Mark rolled an eye at Tisianne, seeking guidance. “No,” she said.

“No,” Mark repeated, then asked, “Why not?”

“Zabb goes to make war on the ships – all of the ships of half a dozen Houses.”

Mark nodded sagely. “Take out his navy, makes sense.”

“They’re alive, Mark, and those that aren’t killed will have their minds burned out. Do you really want to be a part of that?”

The human looked a little sick. “Uh… no, and I can promise you Starshine wouldn’t do it. No way, uh-uh.”

Taj looked up from a glum contemplation of his knuckles. “He couldn’t be… persuaded?” Emphasis on the final word.

“He’d be resisting the mind control all the way. You’d be forcing him to fight, and that would, like, really fuck the controller’s concentration.”

Zabb shrugged. “Well, it was worth raising.”

Tis stood and stared up into his face. “You’re really going to do this?”

Zabb waved a hand at the holograph. Purple seemed to be the predominant color. “Do I have any choice?”

Tis hung her head and walked for the door, paused at the threshold. “Zabb.” He looked up inquiringly. “Be careful.”

The irony was not lost on him. Zabb grinned at her. “Who could have predicted we’d come to this? A month ago you would have been painting a target on the back of my head.”

Bat’tam was rattling the Ilkala defense center with snores of major proportions. Mark had relieved him and was monitoring the HoloNet, ready to sound the alarm if Zabb’s assault force should be defeated. Tisianne knew she should be sleeping, but rest eluded her. Desperate to keep her mind from dwelling on the battle in orbit above them, she was busy embroidering Illyana’s presentation gown.

“He can sure saw,” Mark whispered.

Tis sighed, tossed aside the tiny silk gown, and stepped around the screen she’d set up to keep the light from the row of cots. Bat’tam was flat on his back, arms flung wide, fingertips dragging the floor. Gently Tis tugged at his shoulder until he rolled onto his side. The eruptions ceased. “Better?”

“Heaps.” Mark scrubbed at his face with both palms. “Wish we’d hear something. This silence is creepy. Zabb could have let us eavesdrop on House command radio chatter.”

Tis shook her head. “Zabb loves to be mysterious.”

She selected another jewel from the bowls set on her work table, stitched it into its place in the intricate abstract pattern that was her crest. Hesitated, then asked, “Do you think she’ll ever wear it?”

Mark studied the filmy creation hanging like a cobweb in her hands. “You gotta keep positive, man.”

“There haven’t been any sudden arrivals for almost a day now, which could mean any number of things – that Jay and Hastet are safe, or captured… or dead. And if Illyana is dead, I doubt her ancestors will accept her, poor mongrel baby that she is,” Tis concluded softly.

“She’s not dead. Hey, what is going to be her Takisian name? Illyana sek Kelly? Or Illyana sek Tisianne?”

“I’m her mother and also her great-grandfather… which makes my head hurt to contemplate it. How much worse for the child? And how do I explain it once she’s reached a reasonable age?” Tis shook her head. “Will she hate us all, or turn that hate into self-loathing?”

She bent once more to her work, and Mark, with that sensitivity that was his hallmark, left her alone with her thoughts.

The sentry stepped through the door and bowed. “The Raiyis.”

Zabb entered with his usual quick, nervous stride, but it seemed forced, and his uniform was filthy, heavily charred across one shoulder. The left sleeve had been ripped open, its blood-encrusted edges flapping like the wings of a dying bird. A field bandage was wrapped about his forearm.

Tis rose and threw aside the gown.

“Like, how did it go, man?”

“I’m tired,” Zabb said, dropping into a chair. “I don’t want a lot of questions right now.”

Mark shuffled in confusion. “Sorry.”

“Will you leave my cousin and me alone, please?” Zabb asked, but it was really an order. Mark withdrew from the room.

Tisianne moved to Zabb’s side. She said softly, “That was certainly churlish.” Then glancing to the arm asked, “How bad is it?”

“Not very. It could benefit from sealing.”

“I’ll do it.”

“I hoped you might.”

Tis unwrapped the bandage. As he said, the wound was not dangerous, but it was very ugly, with the lips of skin drying and curling away from the edges of the long cut.

“What did this? Or is that also an unacceptable question?”

Zabb glanced up at her from beneath his lashes. “A piece of Vayawand Ship Home. Lucky it didn’t take the whole arm. I haven’t time to regrow it right now.”

Zabb hissed slightly as she sprayed the wound with disinfectant. “So the mission was a success?”

“Yes.” He paused for a long moment, staring off into space. “You were right, Tis, it was hard, cruel hard. I’ve never felt so many of them die before.”

“And what was the cost for us?”

“Ah, much better,” Zabb sighed as she numbed the arm. “High. We lost fifteen ships, and a couple of hundred. Too many of them family. I’ll be glad when we can start fielding some of these Tarhiji troops you’ve been drafting.”

“We have to train them first. They’re too valuable to waste. There’s not an inexhaustible supply.” Tis carefully carved away the dried skin, then pulled the lips of the wound closed and applied the sealer.

“What very steady hands you have.”

Tis glanced up at him startled. His skin was warm against her palm as she supported his arm – a touch she was all too aware of. With heightened sensitivity she drank in the smell of sweat, cordite, smoke, and antiseptic.

There is a look men assume when they suddenly “see” a woman in a sexual connotation. Tisianne had been a master of the look. Now on the receiving end, she realized it made them look stupid – yearning cow eyes. And she had just lost her humanity, become a collection of breasts, hips, cunt. She tried to summon anger, found only confusion.

To cover her discomfort, she said with studied casualness, “A great many years of practice. It’s nice to be able to do it again. When I lost my hand, I found myself reduced to very much an administrator’s role. Not one I enjoy.”

“When you were working on the Enhancer project, you resented the time you had to spend doctoring. You lived for research.”

“I’ve spent half my life treating the misery caused by that research. It’s made me rethink my priorities.” She began repacking her case. “When I do recover my body, I’m going to have that hand regrown -”

“Tis.” He had her by the shoulders. “I wouldn’t count on that happening.”

She jerked free. “Because you won’t try!”

“No -”

She rode over him. “I’m no threat to you, Zabb, male or female. I don’t want the family. I want myself. I want my child.”

“I can’t give it to you. It’s not that I won’t… I just can’t!” His face was ravaged. “There has never been a coalition of such magnitude gathered against us. I don’t think I can stop them.” He snatched a sidearm from its holster and thrust the pistol at her. His hands were trembling. “I’d be prepared to use this. I wouldn’t depend on me to protect you.”

It had been Tisianne’s besetting sin that she could always place herself in the other person’s situation. Shaklan had thought his only son possessed a rudimentary empathy – a rare and not well-understood mentatic power. And certainly not a very welcome one in the totally self-absorbed world of a Takisian noble House. Even a body switch hadn’t damped it. It was still her curse. How much the admission had cost Zabb she would never fully understand, but she did understand his agony, and more important, his fear. Zabb had agitated, plotted, and killed in his single-minded drive to rule the House. Now he had it, and the full weight of the responsibility was crushing him.