“Me?”

A flicker of a smile briefly relieved the intensity of the Takisian’s expression. “As incredible as that might seem… yes. Your grasp of our language is better than the noisy man’s, and in your case I am acquainted with your powers.”

“My friends,” Mark corrected softly. “And don’t assume you’ve met them all.” It was a gently couched warning, and Zabb didn’t mistake it.

“You may believe me when I tell you that at this moment my cousin has nothing to fear from me,”

Zabb was walking toward the door, and Mark said to his back, “Because right now you need something from her.”

The alien looked back. “Quite astute of you, groundling.”

“Wait a minute.” Mark knelt, snapped open the case, and removed five of the vials. Slipping them into the leather pouch at his belt, he crossed to where Tis was expostulating with Jay Ackroyd.

“Hey, man, watch this for me. Okay?” He handed the case to Jay and hurried back to join Zabb.

On this walk, with only a pair of guards as escort, and without the accompaniment of a frenzied explanation from Tachyon – Tisianne – Mark had the leisure to inspect his surroundings. Judging from the striations in the stone walls of the audience chamber, it was located in the ancient section of the house which had been carved from the rock of the cliff. Now they had entered the newer sections of the sprawling villa. The range of decorations was bewildering to the eye, and jarring to the mind. In some areas paintings and tapestries adorned the walls; in others just the polished stone; in still others there were inlaid mosaics.

“I take it that Takisians don’t believe in a coherent decor.”

Zabb laughed. “To understand Takis, you must first understand how territorial we are.”

“Yeah, I know. All the different families and Houses…”

“Yes, but that extends in-House as well. Each breeding line stakes out a section of palace for their own, and that includes the corridors.”

“So they get to decorate it as they please.”

“And maintain it at their own expense. It’s a way for the Raiyis to cut costs.”

That raised a new thought for Mark. “Money. How do you get it?”

“Investments, taxes, theft.” The alien laughed at Mark’s expression. “No, nothing so romantic as you are thinking. When we battle, the winner doesn’t cart away the treasures of a House. Our theft is of the electronic variety.”

“But when you absorb a smaller House -”

“It happens very rarely. Nothing fights like a cornered Takisian, so out-and-out victories are costly. Also, if we reduced the number of Houses…” He paused, considered. “Well, it wouldn’t be as interesting or challenging.”

“Then you like to fight.” A wealth of flower-child disapproval was ladled onto the words.

Zabb’s quick pace slowed, and he cocked his head curiously at Mark. “Yes, we’re a warrior culture. There’s glory in warfare, very little in peace.”

“That’s a lot of crap. A sincere and dedicated pacifist is braver than any soldier. Look, I don’t particularly like the Network – too profit oriented, and money’s never meant much to me, but, like, they’ve got the right idea. You don’t squander your energy in war, you direct it out – for exploration, scientific research. You’ve had space flight for a hell of a long time, and you’ve got only a few colonies and no alien allies. I think that’s sad, and really wasteful.”

Zabb stopped before an elaborately carved door. He laid a hand on the cut-crystal knob and quirked a smile up at Mark. “One could argue we are even now forging a unique alliance with you humans.”

Mark stared seriously down at him. “No… you despise us.”

There was the briefest of pauses, then Zabb nodded abruptly. “Yes.”

As Mark watched the alien step through the door, he had to admit to a certain grudging admiration. A human would have expostulated, temporized, weaseled. Takisian honesty was as brutal as their politics.

Mark checked just on the threshold. “This is your room,” he said.

“Very perceptive.”

Mark surveyed the collection of weapons on the wall, the series of paintings featuring animals that resembled a cross between giraffes, horses, and impalas. A large stained-glass window depicted a hunt, but the riders were mounted on enormous flying creatures of a genus so alien that Mark couldn’t even think of an earthly comparison.

“Nobody touched it in five years?”

Again that flashing smile. “They knew better.”

“And the Doc’s? Is his… her room still intact?”

“No.” Zabb turned from where he was fiddling at the contents of an elaborate desk with etched crystal fronting each of the drawers. “I made sure it was assigned to others… oh, it must have been twenty or so years after my little cousin’s precipitous departure.”

Mark seated himself on the corner of a table and swung a leg. “Are you so shitty to the Doc because you’re trying to bury the fact you really do like her?”

The Takisian had a funny expression. “Very… very perceptive. Is that why you agreed to accompany me and leave my cousin with only a single protector?”

“Yeah. And she would have stopped me if she’d thought it was wrong.”

“Tis and I each have a mission to accomplish.”

“And you need me if you’re going to succeed.”

“I could probably achieve it alone, but remembering how difficult you… er, your friends can be, I thought your involvement might simplify matters.”

“What is it you want me to do?”

“Help me kill a man.”

Hands up, palms out as if the words alone had the power to damage him, Mark backed off. “No, oh no, no way.”

Zabb pressed in, driving Mark around the opulent room like a drover with a skittish horse. “Then she’s dead.”

“That can’t be true. She’s got guards, she’s got us. Besides, there’s no reason to kill this kid. The Doc is the Doc, and once her bona fides have been established, the kid will just get shunted aside.” Zabb didn’t answer. He just began filling a pipe from a twisted blown-glass humidor, never taking his sardonic, cold eyes off the sweating ace. “Killing that boy won’t accomplish anything,” Mark continued. “There’ll always be a replacement waiting to…” Marks voice trailed away.

The images parading past his mind’s eye were those from human mythology. Of dragons’ teeth being sown into the plowed earth, and soldiers springing up like foul weeds.

“Precisely, which is why I want to remove Onyze in a way that will implicate Egyon and sow the seeds of distrust among the remaining members of that line. It’s a very effective way to discourage pretension and treachery. And it will work. Oh, not for all time, but for a score of years, perhaps there will be peace.”

“The peace of fear,” Mark said defiantly.

“The best kind I know,” was the imperturbable reply.

“Then I’m sorry for you.” And he found that it was true.

Zabb hunched one shoulder. He picked up a lighter and drew on his pipe until he had it burning to his satisfaction. “Tisianne understands the harsh necessity that presently drives us. Even now she is taking an action that tears her soul. But she will act. Will you?”

“Not this way.”

Zabb tried another tack, still in that same sweetly sane tone. “Have you never in your life acted to defend the helpless?”

Indignation edged the words. Mark sounded as harsh as an old crow next to Zabb’s mellifluous arguments. “This is not a case of self-defense, and all the sophistry in the world isn’t going to make it self-defense!”

“Perhaps I failed to express myself clearly. It is not incumbent upon either you or your ‘friend’ to kill Onyze. I will handle that, but I need full intelligence to succeed. I need a – in your culture I believe it is called a ‘bug’ – planted.”

“It makes me an accessory to murder, and I won’t do it!”

“Does your friend also share in your charming if totally unrealistic belief?”

Suddenly wary, Trips asked, “Which friend?”