“And what?” Penny asked.

Mortimor nodded to Cole. “She reiterated what you told me. She said everyone goes. I’ve already told Ryke to plan accordingly.”

“Everyone goes on the raid?”

“That’s right.” Mortimor frowned. “She said not to leave anyone behind.”

“What does that mean?” Penny asked.

Mortimor shook his head. “I think it means we’re done here, for good or bad. It probably means we were too late, or there were too little of us, or that this whole blasted enterprise has been an exercise in futility. It means we’re giving up. Running away.”

Arthur stepped back, as if physically struck by the words. “Did she say when?”

“As soon as we can. I’m ordering a synchronized sleep schedule effec-tive immediately with a briefing at oh six hundred. No more shifts. No more perimeter defense. Everybody is resting up for this one and it’ll be our last.”

Arthur shook his head. “I can’t sleep. There’s too much to do.”

“Don’t worry. You and I are exempt. Ryke and his boys will be working straight through as well to finish the boxes and make sure they haven’t been tampered with in any other way.”

“I should go help them,” Cole said. He made to get up from the cot, but Mortimor stepped forward and pushed him back.

“Actually, you need to get your rest.”

“But those are my boxes.”

“And you’ll be happy to hear you’re getting your wish. You’ve proven yourself in combat, and frankly, we need every able soldier we’ve got. So heal up in a hurry. If Arthur clears you, you’ll be a part of this wild-ass plan of yours.”

“I am?” Cole looked to Arthur for confirmation. “I will be?”

Arthur shrugged.

“Get some sleep,” Mortimor said. He picked up his towel and walked away, slapping Arthur on the back as he went. Arthur startled out of whatever he’d been thinking. He shot Cole a brief glance before turning to Penny.

“Better tape up that bandage on his other arm a little tighter, then.” He pulled out his computer, gave Cole one more serious look, then turned and hurried after Mortimor.

Penny and Cole were left alone in the small operating room. A machine in the corner whirred softly, its presence revealed by the new silence. Penny pulled her blue gloves off and crossed from the sanitizing machine to a low counter. She fumbled in a drawer, her actions tense and hurried.

“Is everything okay?” Cole asked.

Penny pulled out a roll of tape and slapped it to the counter. Cole cringed as the sharp noise rang out in the small room. He sat quietly while Penny stared down at the back of her hand, which covered the roll of tape.

“If I hadn’t noticed the wiring, none of this would’ve happened.”

“What?” Cole leaned forward; Penny turned to face him.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. She looked at Cole’s repaired arm and rubbed the side of her own.

“Are you kidding? Think about what would’ve happened if you hadn’t noticed something was wrong. The raid would’ve gone as planned, and everyone would’ve jumped to their death.”

“I shouldn’t have left the room, then. I should’ve been there to—”

“Don’t.” Cole shook his head. “Besides, everything worked out fine, right?”

Penny picked up the tape and walked around to the other side of his cot. “I don’t know.” She untied his surgical gown and folded it down over his shoulder, revealing the pad of gauze that had been lightly taped over his stitches. “They’ve put a lot of work into this place to be told to abandon it.”

“Is this about what the Seer said?”

Penny shrugged. She worked the end of the tape loose and began shoring up the bandage over his deep cut. “It’s weird to even be talking about her without going up on the roof.” She adhered a piece of tape to the pad and scratched at the roll to tease up the torn end. “Everything’s changing.”

“Is it something I did?” Cole waited for Penny to meet his gaze. “I screwed things up, didn’t I?”

“How should I know? All I know is a lot of people have died to keep this place together, and now Mortimor’s talking about abandoning it.”

“You’re supposed to tell me this isn’t my fault,” Cole said.

Penny looked to the side. “I don’t know that it’s not.”

Cole pushed her hands away from his wound. “Leave me be,” he said. “In fact, I think you should leave the room.”

Penny slapped his hands in return. She threw the tape in his lap and turned to leave, then whirled on him. Leaning forward, she grasped his shoulders with both hands and brought her face close to his. Cole gasped in pain.

“You leave me be!” Penny hissed. “Get out of my head!”

Cole stared at her with his mouth open, his vision blurred with tears of physical agony.

“You’re hurting me,” he said.

Penny let go. She stood up and looked at her palms, then whispered something to herself.

Cole looked to his real shoulder and saw that the bandage had been torn loose by her grasp; the stitches were leaking blood.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Cole didn’t say anything. He watched as Penny surveyed her hands, turning them over and back, checking all sides of herself. “It’s just—I feel stupid around you. I feel—”

“I’m in love with someone,” Cole said.

Penny nodded. “I know. And it wouldn’t matter, anyway. I just hate myself for feeling out of control.”

“You hate yourself? How do you think I feel? One minute I’m being called the chosen one by a group of people trying to eradicate us, which makes me wonder what the hell I was chosen for. The next, it sounds like I’m screwing up the plans of a guy I’m doing every damn thing to win the respect of—”

“Mortimor?”

Cole nodded.

“Well, you can stop.”

“Yeah, I’m sensing that.”

“No, I mean the guy already loves you.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Trust me. I know what it looks like.”

Cole pressed his bandage back in place and picked up the tape.

“Here, let me,” Penny said. “It’s hard to do stuff like that until your new fingers sort themselves out.”

Cole allowed her to take the tape. He looked down at his fingers and rubbed the pads of them together.

“Do you remember the first time you saw me?” Cole asked.

“Of course.”

“Where was it? Or . . . when was it?”

“I was in the skimmer that picked you up. Don’t you remember? I performed CPR on you for most of the trip back here. And then there was the surgery. You almost didn’t make it, you know. Pretty bad hypothermia. Your lips—” Penny glanced up at his face, then looked back to her work. “They were completely black.”

“After that, was there any time—were we ever alone together?”

Penny tore a strip of tape in two and affixed it over the gauze and to his flesh. “I don’t get what you’re asking.”

Cole leaned back against his pillow. “So some of it was a dream, then.”

Penny laughed. “Probably. You were rambling a lot.”

“What was I saying?”

“Nonsense. Gibberish. It was all in Spanish.”

It was Cole’s turn to laugh. “Portuguese,” he said.

“Whatever.” Penny finished her work and stood back. She looked him over, the sad expression still on her face. “Get some sleep,” she told him. She turned to go.

“Hey, wait.”

Penny stopped. She turned her head to the side.

“What?” she asked.

“Maybe it’s a good thing, the Seer telling us to all go. Maybe it can be interpreted a different way.”

“The way you want to hear it, right?”

“I’m just saying, the fact that the next fight might be our last . . .”

“Yeah?”

“Well,” Cole said, “it still leaves open the question of whether or not we’ll win.”

Penny stood still for a moment. She reached up and pulled an elastic band off her bunned-up hair, allowing it to spill down and across her shoulders. Turning, she locked Cole’s gaze with her own, and he saw the barest of smiles flirt with the corners of her mouth.

“Yeah,” she said, “I like that.” Penny nodded. “I like that a lot.”

49

“Well, I’m sure glad that’s over,” the prisoner said. He watched as the sheriff opened the cell door for Molly and waved her out. “I’ll be gods-awful glad to get free of this joint.”

Sheriff Browne turned to him. “What in hyperspace does a lick of this have to do with you robbing a buggy dealership?”

The prisoner scratched his beard. “I was hoping you could tell me!”

“Not a damn thing, that’s what. Now sit down and shut up. Next time I shoot you, it won’t be with my fingers.”

The prisoner shot a finger of his own up at the ceiling, but backed away as he did so. The sheriff turned and regarded his dead deputy. “Looks like your pet done finished what you started last night.”

“How did you do that?” Molly asked. She looked from the deputy to the Wadi on her shoulder, suddenly fearful to be reminded of what her pet could do. She flashed back to the fight on the Drenard shuttle when she’d last seen its ferocious side and tried to tease out what the two events had in common.

“I’ve always had a way with animals,” Sheriff Browne said. “A way that tends toward trouble.”

“So, am I free to go?” Molly glanced at the office door and thought about dashing out of there, just to get away from the residual tension she could feel coursing through her body. It was hard to believe she’d wanted to come there.

“Way I see it, this is now animal control’s jurisdiction.” The sheriff smiled at her. That smile faded as he looked back to the mess on the office floor. “But who’s gonna clean this up if the Callites keep going missing?”

“The Callites,” Molly said. “That’s why I came to see you. Some of my friends are in trouble.”

“Hardly surprising.” The sheriff looked down at his poor deputy. “Trouble seems to follow you around, don’t it?”

Molly frowned. “I think they might be in big trouble. Like I said before, another shuttle is supposedly going up today, and they might be on it.”

The sheriff stepped around his deputy, casting the body a forlorn look. He threw open one of the shutters and peered outside at the bustle on the busy street. “Never could stand what they were doing there at immigrations, even before the damned things were being shot down. But I had no right to inquire. The law is the law.”

“Just because it’s the law doesn’t make it right,” Molly said. She held the Wadi to her chest and went to the door. She opened it up to let in some light and let out some of the stuffiness created by the dead body.

“Then again,” the sheriff said, “if legals are being shipped off, like Cripple for instance. . .”

“Will you at least come with me and check? Because I’m going either way.”

The sheriff leaned on the windowsill and peered out through the haze of sunlit dust, his shoulders pressed up around his ears in a frozen shrug.

“Is it hard to think about going outside?” Molly asked.

The sheriff turned to her and laughed. “He meant it as a figure of speech. Whadya think, I sleep in here? I get out twice a day, to and from work. Hell, I arrested you right over yonder.” The sheriff pointed out the window to the sidewalk a dozen paces away.

“So you’ll come with me?”

The sheriff nodded. “I suppose so. As long as you don’t mind riding on the back of my Theryl.” He pulled his hat down snug, patted his holster, took one last look at his dead deputy, then turned to the door.

“Theryl?” Molly asked. “What in the galaxy is that?”

ѻѻѻѻ

A monstrous horse-like animal, apparently. The sheriff led the large creature out of its stall and into the alley. He clucked at it affectionately, and the animal turned and looked down to survey Molly with its single eye.

“Hello,” she said, waving. “Nice Theryl.”

“Her name’s Clementine,” the sheriff said. He patted the animal on the neck. “Come back here and I’ll give you a lift.”

Molly hurried around to the other side of the sheriff and moved the Wadi to the back of her neck. The sheriff reached up and engaged a switch on the saddle. The rear of the leather seat opened up, and a second, smaller seat extended out its back as another pair of stirrups unspooled. “Up you go,” he said, creating a basket with his hands.

Molly let him boost her up. She threw a leg over the small saddle, and the Theryl shifted beneath her. She held on to the handles to either side of her seat and wondered how the sheriff was going to get up. She leaned to the side and watched as he stepped into a lowered stirrup, which began sucking up into the saddle, lifting him into place.

“And away we go,” the sheriff said. He clucked his tongue, and Clementine sauntered down the alley. At the end, the animal turned left, its hooves clomping loudly on the wooden sidewalk.

“Not today, old girl.” The sheriff pulled gently on the reins, turning the Theryl the other direction. “Bit of business for us oldtimers left to do.”