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• XII •

THE OTTDEFA OSUNO Whett reflected.

Shuddering in the relative security of his assigned quarters in officer’s country, he considered himself extremely lucky just to be alive that morning. He’d seen others broken, figuratively and literally, at the malignant whim of Rokur Gepta, individuals guilty of nothing more than reporting a purely mechanical failure or bringing him information he didn’t want to assimilate. To be trapped in the middle of a dispute between the evil sorcerer and his reluctant—and no doubt soon-to-be former—partner, that barbarian Shanga …

He crossed the cramped living-sleeping space allotted him, noting that he’d forgotten to fold the cot into the wall in his earlier haste to answer Gepta’s summons. So—he was still accustomed to depending on a servant after all this time. It was a weakness to make note of and correct.

The gray military wallcoat of the compartment still oppressed him, despite the decorations—ceremonial masks, garish shields, primitive hand-powered weapons—he’d hung up here and there. He’d have to see what else he carried in his luggage down below in the storage hold. It would brighten the place up and strengthen the official “cover” that allowed him to travel thus encumbered in the first place.

Entering the tiny head, he sloughed off the casual civilian shipsuit he’d been wearing, now soaked through with perspiration and smelling foul. He wasn’t on the schedule for a shower at this time of day, and hadn’t had time for it when the fixtures had been operational. Thank the Core for the mixture of intelligent species whose differences in personal habits and physical characteristics made individual quarters (at least at his level of rank) a necessity rather than a luxury even aboard this Spartan vessel. At that, it could be worse: he could be quartered with the noncoms or conscriptees. It wouldn’t have been unprecedented; his long career had seen him assume many stranger poses. Now all he desired was a refreshing wash, which he attended to at the small sink (set into the shower stall along with the toilet) with its trickle of lukewarm recycled water. An ironic expression greeted him in the mirror above the sink.

Well, he had survived, as he had always survived. All it had required was layer upon layer of carefully prepared deception. It was the sole art to which he could truly lay claim, the only way he could expect to get out of this mess with his skin intact.

That accursed robot: it had been responsible for all his troubles in recent years. Gepta and Shanga were headed toward the ThonBoka nebula—from Tund, on the outskirts of one side of civilization, to the StarCave, on the fringes of the other side—for nothing more than revenge. Perhaps he, himself, the soi-disant Ottdefa Osuno Whett, would be enjoying a little vengeance, too, when the Wennis finally arrived at its destination.

He splashed water on his thin, elongated face, his neck and bony chest, ran a laser over his stubble, and remembered.

He’d been younger then, of course, and his appearance considerably different. Afterward, he’d had four centimeters of bonemer grafted into each tibia, fibula, and femur to increase his height, proportionate amounts added to his arms as well, and an extra vertebra interleaved in his spine. It was painful, and it had taken several months just to accustom himself to the new leverages, the new bodily rhythms the surgery imposed. He was still learning, and, in the meantime, gave an unnaturally awkward and gangling impression. This he welcomed, as it added to his disguise. He’d also lost some forty kilograms—amazing how much that alone had rendered him unrecognizable. The hair had whitened of its own accord, as whose wouldn’t in the knowledge that something of the order of a billion individuals wanted to see him painfully dead, and were willing to do something positive about it. He’d left the hair alone, changing only its style. It, too, served his purpose, which amounted simply to staying alive in a murderous business. He’d already outlived the