"Her name?" Daulo frowned.

Jin licked her lips. "My father's name is Justin Moreau," she said evenly. "His brother's name is Joshua."

Daulo's face went a little pale. "The demon warrior and his shadow," he whispered.

So the ghost stories about her father and uncle hadn't faded with time. Jin fought back a grimace. "You have to understand, Kruin Sammon, that in our judgment the mojos were as much a threat to your people as they were to ours. We were considering your welfare, too, when we made our decision."

"Your kindness has clearly gone unrewarded," Kruin growled, heavily sarcastic.

"Perhaps the Shahni will offer you some honor for your actions."

"The option was full warfare," Jin told him quietly. "And don't scoff-there were those who thought that would be necessary. Many among us were terrified of what a planet of people under mojo control could do to us when they escaped the confines of this one world. Do your histories record that it was your people who threatened to come out someday and destroy us?"

"And this is your justification for such a devastating preemptive strike?" Kruin demanded. "A threat made in the heat of self-defense?"

"I'm justifying nothing," Jin said. "I'm trying to show that we didn't act out of hatred or animosity."

"Perhaps we'd have preferred a more heated emotion to such icy calculation,"

Kruin retorted. "To send animal predators to fight us instead of doing the job yourselves-"

"But don't you see?" Jin pleaded. "The whole razorarm approach was the only one that would get the mojos away from you without causing any truly permanent damage to your safety and well-being."

"Permanent damage?" Daulo cut in. "What do you think the extra mesh above the wall is for-?"

Kruin stopped him with a gesture. "Explain."

Jin took a deep breath. "Once the majority of razorarms are accompanied by mojos, most of their attacks on people should stop."

"Why?" Kruin snorted. "Because the mojos have fond memories of us?"

"No," Jin shook her head. "Because you can kill the razorarms."

A frown creased Kruin's forehead. "That makes no sense. We can't possibly destroy enough of them to make a difference."

"We don't have to," Daulo said, his voice abruptly thoughtful. "If Jasmine

Moreau is right about the mojos, simply having the capability to kill them will be enough."

Kruin cocked an eyebrow at his son. "Explain, Daulo Sammon."

Daulo's eyes were on Jin. "The mojos are intelligent enough to understand the power of our weapons; is that correct?" She nodded, and he turned to face his father. "So then the mojos have a strong interest in making sure there's as little fighting as possible between us and their razorarms."

"And what of the one in the forest this morning?" Kruin scoffed. "It had a mojo, and yet attacked you."

Daulo shook his head. "I've been thinking about that, my father. It didn't attack until I first fired on it."

"Speculation," Kruin shook his head. But the frown remained on his face.

"Remember your history," Jin urged him. "Your own people told us that the krisjaws, too, were once relatively harmless to the Qasaman people. It was only after the mojos began deserting them for you that they became so dangerous."

Kruin's gaze drifted to the offworld supplies and equipment spread out on his table. "You said the Shahni were aware of the mojos' effect on us. Why then would they have risked their internal harmony by purging the cities of their mojos?"

Jin shook her head. "I don't know. Perhaps the mojos simply deserted the cities more quickly once an alternative came along."

"Or perhaps the cities realized that the main conflict would be not with their own citizens but with those of us in the villages," Daulo muttered.

"Perhaps." Kruin looked hard at Jin. "But whatever the reasons or motivations, what ultimately matters is that the people of Aventine interfered with our society. And in doing so brought hardship and death upon us."

Jin looked him straight in the eye, trying to shake off the feeling that she personally was on trial here. "What matters," she corrected quietly, "is that you were slaves. Would you rather we have left you as you were, less than truly human?"

"It's always possible to claim love as a motive for one's actions," Kruin said, a bitter smile on his face. "Tell me, Jasmine Moreau: if our positions were reversed, would you honestly thank us for doing to you what you have done to us?"

Jin bit at her lip. It would be so easy to lie... and so pointless. "At the place in your history where you now live... no. I can only hope that future generations will recognize that what we did truly had to be done. And will accept that our motives were honorable even if they can't honestly thank us."

Kruin sighed and fell silent, his eyes drifting away from her and to his table.

Jin glanced at Daulo, then turned to look out the window. The afternoon shadows were starting to stretch across Milika, and in a short while it would be time for the evening meal.

A perfect time to drug or poison her if they decided she was too dangerous to bargain with...

"What is it you want from us?" Kruin cut abruptly into her thoughts.

Jin turned her attention back to him, bracing herself. The question was an inevitable one, and she'd put a great deal of thought into considering just how much she should tell them. But each time she'd turned the problem over in her mind she'd come to the same conclusion: complete honesty was the only way.

Whatever trust they had in her now-and she didn't flatter herself that it was much-would evaporate instantly if they ever caught her in another lie. And without their trust she had no chance at all of completing her mission. Or even of staying alive. "First of all," she said, "I have to tell you that for the past thirty years we've been keeping tabs on you through spy satellites orbiting your world."

She braced herself for an explosion, but Kruin merely nodded. "That's hardly a secret. Everyone on Qasama has seen them-dim specks moving across the night sky.

It's said that a favorite topic of conversation when the Shahni meet is how we might go about destroying them."

"I can't blame them," Jin admitted. "Well, anyway, it seems that someone's finally come up with a way to do it."

Kruin cocked an eyebrow. "Interesting. I take it you came here to stop that person?"

Jin shook her had. "Actually, no. Our group came to gather information, and that alone. It's not quite as simple as it sounds, you see: the satellites aren't being physically destroyed, just temporarily disabled... and we're so far unable to figure out how it's being done."

She described as best she could the gaps that had been made in the satellites' records. "What eventually tipped them off was the discovery that there was a definite pattern in the blank regions. Most of them fell over that roofed complex northeast of Azras."

"You must mean Mangus?" Daulo said.

"Is that what it's called?" Jin frowned. The word sounded vaguely familiar...

"Is Mangus someone's name?"

Daulo shook his head. "It's the ancient root of the word mongoose. I don't know why they call the place that."

Jin felt her mouth go dry. Mongoose. A legendary Old Earth animal... whose fame lay in their ability to kill cobras. I could probably tell you, she thought morosely, why they named it that. "Any idea what exactly they're doing in there?"

Kruin's eyes were hard on her face; but, surprisingly, he didn't ask about whatever it was he saw there. "Electronics research and manufacture," he said.

"Quite a lot of it, apparently, judging by the quantities of refined metals they buy from us."

"Quantities that seem excessive for that kind of electronics manufacture?" Jin asked.

"How much metal would be excessive?" Kruin countered. "I'd need to know their output before making any comparison."