He felt Batra touch his elbow. “Samir?”

He twisted his head to look back at her. “I just want to be sure.”

“But Arava…”

“I know what she said. But things haven’t exactly gone according to plan now, have they? I just want to be sure,” he said again, reaching for her face. Her cheek was as still and cool as marble under his fingers. “I want to keep you as safe as I can.”

“Suit yourself,” said the Bolian.

In another moment, Halak felt their speed pick up again, and he watched as they lifted out of the valley. The Bolian circled and as he came in from the east, he flicked on a set of floodlights. Peering out the windscreen, Halak saw the steep slope of rocks and debris fanning around the base of a craggy peak that was the talus. The surrounding mountains were void of vegetation, and as they dipped back to the couloir, he saw scree and weathered arroyos where erosion had sluiced away soil to reveal bare red rock. In another second, he spotted their shuttle squatting on the surface.

“Satisfied?” asked the Bolian.

“Yes,” said Halak. “You can set us down now.”

In another minute, the aircar had ridden a vertical column of compressed air to the surface. The Bolian killed the engine but left a pair of headlamps on that illuminated the shuttle in a wash of silver light. He then popped the driver’s side gullwing door before unfolding his lanky frame; Halak did the same with the rear passenger door. Sliding out, he turned and reached back to take Batra by the hand.

“Let’s go,” he said.

But Batra didn’t take his hand. Instead she looked past Halak, over his shoulder. “Samir,” she said, her voice strangled. Her eyes were wide and dark. “Samir.”

The way she said his name, he knew even before he turned. In the same instant, he heard the soft ping of the aircar’s chronometer, and then it hit him: the thing he couldn’t put his finger on. That damn ping.

Halak exhaled, very slowly, but his mind raced, riffling through his options. He had to gamble now that the Bolian didn’t know about his phaser. His brain leapt back to his meeting with Arava. He didn’t think the fact that he had a phaser had come up while the Bolian was around, but he couldn’t remember. He had to play this exactly right. Halak inched around: halfway, to his left, keeping his phaser hand—and his phaser—hidden from view.

The Bolian leveled a weapon at his chest. With an almost dispassionate eye, Halak saw that the weapon was a Breen pulse gun. Breen pulse guns were illegal in Federation space because they had no safety, and only one setting: kill.

Halak waited a full three seconds before speaking. “You know, I had a hunch. Things were just going too smoothly. I’m rusty, though. I missed it until just now. You keyed in an exit code when you left the city limits. But, see, notkeying in the code would’ve made sense, if you were trying to get someone out and didn’t want anyone to know. But Arava said that Qadir’s men were out looking for me, and so if you keyed in a code and you’re one of Arava’s men—and by extension, Qadir’s—then that means Qadir ought to have sent someone after us. But he didn’t because Qadir knows all about this already, doesn’t he?” Halak shook his head in wonderment. “You’re working for Qadir, not Arava. I missed it.”

“Bad luck for you. Back away from the car, please. Hands in the air where I can see them.”

Halak made a half move to comply but stopped. “What’s going to happen to Arava?”

“Not up to me. For what it’s worth, my bet is that Qadir will take a good long time deciding. Then again, you won’t be in any position to worry about anything in a few more minutes. I said, back away.”

“Why didn’t you kill us earlier? No, wait, I know. The residual weapons discharge would show up on scan, and I’ll bet Arava will run an interior scan on this aircar as soon as you get back. If it shows up that a weapon was fired…”

“Then bad luck for me.” The Bolian nodded. “She’d know something happened. For right now, it’s better that she not know.”

Halak’s belly tightened. “What are you going to do to her?”

The Bolian made a face. “I told you. I don’t know what they have planned. Not my department.”

“No, I suppose not. Just killing us.”

“That’s right. Come on now, back away.”

Halak still didn’t move. “And I guess the other problem for you is that Arava expects this shuttle to be gone. A corpse can’t fly. Oh, but the computer’s got a preprogrammed flight path. Damn,” Halak feigned incredulity, though he wondered how he’d been so stupid, “you gave me twoclues, and I missed that one, too. And I’ll lay odds that something really bad’s going to happen to the engines right outside of Farius Prime space.”

“Let’s just say you’ll have a really bad accident.”

“Right, because the unexplained disappearance of two Starfleet officers would draw too much attention to Farius Prime. But if our ship explodes a nice distance away, that solves a lot of problems. Only you can’t leave us alive until that happens.”

“Because you might get smart all of a sudden and figure it all out, find how I rigged the explosive, and keep yourself from blowing up—more bad luck, but for me this time. My employers don’t like mistakes. But you want to know the real reason I didn’t kill you before now?” The Bolian’s lips split in a wide grin. “I didn’t want to have to carry you. You’d be amazed how heavy dead people are. So much easier if you just walk into the shuttle, and we do it in there. Now,” the Bolian waggled his pulse gun once, “away from the door. Bring her, too.”

“She’s not part of this,” said Halak, knowing this wouldn’t do them any good. His hand crept by painful millimeters toward his phaser. “She doesn’t know anything.”

“She knows you.Too bad for her.” The Bolian gestured with the pulse gun. “And that phaser you’ve got? Don’t think about it. Hands in the air where I can see them, now.”

Halak’s shoulders slumped. He lifted his hands, palms-out, in an attitude of surrender.

The Bolian moved a step closer. “Which side?”

“The right.” Halak’s last chance, he knew: He could make a grab for the pulse gun when the Bolian got closer.

The Bolian jammed the muzzle of his weapon against Halak’s left temple. “You make one move, you even sneeze, I’ll burn you right now.”

Halak felt that last burst of hope drain away. He stood very still as the Bolian patted around his waist until he found the phaser.

“Thank you.” The Bolian jerked the phaser free and stepped back. “Now move two steps to your right, please. Not a step more.”

Halak did as he was told. Stone squealed beneath his slippers. The Bolian flicked the pulse gun at Batra. “Out of the car.”

Batra slid from her seat and stood, hands up. The Bolian gestured with his weapon. “That pouch: Unsnap it, then open it and shake out you’ve got in there. Once it’s empty, toss it on the ground in front of you and then step back.”

Slowly, Batra reached her hands around to the small of her back. There was a tiny click, and the straps of her pouch fell away from her waist. Batra gathered the straps in her left hand.

“Open it and empty it, I said.”

Batra did as she was told. A credit chip and identification pattered to the ground. Then she let the pouch slip from her fingers. The pouch whispered against gravel and scree.

“Back up,” said the Bolian. “Over there, to the right, next to him.” He waited until Batra had moved into position; then he dropped to his haunches and, keeping his weapon trained on them, stirred the pouch’s contents with his free hand. “That’s all?”

“Yes,” said Batra. Her voice was tight. “That’s all.”

The Bolian pushed to his feet. His knees crackled, and Halak had an absurd thought. He hadn’t known that Bolians got chondromalasia.

“Okay. Move,” said the Bolian. “Toward the shuttle.”

They started for the shuttle, Halak first. The going was treacherous. The couloir’s floor was studded with rock, and slurries of scree made the footing slippery. His slippers were soft and flexible, not made for climbing, the jagged edges of rocks biting the sensitive undersides of his feet, and he winced, staggered. His balance was off, too, because the Bolian made them keep their hands up and visible. Behind, he could hear Batra shuffling and sliding over rocks, with the Bolian carefully picking his way a short distance behind.