“And have your Garr go with them? He has not a signal on him that Martha can recognize, as do we,” Challen pointed out.

Tedra stopped her pacing to gape at him. “I must have left my brains back on the Rover. You expected to pop in on them all along, didn’t you?”

“Certainly. Why else were we each supplied with the homing device?”

“So we could all Transfer into the building at the same time,” she replied, grinning. “And if we can do it once, why not again? Oh, Martha?”

It was done in a matter of moments. The scene before them now was a solid wall of Sha-Ka’ari warriors facing the lifts as Tedra had assumed they would be. What she hadn’t counted on was their numbers.

“Stars, I think we’re outnumbered,” she said beneath her breath, but Challen heard her.

“Best we even the odds, then.”

He chuckled deeply, which had the Sha-Ka’ari turning en masse. Tedra would have preferred figuring out some other option, but it was too late for that. She was shoved behind Challen, then behind the next warrior, then behind the next, until she was in back of them all whether she wanted to be there or not. She couldn’t make use of her own weapon with her own warriors all in front of her. She just had to stand there and listen to the racket they were making as the battle joined, doing nothing to help, unless…

“Martha, how about getting me from one side of this area to the other?”

“Forget it, kiddo. I didn’t put you down there to die.”

“You didn’t put me down here to twiddle my thumbs either!” Tedra snarled.

“So why don’t you see if you can’t find Garr while your friends are busy?”

Tedra made a face. “You really did forget to send my brains down here with me, didn’t you?”

Her answer was one of Martha’s best simulations of laughter. But Tedra wasted no more time on self-disgust. She turned to face the closed doors that surrounded the circular area. They opened into rooms of different sizes, she knew, and she also knew which one was the largest and most likely to have been turned into permanent living quarters for a valuable prisoner. She approached it now, and sure enough, a special security lock was in evidence. Tedra smiled to herself. The dum-dums had used what was on hand. Similar to an identilock, it worked on visual identification, voice verification, and handprints, and gave clearance only to guards-and all Goverance Building Sec l’s. And since the Sha-Ka’ari hadn’t figured on any Sec 1 ‘s showing up, she’d wager just about anything the locks weren’t modified.

Sure enough, the door slid open at her command. And Garr was there, seated in a chair in the center of the room. A warrior stood behind him holding a sword across his throat, a Toreno shield raised to protect him. Tedra leaned against the doorjamb and crossed her arms over her chest, which pointed her lazor at the ceiling. It wasn’t going to do her much good against Toreno steel. And she still didn’t want to kill this particular warrior.

“Well, hello, Kowan. Fancy meeting you here.”

The poor guy was doubting his sight as well as his hearing. He wasn’t expecting a woman to come through the door, certainly not one wearing a Sec 1 uniform, and certainly not one he thought he knew very intimately. Garr, on the other hand, wasn’t a bit surprised.

“You certainly took your sweet time, Tedra.” He grinned at her.

“I had to make a detour to another Star System.” She grinned back.

Kowan had recovered by then, enough to say, “You will put down your weapon, woman, or I will kill him.”

“Oh, come on, warrior, you’re not going to play stupid, are you? Take a look behind me. Those are barbarians making mincemeat out of your friends. Not Kystrani Secs, but warriors from your mother planet. Sha-Ka’an ring a bell? No? Well, no matter. But take my word for it, you guys don’t stand a chance. Besides, I’ve already captured your fearless leader and put him where you’ll never get him back, so the slave farm is closed. Why don’t you play smart and surrender while you still can?”

“To a woman?” he snorted.

“Well, if that’s your only difficulty, I can get a Sha-Ka’ani in here for you to hand your sword over to. But I’m a Sec 1 before I’m a woman, and I hate to tell you this, Kowan, but I already took you down once-or haven’t you ever wondered why you have no memories of our time together after we arrived at our destination?”

“You lie. I became drunk.”

“I drugged you, babe, but after you were already-”

“Tedra, look out!” from Garr.

“No!” from far behind her.

She turned, but all she saw was the flash of blue steel coming at her. She had time to do no more than keep her head from leaving her body. She had no time to avoid the backlash of the blade as it bounced off the doorjamb. It knocked her flat. Pain lashed across her chest. She suddenly didn’t feel like trying to get up. The Sha-Ka’ari didn’t care one way or the other. He was desperate to get his hands on Garr, assuming him to be his only protection now. She’d merely been in his way. But he didn’t reach Garr. Challen came charging through the door right behind him, roaring like a man gone mad. His sword buried, lifted, and actually threw the Sha-Ka’ari across the room. That was the last Tedra saw before she closed her eyes against the pain.

And then she was being lifted carefully, so carefully, but the movement still hurt like crazy. She tried holding it in, but the groan got out anyway. The movement stopped instantly. There was another groan, not hers, but it managed to get her eyes back open. Only she doubted what she was seeing: Challen leaning over her with tears in his eyes, tears running down his cheeks, Challen crying?

“Hey, don’t… babe.”

She raised her hand to his cheek, but it dropped back before it got there. Stars, she felt so weak-and cold.

“Do you… do you die, so too will I. Please, chemar, please! You will not die! You cannot!”

“No… I won’t.”

But he thought she was only trying to tell him what he wanted to hear. He was looking at her blood-covered chest and dying inside. She realized that at the same time it became clear he’d forgotten all about meditechs.

She tried reminding him. “Just get me to a-” But the awful sound of anguished rage he made drowned her out. Garr would have to tell him, she decided. She didn’t have enough strength left to break through all the noise Challen was making. But she wouldn’t have missed this for the world.

Her last thought before she lost consciousness was, That man is definitely in love with me.

Chapter Forty-six

Challen gave her still another frown. Tedra chuckled this time. She felt wonderful, actually close to ecstatic. Her barbarian loved her, and before they left her old quarters at Goverance Building, he’d tell her so.

“I tried to remind you about meditechs, honestly, I did. But you were too busy grieving over me to listen.”

His frown got worse. He was holding her in his lap, in an adjustichair that had made plenty of room for them. She was curled around him, wearing not a stitch of clothes, and feeling not the least bit embarrassed that she wasn’t and he was. But that was the first thing he’d done as soon as she’d brought him there, strip her down and completely examine her body. There was no sign left of her wound, not even a pink mark. The meditech had spit her out with a clean bill of health and the assurance that her son hadn’t been bothered at all by the ordeal. No wonder. He was going to be a warrior after all, just like his father.

His father told her now, “Warriors do not grieve.”

“Oh? Then what would you call it?”

Suddenly his arms closed tight around her, his face buried in her neck. “I thought I was losing you,” he said deeply, with a wealth of feeling. “Woman, you must never leave me!”