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  “He has a good voice.”

  Andrea had been about to carry the battle to Emlyn again but Dominika’s comment arrested her, and Emlyn as well.

  “He has what?” the latter asked, bewildered.

  “A good voice.” The Harat-Shar sat, pressing the soles of her feet together and leaning over them. Just watching her made the Emperor’s body ache. He couldn’t imagine being so limber when all he wanted was to pull himself taut until he snapped. “You know how it is, arii. You don’t look at them or they notice you. I never let the males see my face when they come to the harem. As long as I’m still and quiet, I can stay the harem’s pet cat. No one hurts a pet cat.” She shrugged. “So I didn’t see his face. But his voice…” She pursed her lips. “He didn’t take any of the women even though the Worldlord offered. He just drank—lightly—and watched, and answered them when they talked to him. The Worldlord even said he’d bring out the hekkret if he wanted some, and you know the Worldlord never uses it. And the stranger just said that he had enough vices without adding any new ones.”

  Something about that sounded familiar. He could almost remember. Vices…

  “You see?” Andrea said to Emlyn. “Not only did he suggest we get real beds and make the suggestion stick, but he apparently can visit the harem without having to rape anyone and still be respected in the morning.”

  “It’s not morning yet,” Emlyn growled. And then deflated. He pressed his palms to his eyes and mumbled, “I’m sorry. I just can’t. I can’t hope, Andrea.” He dragged his hands down, let them fall from his face. “And you shouldn’t either. No matter how unusually he’s acting, he’s still Chatcaavan. And we’re still aliens, and non-people, and nothing will ever change that.”

  But something could. Something should. He wished he could remember why any of it mattered, but nothing mattered more than not being hit again, not anymore.

  “God,” Andrea said softly, “will hear our cries. Emlyn. You believe that. In your heart, under all the grief and fear. He has never abandoned us, and never will. Not all the imprecations of our enemies will drown Him out.”

  “It’s not Him they’re drowning out,” Emlyn said, defeated. “It’s me. It’s us.”

  “Fortunate for us He can hear a sparrow fall, then.” She tucked the blanket closer around the Emperor’s shoulders. “I bet that stranger is the reason you’re here instead of in Manufactory-East’s suite again, Survivor. Which is good because…” Her fingers trailed along his bruised cheekbone, “he doesn’t seem to be listening to the ‘avoid the head’ advice.”

  A quiver traveled his spine. “He says the face is not the head.”

  “He’s an idiot,” Andrea said. “The face is connected to the head.” She sighed and kissed his brow, ruffling the hair back from it. “Rest while you can. I believe your time here is almost over if you can just hold on a little longer.”

  The thought was incredible. The only exit out of this situation was death. They all knew it. But he had to ask, “And you?”

  “We’ll hold on as long as it takes for us to be free. When the day comes, we’ll be ready.”

  “And if you die first, the way Emlyn says?” the Emperor asked.

  “Then the Chatcaava will have made their last mistake,” Andrea said. “Because once they kill us, we’re beyond their reach, and they can never take our freedom from us again.”

  “Then… why live at all?”

  “Because,” she murmured, “our work here isn’t done yet.” And softer, “Ssssh.”

  She sang then, one of her prayers, begging the attention of her God. For once it did not sound like weakness, but defiance. To believe oneself significant enough to merit the personal attention of a deity, to profess to know that He would succor her because she asked... that required faith beyond anything the Emperor was capable of sustaining. He no longer believed himself worthy of rescue. He had not created the system that was destroying him now, but he had done nothing to dismantle it. When it ground him away, he would have earned it, and no God would come for him to stop it.

  He wouldn’t ask, either. Let Him rescue the worthy. The sullied could be stripped away and used to make the space between stars and give the luminaries of the universe the contrast they needed to shine.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Lisinthir crouched at the edge of the ramp, the morning sunlight warm on his brow as the breeze ruffled his hair. Dawn was all of an hour past and it was shaping into a beautiful day, cloudless and just damp enough that the air didn’t rasp going down his nose.

  “We have a choice,” the Worldlord had said. “The groundsmaster says some of the smaller prey is out near the northern gate on the meadows. And the more delicate of the runners are abroad, as well, and of course birds aplenty. There are also several stalkers, in case we prefer a challenge. We can hunt separately and bring back our prizes to the slaughterhouse, and each person may choose his target. Or we could hunt cooperatively.”

  “We aren’t here to disperse our attentions,” Manufactory-East said. “By all means. Let us be true huntbrothers and fly wing-to-wing. We’ll go for the stalkers. They hunt in packs. It will be a fine test.”

  Deputy-East eyed the other male, then said, “I like the cooperative hunt idea. But maybe we can do the runners? They’re easy to cut apart. Each of us can claim our own.”

  “These stalkers,” Lisinthir interrupted. “What are they like?”

  “A bit larger than we are tall,” the Worldlord said. “Powerfully muscled hunters who rely on stealth and a single lunge to bring down their prey.”

  “Large claws,” Deputy-East said. “Big fangs. Ugly as the wind is quick. Runners taste better.”

  “Stalkers give better trophies,” Manufactory-East said. “But by all means. Let the Sword chase down some of the rodents in the northern meadows.”

  “I still think the runners—”

  “How big are the packs?” Lisinthir asked the Worldlord.

  Startled away from the emergent argument, the Worldlord said, “Usually three.”

  “Excellent,” Lisinthir said. “Then there will be one for each of us, and when Manufactory-East is done blustering he can come claim credit for one of the kills.”

  Deputy-East interposed himself between Lisinthir and the hand Manufactory-East started to lift. “You earned that one, Manufactory-East. Stop poking him.”

  “He’s a cripple and a slave-lover.”

  “And you’re a lackwit and a slave-torturer,” Lisinthir said idly. “So I suppose it’s to be expected that we should dislike one another on sight.”

  “And you,” Deputy-East said, eyeing him. “Stop goading him. I don’t want to have to replace Manufactory-East because you killed him. And I don’t want to have to bury you when I’ve just met you and am still curious about you.”

  “Fine.” Lisinthir waved a hand. “Agreed. Shall we find our stalker pack?”

  “You will die!” Manufactory-East sputtered.

  “I haven’t yet. Worldlord? May I ask a few more questions about the habits of stalkers?”

  Manufactory-East spit. “Questions. They are killers. You kill them first. What more do you need to know, Sword?”

  “Information,” Lisinthir said, “is power. Worldlord?”

  “Yes,” that male said, dazed. “Of course? Of course.”

  Lisinthir had asked his questions, then, and ruminated on them while the others formed what passed for a plan: the fliers would serve as beaters, flushing the stalkers, and then they would all pounce on whichever was closest to them. Given the habits revealed by the Worldlord, Lisinthir thought the plan unlikely to succeed save by accident, but then this was a pleasure outing. These Chatcaava enjoyed hunting and obviously did it often. But they hunted as entertainment. They had never gone into a forest armed only with a boar spear, knowing if they didn’t kill the feral boar no one would before it savaged another tenant. They had never faced the threat of hunger because there was no one to hunt for their tables. They had never looked at the
household finances and wanted to beat their fists bloody at the realization that they had so much wealth and none of it mattered because they couldn’t find anyone to raise and kill chickens so their tenants could eat.

  The Chatcaava hunted to stroke their own egos. He pitied them, and hated them for relegating something atavistic and needful to a mere competition for status.

  He would show them how true males hunted. In that, their poor planning served him magnificently.

  Having located the stalker pack, the three were overflying the copse, and of course, nothing was happening. Lisinthir crouched on the ramp and abided. The Chatcaava dove, inspired no movement. He ignored them the way the stalkers did, concentrating on the sleek, compact shadows that revealed them. Deputy-East had not exaggerated their size. If the Chatcaava were tardy, he would have to use his talent or risk being badly hurt; God and Lady knew what would happen to him if they put him on their Surgeon’s table under real diagnostic instruments. He wondered if he could use a mind-mage’s gifts to obfuscate their vision, replace their memories. Somehow he doubted it. He was better with gross injury, not the sort of fine mental stitching at which Jahir was so adroit. He missed his cousin, painfully. Missed civilization.

  Allowed himself the luxury of those feelings, then packed them in a box and put them away.

  How did he know when to move? Something changing. The wind direction. The amount of heat the sun was generating. The way the shadows in that copse were shifting. Lisinthir slid off the ramp, dropped to the ground, made his way to the field edging the trees. The entire estate was artificially landscaped, and the copse looked particularly fake: a dollop of underbrush and trees with edges so sharply defined they could have been made with a razor. By contrast, the field was flat, its grass so short it looked like a carpet. Its brilliant light green reflected the sun too well. Not the best ground to make a stand on, but it would do.

  He lifted a hand and flexed his fingers. For the roquelaure to convince anyone, it had to generate solidigraphic equivalents to the body parts he did not have. It had been doing so since he’d activated it and proved the difficulty of the task by demanding he eat far more than he was comfortable with and waking him up in the middle of the night for fuel. But that meant that the talons the other Chatcaava had seen on his fingers were functional, and he proved it by slicing the back of his arm with them and shaking the crimson droplets onto the grass, into the wind.

  The stalkers burst from the brush and sprinted for him, maws wide.

  This was the moment. No doubts. No outcome possible except victory. He stared the lead stalker down as it vaulted for him, twitched aside just as its paws would have reached his abdomen, and threw an arm around its throat. As he slid over its spine, he drew his claws through flesh, digging hard.

  Solidigraphic claws were a thousand times sharper than any real talon. He ripped its throat out and tumbled back to his feet on the other side of it. The stalker was dying before it hit the ground, its weight dragging it several of its own body-lengths through the short grass and smearing the ground with blood.

  As the Worldlord reported, the scent tore the attention of the remaining stalkers from him. In that critical moment of distraction, he launched himself at the second and bowled it over. It rolled onto him and he dug both hands into its belly, gutting it. As it flailed, he darted away to face the third stalker. Its ugly head wove from one body to the other, unable to decide which to eat… or whether to flee.

  His “huntbrothers” were finally diving. Lisinthir folded his arms and waited, seeing their shadows flow over the copse. The third beast finally chose the unwise path and screamed, gathering itself for a leap at Lisinthir—

  Deputy-East’s body struck it halfway through its pounce. Lisinthir didn’t move as its paws skidded over the grass beside his foot. The Worldlord landed next, immobilizing the stalker before it could rise, and between the two of them they slew it.

  Manufactory-East dropped from the sky last.

  “You can have that one,” Lisinthir said idly, pointing at the gutted stalker, still writhing. “I wouldn’t want you not to have your own kill. Huntbrother.”

  “Dying Air!” Deputy-East said, staring at him in frank admiration. “You have steel ribs, Sword!”

  “Why, thank you.” Lisinthir grinned. “Your intervention was timely. My arms were tired. It would have been tedious to have to disembowel another of these things.” He nudged the stalker’s body with his toe, watching the sun shimmer over fur so black it iridesced like the wing of a raven. “Lovely pelts, though. Do you skin them, Worldlord, as well as eat them?”

  “I rarely take such trophies,” the Worldlord said. “But you have justly earned yours. That was an astonishing feat.”

  “The hunt is the hunt,” Lisinthir said. “Whether it takes place in the air, in space, or on the ground. If you cannot apply the principles everywhere, you are no fighter.”

  Manufactory-East sniffed. “You would not have fared so well if you hadn’t wrung the Worldlord with questions about their habits.”

  “Of course not,” Lisinthir said. “But the day stupidity is considered bravery is the day I leave the Empire for the fringes of space and keep going.”

  “Why, because you’d die here?” Manufactory-East stepped toward him, flaring his wings.

  Lisinthir snorted. “No. Because the Empire wouldn’t be long for the universe, operating thus.” He smiled slyly. “I’d start a new empire. Only the clever need apply.”

  Deputy-East snorted. “Well, I think it was a fine set-up. As neat-winged as a Naval operation. In fact, it happened so fast… what do you say we go for some of the rodents? Or the runners?”

  “You and the runners,” the Worldlord said, shaking his mane back.

  “What can I say? They taste good.”

  “Then let us have some runners,” Lisinthir said, flexing his fingertips. “The morning’s young.”

  “This is a bad idea,” the Knife hissed.

  “We’re not going to learn anything stuck in the guest suite, waiting for the Sword to come back,” Laniis whispered back. “We’re supposed to be with the other slaves. Hopefully this time, with the—” A pause as she reminded herself not to be too obvious, “human male, so we can examine him.” She peered down the tower stairwell. “Come on.”

  “But what if someone stops us?” the Knife said, tail low.

  “Then we say our master commanded us to join the other slaves downstairs.”

  “Ughn!”

  The Knife’s inarticulate expressions of frustration always inspired an inappropriate desire to giggle. Laniis accepted the lift in spirits and used it as fuel, but strangely, she was not as afraid as she thought she’d be. Even knowing that there were Chatcaava here who savaged their Pelted slaves… even knowing she might end up one of those brutalized people… she still felt… different. She had chosen to come here, and this time, she’d come with back-up. More importantly, she’d survived this situation before and she’d escaped to become stronger.

  Her farewell ‘moment’ with Na’er surfaced, as it was wont to do at unexpected times. They hadn’t done enough by her standards, but the kissing and cuddling had served as promises. When she came back, when she convinced him that she really wanted him and wasn’t seeking some casual fling to prove she hadn’t been ruined for physical relationships by the Chatcaava… oh yes. That would be good. Her ears pricked as she trotted down the stairs. The Fleet medical team charged with her evaluation hadn’t been certain she was ready for duty, but they’d approved her conditionally anyway. She was glad they’d let her go, because without this, she wasn’t sure she could have healed.

  She was here, in the place she most feared. Making a difference. Anxious, but not petrified into inaction.

  The Speaker-Singer was good.

  “I still think this is a bad idea,” the Knife muttered.

  “I know, Knife,” Laniis said, glancing into the room at the bottom of the landing to make sure it was clear. “There, see? No one in
the way.” She led him down the ramp toward the slave annex and jogged into it without running into a single Chatcaavan.

  “No guards!” the Knife lamented.

  “You haven’t been paying attention. They’re only ever here when they’re bringing a slave to or from a place. Why would they stand guard outside of it? Where would any of the slaves run?” Laniis peeked into the room, found the human there and a Harat-Shar, but not the Hinichi. And not, she saw, disappointed, their quarry. “Good morning, ariisen.”

  “She says ‘good morning,’” the Harat-Shar murmured.

  “She means it,” the Knife said, aggrieved.

  “Where is the other human?” Laniis asked.

  “The one you want?” The Harat-Shar stretched, arms over her head. “I was just telling Andrea the guards took him away. He’s for the Surgeon.”

  “I guess we only have to wait, then,” Laniis said, sitting. “I see you have real beds now.”

  “Your master’s doing,” Andrea said. “Emlyn didn’t believe me when I said he was here to rescue the Survivor.”

  “We are here to rescue everyone,” the Knife said, sulky.

  “Even Simone?” The Harat-Shar straightened. “Because we never see her, and I don’t think we have a lot of time.”

  Laniis’s ears flattened. “Is she…”

  “No,” Andrea said. “They don’t torture her. She’s got an Exodus disease. I didn’t spend long enough with her to figure out which.” She smiled, crooked. “I’m an EMA. I almost never see Exodus diseases until they’re presenting with terminal symptoms.”

  “Oh!” Laniis said, startled. Emergency Medical Assists were highly trained specialists. It should have occurred to her that they were vulnerable to capture since so many of them manned the small ambulance ships that serviced remote locations in solar systems. And then, “Oh, then you might know… is this head injury they say he has… is it bad?”

  “Without tools, I can’t tell you,” Andrea said. “Concussions are hard that way. It might be. Or it might be trauma-induced stress.”