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“I hope not. But we’ll need to tag this lot before we process this,” he said. “We’ll want to be able to identify them again, in case it’s necessary to isolate them.”

But when they rose to return to work, they found the attentive horses had all vanished. Returning to the tracker, Janina and Jared followed the beasts into the hills, down into another valley, and then into a thick birch wood, where they lost them. The tracker’s scanners showed that the horses were still there, but when they tried to follow on foot, no fruity inducements were enough to persuade the horses to show themselves.

Finally Jared shook his head and said, “We’re wasting our time here. We’ll need to have a talk with Varley. He’s going to have to round this lot up for us to tag. Not a word about the specimen, though, all right? He’s not likely to be cooperative if he thinks we may be looking for something that could endanger his herd.”

Janina nodded gravely, her former high spirits thoroughly dampened.

Jared set the tracker down in the wide drive outside of Varley’s extensive ranch home, which was bigger than the bridge and the crew quarters of the Molly Daise put together. The house was surrounded by a vast garden with an array of flowers in a rainbow of colors. The gardener, Hamish Hale, stood up as they exited the tracker.

“Hi, Doc Vlast,” he said. Hamish owned a black lab named Rollie who had a hip problem. As they drew nearer, Rollie looked up at them from his place beside Hamish’s feet and wagged his tail. Jared greeted them both, patting Rollie’s head, and asked if Mr. Varley was around.

“In the stables, Doc,” Hamish said, waving his trowel in the direction of the building that was the size of one of the Locksley malls.

Two large red dogs came bounding up to meet them. One of them leaped to put its front paws on Jared’s shoulders, and he held them and danced the dog around as if they were at a ball. The other settled for pats from Janina, when it was clear his doctor was tied up with another patient.

“Roscoe, Roary, down,” a man’s voice commanded. Varley himself strode out to meet them and shook their hands briskly.

“Get the mustangs tagged already, did you, Doc?” he asked in a jovial tone.

“One lot, but the second spooked and hid in the woods. They wouldn’t come out for love nor bribes, so you’ll have to have your hands corral them and call me back.”

“The ones you did check—they look okay to you?” Varley asked. “Healthy, no mutations or anything?”

“Other than their coloring and undocumented origins, no,” Jared said.

“Because I’m thinking I should probably sell them offworld—I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but on the other hand, I don’t want to get fined for owning a herd of them when I can’t say who the giver is.”

Jared nodded. “They look healthy enough to me, and I would say most are young and sturdy as well. But as long as we’re here, I thought we might take the annual specimens from your other stock. Save us all time later.”

Varley screwed his mouth up considering, then shrugged. “It’s up to you. They’re not due for six weeks, though.”

“I know, but I figured you’d like to get it over with.”

He shrugged again. “Your call. You know where to find them.” He signaled toward the stable area. “When you’re done, you and your helper come on up to the house for refreshments, why don’t you?”

“Thanks,” Jared said, waving as he strode toward the corral, Janina trailing behind him. Roary and Roscoe, wagging and bouncing as if they’d never before seen such a wonderful man, followed their master to the house.

It took another two hours to gather the necessary specimens. Only three of the stabled horses exhibited the sparkly saliva, which obviously puzzled Jared as much as finding it had displeased him. But neither he nor Janina said anything about it as they sat sipping iced tea and nibbling fresh baked biscuits from Mrs. Varley’s dessert plates. The biscuits were dusted with cinnamon and melted in Janina’s mouth. She thought she’d never tasted anything so delicious. She was biting into her second when one of the hands,