- Chapter 10

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# CHAPTER 10

They dropped Poirot off in a quiet part of town five blocks from the main Athena entrance, and by the time he got the blindfold off their car had disappeared around a corner.

They'd left him his hailer, and for a minute he considered calling an autocab to take him the rest of the way. But it was a nice night, and he had a lot to think about. Squaring his shoulders, he got his bearings and headed off at a brisk walk.

He quickly regretted the decision. Quiet though the area might have been, there were still plenty of people around, none of whom had apparently ever seen a Security general before. Everyone seemed to find it necessary to stop and stare, many of them turning around and continuing their examination even after he'd passed. Some of those stares, he noted uncomfortably, had a degree of hostility to them.

But no one tried to stop him, or even talk to him, and fifteen minutes after leaving the car he turned at last into the wide, well-lit thoroughfare that led to the high fence and heavy gate of the Athena government center.

The guards at the gatehouse saw him coming, of course, and they certainly recognized him. But to his irritation, none of them made any move to leave their bunker to come out and meet him. By the time he came to a halt in front of the gatehouse's thick-glassed window, he was ready to break all four of them back to private.

"General Poirot," he identified himself tartly, as if there could be any doubt. "Open up."

No one made a move toward the gate control. "Welcome back, General," the duty lieutenant said, his voice strangely flat as it came through the speaker grill below the window. "Colonel Bailey's been extremely concerned about you."

"Then Colonel Bailey will want to see me, won't he?" Poirot growled.

"Yes, sir," the lieutenant said, still not moving. "Your escort's on its way."

His escort? "I don't need an escort, Lieutenant," he said, letting his tone drop into official warning territory. "Just open the damn gate."

The other looked down at the bank of monitors beneath the window and nodded. "As you wish, sir," he said. Reaching down, he twisted the release and the gate swung open. Giving him one final glare, Poirot left the window and strode through the gateway.

And stopped short. Lined up facing him were three cars and a group of eight Security men, some still in the process of getting out of the vehicles. "What's all this?" he demanded.

"We have orders to take you to headquarters, General," the sergeant in charge said, his voice as stiff as the duty lieutenant's had been. "If you'll come this way, please?"

"Absolutely," Poirot said between clenched teeth. Bailey, he promised himself darkly, was going to hurt for this.

He stomped over and got into the nearest vehicle's rear seat. A moment later he had to move quickly to the center as two of the others climbed in with him, one on either side. Two more got into the front, the rest sorting themselves out between the remaining two cars, and a minute later all three vehicles were headed inward through Athena's streets. The other two cars, Poirot noted, had taken up positions in front and behind him, standard configuration for transporting VIPs. At least Bailey—or the sergeant—had gotten that part right.

A few minutes later they reached the Security building. To Poirot's continued annoyance, though, they bypassed the main entrance and took him instead in through the tunnel. There, his protests ignored, he was put through the full battery of scans as the techs checked him for weapons, explosives, and poisons.

He half expected them to go all the way and do a strip search. Fortunately for Bailey, even the colonel apparently didn't have quite enough nerve to try that one.

Bailey was waiting for him in the middle of the situation room, a young lieutenant Poirot didn't recognize at his side. "Welcome back, General," Bailey said, nodding as Poirot strode up to them. His words were polite enough, but there was an odd sort of distance to his tone and expression. "I'm pleased to find you alive and well."

"I'm rather pleased about that myself," Poirot growled. "You'd better have a damn good reason for what you just put me through." He shifted his glare to the lieutenant. "Who are you?"

"Lieutenant Ramirez, Boulder Security office," the other identified himself. "I've been assisting Colonel Bailey with his efforts to find you."

"Well, I'm found," Poirot said. "Thank you for your assistance. Now go home."

"I'd like the lieutenant to stay a little longer, if you don't mind," Bailey put in. "There are a few matters we all need to discuss." He gestured to the row of office and conference room doors at the rear of the situation room. "If you'll come this way, please?"

"No, we're going to do this right here, Colonel," Poirot ground out, not moving a millimeter. There were a dozen other Security men working the various status and command boards, and it wouldn't do them any harm to hear what happened to a subordinate who forgot how to properly treat a superior officer. "Let's start with why I was put through a weapons scan before even being offered medical treatment."

"Do you need medical treatment, sir?"

"Answer the question, Colonel."

Bailey's lip twitched. "You've been in enemy hands for nearly a day, sir," he said reluctantly. "We had to make sure you weren't bringing in anything dangerous."

"And you don't think I'd have noticed if something like that had been planted on me?"

Bailey glanced at the other men at the boards. "Sir, I really think we'd be more comfortable in the conference room—"

"Answer the question, damn it."

Bailey seemed to brace himself. "If you insist, sir. No, not necessarily."

"Not necessarily?" Poirot echoed, hardly believing his ears. "You think they could have planted a bomb or loaded my pockets with cyanide ampoules without—?"

"Have you ever heard of Whiplash, General?" Ramirez asked.

Poirot glared at him. How dare he interrupt—?

And then, abruptly, it hit him ... and in that single heartbeat his simmering anger vanished into a chill like an arctic breeze. "What exactly are you implying, Colonel?" he asked between stiff lips.

"I think you know, sir," Bailey said. "You've been in blackcollar hands, and the blackcollars apparently have a drug that removes loyalty-conditioning. What would you be thinking in my place?"

For a long moment Poirot couldn't find his voice. This couldn't be happening. "All right," he said at last, forcing a calmness he most certainly didn't feel. "Yes, they injected me with the stuff. And yes, they think I'm on their side now. But I'm not."

Bailey's expression didn't even twitch. "No?"

"Of course not," Poirot insisted. "If we move fast, we have a chance to nail them once and for all."

"I suppose they sat down and discussed their plans with you, too?" Bailey suggested.

Poirot curled his hand into a frustrated fist. "They think I'm on their side," he repeated. "They think that once someone's loyalty-conditioning is gone he's automatically filled with revolutionary fervor."

"And that's not true?" Ramirez asked.

"Don't be ridiculous," Poirot snapped. "These people have no idea how much destruction the Ryqril could rain on Denver if they got it into their heads to do so. But I do. The only reason they don't—the only reason—is that they're secure in the knowledge that we have the district under control. Do you think I'd be stupid enough to deliberately wreck that status quo?"

For a minute Bailey gazed at him in silence. Poirot stared back, feeling sweat trickling down his back. "All right," the colonel said at last. The words were conciliatory, but Poirot could tell from his tone that he still wasn't convinced. "Let's go sit down and you can tell us all about it."

Poirot looked around the room. All the other Security men were busy at their posts, none of them giving any indication that they might have overheard the conversation.

But he knew they had. All of them. "Of course," he said. "Lead the way."

Silently, they all headed back to the conference room. Bailey opened the door and gestured, and Poirot stepped inside.

And came to an abrupt halt. Seated at the far end of the table were a pair of Ryqril. "Please sit down, sir," Bailey said, squeezing through the doorway past Poirot and pointing to the chair at the near end.

Silently, Poirot started forward again and sat down in the indicated chair, his brain mechanically registering the patterns on the aliens' baldrics. One of them was a battle architect, a senior tactical officer and the highest noncommand rank in the Ryqril military.

The other was a khassq-class warrior.

"General Poirot, let me introduce Battle Architect Daasaa and Khassq Warrior Halaak," Bailey said as he and Ramirez sat down on either side of Poirot. "They'll be supervising us during this crisis."

Poirot felt his stomach tighten. So it was a crisis now? "With all due and proper deference," he said, "I don't see it being quite that serious yet. As I told Colonel Bailey, my loyalty remains firmly with the government and the Ryqril."

"Yet the re'els think otherrise?" Daasaa asked.

"Yes, they do," Poirot said. "And in that error lies the key to their defeat, because I know what they intend to do."

Daasaa's dark eyes bored into Poirot's face. "Tell us."

Poirot took a careful breath. This was it. Somehow, he had to convince them that he was still on their side. "First of all, they want to rescue the members of Phoenix that Colonel Bailey arrested yesterday." He looked at Bailey. "I take it they're undergoing interrogation?"

"That's how we found out about Whiplash," Bailey said.

"Ah," Poirot said, feeling a flush of embarrassment. Of course that was how they would have learned about it. "At any rate, they want me to order the prisoners transferred someplace else—Silcox suggested the Colorado Springs interrogation center—so they can ambush the convoy along the way."

"They dae not intend tae in'ade Athena to rescae they?" Daasaa asked.

"They invaded Athena once before," Poirot reminded him, wincing at the memory. "I don't think they'd want to try that again."

"I disagree," Daasaa countered. "They ha' done that runce. They there'ore know they can dae it again."

"I understand, Your Eminence," Poirot said. "But I don't get the sense that that's how blackcollars do things."

"It is 'asic tactics," Daasaa insisted. "A rarrior uses the skills he has."

"In general, that's certainly true," Poirot agreed carefully. "But if the warrior's opponent has already seen a particular tactic in action, it might make sense to switch to something—"

"The re'els are o' no use tae they," Halaak cut him off firmly. "They rish yae tae send out a con'oy tae draw yaer nen aray fron Athena."

Poirot looked at Bailey in silent appeal. But the colonel's face was expressionless. "All right, perhaps they are planning an attack on Athena," he said, conceding defeat. "There's no reason we can't prepare for both possibilities."

"Tae in'ade Athena, they rill need an aircra't," Daasaa went on. "Re nust guard against that."

Poirot squeezed the arm of his chair tightly. Was Ryqril thinking really so limited that they could only look back at what had already been done? Was that why they needed to loyalty-condition their conquered peoples, so those peoples could be trusted to do their thinking for them? "This time they won't have access to any aircraft, Your Eminence," he promised. "We won't be sending out any ambulances they can commandeer, or patrol boats, or—"

"The spotters," Ramirez said suddenly.

All eyes turned to him. "What?" Poirot asked.

"We have spotters flying all over the mountains west of Boulder," Ramirez said, a note of urgency in his voice. "We think one to three more blackcollars might have come in with Skyler's team."

"Skyler said they'd only lost one on the way in," Poirot said. "You haven't found him yet?"

"There's a lot of forest out there," Bailey reminded him. "Not to mention a lot of animals to mess up IR readings. You saying Skyler just volunteered this information?"

"Yes," Poirot murmured, gripping the chair arm a little tighter as a sudden uncertainty dug at him. Now that he thought about it Skyler had been pretty loose with that comment. Could the blackcollar have been deliberately feeding him misinformation, expecting that he wouldn't betray his job and his people? "He said the man was probably waiting for the searchers to go away."

"How convenient," Ramirez murmured. "So while we waste time and manpower—"

"It is not rasted," Halaak cut him off sharply. "There is another 'lackcollar." His dark eyes seemed to go even darker. "He has killed a Ryq rarrior."

Poirot felt his breath freeze in his throat. "Where?"

"In the hills a'ove our Aegis 'ase," Daasaa said, his eyes going back and forth between the three humans, clearly looking for some kind of reaction. "He ras killed rith a star rea'on in his throat."

Poirot winced. A human killing a Ryq was about as bad as it got. Dimly, he wondered if Skyler had any idea of the crate of snakes his wayward commando had just opened up. "He must have gotten lost," he said. "Probably saw the warrior and panicked."

"Or else was deliberately heading for the base," Ramirez murmured thoughtfully.

"Re rill ca'ture he," Halaak said, and Poirot shivered at the menace beneath the words. "Yae rill continue yaer search."

"Yes, Your Eminence," Bailey said, his voice suddenly hesitant. "Are we sure there was just one of them?"

"Re 'ound his glider," Daasaa said. "It had a second glider 'astened 'eneath it."

"One man pretending to be two," Poirot said, nodding. "Splits up the search parties."

"Or intensifies the search," Bailey said. "More to the point, that still leaves one slot unaccounted for in this six-man pod of theirs. What we may have is one blackcollar stirring up trouble while his partner waits quietly for one of the search teams to land an aircar in a convenient location."

"And then uses the s'otter tae in'ade Athena," Daasaa concluded, a note of vindication in his voice. "It is as I said."

"Or they might even be planning to attack the Aegis Mountain base," Ramirez said. "Maybe the first blackcollar wasn't just stirring up trouble, but was scouting it out."

Halaak made a rumbling sound in his chest. "That cannot 'e allored," he ground out. "The 'ase nust 'e 'rotected."

Daasaa motioned to him, and for a minute the two Ryqril held their heads close together as they conversed quietly in Ryqrili. Then, Daasaa straightened up again. "Yae rill rithdraw the s'otters at runce," he ordered. "The ground search rill continue."

A muscle in Bailey's cheek tightened momentarily. "As you command, Your Eminence," he said. "But I must warn you that without the spotters—"

"Dae yae kestion ne?"

The same cheek muscle twitched again. "No, of course not, Your Eminence," he said hastily. "The spotters will be withdrawn immediately." He looked at Ramirez. "See to it, Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir," Ramirez said, looking quietly relieved to be getting out of this particular frying pan. Standing up, he hurried from the room.

"General 'Oirot?" Halaak asked.

Poirot started. "Yes, Your Eminence?"

"A'ter the 'risoners rere taken, rhat ras their 'lan?"

"Basically, just to cause as much trouble as they could," Poirot said. "Skyler didn't go into details, but I got the feeling they planned to launch attacks on any Security men they could find outside Athena. He also mentioned a cache of weapons Phoenix had hidden somewhere."

"Rhat sort o' rea'ons?" Halaak asked.

"I don't know," Poirot said. "Again, he didn't give any details."

"None of the prisoners has said anything about a weapons cache," Bailey put in.

"Yae rill ask they," Daasaa ordered.

"As you command, Your Eminence," Bailey said. "I'll speak with the interrogators as soon as we're finished here."

"Re are 'inished," Daasaa said. "Go."

Poirot braced himself. "Your Eminence?" he said carefully. "May I ask what you plan to do with the prisoners? If we don't transfer them to Colorado Springs, or at least make some preparations that direction, Skyler will suspect I'm still loyal."

"And?" Daasaa asked.

"And if he suspects that, I won't be able to get any further information from him."

"Re rill not gi' u' our 'risoners," Halaak insisted.

"I wasn't suggesting we let the blackcollars actually take them," Poirot assured him. "I'm sure we can keep any rescue attempt from succeeding."

"The general does have a point," Bailey said. "It might prove useful to keep him in their good graces as long as possible. Besides, if we can delay the transfer another day or so, we'll have learned pretty much everything they can tell us anyway. It might be worth the risk to use them bait."

Again, the two Ryqril huddled into a private conversation. "'Ery rell," Daasaa said. "Yae rill nake 'lans tae trans'er the re'els. They rill lea' Athena the night akhter taenorror."

"As you command, Your Eminence," Poirot said. Finally; they were listening to reason. "I'll have the orders cut—"

"Not yae," Halaak said. "Colonel 'Ailey rill connand."

Even though he'd been half expecting it, it was still a shock. "As you command, Your Eminence," Poirot said again, his throat tight.

Daasaa inclined his head fractionally. "Go."

Neither Poirot nor Bailey spoke until they were back in the situation room, with the door to the conference room firmly shut behind them. "I'm sorry about this, General," Bailey apologized.

"No, you're not," Poirot said sourly. "But I can't really blame you. Or them. I just wish there was some way I could prove to you that I'm still loyal."

"I wish there were, too," Bailey said. "But until we come up with something... Look, why don't you head down to the infirmary and have yourself checked out? You were right; I really should have done that before bringing you up here."

"I'd rather get started on the plans for the prisoner transfer." He eyed Bailey. "You will accept my assistance on that, won't you?"

"Of course, sir," Bailey said. "But there'll be time for that after the doctors have checked you over."

Poirot grimaced. But it was clear that the other wasn't going to budge on this one. "As you command," he said, trying not to sound too sarcastic. "I'll be back soon."

He was halfway across the situation room when a pair of Security men detached themselves from the wall and fell quietly into step behind him.

But again, there was nothing he could do about it. With loyalty-conditioning, he reflected grimly, a man always knew who he could trust. Without it, how could anyone know anything?

But there was one thing he did know. Skyler would pay for this. He would pay dearly.

* * *

Ramirez was waiting by the spotter command console. "Well?" Bailey asked as he walked up.

"They're on their way back," Ramirez confirmed. "We've been in contact with each of the pilots, and they all appear to be our people. Interesting footnote: one of the search teams reports they found a section of drop pod that hadn't deployed."

Bailey frowned. "Someone was killed?"

"No, it hadn't deployed because there was apparently no one using that section," Ramirez explained. "With one slot empty, one man doubling as two, and three of them now in Denver—"

"We have a match on our numbers," Bailey said. "So there is just one blackcollar loose in the mountains."

"Which fits with what General Poirot said," Ramirez reminded him. "You think he could be telling the truth about still being loyal?"

"I don't know," Bailey said with a helpless shrug. "Maybe he just gave us the number knowing it's something we'd have been able to chase down on our own anyway."

"Though they certainly went to some trouble making the one man look like two," Ramirez said.

"Unless that was just a giveaway," Bailey said, scowling at the back of the spotter controller's head. This was getting way too complicated for his liking.

"The searchers will keep at it," Ramirez promised. "Speaking of which, I was thinking it might be a good idea to rotate everyone through the Boulder office, even people from Athena. Make sure there aren't any imposters mixed in before we send them trooping back through your gate."

"Good idea," Bailey agreed. "Go ahead and give the orders."

"I already have, sir."

"I see," Bailey said, an odd sensation creeping up his back. "Well. Good."

"We should know about everyone by midnight at the latest," Ramirez went on. "Was anything else decided in there after I left?"

"We're going to pretend General Poirot's genuinely a traitor," Bailey said, studying the other's face. "He and I are going to work out a plan to transfer the Phoenix prisoners to Colorado Springs forty-eight hours from now and see if we can lure the blackcollars out from under their rock."

"All right," Ramirez said slowly. "If you do capture them, you'll be bringing them back here?"

"Yes, we will," Bailey growled, wincing at the memories. "And you can rest assured it will not end up like the last time."

"I hope not, sir," Ramirez said evenly. "What would you like me to do next?"

"What do you want to do next?" Bailey countered.

A hint of a frown crossed Ramirez's forehead. "Whatever you need, Colonel," he said, sounding a little puzzled. "I'm just here to help out."

"Of course," Bailey murmured. "In that case, why don't you head up to Interrogation and see if they've been able to dig out anything new."

"Yes, sir." Turning, Ramirez headed across the room at a brisk walk.

Bailey watched until he'd disappeared out the door, then crossed over to the tech at the comm station. "I want you to contact the Boulder Security office," he told the other quietly. "Get me the names and files of everyone on duty there tonight."

"Yes, sir," the tech said, frowning briefly up at him. "Anything in particular you're looking for?"

"Not really," Bailey said, trying to sound casual. "I just want to know who's up there. In case something goes wrong."

The tech's lip twitched as he turned back to his board. "Yes, sir."

"And after you do that," Bailey went on, "have someone pull Lieutenant Ramirez's file and send it down to Analysis. I want to know if there've been any reports of peculiar behavior over the past year."

He looked over at the door. "In particular, whether or not he's had any long, unexplained absences."

* * *

The woods were dark by the time the lights of Shelter Valley began to wink at them through the trees. "Where exactly is this sensor pylon?" Flynn whispered.

"About ten meters that way," Adamson murmured back, pointing ahead and to the left. "Don't worry—there's no audio pickup."

"What about the rest of the townspeople?" Jensen asked, his voice sounding strained. "Will they all be indoors?"

"I'll keep an eye out," Adamson said. "I'm thinking that maybe you should go straight to Toby's place instead of stopping at the house—it's a lot more private. I can collect my gear and treat you up there."

Flynn looked down at Jensen. He hadn't complained during the trip, but Flynn could tell that the swaying and bouncing were taking their toll. Now Adamson wanted them to extend the trip another half hour or more? "What do you think?" he asked.

"Sounds good to me," Jensen said, clearly working hard to filter the pain out of his voice. "Assuming your arms can hold out that long."

"Our arms are fine," Flynn assured him. "Lead on, Trapper."

Even by Plinry standards the twenty or so haphazardly scattered houses that made up Shelter Valley hardly qualified as a town. Fortunately, as Adamson had predicted, everyone was already indoors. They passed between the houses like shadows, and twenty meters past the last house they reached another path. There Adamson doubled back, and Trapper and Flynn headed up.

It was the steepest patch of ground they'd hit yet, and by the time the slope began to level out Flynn's legs were trembling with fatigue. Fortunately, that was the worst of it, and he made it the rest of the way without the embarrassment of having to call for a break.

The occupant must have been watching for them, because they were still a few steps from the cabin when the door swung open. A short, slender man stood there, framed against the glow of a wood stove behind him. "So I was right," he muttered, stepping back out of their way. "Or maybe not," he corrected himself, turning his head around to peer down at Jensen. "What happened, Trapper? You shoot him?"

"They ran into Bessie," Trapper said, glancing around the cabin and turning toward a section of open floor near the stove.

"No, no—on the bed," the other man said, pointing toward the narrow cot pushed against the rear wall. In contrast to the ramshackle appearance of the rest of the cabin, the bed was neatly made. "Bessie, huh? You have to kill her?"

"Never even saw her," Trapper told him as he and Flynn set Jensen and his makeshift stretcher onto the bed. "They chased her away themselves. Toby, this is Blackcollar Commando Jensen and Trainee Flynn. Gentlemen, meet Toby, Shelter Valley's very own professional hermit."

"So I was right," Toby murmured, a strange expression on his face. "Blackcollars."

"Just the one," Flynn said, studying what he could see of Toby's face through the full beard. The man was roughly Jensen's age, with a hint of bitterness at the corners of his mouth. "As Trapper said, I'm just a trainee."

"You dress like one, though," Toby said. "So what'd Bessie do to you?"

"Little love tap on the ribs," Jensen told him.

"Lucky you didn't really rile her," Toby said grimly. "You want something to eat or drink?"

"Some water would be nice," Jensen said. "Flynn can get it, if you want to point him to the well or stream or whatever."

"No need," Toby said. Picking up a glass from a small table set by the window, he crossed to the opposite corner and a hand-carved wooden sink set into the wall with a faucet above it. He turned the spigot; and to Flynn's mild surprise water gushed out. "You have a cistern on the roof?" he asked as Toby filled the glass.

"Just a little one," Toby said, shutting off the flow and taking the glass to Jensen. "Actually, the water's piped in from a stream that runs down the side of the hill back there. A man can live without a lot of things, but running water isn't something I'd ever want to be without."

"Especially when you've got a bad leg?" Jensen said as he eased himself up on one elbow and accepted the glass.

"You got sharp eyes," Toby commented. "I'm not even limping that much today."

"The benefits of training," Jensen said. "Speaking of sharp eyes, I understand you're the one who sent Adamson and Trapper out looking for us."

Toby shrugged. "Saw all the Security spotters buzzing around. Figured there was some trouble that oughta be looked into."

"Trouble like this happen very often?" Jensen asked.

"Happened last year," Toby said significantly. "About the same time Athena Security went a little berserk, in fact."

"You heard about that?" Flynn asked.

"We're not that close to the edge of the universe," Trapper said. "We get a couple of the local radio news stations just fine. We've also got two cars and some old logging roads that'll get us to one-nineteen and from there into Denver."

Flynn nodded understanding. "I was wondering how you all survived out here."

"Mostly, we live off the land," Trapper said. "We hunt and fish and trap, and there's a couple of decent-sized crop areas over the ridge behind town where we grow wheat and vegetables. But there's also a market for our furs in Denver, and some of us also do carvings and pottery that seems to appeal to big-city people. We get by."

"They probably think of you as adorably quaint," Jensen said dryly.

"Let them," Trapper said, a hint of contempt in his voice. "We prefer to think of ourselves as having given up a little civilization for a hell of a lot more freedom."

"As much as you can get on a Ryqril-run world, anyway," Toby growled as he took Jensen's empty glass from his hand. "More?"

"Not right now, thanks," Jensen said, easing himself back flat again.

"Well, there's plenty when you want it," Toby said. He stood gazing down at Jensen for a moment, then turned away and took the glass back to the table. "The other plumbing's even simpler," he said, pointing to a toilet seat fastened to the top of a meter-cube box in the corner by the sink. "That commode over there just opens up over a ravine. Sort of a natural latrine."

Flynn had wondered about the lack of any obvious plumbing on the fixture. "Beats the hell out of digging one yourself every few years," he commented.

"Sure does," Toby agreed. "Smells a lot better, too."

Behind Flynn, the door opened. Instinctively, he snatched out a shuriken and snapped his arm into throwing position.

But it was only Adamson. "Friend," he said hastily, lifting his free hand palm outward as he swung a large case in through the door with the other.

"You didn't bring enough stuff, did you?" Toby asked, eyeing the case as Adamson closed the door behind him.

"Cracked ribs require a little more than just seal-strips and painkillers," Adamson told him. "Okay, Jensen, let's get that flexarmor off and see what we're dealing with."

Properly fitted flexarmor never came off easily even at the best of times, but with persistence and a fair amount of wincing on Jensen's part they were able to remove his shirt. Adamson's equipment was hardly top-line, Flynn noted, but it was adequate for the job and had obviously been well cared for. Adamson, too, seemed to know what he was doing.

"We've got the traditional good news and bad news," Adamson said when he'd finished. "Good news is that you have two cracked ribs, but they're only slightly cracked. Even better news is that I still have some Calcron that will help stimulate the healing process. A thincast, a few days of complete rest plus a few more of limited activity, and you should heal just fine."

"Sounds great," Jensen said. "What's the bad news?"

Adamson sighed. "That I doubt you're going to follow a single instruction I give you," he said soberly. "Whatever you came to Denver for, I don't think it was to take time off to stare at the clouds."

"Maybe we can compromise," Jensen suggested. "Trapper implied the townspeople make occasional runs to Denver. Are there any Security checkpoints along the way?"

"Not normally," Adamson said. "Though with you here, they might have set some up. You're looking for a ride to town, then?"

"Flynn is," Jensen said, looking over at Flynn. "I need him to find the rest of the team and let them know where we are."

"Wait a minute," Flynn said, trying to keep his tone under control. The last thing he was going to do was leave Jensen here alone. Not after that veiled comment about making sure the Ryqril didn't get into Aegis. "You're going to need me here."

"I'm fine," Jensen said, warning him with his eyes. "I need you to go contact Skyler."

"But—"

"I have a message only you can deliver," Jensen said, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Flynn sighed silently. Whatever Jensen was planning, it was clear he intended to do it alone. "Understood," he murmured.

"I hope the message isn't too urgent," Trapper warned. "Denver's a big place. It may take a while to find them."

"Don't worry, we know some shortcuts," Jensen said. "He'll find them."

"Still cost at least a day." Trapper looked at his father. "And you'd be missed faster than I would."

"Probably," Adamson agreed reluctantly. "I take it you're volunteering?"

"Yes," Trapper said. "Though we can't leave until day after tomorrow."

"Why not?" Adamson frowned. "Oh, that's right. Martin won't be coming back with the sedan until tomorrow night."

"And Alex and Jane are taking in a load of spices with the pickup tomorrow," Trapper said, nodding.

"Couldn't we hitch a ride with them?" Flynn asked.

"No," Adamson said firmly. "They're probably trustworthy, but I don't want any more people than necessary in on this. If Security comes calling, I want their interrogations to show that no one but us had any idea what was going on."

Flynn grimaced. Lathe had warned them during their training that their very presence would put innocent people at risk, but this was the first time that fact had taken on any flesh-and-blood meaning. It was a sobering thought. "Maybe we could leave as soon as Martin gets back tomorrow," he suggested. "The sooner we're out of your way, the better."

"Agreed," Adamson said. "But Martin will be back too late for us to take off. There are a couple of places along the road you definitely don't want to tackle in the dark."

"Then I guess it's first light the day after tomorrow," Flynn concluded. He looked questioningly at Jensen. "That all right?"

Jensen didn't look particularly happy about it, but he nodded. "I guess it'll have to be," he said. "I just hope Skyler doesn't start the party without us."

"First light it is, then," Adamson said. "Even that early we can't have you showing up in town, though, so I'll come up and take you to a rendezvous spot."

"Make it Goldfinch Hook," Trapper suggested. "I can wait there out of sight as long as I need to."

"Fine." Adamson looked at Jensen, a small smile touching his lips. "Well, it looks like you'll have at least one of those bed-rest days I asked for."

"Looks like it," Jensen agreed. "Speaking of days, mine has been long and fairly uncomfortable," he added, easing himself up off the bed again. "I'd like to find myself a corner and settle down for the night."

"You stay right where you are," Toby said firmly. "I've got a couple of old bedrolls the kid and I can use."

"He's right," Adamson seconded. "Let me get a thincast on you, then mix you up some of that Calcron."

* * *

Adamson got the blackcollar fixed up, and he and his son headed back to town.

Leaving Foxleigh and his new houseguests alone.

Despite the long day Jensen had mentioned, he and Flynn didn't go immediately to sleep. Instead, they whispered together for nearly half an hour, Jensen on the bed, Flynn on his borrowed bedroll on the floor beside him.

They kept their voices too low for Foxleigh to hear what they were saying. But that didn't matter. Three things were already certain, and they were all he needed. One: in a little over a day Flynn would be going to Denver, leaving Jensen behind. Two: Jensen was definitely one of the blackcollars he'd seen slipping into Aegis Mountain a year ago. And three: with Adamson's thincast wrapped around his torso, Jensen wasn't going to be fitting into his fancy flexarmor shirt anytime soon.

Which meant the time had finally come.

Rolling over on his bedroll, wincing at the unaccustomed hardness of the floor beneath him, Foxleigh drifted off to sleep.

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Framed