Tis took him in her arms, one hand stroking the sweat-matted blond hair. Zabb’s tears were warm against her neck. She couldn’t find words. Maybe there were no words to ease his torment. She just held him and rocked him until the worst had passed.

He straightened, held her out at arm’s length, stared intently into her face. The pressure of his fingers was becoming painful. Tis let out a faint, inarticulate little sound as Zabb drew her close. The entire moment had a trancelike quality. Time had distorted. It was coming. Ideal knew she’d done it often enough to a faceless host of women. The pit of her stomach seemed to have gone warm and liquid. Zabb bent, his mouth searching for hers…

And Tisianne jerked away. Blaise and Zabb, rape and murder, shame and fear. Too many terrors had come screaming up from her subconscious to allow her to accept this embrace.

“I’m a man,” she whispered as she huddled in on her self.

“The body says otherwise,” Zabb countered.

She flung back her hair and stared at him desperately. “I can’t trust you.”

“What by the Ideal does that mean?”

“I can’t explain. I haven’t the words…”

For an instant Zabb hesitated, wanting to say something, then flung himself out of the room. Mark stuck his head back around the door. Cautiously asked, “Is everything cool?”

“No. Mark, hold me.”

Several of the Vayawand nobles were weeping. Despite his lack of telepathy, Durg could understand their distress. The scene at Vayawand Ship Home was shocking. The platform itself had been heavily damaged by the Ilkazam attack, and dead ships littered space around them. The worst were the still living, but mindless, ships. They flew aimlessly, unable to communicate or eat. Their deaths were coming, but far more slowly than their more fortunate fellows.

Blaise’s ship had offered a view of the devastation, but it was obviously costing the creature. Periodically long shudders swept the deck beneath their feet. Blaise himself was standing before a screen, hands clasped behind his back, his face inscrutable. Durg crossed to him.

“My lord, a census of field commanders reveals a total of ninety war craft at our disposal. Rather more troop transport.

“I can’t take Ilkazam without ships,” Blaise said. “And I’ve got to take Ilkazam because I’VE GOT TO GET HIM!”

Spittle struck Durg’s cheek. He prudently didn’t wipe it away. There was also nothing to say to this outburst. The Morakh tried a change of subject. “Tandeh and Ss’ang wish to open negotiations -”

“No. Smash them.”

“Why, my lord? They were not responsible for this debacle. And willing allies are far more useful than defeated enemies.”

Blaise pivoted slowly and stared unblinking down at Durg. “They have ships.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Enough to conquer Ilkazam?”

“Probably not.”

Blaise turned back to a contemplation of hell. “I’ve got to have a navy. Find me one.”

Durg bowed and withdrew.

Illyana’s howls had dropped to desperate and hoarse whimpers. During the long day Jay and Hastet’s companions had slowly fallen away as they sought and obtained refuge with the various farm families along the road. It was an option that Jay and Hastet’s paranoia made impossible to consider. So when night drew in, they selected an abandoned barn and settled for the night.

There were the remains of several summers’ hay in the loft beneath the steeply peaked roof, and some of the rustlings Jay attributed not to their movements, but to the activities of the prior tenants. He just hoped they were the Takisian equivalents of mice. Not rats or spiders or something creepy.

Illyana had thrust a pudgy fist against her mouth and was sucking hopelessly. Hastet looked down at her. “Tomorrow we’ve got to get help. She’s got to eat.”

“Wouldn’t do us any harm either,” Jay said.

She pleated the folds of her heavy skirt for several moments, then looked up at him. Her gaze was intense. “I want to discuss something.”

“Okay,” Jay said cautiously.

“This morning… back on the road. I realized I reacted with greater emotion to the loss of Haupi than I did to those poor people. I don’t know why. And I don’t want you to hate me for it.”

“Oh, sweety you don’t have to worry about that. You were in shock, and, though it may sound callous, you didn’t know those people from the pope, and Haupi was your pet, your friend, and a link to everything you’ve given up since you’ve had the bad luck to get involved with me.”

“Oh, Jay,” she said, beginning to cry again. “She’ll never survive out on her own.”

“Hey, hey.” Jay folded her in his arms and rocked her gently. Her tears wet his shirt.

“I’m tired, Jay, and I’m hungry… and I’m scared.”

“Me too.”

They sat in silence for several more minutes. Through the high loft window, Jay could see the double moons of Takis rising over the hills. So alien… and yet, as he held this woman in his arms, Jay realized he wasn’t homesick or lonely anymore. And he realized he couldn’t endanger her anymore. He lifted her chin with a finger, forced her to face him. “Hasti, baby, I’m going to send you and Illyana back to Ilkazam.”

She shook her head violently, escaped strands of hair from her braid whipping across her face. “No, Raiyis Zabb will kill her.”

“Okay, I’ll send you back, and keep the kid with me.”

She lifted her hand, half dropped it back into her lap. Lifted it again and explored his lips with trembling fingertips. “No… I won’t leave you.”

He tasted the salt of her tears on her lips. Hastet cupped his face in her hands and slowly sank back onto the hay. As her clothes fell away, Jay finally understood the words of the old wedding ceremony: And with my body I thee worship.

Everything up till now had just been fucking.

Chapter Thirty Six

“Dry at least, brothers,” called a clear tenor voice. Jay jerked awake and placed a hand across Hastet’s mouth. “Beyond that I cannot speak for the accommodations.”

Hastet woke and nodded to indicate that she understood the danger in which they stood. Illyana had begun to wiggle, tiny arms and legs thrashing in the dry hay. Hastet gathered her up and placed her finger in the baby’s mouth, hoping the sucking reflex would sublimate the yelling reflex.

It was all wasted effort. The tenor voice sent his men fanning out through the barn. The first head popped over the edge of the loft, and Jay prepared to pop in return, but held off when he spotted the uniform – tan and green – Jeban, not Vayawand.

“A family of refugees, my lord,” the Tarhiji soldier called down.

“Let’s have a look at them,” the voice came floating up.

Jay and Hastet exchanged glances, shrugged, and moved to obey. The soldier, spotting the infant, went all Takisian gushy and quickly offered to help. Hastet let him. It was no easy matter to climb down a ladder encumbered with both skirt and a baby.

Once down, Jay found himself on the receiving end of an amused but wary scrutiny. “No proper courtesy to your lord and master?” the psi lord asked.

Like most Takisians he was a shrimp, with hair the color of amber and bright green eyes. He had a narrow, but very long, goatee, and that combined with his knowing smile made Jay think he needed only a pair of horns to play the perfect little devil.

“Sorry, we’re out-of-towners,” Jay answered, slapping hay from the seat of his trousers.

The noble was sucking on a raw egg, and even so unappetizing a reminder of food set Jay’s stomach to rumbling.

“You picked a poor time to come visiting,” said the psi lord.

“Yeah, tell us about it.”

Hastet was staring at the egg with the same famished longing that Jay sensed was in his own eyes. The Jeban nobleman pulled another from his pocket, bowed, and offered it to Hastet.