Caitlan had been assigned the laundry area of Sacrael Castle. It lay on the southern side; the same gate as provided access to the kitchens. To get to other areas of the castle from the laundry one had to pass through the kitchens and one of the two passages leading into the areas occupied by royalty and officials who resided here, or spent much of their time in the small rooms from where Tergan was governed.

Sander waited at the junction of those two passages, hidden away in a small nook formerly occupied by a historical suit of armor, his weapon drawn. The two guards normally waiting here had been armed with crossbows and were hiding a few paces further down, at another junction of passageways. They were under orders to watch and do nothing—unless Sander happened to become incapacitated. In that case, they were to shoot without any hesitation or remorse any woman coming down the passage, heading their way.

Falcon had taken the kitchens; at Caitlan’s suggestion.

“The kitchen is busy. I do not trust myself to hit a target in such a moving crowd with a weapon such as this.” The big man held up the needler. “I know how to use this, but it is not…” He hesitated.

“It’s just not ‘you’,” Falcon said.

Caitlan’s face remained blank for a moment, then he nodded. “An interesting way of saying it. A warrior, after all, is his weapons.”

“Including,” Falcon touched his head.

“Indeed,” Caitlan agreed. “The most dangerous weapon of all.”

Falcon and Caitlan circled around to approach their target from the outside. If Francine was driven to evade them, she must paradoxically, be driven toward her targets. That’s where Sander waited. The worst scenario would be her evading them and being allowed to roam freely around Sacrael. They might never find her again—not once she knew that she was being hunted.

Falcon watched Caitlan enter the passage leading toward the castle laundry. Two middle-aged women, one fat, the other thin, wearing grey tunics tied together at the waist and somewhat grubby bonnets, made way as the big man disappeared from Falcon’s view.

Falcon hesitated for a moment, then waited for the two women to continue along their way. To his right opened the pantry; a large, elongated room with three rows of racks, holding baskets, trays and earthenware vessels with food and drink, fresh and preserved. Across the ceiling were strung several cords, from which hung dried victuals, vegetable and animal. The foods exuded a potent mélange of scents, with a hundred hints of this and that, yet always overpowered by the strength of the overall olfactory stimulation.

A few scullery maids scuttled between the racks, fetching items which they rushed into the kitchen. Falcon dismissed them from his consideration. The hierarchy among the servantry in these kinds of places was usually fairly rigid. Not even kitchen maids, the next level above the slovenly creatures before him, would have access to the higher levels of the castle. In fact…

Falcon berated himself for being a moron. Caitlan’s suggestions were sound; but they hadn’t taken into consideration the logistics of the castle’s human infrastructure. If anybody was likely to get access to the higher levels, it had to be someone at the level of a chambermaid. There were only two reasons why one of such position should be down here: to eat or to pick up garments or linen.

Who would think of questioning someone dressed in the manner of a chambermaid, carrying a bundle of folded-up bed-linen? And would even Caitlan think of the fact that in her hands, hidden from sight underneath the bundle, Francine would be carrying two weapons she could fire without even dropping the concealing load?

Falcon opened his mouth to say something to warn Caitlan—but then bethought himself. Attention diverted from essential tasks, even if the communication received was important, could kill; especially here.

Falcon turned away from the pantry and started down the passage to the laundry.

In his ear sounded a light cough.

Already?

The passage was straight, wide enough for four people to walk abreast, and about twenty steps long. The women who had moved aside to let him pass had done so without need. There had been a time when Caitlan would have expended a thought at their motivations for doing so, a time when it would have troubled him to have someone so obviously shy away from his presence; but not now. Toward him came another woman; dressed in the red and white colors of a chambermaid. She, too, wore a bonnet. In her hands before her she carried a small pile of folded linen. Her face was in darkness, hidden by the light from behind her.

Caitlan didn’t have to see the face to know her for who she was. It was a manner of walking; silent, sliding, stalking; feeling the ground under her foot before she set it down and committed herself to that next step, in balance until the final instant of decision to take it. Now she added a deliberate swaying of the hips; her head, still in shadow, tilted coquettishly. And what was a chambermaid doing with a small bag slung over her shoulder?

Caitlan, as would be expected of him, allowed himself to consider her as they approached each other. Her desire to attract his attention, and thereby to conceal herself, allowed him to study her without the need for surreptitiousness. He remembered Falcon’s warnings and forced himself to see her just as a woman who was making eyes at the tall man about to pass her. He allowed himself a grin, broadened it into a smile. He cleared his throat to signal to Falcon, and deliberately slowed down.

The slightest of stiffening in her stance as she pondered the implications of his attention? Danger to her or not? Caitlan realized that he, too, could not conceal his profession.

They were upon each other. Her face emerged from hiding. Two big, widely-spaced eyes; a broad generous mouth; a fine, flawless nose; exquisitely modeled cheekbones. Falcon had been right: a beauty by any standard; the attraction enhanced by the obvious power and maybe a hint of madness lurking behind the glance she gave him.

They passed each other. Caitlan slowed, allowed himself to look back—saw her looking back at him as well. A definite air of interest. A moment of distraction.

Behind her appeared Falcon.

Warrior’s instinct made her whip around. The garments dropped from her hands, each holding a weapon. She jerked back against the side of the passage, twisting around, one weapon firing at Falcon as the other was leveled in Caitlan’s direction.

Caitlan dropped flat to the ground as a rattle of small explosions echoed through the passage. He aimed his needler. An explosion nearby. Stone chips battered his face, forcing him to close his eyes, foiling his aim. He fired anyway, spraying the passage with tiny needles. Above him the whistle of a larger projectile. A moment later a loud report from the laundry, followed by screams.

Falcon fired, but Francine wasn’t there anymore. The pellet exploded on the wall near where her head had been an instant ago. He heard the characteristic whistle of a misslet, jerked out of the way. The projectile zipped past him, entered the pantry, impacted on a rack and exploded, deafening him. He aimed around the corner into the passage and fired a few more shots; hoping for a random hit, but expecting little.

Caitlan lay on the ground, firing his needler. The chitter of needles ricocheting off the stone walls. Francine threw herself on the ground, aimed one gun at Caitlan. Falcon fired, distracting her. Another misslet came his way. He drew back. The pantry suffered another disaster. People started screaming, both in kitchen and laundry. A stampede started behind him.

…and in the laundry, as a group of women came rushing out of there, filling the hallway with their bodies, forcing Caitlan to roll out of the way to avoid being trampled.

Stupid people!

Francine leapt up, allowing the crowd to surround and sweep her away, toward Falcon. She aimed across their heads in Falcon’s direction, fired both guns, forcing him to retreat. The bodies of the panicking idiots around her made it impossible for him to return fire. The bolus came toward him, now propelled by the awareness of those running that Francine might not be entirely benevolent. Two stumbled, fell, were trampled over by the others. And Francine kept firing. The noise of the explosions was deafening, the smoke from incipient fires and the dust from pulverized stone filled the air.

The people streaming from the kitchen slammed into those coming from the laundry. Impossible to tell who was who. The crowd formed an irresistible force pushing Falcon ahead of it. Somewhere in there was Francine, but it was pointless to try anything but keep out of the way. Falcon ducked into an alcove and let it sweep past him.

There came Caitlan, his face bloody but otherwise apparently unharmed. The men fell in beside each other at the rear of the group, trying to discern Francine, who wasn’t to be found.

“Stop!”

Falcon grabbed Caitlan’s arm and motioned toward the inside of the castle.

Assumptions…

Francine was a master of exploiting people’s folly.

Decisions…

She knew that he knew this. She knew what he might anticipate. She also knew, as did he, that in such situation the best choice was a random decision.

I know you know I know you know I know.

Caitlan and Falcon exchanged a silent stare.

Falcon sighed. “We can’t risk her getting there. Sander! Watch out! If she’s coming your way, she should be there any moment.”

Another brief moment of hesitation—then, their weapons at the ready, they hurried to where Sander was waiting. Behind them the smoke billowed thickly from the pantry, and the sounds of the fleeing servants grew fainter.

“Wait!” Falcon stopped and took out his comcorder; manipulated the controls.

A blip appeared denoting the positions of the three remaining Hounds; their camcorders still transmitting a locator signal. The position of Francine’s…

All three signals suddenly vanished. Falcon cursed—yet it was obvious, from the stored traces, that Francine an instant ago, had definitely not been inside the castle.

“She’s out there,” Falcon grated. “Sander?”

“Are you certain?” came Sander’s response.

“Absolutely. Caitlan and I are going to where her last position fix came from. I’m ready now to take up your offer of using every informer you’ve got. And guard every entrance to the castle!”

Falcon motioned to Caitlan. The two started running back toward the kitchens and the exit.

“She will try and ambush us again,” Falcon said as they left the castle grounds.

“She is a very deadly creature,” Caitlan agreed.

Falcon chuckled humorlessly. He glanced at the comcorder’s display and correlated their current positions with Francine’s last recorded location.

Too close. She might or might not have holed up somewhere. She would certainly…

“Sander? Have your spies look out for a discarded chambermaid outfit; you know, the red and white one. By now she’ll have disposed of it. Probably killed someone to get a replacement. A woman probably. Someone who’ll look ordinary and won’t be noticed. Right now, she’ll just want to hide for a while.”

He looked around himself. They had headed toward the harbor and the back-alleys and nooks of the adjacent district.

“A whore wouldn’t look out of place here,” he said to Caitlan.

“There are enough of them around here,” the big man agreed.

“Where are you?” came Teris’s voice over the comms.

Caitlan supplied details.

“I’m coming,” Teris said. “I’m going to kill her.”

Falcon refrained from commenting.

“Evadne and Ailin will be safe now,” she said. “You need all the help you can get.”

Probably, but…

He held his tongue. It appeared like a prudent thing to do.

They entered a curved alley, about five paces wide. Above its mouth, between the flanking buildings, at the height of two men a wooden sign had been suspended, which read ‘Pink Promenade’, an appellation that made Falcon grin despite the situation.

“A street of doubtful repute”? he guessed.

Across the alley, between the higher-up windows and narrow balconies, were strung clothes lines, from which hung garments that wouldn’t be expected to be found in the households of the more staid citizens of this town.

“Every city has one,” Caitlan said. “Some cities have several.”

A few men, some slinking furtively, others swaggering openly, others in states of moderate to severe intoxication using the walls of the buildings for support. The faces of sparsely-dressed women of various shapes, sizes, hair colors and ages, peered down from windows, hung over balconies with prominently displayed come-hither attributes, or leaved in doorways, scanning the passersby.

“There are cities out there,” Falcon replied, “with sections the size of Cedrea, all of doubtful repute.”

He pointed. “You take the right, I take the left?”

Caitlan nodded and moved to the outer rim of the curve.

“Francine is a…” Falcon wanted to say ‘snake’, but realized that the term had no grounding in this world or these people’s language. Neither did arachnids, which somehow appeared to have been left out of the spectrum of imported life forms.

Maybe the Turillians hated spiders.

Falcon and Caitlan started walking along the alley, flanking it on opposite sides. The whores, seeing them approach, appeared to display additional interest. These two obviously weren’t the usual kind of clientele.

It wasn’t easy, fending off the attentions of the ladies.

Falcon wondered if Cedrea had another quarter where other sexual tastes were catered for. In most places, and especially those cities where folks considered themselves highly civilized, the rendering of sexual services was not segregated into categories of preferences. But here the clients were all male and the professionals female. More Turillian social engineering?

Falcon dismissed such irrelevant considerations from his mind. Mac was prone to analyzing such things at length, but even he wouldn’t do it in the heat of battle or when focused on hunting down a dangerous fugitive.

Falcon glanced at Caitlan on the opposite side of the alley. A young whore with red hair, a gauzy kind of tunic split open to reveal an impressive cleavage and hiding little of the dark shadow above her thighs, hung herself onto Caitlan’s arm with one of hers and tried to drag him into a nearby doorway, even as she reached down with her other hand to pull up her garment.

Falcon grinned at Caitlan’s attempts to extricate himself from the situation. He moved aside to evade a pair of women ambling toward him.

A doorway three paces ahead.

From the corner of his vision…

…an incongruous movement? Inconsistency?

Close! something told him.

Falcon was too well trained to give himself away by turning his head.

He averted his gaze from Caitlan, sweeping it across…

The two whores were upon him. He caught a whiff of a sicklish-sweet scent.

He turned his head to glance at them, for it would be expected that he did. He grinned and slightly shook his head, occasioning pouts of disappointment.

Another two steps. The women were left behind. The doorway was beside him, a moving object in his peripheral vision.

A sudden movement. A hand reaching out to grab his sleeve.

Falcon whipped around, his hand reaching into the fold of his garment.

He caught a glimpse of the girl standing there—a child barely past puberty, dressed like an old pro, her long, yellow hair draped over…

A faint whistle past his left ear. An instant later a small explosion as the projectile hit the stone wall, spraying chips and dust into his face.

Falcon managed to close his eyes in time, but the ricocheting fragments hurt like hell.

The girl screamed piercingly.

Falcon jerked aside. His eyes were still closed. His hands found the doorway. He threw himself into its cover; impacted on the girl, who seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of air to support her continuing wail; threw her back into the interior of the brothel and himself across her.

Another explosion. More flying chips, stone and wood alike.

Then, silence.

Falcon rose off the whimpering girl and tried to open his eyes. They stung, but he resisted the temptation to rub them. He shook his head vigorously, hoping to dislodge some of the debris. Tears started to flow in response to the irritation.

With his blurred vision he saw that Caitlan had taken cover inside the doorway that the redhead had tried to drag him into. Falcon waved to indicate that he was all right.

“What has happened?” came Teris’s voice in his ear.

“She’s here,” he grated.

He played back the seconds immediately before Francine had tried to kill him.

If that girl hadn’t distracted him…

He would have been dead. Francine was the Hounds’ sniping specialist. His head would have looked like Eeona’s.

Falcon’s insides heaved as images came unbidden and unwanted.

He shook his head again, vigorously; managed to dislodge some more dirt. His vision cleared, though now his face started stinging. He touched it and found his hand coming away with dirty blood.

From across the road he saw Caitlan gesturing.

“She is on the top floor of the Seafarer’s Rejoicings,” Caitlan’s voice came in his ear. “I will cut off her escape through the back.”

“Go!”

Falcon watched as Caitlan dragged the redhead out of sight.

Circling around the back…

If Francine was up there, everything had changed. She wouldn’t be up there alone.

Hostages?

Falcon looked around, at the girl who had saved his life and would never know it. She lay there, now rolled over, looking up at him, her eyes wide and bewildered.

Falcon bent down and gently took one of her arms. She didn’t shrink back, but just stared at him.

“Get up,” he said gently. He wanted to say more; ‘thank you’ maybe; or something to the effect that someone like her really shouldn’t be doing this kind of job…

But he held his tongue and let her go; indicated for her to go to the older women who had just appeared at the head of the steps further down the hallway.

Falcon turned away, dismissing them from his mind.

Surely, Francine wouldn’t be so stupid as to wait in the window for him to come out of cover! Not if she’d seen Caitlan and knew that she had to keep moving. Nothing worse than being pinned down.

Still, Francine was Francine…

Falcon, Klint’s weapon at the ready and aiming at where he guessed Francine might be, sprinted out of the doorway and zig-zagged across the street, angling for another entrance closer to where she would be hiding.

Three more tiny explosions echoed through the alley, marking his path; but all missing him by several feet.

Losing your touch? That wasn’t even close.

Falcon threw himself into the cover of another doorway. At least now he knew where the shots had come from; and at this angle it was getting harder for her to aim.

Mac, Chip—where are you?

Phantom Strike, working in unison and advancing under mutual cover fire, would have finished this quicker than a whore could take her clothes off.

“Teris? Where are you?”

“I am almost there.” It sounded like she was running.

Running?

Of course. Teris could probably outrun him anytime and anyplace. He’d seen her thighs and calves; extremely feminine, but if you knew what to look for, you’d see muscles toned for speed.

“Teris? Circle around to Yip Alley,” said Caitlan. “Turn left at Possajenni Circle. There’s a small alley between a stable and the Wangaroo Distil inn. Go down there, and it’ll take you into Pink Promenade from the other side.”

“Pink Promenade?” Teris echoed.

Falcon chuckled. “Be careful,” he said.

He positioned himself so he could just see the front of Seafarer’s Rejoicing. He tried to put himself into Francine’s position. She must guess that at least one other person was trying to cut off her retreat. She couldn’t go out the front, because she knew Falcon would be waiting there. Meaning she was stuck.

The folks in Pink Promenade, whores and customers alike, had figured out that unpleasant things were happening. They might not know exactly what, but whatever they knew, it was sufficient to cause the alley to become suddenly deserted.

Falcon heard noises from further inside the building which hid him. He peered into the badly lit interior, but his eyes, still smarting and nowhere as acute as usual, discerned no movement. His face stung and burned, making him progressively more irritable. Without his usual medikit, the pain would only get worse and his face would be a mass of itchy scars for days to come.

Falcon tried to put himself into Francine’s situation and, considering her psych profile, figure out what she would do next.

Hostages!

She would have hostages. Either that or she’d killed everybody up there.

Not Francine. She’d think ahead, no matter how pressed by time and circumstances.

As if prompted by some telepathic connection, came her voice.

“Falcon? You there? Talk to me!”

Falcon stepped a little further back and out of ricochet scope. He wouldn’t have put it past her to try and lure him into visibility to take another few shots at him.

“What do you want?” he called.

“Klint’s dead, isn’t he?”

“Very.”

“Did you kill him?”

“There was no other choice.”

Nothing came in return.

“Teris? Caitlan?”

“I am at the back of Seafarer’s Rejoicing,” Caitlan said, sounding grim. “If she comes out this way, I’ll kill her.”

“That will be the only way to stop her. She will be using whomever she finds there as shields.”

“I understand.”

“Teris?”

“Almost there.” Her voice pattern was modulated by the steady rhythm of running, but she didn’t sound winded at all.

You move fast!

“Falcon?”

Francine’s voice.

“What?”

“Just so we’re clear that I’m not leaving you with a choice either…”

The words ended with a dull thud on the pavement outside.

“The only man up here,” Francine called. “The rest are women, but don’t think it’ll make any difference. Here’s the bottom line. One corpse every ten sta’m’s. That gives you fifty sta’m’s to make up your mind. I want out, and I want the landing craft Klint was supposed to retrieve.”

“Can’t be done,” Falcon shouted. “We have no remote control for this thing. Two days minimum.”

“You got five corpses or fifty sta’m’s to change your mind.”

“And after that you’ve got nothing.”

“I’ve got a disinfector charge—twenty KT. Don’t make me use it!”

Damn!

Would she blow herself up, and this whole damn city with it?

It’s Francine, you idiot! Of course she would.

“How about letting those women go and giving me fifty sta’m’s anyway?” he shouted.

“No.”

“What’s the point, you freak? They’re going to die anyway!” he shouted.

Don’t lose your temper!

“Eight sta’m’s until the next one. This one’s a blonde. Big tits and just the way you like them. Name’s Ariena. Right now she’d hugging the one I’m going to kill last. That would be Heely, who may be a bit too young, even for the likes of you.”

“I don’t have a remote! You hear me?”

“I hear you, but you’re lying.”

“You’re going to kill yourself because you think I’m lying? What if I’m not?”

“I’m going to kill you because you’re lying. And if you’re not then you’re going to find a way to rush me—which means I’m finished either way. So, it’s either banking on you being a lying bastard who doesn’t care about the lives of these women—or else who cares? And, by the way, I’m cutting their throats; just to make sure they’ll die, even if the fall doesn’t kill them.”

“What is she saying?” Caitlan’s voice came in his ear.

Falcon hadn’t realized that Francine used Inglis until that moment.

“Do you have the remote for the ship of space?” he asked Caitlan.

“The thing that allows me to summon it from afar?”

“That’s the one.”

“It is with Ailin.”

“Sander?” Falcon said aloud, “do you hear me?”

“Every word.”

“Go to Ailin. Give her your comm. And hurry!”

“She wants the ship of space?” Caitlan asked.

“Yes.”

“She must not have it.”

“No.”

Falcon peered out from behind the cover of the doorway and into the street, where, under the balcony of Seafarer’s Rejoicing in a pool of blood lay the twisted body of a man, the half severed head at a grotesque angle so the face pointed in Falcon’s direction.

Falcon wasn’t worried about getting shot at any more. Francine had too much to lose now. And he was about to give her even more to lose.

“It’s coming!” he called out.

“Good.” She didn’t sound surprised.

“Now here are my conditions…” he started.

“No!”

“Hear them or die,” he grated. “You kill any of those women and you die. Simple as that. The ship should be here in less than thirty sta’m’s, give or take. You’ll just have to wait.”

“No deal!”

“Then use the 2KT. Might as well get it over and done with.”

“No deal! And if you don’t shut up, I’ll slice up the quivering Ariena right now.”

“Fine! They don’t need me to use the ship to hunt down Orvil and Hilyer.”

“It’s too late, you moron! The Decon Unit is on its way.”

“And there won’t be a Hound left to greet them. Not even the Plinus Maxtor.”

The announcement was greeted with silence. So, she had been cautious and not tried to contact the ship. Meaning she couldn’t know that it was just useless scrap.

She knew now.

“Your choice!” he called. “One more corpse and the deal’s off. Take it or leave it.”

Too much to lose, right?

More silence. At this point anything Francine might have said would have placed her at a psychological disadvantage.

“Teris?”

“I’m there. What now?”

“Turn right,” said Caitlan. “The Seafarer’s Rejoicing is on your left, about a hundred paces down.”

“I’m giving the comcorder to Ailin,” Sander broke in.

“Caitlan, tell her what to do. We need that ship here as soon as possible.”

“To allow her to get away?”

“To kill her,” Falcon heard himself say, surprised by how he felt nothing saying it.

Teris looked down the Pink Promenade, which curved out of her sight to her right. In her ear she overheard Falcon explaining to Caitlan and Ailin what he wanted done with the ship of space. With incredulity Teris heard him assert that a device less than the size of her hand could completely destroy all of Sacrael and everybody within it in an irresistible instant storm of fire.

How could such things be? How could anybody be allowed to possess such a weapon?

And how could someone with Falcon’s intelligence not see that giving in to the woman’s demands would accomplish nothing but their death?

“Stop talking nonsense!” she snapped. “This tactic is stupid!”

“Why?” Falcon asked, his voice betraying his surprise at her reaction.

“Do you really think she will not know what you plan? How can she not know that the ship does not obey her commands?”

“It’s a complex…” Falcon began.

“Do not talk down to me!” Teris grated. “Never! Do you understand?”

The outburst surprised even herself.

“This woman knows,” she continued in a softer voice, trying to erase the moment of losing control over her reactions. “Whatever you plan, she knows. She is from your world and thinks like someone from your world. This is how one knows another; through such similarity. Your stratagems are her stratagems.

“Do you know what I think she will do? She will take the ship and leave the weapon in the house. It can be made to…operate…with a delay, yes? A delay long enough to let her be at a safe distance? The same safe distance you would allow to make the ship destroy itself? And if you are all dead—and especially you, Caitlan, whom the ship is bonded to obey!—you cannot control it anymore. And what then, Falcon? Whom will the ship obey then?”

The silence in her ear told her everything.

“Falcon?” she heard Caitlan say.

Falcon’s sigh was clearly audible.

“You’re right.” He said it without rancor, which comforted her to no end. A true, honorable warrior never let his pride over-ride his better judgment about what needed to be done. Nobody could see and know everything.

“Alternatives,” he added.

“Shall I leave the ship where it is?” Caitlan asked.

“No. We need it more than ever now.”

She waited for him to say more, but he didn’t.

Teris looked across the alley, where, in a doorway, under a ornately carved sign painted a garish pink displaying the words Soft and Gentle, stood a threesome of women, peering fearfully into the alley, toward Seafarer’s Rejoicing. All wore a variant of the garb apparently favored around here; gauze dyed in various colors and shades, but all of it so thin that they might was well have been nude.

The merest hints of a plan were coalescing somewhere in the back of her mind; refusing to come to the fore, but lurking there, gaining shape and substance.

Teris stared at the women, overcome by an unexpected shyness she found embarrassing for even feeling it.

One of the women glanced over at her and nudged her companions.

Teris took a deep breath, looked at the façade of Seafarer’s Rejoicing, discerned no one. With fleet steps she crossed the alley and joined the women in the entrance.

“What are you up to?” Falcon’s voice said in her ear. He must have seen her from where he stood.

She scanned the doorways beyond the Seafarer’s Rejoicing and discerned a figure hidden in an entrance, barely visible because of the shadows in which it was immersed.

“Wait,” she muttered.

The women looked at her strangely. The scents of verbena and other herbs only partially masked other, less pleasant, smells; of bodies unwashed for too long, the men they had been with, baccy and the stale exhalations of too much heavy ale.

Teris addressed the tallest, who also appeared to be the eldest. “I need your dress,” she said without preamble.

The whore stared at her from uncomprehending eyes.

“Now!” grated Teris. She motioned. “In there. Be quick!”

The woman stared at her defiantly for a few heartbeats; then dropped her gaze.

What am I doing?

Chances of her stratagem succeeding were minimal. Wearing this revealing, soiled garment would be something no Aslatrix would ever consider.

Not until now.

She was a warrior, and a warrior did what needed to be done.

“Teris?” Falcon sounded concerned.

“Wait!” she snapped.

The whore stopped and turned around.

“Take it off.”

The whore disrobed with much-practiced ease, standing there without apparent self-consciousness. Much in contrast to Teris, who forced herself to a pretense of indifference as she disposed of her weapons and took off her Aslatrix outfit; then, suppressing a gag, she slipped into the gauzy costume.

The whore watched with careful disinterest, but Teris knew that she was being observed anyway. She thought to discern an element of envy.

“Take these,” she said to the woman, pointing at her clothes which lay in a heap on the ground.

Behind her she sensed the approach of the other two.

“Stay here,” she said curtly. “Do not venture out unless you wish to die.”

“Who are you?” the nude whore asked as she bent down to pick up Teris’s garments.

“Just stay here, do you hear?” Teris said to them. “Do not go out there!”

She turned away, dismissing them from her considerations, and stepped out into the alley, keeping close to the walls of the buildings as she edged toward the Seafarer’s Rejoicings. The alley was eerily silent; deserted by its usual denizens, who were now huddled in doorways and peering curiously around the frames of windows.

“Teris?” Falcon’s voice had a harsh ring.

“I’m going in there,” she said, “and I’m going to kill her.”

“No!”

“This is no time for maudlin sentimentality!” she snapped. “You may have bedded…”

“Quiet!” he grated. “Listen! I cannot stop you from going in there; but do be careful! And do not kill her. If she dies, so do we all. That device I spoke to you about…the one that could destroy this city…it can be—” she sensed him groping for words to explain what he knew but had no words to express.

“Trust me! She must not die. Not yet. Do what you have to do. Render her unable to move, take defensive action, reach for any weapon or device she might have on her body or within reach. Give her no time to think. Give her no time to see you for you who are. Keep moving until she cannot move anymore. Break her wrists, elbows, knees, ankles, shoulder joints, jaw. Dislocate her hips if you get the chance. Keep her hands away from her body!

“If she can move, she can fight. If she can fight she will fight—and Francine is like no woman, or man, you’ve ever fought. She knows techniques thousands of years old, perfected over and over until they have become pure, simple, irresistible and utterly deadly. Francine can kill you with a minor jab of a finger in the right place, and you won’t know you’re dead until after you are. I really think I…”

“Be quiet, Falcon!” Teris retorted—but this was a long speech by a man who didn’t speak a great deal, and she sensed that he was not exaggerating the woman’s capabilities.

“I hear your words,” she said. “But I am Aslatrix, and now you must trust me. You can hear everything, yes? Then listen, and come when you are needed.”

Falcon said nothing, for which she was grateful. Right now she had no concrete notion of how she was going to get close enough to Francine to overwhelm her.

Teris stopped and bent down, ran her palms and fingers hands over the grimy paving stones. The act of bending down made her feel even more exposed and naked. She bent her knees and crouched, then rubbed her palms together and distributed a thin layer of uncleanliness over her face, neck, arms legs. She stood and continued toward Seafarer’s Rejoicing, staying as close to the wall of the buildings as she could without touching their rough surfaces.

Damian’s Troupe.

The thought came unbidden. Memories from long ago and far away. From before she had to leave her home, and things had been much…

Better?

Teris reprimanded herself for being even more sentimental than Falcon. Still…

Damian’s Troupe: a dozen itinerants bringing stories from far away; bringing them to life on the common, with the villagers standing around, gaping, clapping, cheering, booing, laughing, crying; whatever mood took them…or, to be more precise, whatever mood the troupe under the direction of the black-eyed Damian happened to project upon the attending audience.

Such consummate skill. The tall beauty Alina became the Aslatrix Ylianne, who traveled far and wide searching for her long-lost love; only to find him dead, slain by the very Master she had once been bonded to serve. Returning to slay him in turn. Disfiguring her face such as to become unrecognizable even by him. Approaching him as he walked the streets, coming close enough to…

The fight between the avenger and the Master—played, of course, by Damian himself, for no one else would do! Alina’s elegance and grace as she killed him, slashed his throat so he lived long enough to know why…

Yet I do not have the skills to be Alina.

And why not? If Alina could be an Aslatrix, why could an Aslatrix not be Alina?

Teris remembered her time in the dungeons of Brys. Had she not dissembled and fooled everybody but the Sareens held captive with her?

Besides, if Francine was everything Falcon said she was, then surprise might be the only thing that gave Teris the advantage she needed.

The entrance to Seafarer’s Rejoicing was upon her. She looked across at Falcon, maybe thirty paces distant, lurking in his cover.

“When I call, come immediately.”

“I will. Caitlan! Where is that ship?”

“On its way,” Caitlan’s voice responded. “But everybody will see it now.”

“That can hardly be helped,” Falcon responded, his voice sounding brittle. “Go,” he added. “Every moment works for her.”

Teris dismissed them from her mind and focused on her role.

“Meena?” she called into the doorway. “Meena? Are you there? Meena?”

She disheveled her hair, so it hung over her face—because a warrior always knew another when he saw the eyes.

“Meena!”

She moved into the hallway. To her right a small staircase wound upward; ahead of her three doors leading to places unknown.

“Meena!” she called up the stairs. “Answer me, Meena! Where are you?”

She started up calling out the name, which had been her sister’s. She tried to sound plaintive, a touch desperate, worried. A simple woman—maybe more than just ‘simple’. Maybe a little stupid.

“Mee-ee-ee-na!”

Teris reached the top of the stairs, turned left. The door was open. In the corner she saw several women huddled together, their fearful attention divided between her and someone else she couldn’t see.

“Meena?”

Teris stormed into the room—stopped in apparent surprise, looked to her right, saw the woman through the diffuse curtain of her disheveled hair. The skirt of a chambermaid’s uniform and a dark gray blouse of unknown origins. On the ground beside her lay a small bag with a long looped strap.

“Meena?” Teris said plaintively. “Where is Meena? She said she was here. She is not here?”

Francine mustered her with the alert intent of suspicion.

Teris turned toward the others, huddled on the floor.

“Have you seen Meena? She said she was here? Where did she go?”

She turned toward the door.

“Meena!” she called out loud, making as if to leave.

Beside her a movement. Francine stepped closer, reaching for Teris’s left arm, intent on grabbing it and shoving her over to where the other women were.

A hand closed around Teris’s upper left arm. She resisted the temptation to tense it, but her toned muscles would have given her away in that instant. Instead she slumped slightly, as if yielding and allowed Francine’s grip to turn her around to the left—using the movement to smoothly build up the flat handed…

Francine’s eyes widened. She expelled a cough-like breath as Teris’s palm cracked her upper sternum, drove it against the heart. At the same moment Teris’s left hand swept up and around, levering aside Francine’s grip, coming to rest on the woman’s shoulder. Her right hand gripped Francine’s right wrist, applied leverage as she heaved to jerk her down. The shoulder groaned and cracked as it was dislocated. In the same fluid motion Teris’s left hand slid down to the elbow. Another sharp wrench, another crack as the elbow joint cracked, doubled over backwards and tendons strained and snapped. Another jerk. A shattered wrist. Teris’s left elbow snapped up, caught the right of Francine’s jaw from underneath, drove the temporal mandibular joint up and sideways. At the same time Teris’s left foot lifted and shot out, breaking a knee.

In the space of a heartbeat Francine’s entire left side had become incapacitated. She couldn’t even scream. Distracted by the need to draw a breath and oxygen to power her muscles, she was no match for Teris, who continued her terrible work by whipping Francine around, while keeping her tight and too close for effective countermeasures.

Francine’s left hand tried to reach somewhere under her garments—but Teris was there. The loud cracks of joints echoed through the small chamber.

Francine finally found her breath, but her limbs were useless and the pain in her jaw was beyond compare. Still she tried, even as she collapsed, with Teris releasing her and stepping back, watching as Francine lay there, like a broken doll, twisting in a grotesque way to…

“Keep moving until she cannot move anymore.”

The woman’s torso doubled up; the fingers of her left hand twitched as they came closer to the underside of the blouse…

Teris sprang forward and stomped on the wrist, bent down, grabbed it, used it to jerk the woman around so she lay on her face, then snapped a heel into the lower sacrum.

Francine managed to utter a gurgling scream and lay still.

“Falcon?”

“I’m coming.”

Already she heard steps pounding up the stairs. Falcon appeared at the door and surveyed the scene.

Once more Teris had a brief glimpse into the depths of Falcon’s heart and mind—in that brief moment or two when he saw the shattered Francine lying there. Remorse and grief and a sharp breath, followed by an exhalation during which his face turned into a stern, cold mask.

“Where is the ship?” he grated. “We need it close. Put it down in the alley if you can!”

He fell silent and knelt down beside Francine, whose head was turned to one side, facing Falcon; her pain-filled eyes staring at him.

She made a few sounds that might have been words.

“You want me to kill you?” Falcon’s voice was brittle, icy, dry. “If only I could.”

He reached out and carefully pulled up her blouse, to expose a belt wrapped around the woman’s midriff. Affixed to it was a small, circular device, with a small display of what Teris saw to be numbers, counting down at regular intervals.

“If only I could save you this pain,” Falcon said softly. “But you brought it upon yourself.”

Francine uttered another string of incoherent sounds.

“No,” Falcon said. “It is not about the mission. It never is.”

He looked up at Teris. “Help me. We need to get her out of here and into the ship.” To Francine he said. “You shall have your ship; just as I told you you would.”

He pointed at the bag on the floor. “Give me that.”

She did and he hung it over his head and shoulder.

Teris closed her ears and mind to the pitiful cries and moans from Francine as Falcon had her take the feet, while he heaved her up by the arms. The pain, Teris knew, must be terrible; beyond what anybody should have to suffer. Killing would have been an act of mercy.

“We must carry her like this,” Falcon said. “It is the only safe way.”

Teris said nothing and followed him, with Francine’s body dangling between them.

Outside the bulk of the ship of space filled the alley. The doorway in its side was open, and Caitlan stood beside it.

Falcon and Teris placed Francine into that space known as an ‘airlock’. Falcon retrieved a small device from a pocket, pushed the colored buttons on its surface in a complicated sequence and placed it beside Francine’s body.

“It won’t be long,” he said to her, his voice oddly gentle, stood back and nodded to Caitlan.

“Straight up. Tell it to keep going. Just to keep going. Full power.”

The opening closed, the ship rose with the effortlessness of a feather. When it had cleared the buildings it tilted upward and in eerie silence accelerated into the green-blue skies.

Falcon stared after it until it had disappeared from sight.

“That could have been me,” he said softly. “Or Chip. Once upon a time, that could have been either of us.”

“I don’t believe that,” Teris said.

“It is true,” Falcon said, his eyes fixed on the sky.

Suddenly a brilliant light flared, just off to the side where the ship had disappeared. It died down almost as quickly and then was gone; and the world was as it had been.

Falcon looked at Caitlan and Teris.

“Before Mac…” He shrugged. “That could have been me. This is what makes him different. I never really knew what it was—until we followed him even when he aborted our last mission—and when he adopted this damn planet as his own.”

He turned to Teris. “That thing she had around her belly… If we had killed her, it would have detected that she was dead, and it would have exploded and wiped this city off the face of the planet. And she had set it to go off, even if we had given her the ship. She would have left it in the room, and I would have found it, with no way to disarm it—left knowing that I had failed.”

“She failed,” Teris said, touching his arm.

Falcon’s mouth twitched. “She never had a chance, did she?”

Teris shrugged, unreasonably pleased at the compliment—though feeling a little like a fraud, because in truth Francine’s mistake had not been one of skill, but of a failure of vision. She had seen only the simpleton whore.

Teris found herself wondering what Falcon saw right then.

Her hand was still touching his arm. Suddenly self-conscious, she dropped it. Awareness of her own effective nakedness, which had been suppressed by events much more significant, suddenly sprang to the fore. She twitched to turn and get her own clothes back from the whore, but then realized that by doing so she would call attention to the very exposure she was wanting to hide. So she stopped herself, though she felt more exposed now than ever; especially with Falcon so close.

“We’d better find another ship of space,” Falcon said to Caitlan, apparently unaware of Teris’s discomfiture, “and we better do it soon, before the Decon Unit shows up.”

“If there is one,” Teris heard herself say.

“More than one,” Falcon assured her. “Question is, can they fly.”

He looked around them. Somehow the denizens of this place sensed that the danger was over and started to emerge from their hiding places.

“Let’s get out of here,” Falcon said.

“We need to explain this somehow,” Caitlan said.

Falcon chuckled siccantly. “Sure. And how will you do that? What will you tell them?”

He made a sharp gesture. “Come. Now! Trust me on this. Saying nothing is better than trying to contrive an explanation that’s so wrong that it will give rise to more crazy legends than you’d believe.”

“The same will be the case if we just allow it to spread without directing it.”

“I wish Mac were here,” Falcon replied, “for he could explain this better than I could ever hope to. Right now all people have is an event.”

He urged them away from there as he spoke.

“There was some unpleasantness in this street. Francine’s former hostages will weave their tales around it, and little, if anything, will be accurate. The folks watching from afar saw us carrying Francine into this thing that came down from the sky; and then it went off again and we disappear from the scene. These people may know you, Caitlan, but if we get out of here quickly, they’ll forget all about what Teris and I looked like.”

“My clothes!” Teris hissed. She ran off, with Falcon staring after her as she entered a nearby doorway. So far he hadn’t dared to direct his gaze lower than her face, for any number of complicated and mostly troubling reasons. He told himself that the main one of those was prudence. The ferocity and efficiency of Teris’s dispatch of Francine had left him more shaken than he was willing to admit to himself—not only because of the skill displayed by the Aslatrix, but also because of the ruthlessness that had been required to put Francine out of action. Eight major joints broken or dislocated in less than five seconds. Add to that a broken back and jaw.

The fighter in Falcon was rapt in admiration at the skill. Falcon, the man, however, was asking himself how a woman could be capable of this—and yet not be like Francine, who complemented her physical skills with a range of serious psychopathologies.

How was Teris not like Francine? How could she be? How could she do what she did and yet be…different? For ‘different’ she was.

“Unintended consequences,” Falcon muttered. “Rule number one of the crapshoot of life. There’s always more unintended consequences than intended ones; by a factor of at least a million to one.”

He stared at the place where Teris had disappeared. The image of her back as she ran remained vivid before his mind’s eye.

“You wouldn’t believe the nonsense people end up believing,” he said, to conceal where his thoughts were going.

Caitlan laughed, and Falcon wondered if it was because he wasn’t fooled, or because of what Falcon had said.

“You have not been to Finister, and especially to Thalonica,” Caitlan retorted. “This world is full of preposterous beliefs.”

“As it is everywhere,” Falcon said. “But trying to fabricate explanations—or so Mac told me many times, and I have cause to believe him, if for no other reason but that he has studied the subject and I’ve yet to find an instance where he was proven wrong… Trying to fabricate explanations invariably produces a framework of rationalization that ends up being more damaging than the idle speculations of the common folk. Maybe they’ll weave legends around you, but that is good. Legends about living heroes are better and less damaging than those about…things…that don’t exist, never have and never will. So leave it…”

He saw Teris coming toward them at a run, back in her Aslatrix clothes.

Pity.

He chided himself for the thought and motioned to her and Caitlan, turned and hurried to get away from this place before it crawled with even more curious gawkers.