
circle around this perimeter, the explosions
themselves wouldn't do much damage out here, but
you're looking at an awful lot of sudden snow melt,

all headed in one direction."

"Someone wishes to send water into the

caverns?" Nyachung asked, his brows drawn
together.

"Someone wishes to send a wall of water into

the gunkha nang, into all of the pods' caverns, the
likes of which no one has ever seen before. As if
the sea had risen up against you in anger." Aren
shivered, forcing the image down before it could
fully form. "There would be little warning. No
time to escape."

Nyachung plunked down next to him as if his

legs had lost their bones. "Why? Why would
someone do such a thing?"

Aren pulled him close and kissed the top of his

head, trying to alleviate some of the horror. "I'm
not certain yet. But my guess would be the same
thing that seems to have become a disease across
Treaty planets in the last hundred years. Greed."

"But we have nothing the chigyel would want.

Why?"

Oh, my sweet singer, you really don't know...

"The why isn't as important right now as the

when." Aren pulled Nya up with him as he rose.
"These are obviously meant for detonation before
the spring migration begins, while the majority of
the people are at home. Sergeant, you mentioned
that you could show the hunters how to disarm
these infernal things?"

"Yes, sir. Basic stuff."
He turned to the hunters. "Lungdri, if Emma

shows you how to make these harmless, would you
send your rokpa out to the other pods? To show
them and help them?"

Lungdri turned a hand palm up. "We will do as

you ask, Serpodom. Our duty to prevent the
slaughter of so many children."

"Thank you. Sergeant?"
"All right, boys, let's dig up another and I'll

show you. Do you have something you could use to
cut a wire?"

The hunters, who all understood enough

standard to follow her, held up their knives.

"Ah, no. You use those great, clumsy things,

you'll pull on the wire and set the thing off." She
pulled out her wire snips and made cutting motions

with her fingers. "Something to cut? Like these?"

Each hunter leaned in closer to examine what

she held. As one, they smiled and each pulled out a
pair of bone scissors.

"Every hunter has one of those things, sir?"
"Yes. It's a necessity."
"What happened to yours?"
Aren shrugged, careful to keep the bitterness

from his voice. "Probably taken from me when
they stripped me for cryo prep."

"Sorry, sir. Stupid question." She gave one

decisive nod and moved toward where the next
explosive should be. "I like these guys, sir."

"Oh, yes?"
She shot him a grin over her shoulder. "Gotta

love people who come prepared."

Chapter 10: The

Ozawa Compact

Aren leaned against the corridor wall, sipping

careful breaths. Long past the end of his strength
for the day, he was damned if he was going to
collapse again or to beg someone for help reaching
Nyachung's chamber. Emma had hinted he should
rest more than once that afternoon, but there had
been too much to accomplish.

Not that he would call it a good day, even with

all they had managed. The horror had never quite
faded from the afternoon, despite the bright
sunshine and the soft, soothing dangpo voices all
around.

After Emma had showed them which wire to

cut and which connection to unscrew, Nyachung
had skated back to the gunkha nang for
reinforcements. He returned with the smiths, the
potters, the herders, the weavers, the remainder of

the hunters--in short, nearly every able-bodied
Changki adult. With the rest of the pod working on
excavating the boxes and disarming them, the
hunters raced off east and west, hoping to prevent
disaster by reaching even the farthest pods in time.
With spring still a couple of weeks away, Aren felt
they had time, but if the genocidal brute at the
other end of the control switch became twitchy...

Ay, there's the rub.
If he knew who the trigger-holder was, he

could message enforcement and have them taken
into custody. If he could have trusted enforcement.
What he needed was something solid, something he
could send out to Judiciary and get an off-planet
squad down here to make the arrest, or perhaps
arrests. Even then, who could tell if those arrests
would root out the disease?

He heaved off the wall and made his slow way

down the corridor. Yes, he could stop this. And
when he left? What was there to stop the
exploitation or extermination of the dangpo the
next time?

By the time he made it to the right level, his

blood pounded in his ears. He shook his head,
puzzled at the odd syncopation of his heart's
rhythm. Cardiac issues? No, wait...the complex
beats weren't inside his head, they came from
Nya's room.

Nyachung sat in the center of his round carpet,

his feet holding his largest tamaru in place with
two smaller ones set on either side of him.
Precisely tuned, this arrangement of drums
comprised a pentatonic scale, the drummer able to
play mournful, melodic lines within the rhythmic
pounding. Nya's hands flew from drum to drum, his
music wild, threatening to careen out of control.
His eyes were squeezed shut, his muscles rigid
with tension.

Easing down across from him, Aren watched

his ever-increasing tempo with concern. Sweat-
damp hair clung to his furrowed brow. His teeth
clamped onto his bottom lip threatened to break
skin.

"Nya? Do you hear me?" he ventured softly.

"Nyingdu?"

Black eyes flew open on the dangpo word for

"sweetheart." The dark anguish in them threatened
to break Aren's heart. White hands settled
trembling on the center drum. "Aren...I wonder if I
can live in this universe any longer."

He scooted closer, taking Nya's elegant fingers

in his. "Don't say such things. Your life is
precious; your worth is more than you know. We
would never have heard about the boxes without
you. You've saved so many people, prevented so
much anguish. Things will be right again."

"How can they--" A hard tremor gripped Nya,

his hands tightening in a convulsive, painful grip.
"Whoever has done this...how can they think of
such cruelty? What manner of human is this?"

Aren moved the tamaru, carefully setting them

to the side, so he could take Nya in his arms. The
tremors took on a feverish quality. Despite his
exhaustion, Aren held him tighter, trying to lend
him all his warmth and what little strength he had
as a bulwark against horror. "There have always
been humans in the universe who do evil things,
nyingdu. Always, or there would be no need for
men like me. Some keep their evils small. Others

justify it on a terrible scale."

"We were created with evil intent," Nya

managed in a choked whisper. "The dangpo know
evil all too well. But those people are gone and
we haven't harmed anyone. These chigyel now,
they suffered under the same overlords. Why, why
do they see us as monsters instead of cousins?"

"Out of convenience, little one," Aren forced

out in a bitter whisper. "If you were not
inconvenient, they might see you differently. But
because they need you to be expendable, they
reshape you in their minds, make you into less than
human."

Nya bunched both fists in Aren's shirt. The

choked, distressed sound wasn't quite a sob, but it
was a near thing. "What do they want?"

"That's a good question, Major." Emma leaned

in Nya's doorway, eyes drooping with weariness
but the familiar stubborn set to her jaw. "You've
got theories scrambling around in there. Can
practically hear them climbing over each other.
Maybe time to let someone share the burden, sir?"

Aren hesitated, stroking Nya's back to calm

him. I have no proof, damn it. Without it, is it
better or worse to let him know why someone
might want to exterminate his people?

"Sir, Nya and I are both pretty smart," Emma

said as she settled near them. "Never know. Might
be able to help with whatever you're slamming
around in your tired brain." She gave him a nod
and cleared her throat. "May want to let the poor
boy breathe, sir."

Belatedly, he realized Nya was wheezing in

his fiercely protective embrace. He eased up,
settling Nya's head on his shoulder. "It's the
permits, Emma."

"Mining permits, I'm guessing?"
"Yes." With his arms still around his lover, he

fumbled with his comm to bring up a world map.
"On most planets, lumanium mines are deep shaft
ventures. Damn expensive and often damn
dangerous. That's what made Drass so unusual, the
veins of lumanium near the surface."

He tapped in a find sequence and the world

map lit up with all the known mining sites in red.
Large pools of scarlet huddled around the equator,

with a few outlying puddles and drips scattered in
the Outlands.

"Most of the finds have been small, though.

Nothing like the concentrated lumanium deposits
originally found on Jupiter, or the monstrous lodes
recently on T'tson. Just enough to keep speculators
interested, but not enough to capture a sizeable
share of the market."

His tired arm started to shake so badly, he had

to rest it on his knee. Nya sat back, his face
composed but unreadable, and helped steady him.

"But something's changed, sir," Emma

prompted.

"Several things, apparently." Too weary for

embarrassment, he was grateful for Nya's hand
under his elbow as he tapped in search criteria.
"New scan tech has allowed for a better global
geological survey which the magnetic fields on
Drass had previously made a bit problematic. The
most recent survey hasn't been made public, but it
does reside in government files. And now we see
where all the larger veins of the planet's lumanium
lie."

The new sites lit up in blue, north of the

equatorial regions, a sapphire serpent winding
through the northern mountains.

"Let me guess, sir." Emma's voice was

perilously close to a growl. "Those new permits
you were looking at are all for the mountain sites."

"Exactly."
"Maybe even filed by the same person?"
"That's where things get murky again..." Aren

trailed off, his train of thought lost in the soft roll
of mental fog that afflicted him at the end of his
strength. "It's...company names..." He shook his
head helplessly, unable to recall where the thought
should have led. An arm slid around his back. He
leaned into the support.

"Emma, how do you close it?" Nya was saying

beside his ear as he gestured to the comm unit. "He
has forced himself too far again today."

Vaguely aware of his comm link being shut

down and his body lifted onto the floor bed, Aren
groped for Nya's hand. It seemed terribly important
that he not lose contact, that if he did, somehow
Nya would slip away from him, lost forever.

"Nya?"
"I'm here." A gentle hand stroked his hair. "Go

to sleep. I'm here. I won't leave you."

The voice anchored him, letting him slip

behind the walls of sleep without fear.

* * * *

Nyachung accepted the tray of jangarmo from

one of his little cousins and returned to the bed. In
the city, Aren drank "coffee," that dreadful chigyel
vice, but he hoped the more civilized tea would
work as well for him as a morning stimulant.
Aren's sudden slide into that strange, twilight state
that accompanied exhaustion had been alarming,
but he had slept well and quietly. In caring for
Aren, a layer of calm had slid over Nyachung's
anguish, easier to push his despair away in favor
of someone else's need.

A soft tap on the open door announced Emma.

"Is he up?"

"He travels back slowly, but soon." Nyachung

set the tray down on a shelf and settled next to
Aren. "Emma, will he always be..."

"What, hon, weak? Does it bother you?"

"No. Not bother. Worry."
She settled on the carpet with a grunt. "I know

it's hard to see, but he's getting better. Little bit at a
time. Problem is, he's been pushing himself too
hard on this trip. Doing things he wouldn't have
thought of doing a couple of weeks ago. All things
considered, he's holding up a hell of a lot better
than he should."

Aren stirred and rolled to place his head on

Nyachung's lap with a soft murmur. While
Nyachung felt his ears heat, he made no effort to
move away, leaning down instead to stroke the
khyi-soft, brown hair. "Aren? It is morning..."

Green eyes opened to gaze up at him, eyes the

color of spring, of renewal, of life itself. Aren
smiled and reached up to stroke his cheek. "Good
morning."

For a moment, Nyachung allowed himself to

drown in that smile, one not for Akar, not for
anyone else in the universe. That delighted,
guileless smile was just for him.

With a pang of regret, he forced himself to

remember they weren't alone. "Emma's here."

"Ah." Aren turned his head to glance across the

room. "Good morning, Sergeant. Sorry about last
night."

It didn't escape Nyachung's notice that Aren

made no effort to sit up or move away, though it
most likely helped that Emma regarded them with
her usual stoic expression.

"No more apologies, sir. You've been doing

the best you can and then some." She pulled out the
little device she seemed to use to keep track of
facts. "Now then, Major, you mentioned something
about company names."

"Right. Yes." With a pat to Nyachung's thigh,

now he did sit up and accept a cup of still steaming
jangarmo. "Thank you, just the thing. I expect
they're owned by the same individuals, but there
are three companies that have secured rights to the
mountain mining sites, all with absurdly generic
names, Planetary Mining, Drass Ventures, and
New System Mining. What truly got my hackles up
was none of these companies listed individual
shareholders in the permit requests. No owners, no
operating officers named. Not certain why that's

legal here, but the permits were approved."

"Private companies, sir. It's legal to keep the

owners' names out of records if you don't sell
shares." Emma tapped on her device as she spoke.
"Sounds like you're sure there's a connection
between the permits and the explosives."

Aren took a sip, and then stared into the dark

tea. "Sergeant, it's more than a hunch that it's not
just a connection. It's a tangled, dangerous web.
The mines, the explosives, the murders, that poor
young man in the shantytown, all pieces of the
same whole. This isn't some slapped-together
scam. It's been years in the making."

"Got it all figured out, then, sir?"
"No." Aren's fingers drummed on his cup. "I

couldn't dig up a single name."

Emma let out a snort, a sound she seemed to

use for both amusement and irritation, though
which one was often difficult to tell. "Sir, I'm not
gonna browbeat you, because I know you worked
solo before and never had a field sergeant. But do
you really think I'm here just to pick you up when
you fall over?"

"Wasn't that your primary standing order when

they assigned you to me?" Aren said in a dry tone.
"What are you driving at?"

"I'm your assistant. It's not like you're an expert

on modern data streams. Hand over your intel and
let me assist, damn it. Begging your pardon, sir."

Aren lowered his cup, eyes wide. "Emma..."

He put the tea down and tapped at the little
machine on his wrist. "I'm so sorry. You must think
I'm an incredible idiot. I just didn't think--"

"It's all right, sir," she interrupted softly.

"You're not used to having help." She looked down
at her machine a moment, frowning in
concentration, and then got up. "Give me about an
hour or so with this, sir. I'll dig you up some
names."

"Thank you. Emma, I'm--"
"I know, sir. Try not to worry about the little

stuff so much. Save your energy for the big things."

With a nod to Nyachung, she limped off. She

had meant something in that parting look. "Take
care of him," perhaps. Easiest to slip into the role
of host, polite convention taking place of thought.

"Are you hungry?"
Aren slid to his knees, gripping Nyachung's

hands to stop his fretful scratching at his arm. "We
will find these people. We will stop this."

"Yes, and when you go back to the stars, who

stops the next murderer? And the next? Who will
ensure that my people survive?" He bit his lip,
shocked that he had said such things aloud, regret
creeping over him at the pain in Aren's eyes.

"Nya...I..."
He placed a gentle kiss on Aren's lips to stop

him. "I sound as if I blame you. This was not
meant." Not entirely. "It is not your quest to save
us, even though you think it your responsibility."

"But it's because--"
"Shh. I know. You have a hero's heart and

cannot help but think everything is yours to solve."
He leaned in for a more lingering kiss, heat
pooling in his belly at the way Aren's eyes slid
shut. He wanted more but instead freed his hands
and stood. "I must think. There are rolls on the
tray. Please eat. I won't be long."

He didn't look back as he left the room, afraid

that the devastation in those bright green eyes
would hook his heart and pull him back.

* * * *

Aren sat staring at his hands, huge and clumsy

compared to Nya's. He couldn't put a name to the
shame flooding through him, as if he had
overstepped some invisible line and damaged his
new lover's pride.

Good start to the day, Dalsgaard. Offended

both the people most important to you in the
space of five minutes. Inadvertently, he had
dismissed Emma's competence and experience.
Then without meaning to, he had implied that the
dangpo were incapable of handling their own
affairs. He heaved a long sigh. His adopted people
needed help dealing with those things they
struggled to understand, but they were far from
incapable.

The cold isolation returned, sharp and stinging,

the strange disorientation of not belonging to life.
So you try to drive away the only two people
willing to anchor you in this surreal nightmare.
Idiot.

Like Nya, he had to think. While he was certain

he had the puzzle solved now, he had no clear path
to a resolution, not only to secure an arrest but also
to secure the dangpo's rightful place on their own
planet. It had seemed so easy once, to simply
charge in and make things right, but he had been
younger then, in so many ways, and the universe
had grown oddly complicated while he had been
dead.

* * * *

Emma settled on a flat rock just outside the

cavern's main entrance. The mountains here threw
up some wicked magnetic interference, but once
out in the open she managed a relatively steady
uplink.

She had to agree with the major that the

murderer or murderers were most likely the
owners of these new mining ventures. While she
wanted to be surprised by their identities, she had
the bad feeling she wasn't going to be. Whoever
had set up the companies had known a thing or two
about covering data tracks, but not everything. She
let out a cold chuckle when she dug out the first

data tag and followed it back to its source, then the
next, and the next.

Aw, hells... Major Dalsgaard's instincts proved

sound once again. It really was all one tangled
mess, though the strands all led back to a single
source.

She glanced up when a shadow fell across her

data stream. "Hey, kiddo."

Nyachung squatted on his haunches beside her,

his brow creased in what might have been distress
or distraction. "Emma? What would you do? Your
people?"

"You mean if this was my planet and my family

being threatened?" She waited until he tipped his
head in that odd dangpo version of a nod. "We'd
fight, probably. Go on the offensive before our
kids could get hurt. But we've had generations of
wars behind us, bud. It's just how we're used to
thinking."

"Is everyone..." He waved a hand at the sky.

"All other people are like this?"

"Out there? No. And with the planetary treaties

and now the Ozawa Compact being ratified, it's

getting less and less like that."

He tilted his head. "Compact?"
"Yeah." She thought about how best to explain.

"Aliens. You know about aliens? Non-humans who
think and speak?" Again she got a little nod, this
one less certain. "Right. See, when humans went
out into space, it took us a long time to run into any
other people. We found the Lssr first, but they just
want to be left alone in their mobile space stations.
Won't deal with anyone not Lssr. Then we ran into
the Shchfteru. Nomadic predators. Scavengers.
Again, not a people you could deal with or
negotiate with, and not one with planetary roots.
So I guess maybe we got used to thinking of all
planets as human territory. Until the Drak..." She
struggled with the proper name, "The Drak'tar."

"I have not heard of these. Are they

dangerous?"

"Someone wanted us to think so and there was

this big diplomatic mess over it. But a man who'd
been living with them got everyone talking. He's a
lot like the major, from what I hear. Good with
languages, other cultures. It's his idea to have all

the galactic governments sign the Compact, the one
that says native beings of a planet have protected
rights to self-governance and non-interference.
Something like--"

She broke off abruptly, her head jerking up to

meet black eyes gone wide and anxious.

"Does he know of this thing?" Nyachung asked,

his voice a spare whisper. "This Compact?"

Emma lowered her voice as well, though she

wasn't sure why. "I bet not. It's a recent thing. Don't
think he's caught up on all that." She put a hand on
Nyachung's knee. "Kiddo, you guys aren't aliens,
though. Your DNA, your heritage, it's human."

Nyachung stood, gazing out over the endless

sea of snow. "Maybe it should not matter."

With that, he stalked off into the morning mist,

his giant pup bounding behind him, leaving Emma
to wonder what churned in that strange, creative
brain.

* * * *

We have never understood war. Nyachung

leaned against his khyi's side and tried to imagine
such a thing. He had witnessed a fight, once.

Brothers argued, tempers boiled over, one struck
the other. But the single blow shocked both
brothers so profoundly that there were no more.
The family stepped in, tempers calmed, though the
sudden aggression left everyone with headaches
and the feeling of rocks in their stomachs.

As he understood it, a war involved the

continuation of that terrible feeling, sometimes for
years. How could anyone sustain that? Live like
that? Dangpo could defend themselves, certainly.
If a serpent or a sea wolf attacked, one had to be
able to survive. This was in the natural order of
things. Eat or be eaten. It was not natural to kill
another thinking, feeling being, to do so because of
a disagreement, or out of jealousy or avarice.

"We can't," he whispered into Karpotrinpa's

thick ruff. "We are not built that way."

Neither were they truly natives of the planet or

a non-human race. While news of the Compact
gave him hope that there were people concerned
with justice, Emma was right. It most likely didn't
apply to them.

He raised his face to the sky. Out there among

the stars, there were heroes, ones willing to risk
ostracism to stand up for people not even of their
own blood. Such a hero sat in Nya's own room,
hopefully eating breakfast, though to ask Serpodom
to intervene for them again would be shameful,
especially since he was in no condition to do so.

We had our own heroes once, the ones in the

stories, the ones who struggled to make a place
for us here when the overlords had gone. He
stiffened on a sudden realization. He had been
looking in the wrong direction, all his life gazing
outward.

Nyachung turned back to the gunkha nang, no

longer transfixed by the sky.

* * * *

"Where's this leave us, sir?"
Aren lifted his head from Emma's newest data

revelations. "I need a judiciary ship called in and I
need a secure line to SI."

"We don't have much in the way of hard

evidence, sir."

"Not yet. But we will. And it will take at least

three days for a Jud ship to get here. If this

involves all the people we believe, we may need
troops. This could be a bit uglier than just a simple
arrest."

Emma nodded. "We'll need to get outside to get

you a clear line, sir. Best call into SI first, I'd
suggest. Let the colonel deal with arguing about
getting a troop ship out here without all the i's
dotted." She hesitated. "Sir, have you had a chance
at any point to read up on the Ozawa Compact?"

Aren searched recent memory. The treaty

sounded familiar but he couldn't recall a single
passage of it. "I may have heard the name on the
news vids at some point. Is it relevant to the
case?"

"Probably not, Major, but might not hurt to

scan through it. I'm not great with all the legal stuff,
but it seems to me that if the Compact can protect
non-human planetary residents, it should protect
human ones, too."

"Worth a look, then. I'll run it by our--"
Nyachung interrupted him, dashing in with

snow still on his boots. "The migration begins. I
must pack."

"Nya? It's too early..."
"Yes. Early. We will go early. Before they

expect us. All of us. Into New Stockholm."

Aren took his lover gently by the arms,

speaking in dangpo. "What are you about, little
one? What is this?"

Nyachung took his face between his hands and

rose up on his toes for a tender kiss. "They do not
know how many we are. They do not understand
who we are. We will show them. Make them
understand we are not senseless savages and this
is our planet. If the law protects humans, it must
protect us all."

Chapter 11: Migration

A brave sight, Aren had to admit. Ten thousand

dangpo moving across the snowfields with more
joining them at each stop. Nakpo-wa, Lungta,
Karmanang--the pods kept coming, converging on
the Changki pod's heading. When Nyachung had
sent messengers out, they thought maybe only the
closest pods would come, but word had spread.
The dangpo massed as they never had before.

The bachuk herds moved swiftly across the

ice. They had always reminded Aren of the
Highland cattle his mother's family had bred,
though the comparison fell apart quickly on close
inspection. Like the khyi and the dangpo
themselves, the bachuk had been specifically bred
for the climate, with hard-clawed feet rather than
hooves and triple layer coats that would have put
the Highlands to shame.

I haven't thought of my mother in... Over a

century, he realized, not since he'd woken. Perhaps

he would have thought of her more if he'd known
her better, but she'd died in a flood when he was
seven. He struggled now to recall her face.

The bachuk he rode tossed her head on a

disgruntled huff as if telling him he'd better get his
wits gathered in the present day as they closed in
on New Stockholm. How his mount knew which
parts of this combined herd were hers baffled him,
but she never strayed, always staying near the
other bachuk with Changki riders, primarily
children and the elderly. While he had bristled
when Nyachung suggested he ride instead of using
the EM shoes like a competent adult, he realized
the sense in it. This wasn't a time he could afford
to fall behind or end up facedown in the snow.

A day out from New Stockholm, the universe

seemed to pivot on a swiftly condensing packet of
variables. Command had approved his requests
within hours of his invoking the Ozawa Compact.
A Judiciary troopship was en route. His hunches
all confirmed, his colleagues informed of the most
likely locations of physical evidence, all of these
things should have allowed him some peace.

But the dangpo, against all odds and

precedence, took matters into their own hands. The
trembling frisson of a storm about to break
permeated the air.

Every decision is liberating, even if it leads

to disaster... He couldn't recall which poet or
literati had said it, though he felt the truth of it in
his bones as the words shivered through him.

"Are you well?" Nyachung appeared at his

knee, pacing the bachuk effortlessly on his EM
shoes.

"I feel like baggage," Aren grumbled even as

he reached down to pat Nyachung's hand. "I'm fine.
Just a bit tired."

"We will stop soon."
Aren squinted up at the afternoon sun. "Soon?

It's nowhere near dark."

"It takes some time to make camp with so

many." Nyachung swept a hand out to indicate the
gathered pods. "And the khepa bumén wish to hold
council. I think generations have passed since so
many have been in one place."

Even as he spoke, young dangpo raced out

from the centers of their pod clusters to overtake
the hunters in the vanguard. The hunters, upon
receiving their messages, produced bone whistles.
Piercing trills echoed up and down the line of
moving bachuk and dangpo, causing the aggregate
mass to slowly grind to a halt on the snow field.
Aren's bachuk cow pawed at the snow as if to test
it, turned in a stamping circle to pack down the top
layer, and then settled with a contented huff.

"I must help see to the tap tsang tent. Will

you..." Nyachung ducked his head, his question
trailing off in evident embarrassment.

"Will I be all right without you hovering over

me, or will I be able to set up our sleeping tent?"
Aren gave Nya's shoulder a shake to save him from
his mortification. "Yes, to both. My pride is not so
brittle, little one, to take offense at concern."

Nyachung flashed him a grateful smile before

skating off to join the others unpacking the larger
kitchen and communal tent from one of the bachuk
sleds. The easy, natural way he directed the young
people in unpacking and camp preparations was
such a far cry from the frightened, uncertain young

man in the city jail cell, Aren found himself
smiling, his eyes devouring every graceful
movement from a distance.

"Careful, Major." Emma appeared at his

elbow. "Someone might think you're happy."

"Dangerous thought, eh?" But his smile only

widened.

"Not gonna be able to recognize you without

the scowl. Not fair to me, you know. I'll lose you
in this crowd."

She said it with such a straight, stern face even

as she glared up at him, emphasizing the foot or so
difference between Aren's height and everyone
else's in the migration that he burst out laughing.

"Sorry, Sergeant," he wheezed, trying to catch

his breath. "I'll attempt to do better."

"I've wished you were more communicative,

sir." She shook her head as she moved to the
bachuk to untie the personal tent cubes. "I'll help
you with these if you show me where to set up."

"I don't..."
She held up a hand to forestall his automatic

protest. "Goes faster with two, sir. And we need to

talk strategy."

"Ah, good point." Aren hefted one of the cubes.

"Over there, in front of our herd. And I promise to
unpack my brain as well."

"Good." Her stern expression cracked, a smile

tugging at the corner of her mouth. "It's still against
regs to threaten an officer, you know."

* * * *

"What have the old ones decided?" Aren asked

later as he held Nyachung close in the dark.

Nyachung hesitated, steeling himself so his

voice wouldn't shake. "We go into the city. All of
us. Right to the center where the government
buildings are."

"They won't let you in. You know that." Aren

propped himself on one elbow, the long fingers
trembling as they combed through Nyachung's hair.

"There are more of us than there are soldiers at

the gates."

"Nya...they'll panic and shoot at you."
He knew that and to say he wasn't afraid would

have been a terrible lie. "There are too many of us
to shoot."

Aren let out a slow breath, speaking in his own

language. "Damn. Just damn." His arms around
Nyachung to pull him into hard embrace, tremors
running the length of his body. "I won't lose you. I
won't..."

Not again, those anguished words implied.

"You won't. We do not...fight but we know the
hunt. We will gain entrance without bloodshed."

"And then?"
"And then to the square, to ask for justice, to

make them listen. They will deal with us fairly or
leave our planet."

"Why should they listen, nyingdu?" Aren

whispered against his shoulder.

"Emma will take pictures of what happens.

Perhaps you would, as well. There are ways for
these pictures to go"--he waved a hand toward the
sky--"out there?"

"Yes..." Aren said slowly, his hand stalling in

its caress along Nyachung's back. His voice took
on a more speculative tone as he said in his own
language, "Yes, there are. They can probably cut
the satellite feed to the planetary nets but the

Judiciary ship will be in contact range by then."
He leaned in and planted a bruising kiss on
Nyachung's lips. "You are a marvel! The
broadcasting of a peaceful revolution. With the
Compact newly signed and the ESTO board newly
sensitive to perceptions of xenophobia--perfect!"

He didn't follow all of what Aren said. Some

of the words were new, but it was more than
evident that he was pleased. Nyachung let out the
breath he'd forgotten he held, relieved Aren wasn't
offended over him making plans with Aren's rokpa
without consulting him. The relief slid down an ice
slope into want as Aren's tongue traced the
delicate ridges of his ear.

"Aren..."
"I want you." Aren's whisper sent heated

spears from his heart to his groin. "Now."

Fingers tangled in Aren's hair, Nyachung rolled

onto his back, pulling that wonderfully large body
on top of his. A little thrill of anxiety raced up his
spine. All of Aren was larger than his previous
lovers had been. The thought of that thick cock
inside him made him shiver.

"Nya," Aren's deep voice rumbled against him,

gentle and anxious, "I won't do anything to hurt
you. Anything that doesn't bring you joy."

"I want you, Aren Dalsgaard. All of you. Or I

would not have you in my tent," Nyachung
reassured him with a little laugh. "I'm not an
untouched boy, you know."

Aren settled between his thighs, licking a wet

trail from jaw to nipple, his murmured words
echoing Nyachung's own anxiety. "But you're
so...small."

"Yes. And you will go slowly." Nyachung

seized Aren's ears to force his head up,
discovering that chigyel ears made good handles.
"I trust you." I love you. If I were less of a
coward, I could tell you.

Aren's moan rolled over him, sweeter than any

song. He let Nyachung take some of his weight,
hard cocks sliding together with delicious friction.
When he wriggled down farther, he propped
Nyachung's legs over his shoulders and slid both
hands underneath.

"They fit so perfectly," Aren whispered,

kneading one ass cheek in either hand, making
Nyachung squirm in desperate pleasure.

"Don't tease, my bear," he got out on a hiss of

breath. "Or I'll leave the tent and cool my need in
the snow."

"That would be a shame," Aren growled

before he bent his head to tug on Nyachung's
foreskin with his teeth. "A dreadful shame."

He forestalled any more scolding, though, by

diving down between Nyachung's legs and licking
behind his balls. Nyachung bit his bottom lip hard
to stifle his needy moan. Not that he feared others
overhearing, but it was rude to scream out one's
pleasure too loudly in a migration camp, as if
bragging about a lover's skill. A strangled shout
still escaped when Aren lowered his head farther
to lick at Nyachung's puckered hole.

"Aren..." he gasped out, lifting his hips farther

in invitation, reveling in the helpless pleasure of
being trapped in those strong hands. He fisted his
hands in the thermal bag, his head twisting from
side to side as Aren's tongue plunged inside him,
his heat and his passion threatening to set the tent

on fire.

"Someone's anxious this evening," Aren said

on a soft laugh as he rose again, kissing his way up
Nyachung's body.

"Someone feels like a favorite khyi bone by

now and wants his lover inside him," Nyachung
shot back, surprised at the husky purr of his own
voice.

"Anything to please." Aren grunted, a heavy,

masculine sound as he shifted into position, one
hand stolen from caressing Nyachung's backside to
position his cock.

The head nudging at his entrance felt

impossibly huge. Surely that can't fit? He
reminded himself that it had been some time. Even
a dangpo male might seem huge after so many
months.

Aren's breath hissed as he eased forward. "I

feel like I'm trying to thread a needle with a
landing strut."

"Not a flattering comparison." Nyachung

gritted his teeth and bore down as the monstrous
head breeched him. The burning of that incredible

stretch stole his breath, leaving him dizzy.

"Ha, no." Aren held still, nuzzling the inside of

one of Nyachung's thighs. "You're much more
flexible than a needle and lovelier than any I've
seen."

Nyachung reached up to tug at Aren's hair,

wanting more despite the pain. "Go on. I promise
not to crack."

"You're sure?"
"I am." Nyachung slid a leg down Aren's back,

digging his heel in to pull him closer. "Slowly. I'll
be fine."

By small degrees, Aren pushed in farther,

praising and petting, furred chest heaving.
Nyachung could tell by his trembling that he fought
to hold back and warmth flooded his heart that any
man would go to such heroic efforts just to please
him. He fisted his own cock, stroking to regain the
bit of ground he'd lost, but once Aren was seated
deep inside, bumping against the gland that made
stars flash behind his eyes, his desperation
returned.

"Go. Lose yourself," he whispered, writhing in

an attempt to urge his lover on. "I follow in your
footprints." Oh, so closely. I will come at the first
hard thrust. I'm about to come apart.

Aren wrapped an arm under him with one of

those wonderful growling grunts and thrust hard.
The bit of pain lent exquisite bite to the pleasure
and Nyachung cried out, clutching at Aren's arms,
his head flung back as he came in streaming jets
across his belly and chest. Aren curled over him,
fastening his teeth on Nyachung's bicep to muffle
his howl of pleasure as he came a few strokes
later, hips jerking and bucking.

He slid Nyachung's leg off his shoulder and

collapsed, panting, mingling their sweat and come
between them.

"Are you all right?" Nyachung asked softly,

concerned at the sudden wheeze in Aren's
breathing as he stroked his hair.

"I should be asking you that," Aren mumbled

into his shoulder.

He slid his arms under Aren's shoulders to roll

him onto his side, shivering at the sudden feeling
of empty loss as he slipped free. "I'll let you know

after my eyes uncross."

Aren let out a breathy chuckle and tugged him

close. "Nya," he said in a voice soft with wonder.
"I think I..."

Nyachung stopped his words with a kiss. "Shh.

Go to sleep. You need to rest."

He knew, or felt fairly certain, what Aren

would have said. And those words...I cannot bear
to hear them and then have you leave me.

Chapter 12: Craven

Scruples

Spring mist rose from the ice, painting the

dangpo mass migration as just so much smoke and
shadow, while the city, with its early morning
collection of lights, was visible for miles out on
the snowfields.

"Poor boys don't know what's coming," Emma

murmured on his right.

They had both dismounted and strapped on EM

shoes for the short trek in. When Nyachung had
said everyone would enter the city, he hadn't meant
the herds. The bachuk were too precious to risk,
so they would remain back with the herders and
the youngest children.

"I know, Sergeant, and I can't feel good about

that. But if no one panics, they'll be all right." Aren
squinted toward the lights where he could just
make out the road leading in from the shuttle

landing pad.

"That's what we're counting on you for, sir."
"Right. Minimize casualties. Prevent riots. All

in the job description."

"It's a good thing I understand your sense of

humor, Major."

No alarms sounded as the thousands of massed

dangpo and their khyi approached the road. With
no major threats to worry about, protocol had
obviously become lax over the years. In Aren's
first life, there had been motion and heat sensors,
always online and monitored at both city
entrances. The guards were sleeping or no longer
used the perimeter systems since a single
approaching life form larger than a jago would
have set the alarms off.

"Sloppy, sir, just sloppy." Emma shook her

head, echoing his thoughts.

"I believe this is the one time I won't complain

about incompetence, Sergeant." Aren slowed as
the lead hunters did, the whole mass stopping short
of the road.

He shivered, pulling his cuffs down farther

over his gloves in a nervous gesture. Nyachung
materialized out of the fog with Karpotrinpa loping
beside him. The shiver turned into a trembling in
the center of his chest, a sudden frisson of fear
racing through him. I won't lose you...

"Ah, my battle steed arrives," he managed on a

forced smile, satisfied that his voice held steady.

Nyachung cocked his head. "I don't--"
"I know, sorry." Aren folded him in a hard

embrace. "It would take too long to explain right
now. Thank you for letting me borrow
Karpotrinpa."

"First time I'm hearing about it, sir," Emma

said in a too-even tone.

"New development." Aren steadied himself

against the khyi's enthusiastic greeting.

"Recreating history?"
"Ha!" Aren swung himself up on the khyi's

broad back, holding onto his thick ruff for balance.
"No. Trying to rewrite it, Sergeant. Anyway, I'm
the distraction. I need to be as distracting as
possible."

"Could always ride up to the gate in nothing

but your boots, sir."

He leaned down to steal a quick kiss from

Nyachung and asked with a grin, "Do you think I
should?"

Nya obviously fought against a laugh as he

shook his head. "You should not. Parts will freeze.
Some of the best parts."

"Think I'll stay dressed then." He turned to the

senior hunters nearby. "Lungdri, are we ready?"

His wind-seamed face serene, Lungdri swung

up onto his own khyi, a huge female the color of
sand. "We move with you, Serpodom."

"Aren?" Nyachung put a hand on his boot, large

black eyes drowning in worry. "Take care.
Please."

"Promise." Aren gave him a nod and nudged

Karpotrinpa with his knee to get him moving on to
the road. Despite the fact that he was approaching
a guard post with armed, and most likely
inexperienced, youngsters, this wasn't the
dangerous part. Here, events would still be
controlled to some extent. Later, when the dangpo
population entered the city, variables would

multiply at an alarming rate and everything could
slide sideways all too easily.

"Post!" he called out as they approached. "Is

anyone on duty?"

He stopped Karpotrinpa with a soft word, the

khyi shifting under him restlessly as they waited.
After a short delay, a black and gray uniformed
guard stepped out, rifle held ready.

"Halt!" he called out rather belatedly. "State

your name and business!"

"Major Aren Dalsgaard, ESTO SI, reporting

back from the Outlands."

The young man hesitated and raised his face

shield to peer out into the morning mist. "Sir? They
said you were probably dead. Kidnapped by
goblin terrorists."

"I won't deny that I was dead, Corporal. But

not at any time in the past few months."

The corporal leaned into the guard shack and

called out, "Cairns! You gotta see this!"

"What? Damn it, it's cold out there..." The

second soldier's tirade cut off when he spotted
Aren. "Holy shells."

"Sir, begging your pardon, but we're gonna

have to ask you to get down off the warg and come
in slowly." The corporal held his rifle uncertainly,
as if he couldn't decide whether to aim or salute.
Both young men took a few hesitant steps closer.

"Now see, boys, here's the thing." Aren leaned

forward to scratch behind Karpotrinpa's ear.
"These lovely beasts don't really like being called
wargs..."

On his last word, huge shapes hurtled out of the

mist from both directions, as if propelled from
twin mythical cannons. The khyi leaped on the
hapless guards before they had time to cry out,
bearing them to the ground. One sand colored, one
white, the ground vibrated with their low growls
but they neither snapped nor clawed, simply
keeping their prisoners pinned while their riders
relieved the young men of their weapons.

Aren spoke first in dangpo, "Kucheya, please

put theminside once you've secured them. We don't
want them to freeze." Then in standard,
"Gentlemen, you're perfectly safe. Stay calm and
you'll be fine."

"Major? What the hell?" one of the youngsters

cried out as his hands were bound behind his back.

Nyachung strode out of the mist, dozens, and

then hundreds of dangpo materializing behind him.
"We have come to speak to your government. To
ask questions and receive answers. We will go
into the city, without your permission, without
registry bands, because this is our home."

The corporal twisted his head around,

entreating Aren, "Sir! It's against regs! Against city
ordinances! You can't do this!"

Aren shrugged. "I'm not. They are. And, as the

singer says, this is their planet, with ordinances
written by invaders."

When the guards had been safely tucked in

their shack and Emma had shot out the comm
panel, Aren swept a hand toward the entrance in
the weather shield. "My brave, beautiful singer, the
city is yours."

The dangpo surged into the city, a tide of silent

recrimination.

* * * *

Nyachung stared about him in astonishment as

he rode Karpotrinpa through the streets. His
greatest fear had been that city enforcement would
rush in, weapons firing. But citizens crowded the
street to stare at the endless parade of dangpo,
children among them, and the soldiers hung back,
evidently afraid of firing into a crowd of families
and business owners.

Beside him, Aren strode in fearless defiance,

head high, though his hand on Nyachung's boot
twitched every time the murmurs from the crowd
carried his name. The dead officer...the cryo-
revive...goblin sympathizer...

"Why didn't you stay dead?" an anonymous

voice shouted from the crowd.

Nyachung glanced down at his lover in

concern, but Aren gave no outward sign of anger
or hurt. He strode on, appearing serene and
confident, all the uncertainty banished. Those long
legs devoured ground, easily keeping pace with the
khyi where a few days before he would have
faltered.

They reached the government square without

any physical threat, though the murmuring and the

shouted insults had been ugly at times.

Aren pointed to the plinth with the mobile

statue representing ESTO space. "There, Nya. So
they all see you. So everyone in the galaxy sees
you."

"You will not speak first?"
"No. I'm not the singer. This is your place."
On shaking legs, Nyachung mounted the

platform, gratified to see that both Emma and his
Aren recorded the scene. He shrugged out of his
coat, folded it and left it in a neat square beside
him. From his tunic pocket, he pulled his shugyak
and brought it to his lips for a shrill blast. Now all
eyes turned to him and he knew any delays would
be fidgeting and nothing more.

"Kee-yah!" he shouted into the strange, echoing

silence. "Kee-yah, hai!"

"Hai!" came back to him from hundreds of

dangpo voices, all those who had managed to
squeeze into the square and many in the streets
beyond. Chigyel leaned out of doorways and
windows, lining the streets and hovering above in
their cars to watch.

Nyachung pulled in a deep breath and began,

projecting his voice as he would in the largest
cavern. "I am Nyachung, third singer of the
Changki pod. I am of the dangpo mimang. Our
name means 'first people'--we were the first here.
We know who we are. That we come from the
stars. That our first mothers were made. That we
were slaves. That our freedom came by chance..."
He struggled for the word and found it before the
silence stretched too long. "By neglect."

A twitch of his right hand brought the hunters

forward to place the now-harmless black boxes all
around him on the statue's pedestal. "We did not
fight for our freedom as you, our chigyel cousins,
did. That does not make us less free. Or less than
you. We do not fight. We have never made war.
We offered only help when you came here."

"And so..." He stretched out a hand toward the

boxes, sweeping round in a circle to indicate them
all. "We do not understand that you hate us so. That
you would bury..." Aren had given him the word.
What was it now? "...explosives around our
homes."

Shocked silence greeted this pronouncement,

all the ugly murmurs stilled.

Nyachung turned to the government building

where people had gathered on the steps. He spread
his hands in entreaty. "Why? Tell us why you wish
to kill all our children?"

"What the hell are you talking about, gob?" a

harsh male voice called from the edge of the
crowd.

Jazhe, the Lungta first singer, motioned to

Nyachung. He pulled her up on the pedestal beside
him, ceding his spot to someone older and with a
better command of the chigyel language.

"We found these boxes buried near our

homes," she began in her clear, strong voice.
"When we sent young men to the city to ask about
them, they were greeted with scorn and not given
answers. Many did not return at all. But we know
now that these are powerful heat explosives. Set
off all at once, they would have caused the snow
and ice to rise against us like an earthquake-angry
sea. Nothing would have stood against the sudden
wave."

Nyachung jumped down as she continued with

her explanation and made his way back to Aren,
easily spotted where he stood in the midst of the
dangpo. He had done his part, now that they had
the crowd's attention and their intentions made
clear.

He reached Aren in time to hear Captain

Underwood's voice growling from his wrist
machine.

"Major, what in all hells do you think you're

doing?" The man's tiny, scowling face hovered
over Aren's arm.

"I'm recording a peaceful demonstration,

Captain." Aren kept his voice soft and even.
"Shouldn't your people be out here? In case things
get out of hand?"

"They're out there, sir, don't worry. You should

have thought about things getting out of hand before
you decided to play legend, damn it! How the fuck,
pardon, sir, do you propose you prevent a riot
from happening? With those freakish beasts in the
square?"

Jazhe raised her hands above her head, and

then lowered them slowly, her fingers fluttering
like sea reeds. She folded her legs under her to sit
on the pedestal under the slowly turning planets,
and every dangpo abruptly sat on the ground, the
khyi flopping down with them. A strange wave
effect moved out from the square as the dangpo
crowding the nearby streets all settled to the
pavement as well, as had been agreed. Within
moments, Nyachung knew every one of the people
who had entered the city would be seated and
would not move until the khepa bumen said move.

"If there's a riot, Underwood, it won't be the

dangpo who start it. And you'd be wise to
consider how you handle this. We have a feed
linked directly to the Osprey in high orbit."

Underwood sputtered, his face a fascinating

shade of purple. "Major...there will be an
investigation!"

"Oh, yes." Aren's gaze searched the crowd on

the steps before he began to move in the direction
of the government building. "There most certainly
will be. And only one freakish beast that concerns
me now."

From her perch, Jazhe still spoke, "We have

come to have our say. We have come to claim
nothing more than fairness, than justice. We will
remain where we are until the council meets with
us and our requests are answered. This is our
home. Our planet. We will no longer be shoved
aside."

Torn, Nyachung's head swiveled from Jazhe to

Aren. His place was with his people, but
Serpodom was no less one of his people than his
own family. Aren...what is it you do?

With quick hand signals, he told Karpotrinpa to

stay. Bringing his khyi with him toward the
government building would surely cause some
nervous person to begin shooting.

Aren stopped near Emma for a heated,

whispered discussion, of which Nyachung only
caught the end.

"Damn it, sir! You're not invincible!"
"I'll be careful, Sergeant," Aren said in clipped

tones. "But it's now, it has to be now, while all
eyes are out here. And I need you to stay with
them."

"Orders, sir?" she asked on an angry huff.
"You bet your hard ass that's an order,

Wickstrom. I won't be long."

Aren's apparent determination to do whatever

it was he felt needed doing without Emma
solidified Nyachung decision. Silently, carefully
picking his way through his seated people, he
followed Aren into the shadowed alleyway beside
the government building, alarmed at how swiftly
his lover moved.

* * * *

With his SI clearance, Aren bypassed the

security pad on the side door of the administrative
building. About to take the stairs, he had the odd
sensation of being followed. A white hand caught
the door before it could slide closed.

"Nya?"
"It seemed unwise for you to be alone."

Nyachung's chin lifted in defiance.

"All right, since you're here already." The spot

between his shoulder blades itched, his instincts
nagging at him. Still, better to have him with me
so I know he's safe. "But stay close, please."

Nyachung took him at his word, clutching his

coat sleeve as they made their way upstairs. He
had to admit it helped his own nerves to have his
sharp-eyed lover beside him and he might need an
extra pair of hands at some point.

The offices they passed were empty. The early

hour meant most of the staff hadn't arrived yet, and
those who had come in were most likely watching
the square now. Something had nagged him ever
since the day they'd found the dismembered body
in the shantytown. That morning, he had finally
pieced it together. Had he been less exhausted that
evening, he would have made connections faster.

Or maybe it was a loss of courage on his part,

thinking too much instead of acting. Craven
scruples, as Hamlet had said.

"Pardon?" Nyachung blinked up at him as they

reached the correct door.

"Hmm?"
"I didn't understand what you said."
Muttering aloud again. Bad habit. "It's all

right, nyingdu. Merely recalling an old story. One
in which a man nearly drives himself mad thinking

too much and hesitating because of it." He
overrode the office door pad while Nyachung
regarded him with a puzzled frown.

"I know this place. Should we be here?"
"We should. I should. I'm looking for my

missing piece."

"For what do we search?"
"Hush a moment. I need to listen." Aren

switched on his handheld sonic and paced the
perimeter of the room, waiting for that telltale
change in pitch that would indicate a hollow spot
not explained by plumbing or ductwork. He
reached the last wall, frustrated. "Damn it. It has to
be here."

He tried again with his spectroscanner and

grinned when he hit an inexplicable expanse of
lead. "Right. There you are."

"There who is? Aren?"
He dropped a quick kiss on the top of

Nyachung's head. "Sorry. When we were here that
evening, I noticed a certain caution around parts of
this office. Very carefully done, it was the
avoidance of areas of wall and desk that registered

somewhere in my back brain. He's hiding
something behind that wall, Nya. Does the center
drawer on that desk open?"

Nyachung, standing by the huge granite desk,

tugged on the drawer pull. "No."

"Can't say I'm shocked." He replaced his tools

in his jacket pocket and pulled his pistol from its
holster. With the weapon set on its tightest beam,
he held the trigger down, using the standard issue
sidearm as a laser saw to cut through the wall. Not
regulation use, of course--the power cell would
take a beating--but it wasn't a large area.

"Dalsgaard! Have you lost your mind?"
Captain Underwood's bellow from the

doorway made him twitch, but he kept at his
cutting. Nearly there...

A softer, tremulous voice followed, one that

made Aren's heart jump. "Terroristic threats,
destruction of government property, conspiracy--
why haven't you arrested him yet, Julian?" Mr.
Cisneros stood beside the outpost commander, his
plump face red from anger or exertion.

"Hold fast just a moment, Captain," Aren said

calmly, buying time as he cut his last few
centimeters. "I'll clear everything up shortly." He
let up on the beam, clicked the safety on and
switched tools again, pistol in favor of utility
knife, which he used to pry out the cut piece of
plasticrete.

"You can't let him do that! Do something!"

Cisneros shrilled.

Clearly torn, Underwood glared back and forth

between them, lantern jaw twitching, pistol not
quite aimed at Aren. "This better be good, Major."

"Nya, would you bring that light over here?

Thank you." Aren reached into the little cubbyhole
behind the wall. At first he only pulled out data
chips and an old vid-cube, but farther back, he saw
the gleam of something more promising. "Ah, there
you are."

He pulled out the fabric roll, unfastened the

closure and opened it to display the set of six
vicious looking little needles, all attached to vials
of some cloudy blue suspension. His reveal didn't
quite have the desired effect, of course.
Underwood still stared at him, angry and

flabbergasted. "Don't recognize these, Captain? I
suppose that's a good thing. Didn't really think you
would. These are vials of zi chiwa venom, taken, I
presume, from the arms of dead dangpo. Isn't that
right, Mr. Cisneros?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, Major.

Julian, he's clearly unstable."

Aren allowed himself an acerbic smile. "Don't

have a plan for this contingency, Cisneros? You're
slipping."

"How do you know it's that goblin poison?"

Underwood demanded.

"Educated guess. Though about two minutes in

the lab should prove me right." Aren strode over to
the desk and gingerly set the vials down. "Some of
this shouldn't come as a surprise, Captain, since
you're involved in this mining scheme up to your
eyebrows. But I'm almost certain you weren't
involved in the rest." He waved a hand to indicate
the administrator. "Cisneros here had the survey. It
was his idea to go after the big lumanium veins,
wasn't it?"

Underwood nodded, eyes narrowed.

"But he needed backers, investors, to make it

worthwhile. He recruited you and some of the
local, ah, business owners, the ones with the least
reasons to question scruples. At some point, things
slid sideways." Aren hit his expository stride,
pacing back and forth behind the desk. "One of
them threatened him, most likely for a bigger piece
of the take. I suspect blackmail, more than likely
over the manufacture of those thermazine
explosives. Emil Villa was making them for you in
his machine shop, wasn't he?"

"It's the revival, Julian." Cisneros tugged at the

captain's sleeve. "So many of them go insane. You
need to take him down before he gets violent."

But Underwood wasn't buying it. "Shut up,

Cisneros. Let the man talk."

"Thank you, Captain." Aren gave him a nod

and went on. "His demands became too much. His
threats had you scared, Cisneros. So you devised a
plan to kill him and make it look as if some
dangerous dangpo element had crept into the city.
In fact, the dangpo terrorist threat grew into your
most carefully laid part of this mess. Well-chosen,

quiet propaganda, a few words in the right ears,
and you had the council and enforcement believing
the threat was real. The sugar epidemic had made
them desperate, you were sure to say. More
regulations were needed to control the growing
criminal element. And then Helmdahl got wind of
something, either the murder or the plans for what
Villa had been manufacturing. Threatened again,
you had to kill him, too. And Tolomeo. Their
people had planted the explosives already; you
didn't really need them anymore, did you? You had
their money."

He stopped pacing and fixed Underwood with

a steady gaze. "Once the deed had been
accomplished and the remaining terrorists
rounded up, you would have been next,
Underwood. One last messy loose end to clean up.
It does puzzle me, though. I wouldn't have thought
you the type to agree to genocide, Captain."

As Aren had hoped, Underwood's jaw

dropped. He wasn't a good enough actor to feign
the shock. Good. He didn't know.

"Genocide? What the hell is he on about,

Cisneros! No one was supposed to die! The damn
gobs were supposed to be out on migration when
we blew the thermals!"

Aren managed a cold chuckle. "Ah, he had you

duped, my dear captain. He planned on pushing the
button early, taking as many of the dangpo out as
possible, removing them from the equation. No
more dangpo, except for a few pitiful survivors
gathered into refugee camps, nothing in the way of
mining. And with you dead and unable to
contradict him, he would have been able to justify
it with the terrorist conspiracy stories. Secretly
encourage the sugar trade, make sure there was a
pattern of criminal behavior for the settlers to
point to. Make it look like there would be reason
for terrorist groups. Set it up so it looked like the
dangpo had been planning a mass attack and had
blown themselves up. Was that more or less the
line of thinking, Mr. Cisneros?"

"You should have stayed dead," Cisneros

snarled, his façade of the harried, fussy official
falling way to reveal something much more primal
and vicious. "Of all the damn cryo-revivals to

succeed, it had to be yours. Doesn't mean you're
immortal."

Aren had been expecting some sort of

desperate move, but the fat little man moved faster
than he could have imagined. He jumped back,
away from Underwood, and whipped out a jet
pistol, one of the new, multi-purpose models.

"Julian, you don't have to die if you play your

cards right," Cisneros growled. He held the pistol
in both hands, pointed at Aren's heart. "But the
major does. Fitting, too. The whole zi chiwa
poison harvesting was an unpleasant business. I've
finally had someone develop synthetic ribul venom
for me instead. Easy enough to blame someone's
death on those giant worm-serpents. Funny. It was
the major who gave me the idea. The tragic story
of his lost love. Now, Major, you can join him as
you should have the first time."

The room's occupants exploded in a blur of

motion. Cisneros fired. Aren dove behind the desk.
Nyachung lunged for Aren. Underwood tackled
Cisneros in a heroic leap.

When Aren lifted his head, he checked to see if

any deadly needle stuck from his arms or chest.
Nothing. Underwood knelt on the floor, pummeling
Cisneros. Nyachung...

"Nya?" Aren turned and let out a relieved

breath. Nyachung sat beside him, blinking. "That
was a foolish thing to... Oh, little one...no..."

Nyachung held out his hand where the needle

projectile had struck him, burying its deadly tip
into the pad of his thumb. "I'm sorry," he
whispered. "I only thought to protect you." He
pulled the needle out, his hands shaking. "I don't
feel well."

"Underwood! Call for medical! Now, damn

it!" Aren caught Nya as he tried to rise and lurched
forward, his eyes already fever bright. "Don't die.
Oh, please. Please stay with me." This can't
happen! Not again! God help me, not again!

Underwood's voice sounded kilometers distant

as he shouted into his wrist comm for medical and
backup. "Tell them to land on the roof, damn you!
Don't try to force your way through the people in
the streets!"

"Aren?" Nyachung burrowed into his arms,

shivering. "Forgive me. I never meant..."

"Hush, now. There's nothing to forgive. They'll

bring the antidote. You'll get better. I'll take you
home." Aren forced his words through the leaden
boulder in his throat. "You'll be fine."

Nyachung reached up a shaking hand to cup his

face. "In case you are wrong for once, I must tell
you. I love you. Not Serpodom, not the stories, but
you."

He tightened his hold to stop his shaking, eyes

squeezed shut against the knife driven into his
heart. The medics clattered down the stairs,
invading the relative quiet of the office with their
machines and servo-driven stretcher. They took
Nyachung from him, asked a few questions, and
then whisked him away with efficient, competent
speed.

His legs had petrified. Enforcement came to

take Cisneros into custody, but he barely spared
them a glance. The paralysis would slowly creep
up his body until his flesh metamorphosed into
mineral, a statue like Niobe turned to stone in her
grief. I love you, too.

"Sir?" Emma touched his shoulder. He hadn't

seen her come in. "They're taking him to the
hospital. You want to be with him, we better get
going. Car's on the roof."

He nodded, managing to convince his legs to

move.

The short flight to the hospital passed in

nightmare, the walk to Nya's room a strange blur of
faces and corridors. Someone took his coat and
gloves, sat him down, and gave him water.

One of the doctors leaned down to speak to

him in urgent, earnest tones. "The antidote, sir.
Made for humans, you understand. We don't have
anything synthesized for dangpo. We've done all
we can, but I think the best we can do is make him
comfortable. Sir? Are you hearing me?"

"I hear you." His voice echoed hollow and flat

in his skull.

"Some survive, Major."
"Yes. Approximately five percent. I know the

stats."

All the emptiness of his initial waking

returned. It would swallow him this time, leave

nothing. But he had to remain for Nya. He would
stay until the end.

He took Nyachung's hand between his, grateful

that whatever drugs they had given him kept him
calm and lessened the pain. "I'm here, nyingdu.
You won't be alone. I do love you. Do you hear
me? I won't abandon you."

Nyachung shifted restlessly in the grip of fever,

but gave no sign that he heard.

* * * *

Hours or centuries later, Nyachung's breaths

slowed to shallow, occasional pants. Someone
patted Aren's shoulder, offering condolences. It
would be over soon. The panting eased down into
an occasional whisper of breath, and then nothing.

His beautiful singer had never come out of the

fever far enough to hear him, had never heard his
love returned. Here he sat again, helpless, bereft of
hope, once again the cause of a bright and
courageous young man's death. Akar had died
because he had been careless. Nyachung died
because he had been too slow.

Again. His unnatural second life could only

produce terrible consequences. It was inevitable.
He didn't belong here, had disrupted the very
fabric of the universe by being here. Enough. No
more. There would be no more.

He took his pistol from his jacket pocket and

adjusted the beam to a broad, full-power blast. He
kept hold of Nyachung's hand and pressed the
muzzle to his own temple.

A simple tightening of his finger and the

nightmare would end. This time he would make
sure not enough gray matter remained for anyone to
revive. This time no one would rip him back from
the dark. He would never be the cause of such
tragedy again. One squeeze...

A hand gripped his arm. His heart stalled in

mid-beat. White fingers wrapped around his wrist.

"Nya?" he whispered, struggling to cut through

the suffocating silence.

Black eyes gazed up at him, half-hooded and

exhausted. "Perhaps you should put that down.
Does that seem a reasonable request to you?"

The pistol fell from his numb fingers to clatter

on the floor. He stared into those black eyes that

regarded him with such concern, feeling as if he
had lost the very notion of gravity. "You..."

"I hurt. I feel as if a herd of bachuk ran over

me. But I can think again. And see again."
Nyachung's thumb stroked his palm. "Some
survive, you know."

Aren leaned over the bed and buried his face

against Nyachung's shoulder, for once in his life
unashamed of his tears.

* * * *

"They'll be sorry to lose you, sir," Emma spoke

with what seemed real regret.

"I think a hundred years is long enough for

anyone to serve, don't you?" Aren patted her
shoulder. "Who knows? They may refuse my
resignation. But I'm not leaving him, Emma."

"I know, sir." They both glanced into the

hospital room where Karpotrinpa had been
allowed a short visit with his companion, his huge
tail waving madly and threatening to knock over
every piece of equipment in the room. It was a
happy piece of normalcy in a strange week of
storm and strain.

Cisneros was in custody on the Osprey,

awaiting transport back to Terranova for trial.
Captain Underwood had been relieved of duty, and
while he faced no criminal charges, he did face a
board of review for conduct unbecoming and
ethics violations. Aren had given his recorded
testimony to the Osprey's legal advocate
concerning Underwood, highlighting the captain's
swift, heroic actions in Cisneros's office. The man
was a bigoted blowhard, but not beyond
redemption. The advocate warned him that
recorded testimony in the Cisneros trial would
most likely not be admissible, but the trip to
Terranova for the hearing would be months out
still.

He turned his gaze out the window at the now-

empty streets. The dangpo had moved back outside
the city, many of them dispersing to travel to their
traditional grazing grounds for the spring. The
council had been instructed by the central Board
that, yes, they would be dealing with the dangpo in
a fair and equitable way, including the installment
of dangpo representatives. Talks were already

underway to draft new regulations for synthetic
sugar manufacture and labeling planet-wide, as
well as discussions regarding the establishment of
bilingual schools.

A diplomat with the new title "planetary

advocate" was on his way to ensure the settlers'
cooperation and to enforce the particulars of the
Compact. A diplomat whose job was to protect the
rights of the native born--it was a new day indeed
for the paranoid Treaty planets.

Emma patted his shoulder. "I think command

will understand, Major. Your life is here. You take
care of each other, you hear me? Don't make me
come back unless it's under my own steam."

"Understood, Sergeant." Aren hesitated, but

then relented and pulled her into a fierce hug.
"We'll miss you, Emma. Thank you. For
everything."

"Don't start getting sappy on me now." A gruff

edge had crept into Emma's voice. "It was
aggravating as all hells to work with you, sir. A
privilege, you understand, but aggravating. I will
miss the little guy, though. He has a lot of sense."

"Aren't you saying goodbye to him?"
"We said ours already, Major. Don't want to

make him cry again. Sensitive creative types, you
know."

"Of course." Aren tamped down on his smile.

Heaven forbid that the sergeant would ever admit
to crying. "Whatever officer they assign you to next
doesn't deserve you. I hope you know that."

She gave him a hint of a smile. "All part of the

job, sir."

He offered a handshake. She refused and

snapped to attention with a smart salute instead,
the sign of respect nearly his undoing. He fought
the sting at the backs of his eyes as she walked
away. My keeper, my friend...my rokpa.

"Aren?"
He cracked a smile. Nyachung had serious

concerns about his voice still, hoarse and raw after
his poisoning, but his ability to project seemed to
be returning. "Yes, love?" He had to dodge around
the joyful khyi to reach the bed, but he didn't mind
in the least.

"Have they said when we might go home?"

Home. Our home. The thought ran warm and

inviting through his veins. Nya was still weak,
unable to walk much farther than bed to bathroom,
but they had been promised a government snow
skimmer for the trip. The need to keep the chigyel
from learning the locations of the gunkha nangen
was a moot point now, and there would be more
need for communication between settler and
dangpo governing bodies, as well.

"This afternoon, if you like. Though I know

you'll miss the food here."

Nyachung pulled a face and smacked him with

a pillow. "Yes. As much as I would miss a
toothache."

Aren laughed and bent to plant a searching kiss

on pale, soft lips. "I need to go to my quarters and
pack, and then I'll take you home."

"Pack? So you truly will stay?"
"They can't force me to stay in the service,

Nya. I've served longer than any man alive. Yes,
I'm staying. Truly. And when I have to go off-
planet for a short while, I hope you'll come with
me."

Nyachung stroked delicate fingers through his

hair. "As if I would allow you to go so far alone.
You can't be trusted to take care of yourself."

"Right. At least my new keeper lets me make

love to him. Certainly an added benefit." Aren
gathered him close, his teasing words hiding the
way his heart swelled. For the first time since
waking from death, he felt whole.

"Your new keeper is rather hungry." Nyachung

nipped his earlobe. "And will certainly demand
some of those benefits when we reach home."

Epilogue

Aren reached out to stop Nyachung's

scratching. He only did it on occasion now, and
only in unfamiliar places. The shuttleport, with its
constant stream of loudspeaker announcements and
the roar of inertial thrusters, wore on the little
singer's nerves.

The whole trip had been both exciting and

nerve-wracking for Nya. He appreciated that. Even
the clothes he wore now were uncomfortable for
him, the synth-cotton trousers and the high-collared
jacket he had worn for media events to make him
look less alien for ESTO viewers.

"How will you know?" Nya asked, brow

crinkled as he searched the crowds at the gate.
"Why would they not tell you?"

"Who my new assistant is? I'm sure the name

wouldn't mean anything to me. Whichever soldier
they've picked will come and introduce him or
herself. It's not as if we're hard to spot."

"Ah. What if you don't like him?"
Aren shrugged. "It's part of an officer's job to

get along with his subordinates. Not a matter of
liking someone so long as you can work together
effectively."

Officer. Right. After his part in the Cisneros

hearing was over, his resignation had been
refused. On the verge of putting in a claim for
"mentally and emotionally unfit," he had been
drowning in anger until they told him the reason
why. The Board was recalling the planetary
advocate for Drass and replacing him with
someone they deemed "eminently more suitable,"
Major--now Colonel--Aren Dalsgaard.

Apparently, the position of planetary advocate

came with an assistant, whether he wanted one or
not. The mysterious assistant had orders to meet
the colonel at the port and join him on his trip
home to Drass, evidently so there would be time to
brief said new assistant.

A voice spoke behind him, a rough, battle-

hardened one instead of the young, green voice he
had expected. "Sir? Going my way?"

He turned, shocked into a genuine smile.

"Emma! What are you doing here? I thought you
were assigned to Fleet HQ."

"Was, sir. New assignment dragged my ass all

the way back here, though. You know how it is.
You just get settled in and they yank you
somewhere new."

"Where to now? Please don't tell me they're

sending you out to one of the perimeter planets."

Emma put down her duffle with a grimace.

"Something like that, sir. Got assigned to this
hotshot new colonel. Seems to fancy himself some
sort of diplomatic genius even though he gets
himself shipped off to some damned ice planet."

He leaped to his feet, but Nyachung beat him to

it, throwing his arms around the gruff old sergeant
to hug her hard. "Emma! You're coming with us!
You are the new assistant?"

Her grim façade cracked and she laughed.

"Sure am, kiddo. And here I thought I got rid of you
two." She hugged him back and then had to endure
a hug from Aren as well. "Sir, please. People'll
talk."

"Thank God it's you, Sergeant. I was tired just

thinking about having to deal with some bright
young puppy with too much enthusiasm and no
sense."

"Yeah, well, at least I don't have to break in

another officer. You two been all right?"

"Oh, yes! Emma, I have seen the capital and

been to museums and gone to concerts and have
met Mr. Ozawa, he was a lovely man! And the
Corzin! So huge! I did not know men grew so big!"
Nyachung pulled Emma down to sit with them as
he rattled on in his obvious joy.

She straightened his coat collar. "Like the new

clothes. The green looks good on you."

Nyachung squirmed, tugging at the sleeves. "I

will be happy to be back in my clothes. The galaxy
is exciting, but I am ready to be home."

The loudspeaker announced their shuttle

landing.

"Home." Emma nodded. "Has a nice sound to

it. Ready, Colonel?"

Aren stood and shouldered his bag. "Second

star to the right and straight on till morning." He

tucked Nyachung under his arm and strode off for
the access tube.

Beside him, Emma shook her head. "Sir, you

say the weirdest things. Worries me that I
understand you so well."

Angel Martinez

Angel Martinez is the erotic fiction pen name

of a writer of several genres. Her experiences as a
soldier, a nurse, a banker, and an underpaid
corporate drone give her a broad view of the
world and a deep appreciation for the astounding
variety of people on this small planet.

She currently lives part time in the hectic

sprawl of northern Delaware and full time inside
her head. She has one husband of over twenty
years, one son, two cats, a love of all things
beautiful and a terrible addiction to the
consumption of both knowledge and chocolate.

To learn more about Angel, please visit:

http://www.freewebs.com/angelwrites/

* * * *

Don't miss A Different Breed, by Angel

Martinez,

available at AmberAllure.com!

Josh hunts vampires with relentless, cold

precision until the night he confronts a gorgeous
hunk of vamp in the woods outside Ithaca.
Richard destroys all of Josh's prejudices about
vampires in the first few moments of
conversation, and the sexual sparks between
them ignite almost as quickly. Richard offers the
stability Josh never had, while Josh offers the
healing Richard needs so desperately.

But it's nearly impossible just to walk away

from a life of violence. An attack one evening
leaves a friend in the hospital, Richard with a
bullet through his chest, muttering about strange
creatures, and Josh fighting to piece together
what really happened. Are Richard's nightmare
attackers real, or is Josh's favorite vamp losing
his mind? Is there a reasonable explanation or
has the hunter now become prey?

Amber Quill Press,

LLC

Print and Electronic Books

Romance

Action/Adventure

Fantasy/Paranormal/SciFi

Mystery/Suspense/Thriller

Historical/GLBT

Erotica...& more!

http://www.AmberQuill.com

http://www.AmberHeat.com

http://www.AmberAllure.com

Document Outline

SUB ZERO
Chapter 1: The Resurrected Major
Chapter 2: The Goblin Problem
Chapter 3: Custody
Chapter 4: Something Rotten In New Stockholm
Chapter 5: Going Outland
Chapter 6: Across The Ice
Chapter 7: Remembrance
Chapter 8: Tale-Singer
Chapter 9: Black Boxes
Chapter 10: The Ozawa Compact
Chapter 11: Migration
Chapter 12: Craven Scruples
Epilogue
- Angel Martinez
Amber Quill Press, LLC

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