Hanse's blue eyes narrowed. "You underestimate what you have done. After the Fourth Succession War, you rebuilt the Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery into a force with more flexibility and bite than ever before. In ten short years, you turned it from a military I could have shattered easily into a force I could not destroy. Your drive into my territory in the '39 war forced me to divert my second wave in order to counter your thrusts into the Draconis March. It was a bold strategy that worked."

"It was a gamble." Theodore smiled warily. "A bluff that you could have called. Had you pressed me, you could have cut off my troops from their supply lines and poured straight into the Combine."

"But, Prince Kurita, it was a bluff I could not call." Hanse looked over at Justin. "As my esteemed colleague can confirm, our intelligence reports did not indicate how thinly you had stretched your troops. You had new units with new tactics and new 'Mechs that we did not anticipate. Conquering some worlds in the Combine allowed me to put a victorious public face on the whole enterprise, but we all know how close to a disaster it truly was."

Theodore bowed his head before the compliment in Hanse's words. "That, however, is not the situation now. Your Intelligence Ministry has been most successful in boring new holes into my command structure. You now have the intelligence you need to see what I have where. Deny it if you will, but I cannot afford the luxury of believing you.

"And that, Prince Davion, is what concerns me. When I leaked word that my son was being posted to Turtle Bay, and you responded by posting your son Victor to Trellwan, I had hoped we were silently agreed to let the next war fall to our heirs. I did not imagine a threat like the clans appearing, but it does make our squabbling over a throne vacant for three hundred years look quite foolish."

Hanse nodded in agreement. "I did post my son to Trellwan in reply to your gesture. I also agree that the Clans are the greatest threat our states have ever faced, individually or collectively." Hanse heaved himself away from the rock and began walking toward the rendezvous point. "United we stand, or divided we fall."

Theodore fell into step with Hanse, and the other two men flanked them as they marched down the dusty trail. It wound slowly down out of the broad canyon that housed the live-fire range and skirted the edge of a dry riverbed. The air was clear as far as the eye could see, and the bright sunlight deepened the red of the rocky landscape.

"I had assumed you would be of that opinion, Prince Davion, but I am advised against acting upon that assumption. On one hand, you stripped troops away from the Dieron district and sent them to the front with the Clans at the same time as I did. This I took as our agreement that the Clans must be stopped, but it also provided you with an opening you could have exploited hideously. My advisors caution me that when you struck at us in 3039 it was because you assumed us to be weak. They believe you are an unscrupulous man who waits to take advantage of us."

Hanse brought his head up. "Do you want my word that I will not send troops into the Combine while the Clans exist as a threat? And would you trust me if I did?"

For a long moment, Theodore said nothing. The only sounds were the whispering desert breeze and the crunch of gravel underfoot. "Would I be wise to trust a man who is also known as the Fox?" Theodore asked rhetorically, then shook his head. "What I can trust, however, is that the Fox is not so foolish as to weaken himself by launching an offensive against a lesser enemy while the Clans threaten the very survival of the Inner Sphere. If nothing else, I have to believe that you will allow the Clans to grind my troops down to give you less to fight when you come for us."

Theodore opened both of his hands. "And that is the thing of it, Hanse. I have no choice but to devote all my resources, if need be, to defend my father's realm from the Clans. Were I speaking with Morgan Hasek-Davion and he and I were to strike a non-aggression pact, I could trust him to uphold his part of the bargain. With you, I must trust that you are too smart to repudiate it."

You know me well, Theodore. Perhaps too well."I may be an old dog, Theodore, but I am capable of learning new tricks. I admit that my soul has at times ached for a chance to destroy the Combine. Your father and I are old foes, and our rivalry colors the relationship between our two Houses ..."

Theodore stopped in his tracks, bringing the other three to a halt around him. "Understand this, Hanse Davion, my father is still the Coordinator of the Draconis Combine. From him, from Luthien, will come opposition to anything you do. They will call you a treacherous dog, and castigate me for entering into a pact with the devil. That, however, is rhetoric. My father will never willfully interfere with defending the Combine from the Clans. So I ask you not to listen to the sound of the Dragon's voice. Rather, you must watch his claws."

Hanse smiled slightly. "I understand," he said, offering Theodore his hand. "I pledge to a non-aggression pact between our realms for the duration of the Clan threat, provided you agree to the same and will not assist your Kapteyn partners in aggression against me. I'll not have you descending on me if I decide Romano Liao needs to be punished for her foolishness."

Theodore met Hanse's grip firmly. "Well-spoken. Had you not included that caveat, I could never have agreed to the deal, for I would surely have believed you mad. I pledge that your state is safe from my armies as long as the Clans remain a threat to the Inner Sphere."

The Dragoons' helicopter raised a cloud of dust some 500 meters down the trail as it went to ground in a cleared landing zone. The Rangemaster dismounted from the craft, but did not head out to meet the quartet as they came in. "Must be that this hike is the last part of our training," Magnusson offered jokingly.

Without warning, another target mannequin snapped upright in the riverbed. Hanse stabbed his rifle at the target and tightened his finger on the trigger. Nothing happened. Damn! No power pack!

From his right, a green spear of coherent light flashed across the reddish landscape. It slammed into the center of the mannequin's chest, burning a black hole in the laser-sensitive coating. Sparks shot from the hole like a volcano spitting magma, then the robot exploded. Shrapnel and burning bits of cloth decorated the desert in a circle around the blackened, smoldering skeleton.

Hanse and the others stared at Justin Allard. He held his left forearm parallel to the ground, his mechanical hand snapped back as far as it would go. From his wrist, surrounded by the smoking remnant of his jumpsuit cuff, the muzzle of a laser gun pointed at the target. With a jerk, Justin flexed his metal hand down into a normal position and the laser muzzle dropped back into its hiding place.

Hanse shivered. "I'd forgotten you had that laser built into your arm."

Justin smiled as he tore away the burned cuff. "This refit has the same modified design as the one Aldo Lestrade had built into his artificial arm. It's certainly more efficient than the old one." He sighed. "It's nice to know I've not slowed down that much."

Magnusson stared at Justin in wide-eyed amazement, but

Theodore showed no surprise. "The refit, it was done by the dwarf, Clovis Holstein? Is it true he is Lestrade's illegitimate son?"

Justin shrugged. "He did the redesign, but we refitted the arm at the New Avalon Institute of Science. As for the other, I don't know. I've never asked him directly about Lestrade, and my agents in the Lyran Sector seem to have no file on him. But I do believe this device is similar to the one Lestrade used."