"You suppose that's it? " he asked with a pained and apologetic grimace as he worked on the control panel. "The Khleevi warp drive is maybe a little juicier than what I'm used to?"

"Since we are now in a totally different quadrant of s.p.a.ce than we planned to be, it would seem as if Kh.o.r.n.ya has justification for her a.s.sumption, Captain," Mac said. "If I may make a suggestion, sirs and ladies?"

"Sure, Mac, what is it?"

"Are the ship's communication devices still functional?"

"Seem to be," Becker said, checking them. Then I suggest we send a Mayday message, sir, and promptly. I do not believe the Condor has the appropriate modifications for supporting our lives for the rest of eternity under the sludge into which we are sinking."

"I was just about to do that little thing," Becker told him. "No need to state the obvious, Mac. In fact," he said, turning to Nadhari, "if we're close to your homeworld, babe, why don't you do the honors?"

Before she had finished her opening hail in her own language, RK had planted himself in front of her face. Becker plucked him out of the way, and with help from Acorna, they wrestled the cat into a harness that tethered him to one of the bridge seats. Afterward, Acorna doctored Becker's scratches and puncture wounds.

The Wats did not seem to entirely understand the danger they were currently in and Acorna saw no need to enlighten them for the time being. The two men stared out the viewport and seemed lost in the scenery. From the s.n.a.t.c.hes of their thoughts Acorna caught while Nadhari made repeated hails in her native tongue, the Wats seemed to think sinking into an alien marsh was just another of the strange things their current captors did. They weren't sure if it was a function of battle, a form of transportation, a demonstration of power, or possibly some kind of strange courtship ritual, but Acorna's previous rea.s.surances had gained their confidence and they saw no reason to lose it now.

Sooner than any of them had imagined possible, they received a response to their Mayday. "Condor, this is the Arkansas Traveler. I don't rightly understand all that language you're speaking, but I got enough of it to know you're in trouble. I'm coming up on your position now. Could you repeat your message in Standard Galactic lingo, over? "

"Certainly, Arkansas Traveler," Nadhari said smoothly in the more familiar language. "I will turn you over to Captain Becker."

"Uh, I don't suppose you folks could let me have a visual on you, could you? My cargo is not my own and it's always nice to know who you're dealing with. No offense."

"None taken, Traveler. We'll show you ours if you'll show us yours, over," Becker said in a tone that, in other quarters, might have implied something completely different. "Nadhari, you're more photogenic than me. Wave at the nice ship on the vid screen, will you?"

When she had done so, Becker leaned in and waggled his fingers, too. In a moment, the handsome, friendly face of a man with green eyes and white hair grinned back at them. "Nice to meet you folks. I'm Scaradine MacDonald. I've got a load of tractors and irrigation equipment I'm delivering, but I reckon I can stop long enough to give you a tow."

"We'd appreciate it, Captain MacDonald," Becker said. "We got in a little deeper than we'd planned."

"No problem. I've got a tractor beam on this thing that can pull you up right through the atmosphere. And hey, call me Scar. Everybody does."

"Thanks, Scar. I'm Jonas Becker, Chief Executive Officer as well as Chief Cook and Bottle Washer of Becker Interplanetary Recycling and Salvage Enterprises, Ltd. We were en route for a planet in another sector altogether when we had an equipment failure. I thought it would be safe to land here for repairs, but it was a lot soupier than it looked. This nice lady beside me is Commander Nadhari Kando. She tells me we're pretty close to Makahomia, which is where she's from. You think you could tow us that far?"

"Sure, that's not much out of my way. I was hoping to stop and refuel there, anyway."

Becker looked at Nadhari, who said, "That shouldn't be a problem. I will transfer to your navigation computer the proper coordinates for our final destination." She did so and then said, "These are the coordinates of the Federation outpost nearest my place of origin. It has an excellent s.p.a.ceport and enough land-ma.s.s that the planet's various border skirmishes really don't affect the people who aren't interested in the battles." After she'd finished the transmission, she sat back, as still as a statue.

Acorna looked at her sharply. Nadhari was clearly uncomfortable. Had she been a less disciplined and guarded individual, she might have been twitching or displaying a nervous tic, but as the highly trained peacekeeper that she was, Nadhari simply be came increasingly still, outwardly calm, her face serene as a sheathed knife unless she was speaking.

At that moment the vid screen lit again, "Okay, Captain Becker, ma'am. I'm going to turn on the tractor beam now. Hope everybody is strapped in?"

Becker rea.s.sured him on that point. "Just about time too, buddy. The viewport is starting to get a little moist around the edges. You sure that winch of yours can pull us out of this? Want me to use my thrusters first? "

"Well, let's just crank 'er up and give 'er a go first, whatcha think?" the other captain suggested.

"Sounds good to me. Only step on it," Becker suggested.

The tractor beam had a little problem pulling the Condor loose, but after a few nasty jolts and some ghastly creaking the ship began to shift, until at last the outer hull was visible again through the viewport, the landing pods choked with reeds and dripping with giant sharp-fanged eel-like reptiles.

"Ewww," Becker said. "Glad we didn't go out there!"

The Wats were awestricken all over again as the Condor pulled free from the muck with a deafening sucking noise and leaped into the air under the tow of the other ship.

When Scar's face appeared on the screen, Sandy Wat said to Red Wat, "The face of the Thunder G.o.d as he lifts us onto his lightning bolt." To Acorna he pointed triumphantly at the screen and said, "You see?"

Acorna decided it was better to deal with the Wats' misconceptions later. Much later.

But Nadhari didn't move, not even when they felt the heavy pressure of acceleration as their ship was pulled out of the gravity well and into s.p.a.ce.

"Nadhari," Acorna said carefully, "although we all know you and RK well, we know very little about Makahomia. Your planet has the reputation for being almost as secluded and secretive as Vhiliinyar and narhii-Vhiliinyar. Is there anything you would like to tell us about it so we can avoid embarra.s.sing you or ourselves?"

"Like what? " Nadhari asked.

"Whatever seems pertinent right now-for instance, where exactly are we going? What is your planet like? Does the name of your planet mean something special? Answers to those questions seem like a good place to start."

Nadhari took a deep breath, more out of tension than the need for oxygen. Finally she said, "The name of my home planet? Makah is our word for cat, and 'horn' refers to either people or place, so we are the people or place of the cat, depending on the suffix. Makahomia, as you say, is 'place of the cat.' We would say 'Makahomin' for place, 'Makahomini' for ourselves. We'll be landing near the Federation outpost facility, which is the only place vessels like the Condor and the Arkansas Traveler can refuel on Makahomia. There is only one outpost, or at least that was the case "when last I "was here. It is just outside the city of Hissim, on the semiarid Mog-Gim Plateau bordering the Great Aridimi Desert."

"Is that where you're from, Nadhari?"

"Not originally, no, though I lived there briefly in semi-slavery before being recruited by the Federation."

"Semi-slavery?" asked Becker, who had himself been a child slave on Kezdet. "Does that mean they shackle you only on alternate days?"

"No," she said. "I was taken prisoner by the Aridimis after a battle and given to the Temple priests as an acolyte. As such, I was confined to the Temple to do menial ch.o.r.es. My fighting ability and my affinity for the sacred cats saved me from some of the less pleasant duties I might have been forced into otherwise." That must have been terrible for you," Acorna said sympathetically. "No wonder you were so eager to help Mr. Li free the children of Kezdet and establish the training center on Maganos."

Nadhari raised an eyebrow and smiled a half-smile. "Actually, it wasn't bad at all. I let myself be captured, once I had demonstrated that I could handle myself in battle. I knew our enemy was near the new Federation outpost, and I knew that the Federation recruited likely Makahomian young people and took them off-planet to train for the Corps. One of my cousins had gone and returned, which was quite unusual. He said it was wonderful, but that Makahomia needed him more than the Federation. His stories made me determine to be chosen. Mostly they didn't choose girls, but there were not many girls who could fight as I could."

Becker had wanted Nadhari to open up, and now she was unusually garrulous. Acorna thought it was extreme nervousness, as well as being around people she trusted, that made her so talkative.

"What was your home like?" Acorna asked her. "Now that we are here, will you be able to visit your family? Can we explore the planet with you and see where you come from?"

"I very much doubt it," Nadhari said with a half shrug. "It may not even be advisable to let the Federation know I'm aboard, depending on who rules Hissim these days. Also, the Federation does not allow anyone to introduce alien technologies to our people.

"Why not?" Becker asked.

Nadhari took a deep breath. "Because if one faction had a technological edge, it would upset the balance of power that keeps our continual wars from escalating to a bloodbath that could wipe out the population. You must understand, Jonas, my people are at war all the time-it's part of what we do," she told him.

"But we don't need to worry about someone shooting us down as we land?"

"Oh, no, because the Federation are the only ones who have modern weapons. Anything more advanced than a spear or a knife is considered much too dangerous to be in Makahomian hands."

"By the Federation?" Acorna asked. "That's very... paternalistic, isn't it?"

"Actually, it was our priests, both the war priests and the peace priests, who jointly decided on the taboo and insisted that the Federation enforce it as a condition of their maintaining a presence on the planet. In exchange, the Federation gained the concession that it could choose likely youngsters to train for its service. Of course, when one of us was chosen to leave our world and take up fighting elsewhere, that is a different matter. As expatriates, we could learn anything they wished to teach us, including how to handle all the weapons with which they armed us. We are not allowed to take those weapons back to the indigenous areas of our homeworld with us, however. Or even to speak to our people of their existence."

Becker snorted. "Yeah, I can see where you could become Supreme High Pooh-Bah in a nanosecond if you had Old Betsy with you," he said. Old Betsy was what he called Nadhari's laser rifle.

"Should I visit my planet's surface, I will be allowed to carry no weapons but the dagger I took with me from the Temple when I left," Nadhari said.

"But on the other hand, you're saying that n.o.body else on your world will have anything badder," Becker said, nodding his understanding. "Well, that'll make things more even. But you don't need a laser rifle to do damage, babe. I've seen you in action."