Chapter Ten



"AH, GENERAL."

The corridor suddenly turned burlesque with possibilities as Jim Kirk led the vagabond demons out of the transporter room.

Kellen said absolutely nothing. Behind him, two Security guards stood at attention, but they couldn't keep the shock out of their faces at the diabolical creatures following their captain.

Impressive in his tense stillness, Kellen stood with his thick arms tight to his barrel-like body, the wide silver tunic shimmering under the corridor's soft lighting. Only now did Kirk notice that the general had left his body armor behind when he'd beamed aboard. A convenience? Or a gesture of some kind that Kirk had failed to read? Too late now, if so.

The big Klingon didn't move a muscle, but there was abject horror plastered on his face as he stared at the gaggle of visitors, his eyes growing large. He stood dead still, his lips pressed into a line, and glared with all the appeal of a broadax.

Kirk slowly—perhaps too slowly—led the way toward the general, hoping the extra seconds would give them time to get used to each other, and was gratified when Zennor, Garamanus, and their crew followed him like a clutter of travel-stained gypsies.

He stood to the side and gestured between the general and the aliens, and hoped for the best.

"General, this is Zennor, Vergo of the Wrath," he said, careful of pronunciation. "Vergo Zennor, may I introduce General Kellen of the Klingon Imperial High Command."

Sometimes it could be that simple. Just introduce them. Push them past that bump, and maybe there'd be communication.

"You are allies?" the ghostly Dana asked, his voice a growling sound that engulfed the corridor and startled the Security team.

"We are not allies," Kellen quickly said. He seemed to be making good on his promise to be ashamed of having asked for Kirk's help in the first place and having it all come to this, a pointless parlay in a ship's corridor. "You must turn around and return to the depths from which you emerged. We will fight you if you do not."

"General," Kirk interrupted sharply, "they're my guests at the moment. I brought them here so you could see firsthand what you were attacking, in hopes that an understanding might come about."

"I already understand them," Kellen snapped back. "They are the Havoc. The tainted souls released from imprisonment, returned to torture us with their poisons. Look at them!"

Furiously he pointed at the being with the white tendrils on its head, then at the tall thin one behind Zennor with expanding skin flaps that moved in and out with the appearance of wings.

"Iraga!" he belted. "Shushara!"

"Yes, I see them," Kirk said, and stepped between Kellen and the visitors. "Are you prepared to strike up a dialogue?"

"There is no dialogue, Captain," Kellen ground out. "I came here to destroy them before they destroy all of us. If you will be this foolish, then I will take my leave of you and return to my flagship."

Kirk squared off before the general's wide form. "You'll stay here until the sector is secured."

"Are you holding me hostage?"

"I'm holding you to your agreement to stay here until I decide the situation is no longer volatile. Ensign Brown, escort the general back to the VIP quarters and maintain watch there."

It was a polite way of telling the ensign to stand guard and keep the Klingon under house arrest. Brown glanced at him, then snapped to attention.

"Aye, sir!" the guard's deep voice boomed. "This way, General." A meaty six-footer, Brown stepped aside to let Kellen pass by, and it seemed for a moment that the corridor was filled from wall to wall with just Kellen and the guard.

Kirk hoped it wasn't too obvious that he had picked the bigger of the two ensigns to stand guard over Kellen. He wanted to make a point, but not to be rude. Not yet, anyway.

"Ensign Fulciero, please conduct our visitors on a general tour of the primary section and labs. Inform Mr. Scott and request he show them around main engineering."

The other ensign nodded, still wide-eyed. He held out a hand, gesturing down the corridor. "This way … please …"

Turning to Zennor, Kirk held out his own hand, in the opposite direction.

"My quarters, Captain," he invited. "We'll have a chance to talk privately."

Without the gawkings of my crew or the hauntings of your Dana.

He was glad there were relatively few crewpeople striding the corridors. The few they did pass managed to choke back their shock at Zennor's size and volcanic appearance, but Kirk was relieved to finally usher the alien commander into his quarters and have the door whisper shut behind them. He hoped Scott would warn his engineers that there were visitors coming and prepare them for just what that could mean in deep space.

Then again, the chief engineer would probably do his share of gawking. Scott didn't trade much in discretion.

"Excuse me one moment," he said, and tapped the desk comm. "Kirk to sickbay."

"Sickbay, Nurse Chapel."

"Nurse, is Dr. McCoy still down there?"

"Yes, sir. He's with Mr. Spock. I'll get him. One moment, please."

"Standing by."

He let quiet settle as he waited and as Zennor moved away from him and looked around the quarters. There was a constant aura about Zennor, a sense of omen, perhaps, and a sound in the back of Kirk's head like a tuning of cellos before a performance of Faust. He had no idea what he was sensing, but in this creature and those others, there was a sorcerous spirit of the familiar.

"Captain," Kirk began, "if you'll look at the computer screen on the desk, I'll call up a visual tour of the starship and other Starfleet vessels. You can adjust the speed with that dial on the side of the monitor."

Zennor turned to the desk, and Kirk keyed up the program, careful to call up the nonsensitive data tour, the one reserved for dignitaries without telling too much. Then he edged away to let the ship show itself off.

"McCoy here."

He blinked and shook his attention back to the comm. "Bones, how's Spock? Any better?"

"He's no less stubborn. I was hoping to have that organ removed, but I don't have a long enough drill."

"Give me a report, please."

"I've reduced the level of antigrav and begun to put weight on his spine again. If there's any more swelling around the disks, I'll have to increase it again."

Kirk let his chin drop a little as his gut twisted. Like the first gnawings of space sickness in his teenage years, the feeling of being without anchorage rushed in. "Has he had a chance to review the information Lieutenant Uhura brought back?"

"Yes," McCoy said, "and he wants to go over it with you at your earliest convenience."

"Understood. Tell him I'll be there soon."

"Yes, Captain. Lieutenant Uhura says she has a few things for you also."

"Very well. Kirk out."

He cut off the comm before McCoy had a chance to give any details. The doctor didn't know Zennor was here, and Kirk wasn't ready to tip any of his hand.

Zennor continued to gaze at the computer screen as it scrolled—damned fast—before him. He had it on full speed and was apparently soaking up all it could give in spite of the fact that Kirk could barely make out the photos at that speed. "Your ship is clever. Many technologies we have not thought of. You and this Klingon … you are enemies?"

"Yes, traditionally we're enemies. Occasionally we have an uneasy truce, as we do today."

"Strange that you would be enemies. You are so much the same."

"You see no difference between Kellen and me?"

"No difference between any of you. You, your crewmen, your Klingon …"

"There's a big difference between us and the Klingons," Kirk said, letting flare a touch of defense. "For instance, just today we were engaged in a land skirmish between an aggressive Klingon commander and my crew. We had to hold them back from innocent people they would've annihilated, all because those people refused to do business with them."

"You were on a planet?"

"Yes."

"Could the Klingon not simply lay waste to the planet with those long-necked vessels?"

"Yes, but they wouldn't. That would be an act of war. In a skirmish, they can always claim they were ambushed."

"I do not understand this." Zennor's voice was heavy, deep, as if speaking through a long tube.

Kirk couldn't quite read the ferocious bony mask of the other captain's face, or the smoky reddish orbs of his eyes. "Klingon command is set up in cells," he explained. "The area commanders have a great deal of autonomy in their areas, but aren't allowed to commit the Empire to interstellar war. Each is responsible for a specific area, and can conquer it if it's within his skills to do so, but if he fails in his aspiration, then all the Empire doesn't suffer for it. The commanders aren't allowed to drag the Empire into a war. That's for the High Council to decide. If the local commander oversteps his authority in the course of his ambitions, he can be demoted rather than promoted. They could have reduced the planet to a blackened char, but they know the Federation would never put up with that. As it turned out, General Kellen overruled the local commander because he was more worried about you."

"About us …"

"You saw how emotionally you affect him. And he is a particularly cool customer among his kind. His restraint is famous."

"He claims we are … trouble?"

"Havoc. It's a Klingon myth about an apocalypse. A final reckoning."

"Myths can be powerful. Given enough time, myth becomes religion. Mysterious legend becomes immutable fact. My culture moves on this kind of sea also. That is why he hates us so."

"He fears you." Kirk offered a cushioning grin. "He doesn't know you well enough to hate you."

"If it comes to be proven that we are not in our space, we will destroy the Klingons for you."

The grin fell off Kirk's face and he almost heard the crunch. "I can't sanction that."

"But if they are conquering, they must be stopped. Why would you allow them to continue?"

Oh, tempting, tempting …

"We prefer other pressures. A war brings a high death toll. People can and do change, given time. We're working on them in other ways."

"I do not understand that," Zennor admitted. "Perhaps I will eradicate them anyway."

Despite the words, there was something sincerely well-meaning in the way the alien leader said what he said.

Enjoying the whole idea for a raucous instant in the privacy of his own heart, Kirk nodded in some kind of arm's-length comprehension, then got control of himself and calmly pointed out, "We protected you from the Klingons. We'll protect them from you for the same reasons, if you force us to."

Zennor's heavy head lay slightly to one side. "You are … spirited," he said admiringly. His almond-shaped eyes flickered and actually changed color, like camp matches flaring briefly in the woods. "When my ship's power is fully restored, you will not be able to stop me."

That grin came sneaking back to Kirk's lips, and he felt his own eyes flare a little. Undercurrents of mutuality ran between them. Dare though this might be, still there was something about Zennor's convictions that ran close to Kirk's heart, and he understood what Zennor meant and wanted, the intense sense of right and wrong that might have been a bit skewed but still smacked of strong decency.

And underlying all this, a spicy challenge, as when Spock asked him to play chess.

"Let's hope we don't have to find out," he deferred gently. "Vergo, I'm curious about where you came from. You say it's a great distance. Can you tell me the area?"

The twisted horns tipped forward and cast a shadow as Zennor's triangular face pivoted downward. "On the opposite side of the mean center of the galaxy from this place."

"And yet you said it wasn't a transporter that brought you here. Not a mechanism of the sort that we use to move from ship to ship."

"We have no such instrument. We came here from the far distant side of the galaxy, using a device that causes space to wrinkle, thus offering passage of large distance in a short time."

Kirk waved his hands in casual beckoning. "Explain the technology."

"We do not understand the technology. We only know that it works."

Kirk felt his brow pucker. He had always assumed that people using a science at least understood the science.

When he didn't offer much sympathy for that, Zennor picked up on it and evidently decided he wanted to say more.

"For many centuries this thing hovered in space above my people's central planet. It passed between us and our sun, regularly throwing its elongated black shadow upon our planet. Because it was known to be the machine that delivered us to our banishment, it became a symbol of evil and doom, a god that glowered upon us and kept us in misery. Anything bad was credited to it, this great black shape dooming our sky to ugliness. Our women conjured spells against it. Young men dreamed of flying up to destroy it. We said it was of the conquerors."

"The conquerors—you said that before. Who do you think the conquerors were?"

"Those who cast us out. To my people they are the highest evil. My people are from many tribes and groups and clans—"

"I noticed that."

"We warred for eons with each other, blaming each other for our conditions, claiming collusion with the conquerors, until finally we realized we were all cast out together and it was no one's fault but those who exiled us. Worse than killing us, they took the place where we were born. Took it. If we fail to take it back, then justice has not been served. Gradually this became the driving force of our unity. Century upon untold century, the shadow of the conquerors' machine passed over us, forging our unity stronger and stronger with every pass. Ultimately our scientists figured out what it was. Only a ball of mechanics. What for eons we had dreamed of destroying turned out to be the tool of our future. Fortunately we came to our senses before we could react emotionally and destroy this valuable piece of lost technology. We found out it uses time as a dimension, and thus allows interdimensional travel. And we figured out how to activate it."

"Your entire culture turns on this one cog? Don't you find that a little … obsessive?"

"Yes, I do. But a culture must have a common purpose. We spend generations storing enough energy to push this ship through, packed with sensory equipment. We have no idea what powered the machine originally, and have been centuries developing enough power to pass through to where we believe we came from. We do not know why it goes, but we know how to make it go."

"That much energy must be a powerful space distorter," Kirk said. "It explains the mass-drop effect."

"Which was not our intention."

"That doesn't repeal your responsibility for it. Every ship's master is responsible for his own wake."

"I do not understand that reference."

"According to our laws of space travel, it befalls you to anticipate the effects of your ship's passage."

"These are insignificant things you speak of. We have spent a hundred generations preparing for this. The Danai and the Bardoi of our cultures have spent uncounted years, centuries, on the direction and purpose of my mission. I must keep perspective."

"What if they're wrong?"

"Then I will go against them myself. I am willing to cast away the work of a hundred generations if we are wrong."

"You must suspect they could be," Kirk said, "or you wouldn't be here, talking to me." He paused, using his senses to decide how hard he could push. "Am I right? Do you have doubts?"

Turning away from him, Zennor's long hands coiled the chain of his medallion as he scanned the simple decor, the military trim of the bunk and desk, the lack of carvings or haze, and his strange orange eyes narrowed.

"If the belief in the giant shadow god was silly," he said, "what about the rest of our legends? If that was wrong, what else is wrong? Shall I kill everyone on this side of the galaxy based on myth? Was that the only part of our mythology that we misinterpreted?"

Probing like a sea lawyer, Kirk asked, "Is there something specific you're suspicious about, Vergo?"

As he swung around, Zennor's dangerous eyes scoped him and for a moment Kirk thought the amicability might be over. Then Zennor admitted, "I am not entirely sure we were thrown across the galaxy. It appears we did not evolve together, but who knows? We could have been moved to save our lives and grew the opposite belief out of fear and superstition. The Danai seem to me to have made many leaps. I would not wish to see my civilization expending all its wealth and energy to make war on strangers based on legends."

"But you do believe your civilization was wronged and unnecessarily banished?"

"We certainly were banished, most coldly and without resource. Many millions died, including some whole races, because they could not survive the changeover."

"What must be proven to you?" Kirk asked carefully.

"That we were cast out … that this is the space we were cast out from … that these are the descendants of those who cast us out. Unlike Garamanus, I am unwilling to assume. I think we are in the wrong place. I hope to prove that. Then my people can begin to live a future, rather than endlessly hunt for the past."

Seizing his chance, Kirk offered, "You can do that now. Give up the idea of conquering the conquerors and embrace the idea of cooperation. You can settle here, start a whole new civilization. There are many planets crying for colonization and development. We'll help you."

Zennor's great horns scuffed the ceiling as he nodded slowly. "For myself, that would serve. For my people, certain steps must be taken first. If I can prove the Danai wrong, the crew will not attack anyone who is not the conqueror. They will not become what they hate. Then the Danai will be obsolete."

"How do you know your people won't just try again?"

"The Danai insist this is the right place. How can they insist again about somewhere else?"

"It's that simple?"

"Yes. But how do I disprove a thing? The Danai say this is the place. How can I say it is not?"

"One step at a time." Kirk watched Zennor for a moment, then asked, "What's the first step?"

Zennor kept to the shadows of the captain's quarters, perhaps seeking instinctively the shrouding veil that twisted in his own ship, but moved toward Kirk and deposited on the desk his crescent brooch. When he had taken it off Kirk had no idea, but now it was in his long-boned hand, and now it was on the desk.

With one pale fingernail, Zennor flipped the crescent over. Etched on the inside of the curve were dots and a series of curved lines. Kirk recognized it instantly.

"Star chart?"

Zennor nodded once. "We can tell from a few preserved etchings how the stars looked at differing periods five thousand of your years ago. The Danai have based their decision on these pieces. The surviving originals are very old, but there is a definite arrangement of stars. What you see here is an extrapolation of stellar motion over the generations, and how those stars should be arranged now. These are regarded as absolute. This one is the most certain, and it shows what the Danai believe is the home system of the creatures like Manann."

"Manann … the ones with the wings?"

"Wings? Those membranes are for temperature adjustment."

"Yes, of course. . . . General Kellen told me those creatures are called 'Shushara' in the Klingon legend of Havoc. Does that word sound familiar to you?"

"No."

"Perhaps that's good."

"Perhaps it is. This is the strongest piece of solid evidence we possess. If this is disproven, then the Danai's theory will collapse. If there is no planet there which has had life in the past five thousand years, Garamanus will have to back down."

"If those creatures lived on that planet only five thousand years ago," Kirk said, "there's got to be evidence of it. Let's overlay this and see if there's a correlation."

Without waiting for Zennor to comment, Kirk scanned the piece of jewelry into the computer access, then said, "Computer."

"Working," the flat female voice replied back.

"Identify this star system."

The machine paused as if shut down, but he knew it was searching, and in moments a star system appeared on the desk access screen. The arrangement of stars wasn't exact, but this was evidently the closest the computer could find. Abruptly the odds struck him—anything could look like anything, given enough monkeys and enough years.

"We must go there," Zennor said. His maize eyes remained unchanged, unimpressed.

"Computer," Kirk continued, "specify location of this star system."

"It is the Kgha'lugh star system, located in sector nine-three-seven, Province Ruchma, Klingon Star Empire."

A low protest rose in Kirk's throat.

Deep into Klingon space. Deep, deep.

Zennor read his expression and evidently understood. "For me to balk would be suicidal. It is not what we spent so many generations to do. If I do not go there, Garamanus will take over, and our people will go there."

"You're talking about violating entrenched Klingon space, Captain," Kirk told him. "You'll be beaten back before you make it halfway there."

"We will get there. My Wrath can broach any challenge."

"You're underestimating. All you've seen is a few midweight border cruisers. You don't realize what a fleet of heavy cruisers can do to your ship."

"I can destroy their fleet," Zennor assured, not seeming to intend the bravado with which Kirk read the claim. "When we came through the wrinkle, our power slackened somewhat and the Klingons inflicted some minor damage, but that is no longer a problem. My ship is no longer in any peril from you, but you, Vergokirk, are in grave peril from us, and that is my concern. If I fail to do this, or if the Klingons push an attack too much on me, I will have to destroy them. If I do not destroy them, Garamanus will take over and destroy all of you. And that is my concern."

Kirk shoved off the desk and stood straight. "Vergo Zennor, you're either a very skilled liar or you're putting a great deal of trust in me."

The fiery eyes looked down at him. "I have made a decision to trust you. And you must honor that trust, Vergokirk, and help me keep control," Zennor finished with slow impact, "or you will be dealing directly with Garamanus."

"Yes, well," Kirk said with a guttural response to what he read as a dare. "You have Garamanus and I have Kellen. For the moment, they're both quiet. While they are, my officers are putting the ship's considerable resources to work on information you've given them. Your party will tour the ship and with luck gain some understanding of us and see that we're not these 'conquerors' you speak of. Meanwhile, I think you and I should attempt to iron out this problem between your people and the Klingons."


"General, these are your quarters. I'll be right outside if you need anything."

"Thank you, but I need only this."

With his back to the husky young Starfleet guard, and without even bothering to turn, Kellen used a new dagger and an old trick. He raised his chin and braced his feet for balance, locked his elbow, and thrust his arm straight backward. In his fist was the warm hilt, behind it the blade.

Without even witnessing his own act, he felt the blade pop the skin of the guard's body and grate against a rib. The guard's breath gushed out against the back of Kellen's head and the boy fell forward against Kellen's shoulder.

Only then did he turn to see the boy, to turn him over quickly so there would be no telltale blood upon the deck, and finally to drag the body into the quarters where Kellen was supposed to wait in complacence, which was as much his enemy as Starfleet itself and almost as alien to him.

So much more alien than he expected—this complicatory inaction was unexpected and he cursed it. Kirk was a thorough disappointment. As the door of the VIP quarters hissed closed behind him and hid his kill for the moment, he thought about how far he could push the Federation. It had always been in his mind, through all his years in the Imperial fleet. Klingons had not survived so long by being stupid. He knew the Federation tolerated much more than any Klingon would, but when they did turn and fight they were not a pleasant enemy. They would fight ruthlessly and methodically. There were other Kirks out there who deserved to be Kirk, and one disappointment would not fool Kellen. Unlike Klingon honor, the Federation had a sharp sense of right and wrong as their barometer. When they believed they were right, they fought with unmatched ferocity.

This had always been a mystery to Kellen—when the Federation would fight and why. Always a minefield to walk. He could spit in a human's face—something a whole Klingon family would go to war over—and the human might shrug and walk away. Yet step on the toe of something they had no interest in and the Federation would marshal all its forces to defend a thing it did not care to possess.

Like this Kirk. Why had he refused to fight so obvious a threat? Certainly there were primogenial memories in the Federation of those demons, just as there were for the Klingons. Even time beyond recall could be recalled when the common danger was disclosed.

Some predictions could work, though. He had gambled and won that these people were too polite to make a body search of a visiting dignitary, even a Klingon dignitary. They hadn't. He had kept his dagger hidden, and beside it a shielded communicator which he now withdrew and powered up.

"Qul … Aragor, do you read me? Come in, Qul."

Communicator shields often worked in both directions and impaired broadcast. He kept the signal weak, not sure how much of a signal would trigger this ship's security systems and notify them that he was attempting to reach out from here to his own ship.

He started walking. No turbolifts. Too entrapping. There would be ladders, tubes, other ways to go down.

"QulQul" Over and over he murmured the name of his ship, slowly adjusting the gain on the communicator until they would hear him calling.

And here was a tube—with a ladder. He asked and was answered.

He peered down the tube to be sure there was no technician coming up whose head he would have to crush, and swung his thick leg around the ladder.

"Generalthis is Aragor. Where are you?"

Clinging to the rungs and wedging his way into the tube, which barely accommodated his girth, Kellen paused. "I am in the starship. I believe Kirk is about to betray us. Call for reinforcements, as many as you can find. Make no obvious movements, but be ready to attack. Contact the Jada and tell that idiot Ruhl to prepare the squadron's defenses, but quietly."

"Sirthe commanders will not be allowed to attack a Starfleet ship under a flag of truce without provocation or gain. How will we make them believe you saw?"

"I must be believed! Or it is disaster."

"I believe you, General, but the commanders will demand proof."

Anger welled and he wanted to shout at Aragor, yet he knew this was not Aragor's doing. His science officer was neither fool nor petty stooge. A truth was a truth.

"There will be proof. I will find it somehow. You call them. Give them the facts as we know them. Show them the tapes. I am going to main engineering to disable this vessel. Make preparations to beam me back when I make signal. No more communication."

"Understood. Out."

The tube was narrow but bright, and he felt closed in, trapped, even as he moved freely downward through the veins of the starship. The voices of the crew from deck to deck were his only contact with the Starfleeters, giving him reason to pause now and then to be sure no one saw him pass through the open hatchways and companionways. He could be easily cornered here, but his size forced him to move slowly, with cautious deliberation. To slip and tumble because of nervousness would be shameful.

Tours. Guests. Open arms to demons and friends. Havoc embraced. A Kirk who was no Kirk. Seek out the unshatterable and discover only crumbs.

The rungs were cool against his palms. Rung after rung, the ship peeled away beneath his hands and boots. Nearer and nearer he climbed down toward the pulse and thrum of the warp core. He felt it vibrate through the ladder and heard it hum in his ears. That was the power source he must cripple, or the starship would once again stand in his way.

When the thrum was strongest, he went one deck more to make sure he had indeed zeroed in on the main engineering deck, then climbed back up and cautiously extracted his bulk from the tube. This was a wide-halled ship, with room to stretch his arms from bulkhead to bulkhead even in the passages. They wasted space, these people, attempting to create an environment too much like planetary architecture. They came into the depths of space, then tried to pretend they were otherwhere. They coddled their comforts too much in sacrifice to efficiency and quickness. No one needed this much room. And with every extra bit of indulgence, there had to be that much more thrust, so they wasted energy to accommodate their waste of space.

That could mean they had power to spare. He would have to consider that in his sabotage.

He moved slowly through the offices to the functioning engineering deck, keeping himself hidden from humans in red shirts who moved from panel to panel, reading and measuring what they saw, and crossed walkways overhead. At the far end of the deck he saw the cathedral-tall red glow of the warp core throbbing placidly, off-line as the ship lay at all-stop.

Finding an angular elbow between three tall storage canisters, Kellen paused to assess what he saw and decide how best to inflict injury that would be hard to find and take time to fix.

As he studied the movements of the engineers and listened to their faint conversations, wicking general information about these panels, he almost failed to notice the most important change when it came—the demons were here.

There … nearly obscured by the thing he was hiding behind, but they were here! On their tour … doing just as he was doing, seeking information and scanning the uncovered consoles and all this technology these idiots kept out in the open and freely showed to any and all who came. Even demons could see.

That other ensign now tagged behind. The gaggle of evil was led instead by a senior engineer, who seemed uneasy at the creatures following him. He spoke little, but gestured for the creatures to disperse about the deck and gaze about.

The other engineers paused in their work and stared at the ghastly amalgam who came here now, the long-faced horned beasts, the winged Shushara, the hideous Iraga with those white snakes in its head. Even the vaulting humans who spoke so large and pretended nothing bothered them today could not hide their disgust. They acted as if they did not remember these ill-biddens, did not recognize what they saw, but it was in their eyes and the tightening of their shoulders as they looked upon the evictees who now returned unasked.

No matter how they lied to themselves, they did remember. It was their Havoc too.

Kellen held his breath as the Iraga crossed the deck, shuffling upon its ugly limbs toward him, coming to look at something on this side of the high-ceilinged chamber. Its leprous face was more terrible than any mask, crowned with those arm-long snakes that moved independently, reaching and retracting, as if tasting the air.

He backed into his nook and held very still. There was a cool and convenient shadow here, not quite big enough to engulf his entire body, but dark enough to obscure him.

The profane thing passed by him and moved into a secondary chamber, passing within inches. He smelled its licheny body and drew his chin downward in disgust, wincing as the tentacles whipped toward his face and licked at the canister's edge. If they had eyes, the Iraga would know he hid here.

What would the horror be, to be overrun by these, the condemned, even to survive and be forced to do their filthy bidding? The thought shuddered through him. He held his breath.

But his shadow served him. The beast moved past.

Kellen raised his right hand and sifted through his outer robe for the familiar palm-filling shape of his dagger's hilt. It was a good dagger, not his family dagger, which he had already given to his son, but a good weapon that had known too little use. Now it would have its moment.

The general rolled out from between the canisters, walking casually across the open archway because that would gain less attention than if he attempted to sneak across.

Without changing his stride he walked up behind the Iraga, reached as high as he could, snatched a handful of the gory tentacles moving in the creature's skull, and drove his blade into the haze of white gauzy cloth covering the creature's body.