The food had seemed to pose the biggest problem. She'd not seen much of Shakuras—the brief glimpse of an outside area when she and the other protoss had run through the gate was pretty much it. Rosemary had been ushered onto the ship and not been allowed to look outside during the brief flight to— wherever it was.

She frowned a little. Make that four complaints—no one had told her very much since they'd brought her here and put her in this very nice, comfortable, spacious room that was, in the end, still just a prison cell.

Her stomach rumbled. They'd brought the chamber pot, but still hadn't brought her anything to eat. She had no way of telling time, but knew she had been here several hours already. They had gotten her water; she reached for a bowl containing the precious liquid and took a sip.

She heard the sound of the door opening and turned, expecting to see her protoss guard. Instead a stranger entered, a female who was clearly of high rank and well aware of it. She stood proudly, a commanding presence. The newcomer wore armor that Rosemary recognized marked her as a templar. Rosemary thought it was largely symbolic at first, as her gaze swept over this imposing figure. Good protection at the vulnerable backward bend of the knee and upper arms, and the sweep of gleaming metal that lifted like slender wings at the shoulder should effectively block blows to the throat. But the waist andthigh showed smooth gray flesh. Then again, if this was the head of the templar, which Rosemary suspected an "executor" was, this female probably would halt any attacker dead in his tracks before he got close enough to get in a blow.

Rosemary had seen bits and pieces of armor on the Aiur protoss, but she now realized how dreadfully battle-worn that armor had been. What the protoss before her now wore was gleaming and bright, catching even the dim blue-purple light that came in from the window and the light from the glowing, gemlike spheres set into the armor itself. The dangling appendages that Rosemary knew were nerve cords and that definitively marked her as a traditional protoss and not one of the dark templar fell almost like long ropes of hair, with golden metal pieces adorning their ends. Beneath the armor, she wore a slender drape of fabric that looked very luxurious and soft, a night-black, velvety swath that protected her gray skin from the gleaming, gold metal.

In her four-fingered hands, which still looked so very weird to Rosemary, she carried a shallow golden bowl that had some vaguely spherical things and a couple of long, grassy things in it.

Rosemary did not attempt to hide her scrutiny, and she realized that the newcomer was in all likelihood sizing her up as well. At the moment, exhausted, hungry, and physically filthy as she was, Rosemary knew who'd win that competition. She decided she'd add the lack of a bath to her list of complaints.

"Who are you?" Rosemary asked.

The protoss placed the bowl down with almost ceremonial precision on the table, turned, and inclined her head. It wasn't quite a bow, but it was a gesture of respect.

"I am Executor Selendis," she said. "I have come to query you as to the nature of your purpose on our world." She indicated the bowl. "It has taken us no little effort, but we have located fruits and tubers that I believe you will be able to consume."

Rosemary eyed the contents of the bowl and hoped Selendis was right. She was starving. But even more than food, she hungered for information.

"I'm Rosemary Dahl, and you know exactly why I am here. I get that you all live much longer than we do, and that protocol and ceremony and stuff mean a lot to you, but there's not a lot of time for things like that right now."

Executor Selendis regarded the terran with luminous, unblinking eyes. "There is always time to do something the right way, Rosemary Dahl."

"It depends on whose definition of 'right way' you use."

Selendis half closed her eyes, tilted her head, and hunched her armored shoulders slightly in the gesture that indicated humor. "I suppose that it does. Do you wish to feed before we speak?"

Feed. Like she was a pet, or an animal to be fattened for slaughter or something. Selendis narrowed her eyes; she'd read Rosemary's thoughts, of course. Man, this was getting old.

"I'll skip the chow for now. Like I said, we don't have a lot of time. What do you know so far?"

"What the protoss who accompanied you have told me. I cannot verify their statements in the Khala as of yet. They are still ridding themselves of the influence of the drug with which the dark archon polluted them." A great deal of distaste was in the words. Rosemary wasn't sure if the detestation was directed at the drug or at the thought of the dark archon. Or maybe even at her.

Rosemary glanced away. "The Sundrop, it's...bad stuff, yeah."

Selendis nodded, slowly. Rosemary sensed the executor was still making up her mind about everything.

"Let me get right to the point. I understand why your guards redirected my friend Jake. It was a smart thing to do. But unfortunately Jake has a preserver in his head with some really important information—information she was willing to kill a whole lot of people to protect. And because she's inside my friend's brain, he's dying. She wants to put what she knows into a dark templar crystal, so the information isn't lost. Jake wants her out of his head, so he can survive. And I want—"

The rush of words was suddenly dammed as Rosemary slammed hard against the fact that she actually didn't know what she wanted. A few years or months ago, she'd have named it in terms of creature comforts, personal challenges, and a whole lot of credits. Even recently, she was planning on using the archaeologist as her pass to safety and fortune. But now—

The protoss before her waited patiently, with that freaky stillness that was so unsettling. Time to them was utterly different than it was to terrans. Their lifetimes lasted centuries; humans, generally less than one. They could afford to be patient.

Rosemary opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. "I...I guess I want Jake to be okay."

"That is all?"

"Well, I want to be okay too. I just—" Rosemary grinned self-deprecatingly. "I guess I just don't know what that looks like anymore." "I see."

Rosemary wasn't at all sure that this gray-skinned, imposing female did. "Look—find Jake and bring him back so Zamara can get out of his head. How hard can it be?"

"What you do not understand, terran, is that what you ask is a serious matter indeed. I must be certain that it is not just the right thing for your colleague, but the right thing for my people."

"It's a damned preserver!" Rosemary cried in utter exasperation. "Isn't helping her survive the right thing for your people?"

"You yourself have confessed that you were subjected to a mind-altering drug," Selendis continued, completely unperturbed by Rosemary's outburst. "So were the others. Until the drug has cleared their systems and we can meet their minds and hearts in the Khala, I must wait and listen and learn."

Suddenly the import of the words struck Rosemary. "You mean—wait a minute. Are you saying that all the protoss who came through with me were the Tal'darim—the Forged? That there are none of Those Who Endure among them?"

"No. There are not. Only those whose minds were affected by the Sundrop."

Rosemary sank down in one of the oversized chairs, stunned by the news. She thought of the moment when she was certain she was going to die at the hands—well, pincers, claws, whatever they had—of the zerg and the wave of protoss had descended to save them. She thought of their ready forgiveness of her almost-betrayal. She passed a shaking hand through her hair, telling herself it was exhaustion and lack of food that made this news so upsetting.