brightened. 'Thank you!'
Mayelna glanced up. 'Are they…'
The camera pod made a shrugging motion. 'I think so.'
Consherra led Velmeran to the lift and sped them on their way. As soon as the lift was in motion, she began to remove his gloves, stacking them inside the helmet she carried. He had ceased to protest, for his strength was again fading fast. Valthyrra had been right. In a sense, he had been fighting this battle since Dveyella had died. Now he was tired, and there was only one cure for that — as reluctant as he was to admit it.
'I might just leave you in that suit and lean you against the wall,' Consherra observed, reaching that same conclusion. 'Meran, the only cure for this is a few hours of sleep.'
'I know,' he agreed weakly. 'I do not think that I could avoid it if I had to. But I do not like it… and I am afraid.'
Consherra nodded. 'I understand. It is not a pleasant thing, for all the good it does. I would stay with you, if you like. You do not have to be alone.'
The lift slowed to a stop and the two stepped out. Then they paused and looked about, since they were not where they expected to be.
'This is not my corridor,' Velmeran observed.
'No, it is mine,' Consherra said, taking his arm to lead him on. 'This is my cabin, over here. Valthyrra never misses a thing. No one is going to come looking for you here.'
She started to lead the way, but when Velmeran hesitated she turned to glance back at him. She looked sad and defeated. 'I would leave you alone, if that is what you want.'
'I do not want to be alone,' he said uncertainly. 'I have had enough of being alone.'
'This is for you to decide,' she told him. 'I wish that I might be the cure for your loneliness. I have been lonely myself, lately. But I would not try to be Dveyella and beg the love you had for her. Perhaps it is too soon.'
'A day or a year, it would make no difference,' Velmeran insisted. 'I do not want someone to take Dveyella's place; that would be false. I do not love you, not the way you want. But I think that I do love you; I do know that you make me feel very calm and comfortable. I need time. Love me and I would love you in return, I can promise you that.'
She nodded. 'We would accept each other on our own terms, and I believe that we would work out a comfortable compromise. Will you come with me now?'
'I will,' he said, taking the hand she offered. 'Although I cannot imagine what pleasure you might find in my company just now.'
Consherra smiled and drew him close. 'As strange as it might seem, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to hold you in my arms and keep away your worries and fears while you sleep.'
'I suspect that I would like that myself,' he said, and submitted willingly to her kiss. Then, arm in arm, they turned and entered her cabin.
Farther down the hall, a vacuum cleaner lowered its camera pod and sighed with relief.
'Ah, our good Sector Commander returns from the dead!'
Donalt Trace peered about the room as best he could. He did not have much success, for he found himself lying facedown on a bed, his arms, legs and head immobilized by some type of framework. He did not have to see to know who it was; his uncle's cheerful tone was particularly grating. His back ached fiercely and he knew why, although he was not certain that he wanted to know the particulars. Councdor Lake moved into his field of vision, seating himself in a chair facing him.
'You look terrible,' his uncle commented at last.
'How the hell am I supposed to look?' Trace demanded. 'I was ambushed and shot by Starwolves.'
'You were shot in the back while running for your life,' Lake corrected him. 'Do not be afraid to admit the truth. That was the only intelligent thing you did yesterday.'
'Yesterday?' Trace asked in disbelief. 'I must have caught it good, then. This is more than just burns from bolt flash?'
'A bit,' the Councdor explained, leaning back casually. 'Those Starwolf pistols carry a kick like our rifles, and you took a shot square in the middle of your backbone. Dr. Mervask worked on you fourteen hours yesterday, and that was just getting started. But you are likely to live now.'
'Just tell me!' Trace hissed impatiently.
'Very well. It might shut you up. The good doctor put in a biosynthetic graft to replace the sixteen centimeters of spinal cord you lost, as well as eight artificial vertebrae. He had the devil of a time finding vertebrae your size, so he would have to replace those with new ones made special for you. Half the muscles in your back will be replaced by forced-growth clone types, as well as a piece of skin big enough to make a tent. You were fortunate in that your backbone actually stopped the bolt from cutting right through you. You were unfortunate in that your jacket caught fire and gave you more serious burns than you might have had.'
'The old dress blues,' Trace remarked. 'Did the spinal grafts take?'
'Seemed to,' the Councdor said. 'The medical scanners insist that it would function as good as the original. The doctor says that your back is not likely to be the same — too much structural reconstruction. You will kick ass again, just not as hard.'
'Good enough,' Trace said, relieved. 'What about the Starwolves?'
'Oh, they got what they wanted, poked a hole in the dome, and left. They leveled the Government Budding, the Residence and Farstell Trade. They also completely destroyed the planetary defense power complex, and the sector fleet is gone — absolutely gone. All we have left are the carriers, which did not arrive in time. The Starwolves got clear with no loss or damage. Now that is planning!'
'Wait just a moment,' Trace protested. 'If they leveled the Government Building…'
'Do you recall passing a pair of guards and ordering them to follow?' Lake asked. 'They were normal, short- legged humans and you quickly left them behind. They arrived just in time to sneak you out of the room, and they got you into a lift and to the levels below the building before the Starwolves blasted it.'
Trace did not answer. Whatever drug he had been given to awaken him was no longer at its peak effectiveness; the pain suppressants that made him unaware of his ruined back were beginning to win out, clouding his thinking and deteriorating his awareness.
'What now?' he asked in weary resignation. He was hardly able to care about anything, except for a dim hatred of one Starwolf.
'Now?' the Councdor asked thoughtfully, crossing his arms. 'Now we learn from our mistakes. For fifty thousand years we have fought them on our terms, and the best we have been able to achieve is an uneasy peace, mostly because we are too big to swallow whole. Now we are going to have to fight them on our terms if we are going to survive. I have already ordered construction of the first of our Fortresses.'
Trace opened one very alert eye. 'Do you mean that?'
'Of course I mean that! I never say things that I do not mean,' Councdor Lake said impatiently. 'In the last three weeks or so the Starwolves have wrecked enough of our ships to pay for the thing. We might as well spend our money on something they cannot tear up so easily. Of course, it would be two years before the thing is ready. Construction would be slow because we have most of the sector fleet to replace, as well as repairs to the city.'
'So long?' Trace muttered as he began to surrender to the drugs.
'I am afraid so. But then, it would not be ready any sooner than you are, so don't worry about it,' Lake said. Then noticing that his nephew was once again unconscious, he rose to leave. 'Dream about it.'
The group that gathered in the storage bay of one of the Methryn's smaller holding bays was indeed a little one, consisting only of the ships themselves, their Commanders, designates and helms. The center of attention was the immense gray block of the Vardon's memory cell, now secured in a special cradle. Consherra, assisted by the other two helms, was quietly assembling a large portable unit of computer equipment. Three probes, each with a ribbon of a different color tied about its long metal neck, hovered near. When everything was ready, Valthyrra called the others close so that she and Consherra could explain.
'There are two very important questions associated with this rather unimpressive block of metal,' Valthyrra
