“Madam.”

“Thank you.” She shifted Illyana onto her hip and, cracking the egg with her thumbnail, began to suck. Jay noticed the Jeban noble frowning at Illyana’s hair color. With his brown hair and Hastet’s brown hair, it was evident even to a pea brain they weren’t the kid’s parents. It was also evident the kid wasn’t Tarhiji. Luckily the guy didn’t ask them about Illyana. Instead he asked, “Where are you out of?”

“Ilkazam,” Jay answered.

“You have a strange accent even for Ilkazam.”

“It’s the result of a severe speech impediment,” Jay replied.

The psi lord threw himself down on a pile of hay. “Well, consider yourself under the protection of what remains of House Jeban. For all I know, I might be Raiyis.”

“Congrats. Kind of a drastic way to get promoted, isn’t it?”

“Actually this whole war may be my fault.”

“Surely you wrong yourself, my lord,” Hastet said.

“No, no.” Nimble hands fluttered urgently in the air before his face. “I was in Rodaleh negotiating a marriage when Blaise invaded. Lost that bride, so next I tried Alaa. Meanwhile Blaise was asking his advisers, ‘Where is that piece of afterbirth Govan brant Shen sek Sova?’ Alaa, you say? Invade Alaa! So I come home. Maybe I’ll just marry in House. Damned if he doesn’t do it again.” There was laughter from Govan’s men, and he smiled in answer, but there was an air of forced gaiety.

Still, Jay had to admire them. There wasn’t much he admired about Takisians, but they did have an insouciance, an ability to laugh even in the face of disaster, that was rather appealing.

“I think, my lord, you might consider celibacy,” Hastet said. There was more laughter.

“So what do you do now?” Jay asked.

“Hide, hope, regroup, and wait.”

“Any advice on -”

Jay broke off as Govan jerked up a hand in warning. Jay experienced a sensation as if someone had spread cold jelly across the surface of his brain, and he realized Govan had shielded them against a mentatic probe.

“Did that do it?” the detective whispered.

“I don’t think so,” Govan replied. And with hand signals he issued quick orders. His men quickly assumed defensive positions. Hastet, Jay, Illyana, and Govan took cover behind the sagging wood of a stall. They heard a ship landing.

Govan chewed nervously on his lower lip. Shook his head. “No good, too many to fight.” He stood. “Let us see if they will be content with my surrender.”

Jay grabbed the nobleman’s wrist. “I don’t get it. You’re surrendering to save a bunch of Tarhiji?”

Govan looked down his nose. “They are my men. Selected by me. Trained by me. They have fought with me.”

He walked through the wide front doors. Jay heard furtive movement behind him. The Vayawand troops were wisely encircling the building. They heard Govan’s voice raised in greeting. Another few murmured words of conversation. The sharp report of a laser rifle being fired, and Govan’s body was knocked back through the door.

There was a moment of shocked silence from the Jeban soldiers. Then a man a few feet to Jay’s left spun and fired through the wall. There was a scream from outside, and then a barrage of laser and projectile fire ripped through the barn. Jeban soldiers twitched like men with Saint Vitus’ dance, and Jay threw himself across Hastet and Illyana, trying to push them beneath the level of the dirt floor.

Five Vayawand soldiers came hurtling through the door. Two of them went down to weapons fire from the defenders. Jay popped the other three. Then ten or twelve ran in, and it got very confused. It was tough to get a clear shot so Jay was just popping Jeban and Vayawand randomly. A Jeban soldier collapsed nearby, his face a charred mess. With only the stretch of a hand Jay could seize his rifle. With it set for automatic fire, he could do more damage a lot faster than his finger.

Stubbornly he shook his head and looked away from that evil seduction. Seven, eight more soldiers vanished. The gunfire was becoming sporadic as the sheer weight of numbers bore down the Jeban defenders. Jay lined up on another soldier – and then froze as the cold weight of a gun muzzle caressed the nape of his neck.

Rolling over on his back, Jay put his hands over his head.

“We’re going to throw a party?” Disbelief drove Tisianne’s voice into a squeak.

A trifle defensively Zabb said, “We have won a victory.” He spun around in front of her and continued to skate backward, hands clasped lightly behind him. “It is traditional to celebrate.”

“I don’t know if I’d categorize a raid against ship homes when Blaise and his armies were occupied elsewhere a victory.”

“You always have been hard to impress. It kept Blaise off our necks for another few weeks, my dear, maybe a few months. In our current precarious position I call that a victory.”

The Tarhiji orchestra was tootling energetically from the glass bandstand. It was a celebration day, and all nonpregnant women had been released from Rarrana. Fathers, mothers, children, and lovers dived and swooped about the ice like gaudily plumed birds. Personal sleighs crisscrossed the ice like gliding flowers, each propelled by an attentive gentleman. A light snow was falling, which occasionally obscured the whirling figures, adding to the dreamlike quality of the scene.

Tis had lost her taste for the sport, and she skated off the ice to where Mark, aided (or hindered) by a giggling clot of children, was building a snowman. Reaching the bank, she spun, sat down in the snow, and started pulling off her skates. Her ever-watchful maid, Gena, came running with her fur-lined boots.

Mark abandoned the children and joined her and Zabb at the ice’s edge. “What’s up, Doc?” he asked.

Tis winced. Fortunately no Takisian was struck by the absurdity. “My cousin has a mind to celebrate. There’s to be a ball, dancing and music, food and fripperies -”

Mark turned serious eyes on Zabb. “Seems kind of wrong to be dancing when so many people are dying.”

“I wish to celebrate that we’re not in the latter category,” Zabb said. “It will reassure our people. It will thumb our collective nose at Blaise, and…”

“And,” Tis prompted suspiciously. She accepted her boots from Gena and pulled them on.

“I have a reason for us being impressive right now.”

“The Network,” Mark supplied.

“Very astute, groundling. The Master Trader’s demands are becoming more pointed and less diplomatic with each passing day. I’m going to invite him to join us.

“You are out of your mind,” Tis said. “I suspected it before, but now I am convinced of it. It took a war to throw them off eight thousand years ago. Now you’re inviting them back?”

“One. To a dance.”

“It violates one of our most deeply held traditions.”

“Sort of like Festival peace?” Zabb inquired, and Tis felt the blood rush into her cheeks. “Tis, we’ve broken so many traditions, laws, and rules, what’s one more?”

They had taken Hastet for questioning and had left Illyana with Jay, apparently on the theory that a woman would be upset to be separated from her newborn infant and thus would talk more freely and willingly. Jay didn’t know why they bothered. They were telepaths, all they had to do was open their heads with a can opener, and the little charade was over. So maybe they left the baby behind just because they were assholes, and they liked to torment people. Jay reassured himself that rape was not a practice on this strange world – he just hoped Blaise hadn’t taught them that Earth concept along with large-scale killing.

After all that struggle and effort, they were back in Ban. Illyana was screaming her hunger, and Jay could tell the noise was starting to get to his guard as well as himself. At times the ground sloth was so cute, it hurt. Other times… it was said that your baby’s shit don’t stink – unfortunately this one wasn’t Jay’s.