"Why would Combine want to take down the ship transporting the Consul Assessor?"

"Factions within Combine, Dravenik."

"This is all very well," said Dravenik, "but I'd get all that through the usual channels. Why are you contacting me privately like this?"

"I have a favour to ask of you."

"Oh really."

"Attempting to keep the peace, the Admiral will order you to hold station there, but to keep your weapons systems offline. I am not entirely sure if he understands the seriousness of the situation. I am not entirely sure if I do either, so I want you to keep your weapons systems online."

"Provocative."

"Yes, but not sufficiently so to cause an incident, unless an incident is what Combine wants. Should such circumstances arise I would rather you were ready."

Dravenik paused for a moment, before replying, "I'll consider your request." His image blinked out.

Harald sat back. Dravenik, whose dislike of Harald never wavered, would now assume Harald was trying to undermine his position as the senior candidate to replace Carnasus. The Admiral would never order him to take his weapons systems offline, though that was standard peacetime practice, but would leave that decision to Dravenik. The Captain, however, would most certainly keep those weapons offline now simply because Harald asked him not to. Dravenik would still be able to respond to an attack, but only belatedly. Fleet needed substantial motivation to turn on Orbital Combine, and Dravenik would soon be providing it.

Orduval—in the Desert

The moment Orduval woke he felt reduced—honed down to a smaller point in existence. With his body comfortable and warm, he dared not move for fear of stirring pain. Gradually he became aware that his head rested gently on padded fabric, and daring to turn it he eventually focused his blurred vision on a large water chiller standing beside him—precisely the sort found inside municipal buildings. Then, inspecting his close surroundings, he realised his head was resting on the pillow of an inflatable mattress and that he was lying naked in a sleeping bag. Still he dared not move excessively, knowing that, no matter what drugs his rescuer had pumped inside him, the compound fracture of his leg was going to hurt.

"You're safe now, Orduval," said a voice nearby.

Immediately analysing that voice, he found it scared him badly. He detected a dearth of humanity behind it, like something heard from a voice synthesiser. Slowly now, he drew one hand up out of the sleeping bag and inspected it. It was bruised but hurt surprisingly little. His rescuer had relocated his fingers, so perhaps had also set his leg?

As he slowly pulled himself upright, more of the interior of the cave became visible to him. On a canvas sheet laid on the ground nearby rested an assortment of packaged foods, a solar-power store and cooker, some medical supplies and a stack of clothing. With his vision clearing properly, it seemed to Orduval as if all these objects became more real to him, more substantial than anything he had ever seen before. With a sudden panic he recognised the clothing as some of his own he had left behind in the hospital.

He looked round for the speaker. "Where are you?"

"Outside the cave at the moment—well, mostly. Why don't you get dressed and come and join me?"

Orduval paused a long moment, then ran a finger down the stick-seam of the sleeping bag and peeled it open. He then inspected himself more fully.

His bony frame felt tender, bruised, but he could see no open cuts or grazes. When last he saw it, bits of shattered bone protruded from his leg, but now the dark skin was pristine, without even a scar. He swung both legs to the side and cautiously stood up. He still ached, all over, even the crown of his head. With care he stepped over to the water chiller, found a cup hanging on the side, and filled and drained it three times, before turning to his clothing.

Definitely from the hospital, for he recognised the tabard his grandmother Utrain bought him years ago, also the hospital-issue undergarments and his loose trousers and cotton shirt. His desert boots resting beside these garments were the same ones he wore in getting out here, yet he distinctly remembered the right one having been split. Picking it up he tried to find a mend, but it was as invisible as the repairs made to his body. Glancing round, he then observed his old clothing piled over by the wall, bloody, ripped and filthy. He dressed in the new.

Upon first waking he had supposed some desert Samaritan had rescued him, but factoring in the renewed state of his body, those intact boots and a fuzzy recollection of something significant before he had lost consciousness, he knew this situation to be abnormal. Once dressed, he rummaged through the food supply until he found several bars of compressed fruit and jerky, two of which he gobbled swiftly, taking his time over a third. Despite the bruising, he decided he had not felt so good in a long time, and it was then he realised that his body must be clear of the anti-convulsives. He decided to just enjoy the moment—until the next fit struck him—and stepped outside the cave.

The midday sun had heated the surrounding rocks to oven temperature—warm enough to fry meat and boil water. An arid breeze blew and dust misted the horizon. Orduval studied the object at the edge of the small clearing before the cave, and recognised the basic shape of one of the big cats of Earth, though which genus he could not guess. It was fashioned of silver metal and utterly still, so logically had to be some kind of statue placed here by his rescuer, and his earlier vision just another hallucination. This logic shattered as the statue turned, jointless as mercury, and regarded him with amber feline eyes.

"I projected a pretty picture that finally lured the searchers to find and save the kid who fell through into an abandoned skirl nest," it announced suddenly. "No problems there, and the only minus point being the mother getting infected with religion—she thought the images had been sent by the Shadowman. No one saw me, either, when I holed a water tank to put out a fire in a burning building in Transit, or when I pushed a foundering shrimp boat ashore on Brumal."

Orduval suppressed his abrupt fear and odd feeling of dislocated loss. This…thing just did not fit into his perception of reality. However, here it was, so his perception of reality must be wrong.

"Was that building you mentioned the Sunlight Tower?" he ventured. "They said it was lucky the water all poured down the correct lift shaft, and that it was surprising so small a quantity put out the fire."

The cat shrugged. "I squirted in fire-retardant gas as well, and it broke down into base gases before the investigators got to work. Anyway, those are three examples of how I occupy my time here, within this system, whenever I've got the time to spare, of course. But you, Orduval—"

"What are you?"

"Me—I'm Tigger."

Orduval tasted the name, ran it through the processor that was his brain, checking the ancient languages he knew. "Like…tiger. You're a tiger?"

"Not exactly," Tigger replied.

"Well, you appear to be made of metal."

"Yup, cell-form and pliant," said the tiger proudly.

"You still haven't answered my question. I want to know—" Orduval froze, blankness occupying his mind, though he retained an awareness of time. Minutes passed, but he felt disconnected enough from them to not become too concerned " — what you are." His body ached and slowly his muscles unlocked. The scene had changed. Tigger was now right in front of him.

"Yes," said Tigger, "there'll be no more falling off mountains for you, which is, I have to say, a pretty unhealthy occupation—nor anti-convulsives either. I placed a block to stop the clonus, so the fits will eventually fade. I've got to admit I can't yet figure out what's causing them."