For many moments Zevon was silent, though obviously troubled. He tucked and retucked the blanket two or three times before the ringing question demanded attention. "Because the count is crushing me," he said. Stiles frowned. "What count?"

Settling his hands in his lap, Zevon sat suddenly still. He sighed roughly, and his expression took on a shield of burden. His eyes crimped. He couldn't look at Stiles. Again he sighed.

"Tyrants have made names for themselves by murdering a thousand people," he slowly said. "Ten thousand, a hundred thousand... a million. I have surpa.s.sed them all. There are no Hitlers, no Yum Nects, no Stalins or Li Quans who can compete with me. Among all the men and women of the galaxy, you have the privilege of sitting with someone who is utterly unique. You see, I'm the only person, anywhere, on any world, living or dead... who has killed a billion people."

As he sat on his rock, gazing at Zevon and hearing the echo of true burden, feeling as if he had known this man all his life, Eric Stiles grew up ten years in ten seconds. The urge to say something, to trowel away the grief with mere words, failed him entirely. There were no words for this. Not this.

Rather than flapping his gums as usual, he was completely disinclined to speak at all. Instead he shifted his good hand a few inches and gripped Zevon's forearm in a sustaining way, and did not shrink from the contact. Empathy flowed through the simple touch. The concept of billions of people dead at a single sweep overcame them both and seemed oddly tangible. For an instant or two, critical instants, Stiles totally comprehended the number.

Then, as all huge things do, the grasp of such volume fled and he was left only with the tremendous drumming regret that Zevon must have borne all these years. It wasn't the kind of thing that got better with time. Some things didn't.

There had to be another effort, a different one. One that looked forward for a change.

And that view was tricky for Eric Stiles, but for the first time in his life he didn't care what had happened in the past. For the first time, the future was everything.

With his hand still pressed to Zevon's arm, Stiles spoke quietly, firmly.

"I'm here now. This is where I am. Things are going to be different for both of us. We're getting out of here eventually, and when we do, everything's changing. You and I have both been dragged along by our situations like being caught in a river current or something. It's all we've been able to do just keeping our faces up out of the water all our lives. This... it's got to stop. We have to get our own grip on things."

Zevon gazed at him with 'all the fascination and confusion of a child looking into a kaleidoscope. "How can we?"

"By making sure that things are different because we're here." Stiles. .h.i.tched himself up to a better position, still holding firmly to Zevon's arm. "When they pull us out of this hole, we're going to still be alive. Then we're going to go to work. We're gonna pay back the universe for all the goofs and gaffs we've made before. We're not going to think about escaping or fighting. This is our planet now. We have a lot to do before the next Constrictor hits."

Mystified, perhaps wondering if his companion were delirious, Zevon narrowed his eyes. "What?"

Heartened by his own words and by the new determination welling in his heart, Stiles willed his conscience into line and saw the future as a clear tunnel of purpose.

'I'll tell you what;' he said. "We're going to save a billion people."

Chapter Seven.

Four Years Later, Federation Standard Time "ZEVON, I THINK WE'VE GOT something this time! Look at this!"

"If I'd had the right equipment, this could've been found months ago."

"It reads like a Richter scale! We're actually picking up s.p.a.ceborne disruption. Watch this."

"But not focused. No way to tell if we have minutes or hours, or even days." "But we know this time that it's coming. That's something!" "There hasn't been a Constrictor in more than two years. We've predicted it twice before. The first time we predicted the Constrictor would come in three weeks. It came in three hours. The second time, nothing happened at all" "But we learned from those mistakes!" "They won't believe us, Eric." "But this time we know!" "They won't believe us."

The lab smelled of a burning circuit. Off to Stiles's right, in the comer, the tired dust collector clacked and whirred, creating a sense of action where in fact there was little. His taxed back muscles shuddered as he sank back in his chair. "How can we convince them? What do you think we should do? It's not like we can threaten Orsova, and he's got the keys to all the telephones."

Beside him in the only other chair, Zevon seemed more troubled than vindicated by their good work today and the breakthrough they'd been waiting for, which now blinked before them on the overworked spectrometer, its flickering screen data reflected in the cold contents of their two soupbowls.

"You need to eat," Zevon said, his voice a rasp of fatigue and frustration.

Only now did Stiles realize that his partner was looking not at the glimmering jewels on the screen, but at the filmy soup.

Stiles pressed back and stretched his arms. "Four years of horse-drool soup. So I skip it once in a while. So what? Limosh t' rui maloor." Zevon looked at him. "Telosh li cliah maheth."

Stiles felt abruptly selfconscious and guilty about his appearance. He almost never looked in the mirror over the sink back in their cell anymore-he even trimmed his beard without looking. If he didn't look, he could convince himself from moment to moment that his cheeks were not so sunken beneath the scruffy yellow beard he'd allowed to grow there, his eyes not dull, he could imagine the fullness of youth and the sheen of health he had once possessed and not even noticed in those days. He could ignore the bruises on his temples mid the black blotches under the sleeves of his sweater. At least they'd given him a sweater.

He'd stopped looking in mirrors a long time ago, right about when the beard had stopped helping him hide his deteriorating physical condition. All he could tell from the beard was that he was still blond and hadn't gone prematurely gray from the daily stress and struggle.

Over the past four years the Pojjana behavior had been frequently baffling, inconsistent, sometimes maddening, sometimes solicitous, as political temperatures surged or chilled. Things changed every few months-except for a couple of things. The most consistent parts of his life and Zevon's were this lab and the prison's a.s.sistant warden, who unfortunately did not have enough to do.

"They've let us come to the lab almost every day;' he voiced, shifting from just thinking to also speaking his thoughts. "Why wouldn't they listen to what we find out?"

Weary, Zevon simply gazed at him, seeing something other than the problem of convincing the Pojjana that there might be a way to save lives from the Constrictor. Lately Zevon had had more trouble concentrating, and Stiles was worried. They needed this breakthrough, not just for the billion, but for the two of them. They needed sanity and purpose, some reason to rise above the endless sense of being broken down and dull as barbells. After four years, they needed a win.

Stiles shifted uneasily under Zevon's toil-worn gaze, knowing that the Romulan saw him clearly and hated the sight. A shaft of burning pain ran through Stiles's innards, but he battled to keep it out of his face. He knew Zevon didn't miss it, though. He wasn't fooling anybody.

"Stop watching me," he protested when he could speak again. "You're in pain, aren't you?" "No." "You should eat. It always helps."

"It helps because it makes me throw up, and then I'm too weak to feel anything. Typical Romulan logic."

"Typical Eric defiance," Zevon muttered, his eyes deeply solicitous and sad.

For a moment they simply looked at each other. Eventually, in his mind Stiles stopped seeing his own demolished physical condition and started seeing Zevon's. Zevon had started out typically lean, as was natural for his genetics, but four years ago he'd been strong and well-nourished, with good muscle tone in his arms and shoulders and a glow of privilege in his face. Now his complexion was sallow and his arms were thin. His hair had lost its mahogany l.u.s.ter and had grown below his shoulders. He kept it out of his way by simply pushing it behind his ears. Being Vulcanoid ears, they did the job very well. He was less inclined to bother cutting his hair, though Stiles occasionally offered a trim when he was cutting his own. Strange-Stiles, so used to Starfleet spit-and-polish, had made a silly effort to cling to neatness during their four years as political prisoners, even tr.i.m.m.i.n.g his nails and cuticles just to have something to do. He was the one who did their laundry and mended the rips in their clothing.

He would've expected the same, even more, from a prince of the Romulan royal line, but Zevon didn't really care what he looked like. His long-suffering uniform, stained and tired, would've dissolved from his shoulders if Stiles hadn't bothered keeping the seams st.i.tched. The only echo of civilization offered them here was their privilege to use the lab, and the fact that every couple of days they got showers. The Pojjana hadn't built a new jail. They'd just pushed the old one back up from the pit and nailed it together. A concrete floor now replaced the filed one Stiles had first seen when he'd been thrown in here. Generally speaking, though, the food stunk, the quarters were dank, the mattresses sagged, the floor was cold, and the light was bad. Otherwise, home sweet home.

"I wish I had a communicator," Stiles mentioned. "Just one, and I could broadcast this new information to the whole planet. Somebody'd listen." Shifting his weakened legs, he added, "I don't miss home very often, but at moments like this I do."

Zevon rubbed his chilly hands. "The silence from home is an old story now. The royal family must not know I'm here, or they would have come by now. They must think me dead. The Pojjana must not be communicating with the Romulan government, or word of my presence would filter out."

"The Pojjana aren't about to tell the empire you're here. You're their trump card. Why should they stir up trouble? And if it comes, they want you here as leverage."

Uneasy with this line of talk, Zevon grew irritable. "My people would come if they knew. We've discussed this enough before."

"Well, mine wouldn't" Stiles concluded. "Obviously. Because they sure as h.e.l.l know I'm here."

"The Federation declared the sector red, so they have to observe it or they can't expect anyone else to. It has nothing to do with you personally, Eric. Amba.s.sador Spock would've had you out of here if influence mattered."

"If they made it away from the planet alive. They could all be cosmic dust for all we know."

Zevon turned to him. "Eric, you must cling to better hopes. I've had to watch you deteriorate physically, it's taken its toll on us both, but I refuse to watch your hopes turn to dust. Spock expects you to behave like an officer and a gentlemen. I expect that also."

Stiles grinned. "Talk, talk." He gestured at the vibrations playing out on the data screen. "Look at that... here we sit with information that could save the billion, and we can't figure out how to get the word to anybody farther up than Orsova. He'll eat it, probably choke, then hit me."

"He is a victim of alien backlash. The Pojjana no longer know whom to trust. You and I are convenient representatives of all the trouble brought down upon these people by the Constrictor. If they knew it was I personally who had-"

Defying the numbness in his legs and shoulders, Stiles launched forward and grasped Zevon's ann. "Quiet! Shut up. Don't take chances."

Zevon's gaze fell. "I wish, now and then, just to tell them and be done with it. I deserve whatever they do."

"You keep your alien mouth shut. You want to risk these plush surroundings? If they 'knew, they might put us someplace ... oh... tacky."

Now Zevon looked up, and his expression tightened. "We have to risk a change, Eric. You can't stay here much longer. You can't stay on this planet, much less in this prison complex-"

He was interrupted by the sharp clack of the lab door lock. They both tensed visibly, though Stiles was too weak to do much more than uncross his legs. "Uh-oh-"

a.s.sistant Warden Orsova came in first, as he always did. He was a typical Pojjana northern-hemisphere male, built like a brick, a head shorter than Stiles or Zevon, but nearly as wide. His coppery complexion shimmered in the lab light. His eyes were black as the drawer k.n.o.bs around the lab. Following him was one of the guards of the lower ranks, with an infantry symbol emblazoned on his uniform front and the colors of an unfamiliar unit.

"h.e.l.lo, you men" Orsova slurred the words as he drawled his way through his own language.

He was drank. They recognized the signs. Orsova held his liquor well, but there was a certain lingering odor, and his behavior would change, submerged anger bubbling behind his eyes. On days like this, his frustrations and boredom fluttered to the surface, and he would eventually come to act on them.

The soldier, though, seemed perfectly sober. His dark eyes glowed with antic.i.p.ation, and his fists were clenched.

Orsova looked at Stiles and Zevon. "What are you doing today?"

Fighting his nerves, Stiles fiddled with the spectrometer, making sure not to do anything by mistake that could wipe out their newfound readings. "Just sitting here making up my mind that zebras are white with black stripes instead of the other way around." "Get up," Orsova ordered.

Suddenly icy, Zevon turned to the clutter of equipment on the lab table. "We have twenty more minutes."

"Not you, ears," Orsova corrected, and looked at Stiles. "Just him."

Stiles chuckled and shook his head. "Orsova, your timing smells to Tarkus. So does your breath, by the way" "Get up." "He can't get up," Zevon protested, but too quietly.

Orsova buried his wide hands in Stiles's collar and dragged him to his feet. Holding Stiles with one hand, he held the other hand out to the soldier. "Pay."

Grinding his teeth, the soldier dug into his thigh pouch and came up with several of the thin nonted chips the Pojjana used as a medium of exchange and piled them into Orsova's hand.

Without ceremony Orsova handed Stiles over to the soldier, who by now was fairly gasping with the thrill.

Zevon said nothing, did nothing as the soldier hauled Stiles to the middle of the floor, reeled back his muttonlike arm, and backhanded Stiles across the jaw. Lacking the strength to counter the sheer force, Stiles whirled into the far wall. As he slid down, a streak of blood smeared the dirty plaster.

As he landed on his knees, Stiles pressed the back of his hand to his cut lip and hoped the blood would clot. He didn't want to die of a slap. That'd be so stupid.

He turned and slipped farther down, but looked up as Orsova's barn-wide shoulders blocked the bare light from the ceiling. "Picked a weakling this One" he choked. "No loose teeth." "He'll try again;' Orsova said. "Sure. I can't feel much these days anyway."

Beyond the soldier's balled fists, Stiles could see Zevon seated at the lab table, both hands pressed to the edge of the table. As the soldier's fist plunged into Soles' gut and the familiar lights of agony flashed, Stiles let his mind go blank. That little trick was getting easier as the months and years drained away the defiance Zevon somehow still saw in him. He was glad he was on his knees already, for he could never have stayed on his feet and he didn't want to be seen falling again. His lungs cried for air. If Orsova's soldier hadn't been holding him by the collar again, he'd be on the deck, shriveled up like a jellyfish.

"You aren't afraid anymore," Orsova commented from over there.

Stiles blinked at him, still seeing only the flash and pop of pain's decorations. "Well, what's another pound to an elephant? So you hire me out again. So what? One of these days you ought to beat me up yourself instead of auctioning me off. Or can't you handle it?"

Furious, the soldier heaved his victim to his feet, then rammed his thick elbow into Stiles' ribs and flung him into the wall again. Stiles tried to go limp, but this particular soldier didn't fall for the trick. Some did, but this guy knew to drive the air out of his plaything's body before flinging him, a.s.suring that Stiles was tense as he struck the wall. Worked.

Shuddering, helpless, Stiles writhed like an unlicked cub on the cold cement. His own moans rattled from his throat, but he had no connection to them nor any control, and was blinded by the lights popping behind his eyes, so familiar he'd started to name them. He was up to Louise when they began finally to fizzle and he blinked back to the apparition of Orsova's left boot near his nose, as the big warden pulled the rabid soldier off and held him to one side.

"Let me finish him!" the soldier bellowed. "He's an alien! There's no other 'alien anywhere!" "No;' Orsova flatly refused. "Then let me kill the Romulan !" "No."

"You dumb drunken mule," Stiles straggled. "You're blowing achance to-save half the planet. We've found a way to-predict the Constriction Pound me all you want-but get a message to the-authorities. We've finally-done it!"

"Done it" Orsova echoed. "You know we're tired of keeping you. There's talk of just executing you."

"Fine," Stiles grunted. "Execute me. But bury me deep. I don't want to come heaving up when the big one hits."

Orsova's reddened eyes turned hard. "There hasn't been a Constrictor in two years. Maybe it won't come again. Why should we feed and keep aliens here, and give you a lab and let you work, after what you gave to us?" "It wasn't him," Zevon said without turning. "It was-"

"Shut up, Romulan," Stiles barked from the floor. "I don't need your-pointy help."

"And it will come again" Zevon persisted, looking now at Orsova. "Like seismic activity, it doesn't go away. It builds up to something worse. The two of us have used our time learning to read the s.p.a.ceborne graviton pulses-"

"You two aren't as much fun as you used to be." Orsova cast a furious glance at Zevon and added, "I know the game. Pretending."

Stiles wiped blood from his mouth with a shaking hand. "Not-pretending. We just don't-give a d.a.m.n anymore. You've had two-two years of good crops... that haven't been squooshed... two years of " "I paid you!" the soldier roared, shoving at Orsova's arm, Orsova held him back. "Less and less reason to let enemies work on our equipment," he said to Stiles. "We should put you on trial and execute you now. It isn't enough that we stop taking care of you when you're sick." Might as well talk to the wall.

"Take the message;' Stiles attempted one more time. "There's another Constrictor coming. The planet... can get ready. Save the billion " The effort of speaking coiled Stiles into a knot and apparently gave Orsova the idea that this was the best satisfaction he would get today. "I paid!" the soldier shouted.

"You paid to beat an alien," Orsova said, "not to kill one. Go out now. Go."

Orsova yanked the door open and shoved the soldier out, then left the lab and shut the door behind him.

That was the paradigm of their life Orsova sold opportunities to beat up the human alien, while he got his own jollies from watching the effects on the Romulan alien.

Zevon watched the frosted gla.s.s door, saw something that held him in his place-Stiles couldn't see the door from where he lay, but knew to simply lie gasping and wait. Ultimately a shuffle in the corridor spared him, and Zevon broke from the table and rushed to his side. "Curses," Stiles wheezed, "foiled again."

"Eric..." Zevon sorrowfully turned him enough to raise him to a nearly sitting position and held him there. Stiles could never have held himself, but would simply have slumped back into a supine position and probably suffocated on the deck. "Look at you .... "

"What a way to-live-aw, G.o.d-I hate that son of a b.i.t.c.h...."

"Orsova is a walking symptom. He lost his children in the last Constriction Now he tortures us to ease his bitterness. The soldiers he brings here... they're the same."

Zevon got to one knee, then hoisted Stiles up and deposited him on the only cot in the lab. The Romulan's face was creased with misery, overlaid by a firm mask of bottled rage. "Hey" Stiles gasped. "Your emotions are showing."

"I keep telling you-I am not Vulcan." Zevon angrily s.n.a.t.c.hed a beaker of purified water from a shelf, soaked a rag, and pressed the cool compress to Stiles' bleeding lip.

"We'll never convince him to let us talk to the chief warden or anybody;' Stiles murmured. "How can we convince them that this is their chance?"

"We're not that certain of our readings," Zevon reminded. "The prediction might be off by months. Stop moving." "I'm not moving... I'm writhing in agony." "Exercise some self-control." "But you're not a Vulcan."

Obviously troubled, Zevon frowned. "All we know is that another Constrictor, a very strong one, has been building for two years and will certainly strike. The phenomenon hasn't gone away at all." "But we know, Zevon, that's something. Help me-"

With Zevon's help, Stiles jerkily shifted onto his side as his aching ribs and stomach muscles cramped again. His eyes clutched shut as he bore through the spasm, feeling worse for Zevon than himself. Zevon could do nothing more than grasp him and wait until the torment worked its way out. Stiles paced himself, breathing chunkily, until he could finally count through ten long breaths and his face and hands stopped involuntarily flinching.

"Orsova and his kind" he began when he could speak again, "they think we're just stalling to avoid execution... we've got to convince them somehow. Or go over them to the consul general." "They will be convinced when the Constrictor comes."

"And we can laugh in their faces, if Orsova or some other anti-alienite doesn't find a way to kill us first."

Zevon sat down on the cot beside him and gazed at the dirty floor. "I can hardly blame them. A billion people dead... what would we do to anyone who caused that on our planets?"