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Shadith moved onto the air mattress, sat with her legs drawn up, her arms draped over her knees. “I wouldn’t mind a cup of tea first. I’m still cold to the bone.”

Ginny smiled, startling her with the sly amusement she felt in him. “I live only to serve you, Singer.”

“Yeh, yeh, sure you do.” She spread a blanket over her knees, pulled the towel off, and began to rub at her hair.

##

Shadith set the mug on the floor and stretched out on her stomach, her head resting on crossed forearms. Tsipor knelt beside her, narrow hand cold on the back of her neck.

She reached.

##

Rohant lay awake and tense on something hard and uncomfortable enough to keep him shifting position frequently. He was waiting-she didn’t, couldn’t, know for what.

She left him at it and felt about for the other Dyslaera. Ginny said half of them were dead. She didn’t believe him. He’d say anything to get what he wanted.

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

One Omphalite, probably a guard on watch.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Out and out she spiraled the point presence of her reach, a sick cold hollow growing beneath her ribs.

Nothing but Omphalites-except for a few local women clustered in a small tight area near the northern end of the Compound.

It didn’t have to mean the other Dyslaerors were dead; they could have been mindwiped like her, dumped in a Contract labor levy. Could have been. It was only a thread of a hope and it shriveled as she tried to cling to it. Ginny’s report about Omphalos’ intentions was too convincing. They were dead, disposed of, all but Rohant.

She sprang back to Rohant, scanned his body. No real damage. Relief flooded her and she sobbed before she could stop herself.

Tsipor’s hand tightened on her neck.

She steadied and went back to searching the Compound, locating and counting the Omphalites so Ginny could better avoid them when he sent in his EYEs. And she could begin planning to break Rohant free.

##

Shadith opened her eyes, groaned, pushed herself up till she was sitting cross-legged on the mattress, the blanket draped loosely about her. “Stylus,” she said.

Tsipor crawled across the dome to the place where she’d been squatting before, sat there, crimson eyes narrowed to slits, face blank.

Ginny tossed Shadith a clipboard, a stylus held to it with a small magnet.

“Five hundred and nine,” she said. “Five hundred and ten if you count Rohant. No Dyslaera there except him…” She began marking clusters of circles. “These are sleepers, not to scale, though I’m keeping angles and organization as accurate as I can. I didn’t find any of the other prisoners. I suppose they’ve been processed and sent… wherever…” She finished the circles and began laying down x’s, some of them with dotted lines and arrows indicating direction. “This lot are the wakers. The ones without pointers aren’t moving, probably sitting at terminals or watchposts, the others are going here and there, either insomniacs or guards on patrol.” She added a rectangle. “Rohant. He’s not far from the outer wall; it shouldn’t be too hard to pry him loose.”

“The EYEs go in first.”

“Yes. But once you’ve got them in place, I’m going to blow that cage and pull him out.”

“That argument is finished, Singer; you annoy me when you bring it up again and again.”

“All right. I just want things clear.” She stretched out again on the mattress, flipped the blanket over her. “Wake me when you’re ready to go.”

Miralys and Voallts on the hunt-Black House

The three Dyslaer transports plunged into the atmosphere and sped across the night sky sheathed in halos of superheated gases. They dipped low over Haed Ke, released a swarm of Capture Landers and went flaring up and out, settling into synchronous orbit above Tos Tang, a small unimportant seaside town, and Black House, a rambling structure growing like lichen on the stony mountains above Tos Tang.

##

Aboard Anyagyn’s Cillasheg, Miralys prowled restlessly about the bridge, maintaining a precarious control on her temper and her needs.

Huddled in one of the observer seats by the offside wall, Kikun watched her with admiration and apprehension; it was rather like hanging around a volcano about to erupt.

Beside him, Autumn Rose was busy with the totacorder tapped into the ship’s kephalos, recording for Digby the attack and everything that happened aboard the Cillasheg; this was his price for the data he provided, and the contacts.

##

Agile as stingships and almost as lethal (courtesy of Digby’s sources), the Capture Landers swept down on the Black House, blew out the nodes where the defense centers were located, then retreated into a ragged disk hovering over the House.

##

Her face filling the center cell, Tasylyn twitched her scarred ear. “Got ’em all, they couldn’t light a match.”

Anyagan the Szajes showed her teeth. “Good work, cousin.”

“You want us to go in? Wouldn’t take us ten minutes to fetch ours out.”

“Down, kit. We want ours alive, not dead. We’ll take the long road first. Ta.” She blanked the hexa, swung to face Miralys. “You ready, Toerfeles?”

Miralys settled into the co-seat. “Get them.”

##

The sweaty, furious face of a man filled the central hexa. His thick gold hair straggled about his ears; his eye paint was smudged and his lip rouge rolled into crumbs at the corner of his mouth, a mouth working in a futile frenzy, futile because the sound was off.

Anyagyn sniffed, the small sound heavy with distaste. “You want to hear that, Toerfeles?”

“No. Can that hear me?”

“When you want.”

“Do it.”

“Done.”

The man blinked and started yelling more furiously, waving his arms, hands appearing and vanishing as they swung in and out of the viewcone.

Miralys dug her claws into the padding on the chairarms. “Shut your mouth, fool, listen to me.” Her ears twitched, her lips curled up and back in the Dyslaera threat grin.

There was a flicker of fear in the man’s eyes, understanding immediately suppressed. His face smoothed out, acquired a sudden patina of grooming. He smiled, bowed his head, spoke briefly, then waited.

“I am Miralys vey Voallts tol Daravazhalts, Toerfeles of Voallts Korlach. You have blood kin of mine prisoner in that abomination of yours. I want them, without delay and intact.” She turned to Anyagyn. “Let me hear that.”

The man smoothed nervous fingers over his hair, pressing it into a semblance of order. “What are you talking about, Toerfeles?” His voice was pleasantly rough, more interesting and attractive than his surgically enhanced face. “There are no Dyslaera here. Someone’s been lying to you.”

“Who are you? Would you know?”

“I am Pinjaro da Tinggal.” He was almost purring now that he knew what he dealt with, sure of his ability to defuse the situation. “I am Pengurra of this House. I know what happens here.”

Miralys’ ears went back against her skull. “Anyagyn Szajes, do it.”

“Hannys, Sugnam, Tasylyn. Go.”

##

Three Capture Landers left the disk, swooped down and blew away a section of Black House, went spiraling back to their places. A breath and a half and the attack was over.

##

Tinggal yelped and vanished from the screen.

He reappeared a moment later. “There were people in those suites. Important people. You killed them.”

Miralys snorted. “Turn about, worm. How many dead…” She broke off. “That doesn’t matter. You have ten minutes. After that we will remove another sector and another, one every ten minutes.”