“The Eursan is right,” Bayorn said. “Whose side she is on is irrelevant. Even if she were on some foolish quest for our benefit, Abraxas will see right through it. And when he discovers Letho’s feelings for her he will use them against him.”

It was if someone had punched Letho in the chest. He felt a hot flush rising to his cheeks. Violent adrenaline surges plowed through his veins like molten pig-iron. He reached up and wrapped his hands around Bayorn’s neck. Smoke began to billow from his nostrils, and his eyes flashed like mortar blasts.

But Letho hadn’t reached up and strangled his friend. Thankfully that had only transpired in his mind. Still, he had really wanted to, and oh, he was afraid of just how much he had desperately wanted to. When he returned to his senses he realized that they were all staring at him, waiting for him to respond.

“My feelings aren’t going to be a problem. You can count on that. Trust me. If she’s against us, I’ll kill her myself.”

“Well, all right then, if we’re all done talking about feelings, I’d like to call this here meeting to order,” said Saul. When he said like, it sounded more like lack. “Please, have a seat at my table.”

Letho cleared his throat and attempted to fight back the crimson flush rising in his cheeks. He was ashamed of how clearly they had all seen through him. He hadn’t been one hundred percent sure how he felt about Thresha, but apparently to everyone else it had been written across his forehead in halogen night-brights. And even though he knew that Bayorn was acting in his best interests, he found himself resenting how the old Tarsi had just humiliated him in front of everyone.

He took a seat to the right of Zedock, and Saul took the one on the older man’s left.

“So, I spoke with our man inside last night,” Saul began, “and it sounds like things are not all sparkly in Hastrom City. Lots of unrest. People ain’t happy.” He was speaking directly to Zedock, who seemed to be weighing Saul’s words carefully.

The old man cast a glance at Letho, and then to Deacon and the two Tarsi. “That may very well be the case,” he said. “But we still don’t have enough manpower to engage Abraxas directly. There would have to be something pretty damn big going down. I just don’t see it. Even if there was a full-on riot going on in the streets, Abraxas still has enough Mendraga to flatten us.”

“No one even knows for sure how big his army is,” Saul said. “And you know how information like that tends to get overblown. For all we know he could have just a hundred soldiers, and Letho and I just killed about five or ten on our own.”

“It’s funny, they have this terrible reputation, but they seem to be pretty easy to kill,” Deacon said.

“Well, a good rifle goes a long way in evening things up between a man and a Mendraga, but if you get enough of ’em in one place, it’s curtains,” Zedock said. “They’re just too fast. Not enough sets of eyes to lay crosshairs on them, if you follow me.”

“So have any of you actually been in Hastrom City?” Letho asked. “I’m sure your inside guy, as you call him, is a really swell guy, but is he the only source of intel we have?”

“None of us have ever been inside Hastrom City before,” Zedock said. “Getting this place up and running has been priority number one, and to be quite honest, none of us are exactly too keen on waltzing into the enemy’s capital city.”

“But Hastrom City is huge, and it’s safe to assume that hundreds of thousands of people from the Fulcrum stations, not to mention Tarsi, are living there. Couldn’t we just slip in there and have a look?” Letho asked.

“He’s right,” Saul said. “There are people coming in and out of there all the time. Heading to the colonies, going out to the outer reaches of the city to do repairs and scavenge. We could slip in with them, just like Letho said. There will probably be security checkpoints, so we can’t count on weapons, but we wouldn’t even need them—we’d just be some colonists coming in to buy some replacement parts. Perhaps with an escaped slave bear or two in tow. Pardon the nomenclature, fellas.”

Bayorn nodded and gestured with his hands. No offense taken.

“As far as Alastor knows, I’m dead. It’s not like he’d be looking for me,” Letho said.

“Unless Thresha has betrayed us,” Deacon interjected.

Letho made a dismissive flatulent sound with his mouth. “If Thresha has betrayed us we might as well just open up all the doors and start planning the welcome party for Abraxas and Alastor right now. She may not know the exact location of this place, but she can sure point them in the right direction.”

“It is a good plan,” Maka said. “If we could find the Tarsi and tell them that Letho Ferron lives, they would fight to the death for him. For us. Perhaps we could hide among them, restore them to the true Tarsi form…”

“I don’t know,” Zedock began. “It seems pretty risky. However, if the Mendraga girl has turned on us, it’s only a matter of time before they find this place. And it sure wouldn’t hurt to get a good look at what we’re up against. And of course, an army of pissed-off Tarsi would certainly be useful. Maybe it’s time to make a move after all.”

“Well then, what are we waiting for?” Letho said.

****

Letho awoke from a fitful sleep, his body drenched in sweat, his blanket sopping wet and torn halfway off the mattress by his tossing and turning. He pressed his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes, wiping the sweat from his brow.

A jolt of electricity ran through his body. Hands? He had felt two hands on his face. He reached out to a lamp on a nearby countertop and clicked it on.

And screamed at what he saw.

A fully grown arm had replaced the fetal thing that had previously hung from his forearm. But the new arm was notably larger than his other arm, and it was covered in thick green fur. The palm was massive and the fingers were large and knurled, each one tipped in a black claw. Without meaning to, Letho extended the claws an inch or two past his fingertips.

His mind raced. What would the others think? What did it mean?

The Gift. Am I becoming a Tarsi?

A knock on the door was like a shotgun blast in the empty morning air. Letho jumped, startled by the intrusion into his personal crisis.

“Letho, you up yet?” said a voice from the hallway. It was Deacon.

“Yeah, just a second, let me throw on some clothes,” Letho said. He shimmied his body into a fresh set of coveralls. Having access to a functioning hand, regardless of its appearance, at least proved useful.

My hand! Deacon! Think of something.

Letho grabbed a towel from the previous day’s shower and threw it over his forearm.

Ridiculous. I look like a waiter.

“Forget it,” he muttered to himself, throwing the towel to the floor and rushing to open the door.

“Hey, if I’m interrupting ‘Letho time’ I can come back—oh my God what happened to your hand?”

“I don’t know,” Letho moaned.

“It’s so big. And hairy!” Deacon said.

“Oh Deacon, you say the sweetest things,” Letho said. “Tell me something I don’t know!”

Zedock and Saul appeared, drawn by the commotion.

“Hey, everyone. Look at Letho’s arm,” Deacon said.

“Shut up!” Letho said, tucking his arm behind his back.

“What’s this? Let’s have a look, Letho,” Zedock said.

Letho made no move to produce his arm, holding his ground like a spoiled child.

“Oh, come on, son, I just want to have a look is all,” Zedock said.

Grudgingly, Letho placed his arm out in front of him so that Zedock could see it. He heard Saul gasp and mutter a stream of expletives.

Zedock inspected the furry green limb. “Well, what do we have here? Full regeneration, but some sort of mutation it seems? I don’t know.”

“Mutation?” Letho exclaimed. His thoughts turned to the gray things in the wastes.