It was a mistake.

Shaylar knew that the instant she touched Jasak. She bit down on a hiss of shock and stumbled heavily, as if someone had just hit her in the back of the head with a hammer. Jasak's self-control was so rigid that she'd seriously misjudged the actual depth of his anguish, and she'd pushed her Talent hard, prepared to strain for any detail she might have been able to pick up.

What she got was death. Massive amounts of violent death, coupled with a sense of desertion, a tidal wave of helpless guilt. The fact that Jasak had been relieved by the other officer, the one who'd wanted to hurt her and Jathmar, had already been obvious to both of them, but that wasn't enough to absolve Jasak of that terrible, crushing sense of guilt. Or, perhaps, of responsibility. It didn't matter what she called it; what mattered was the raw, bitter poison of its strength.

She felt herself falling-falling physically, as she stumbled, and falling psychically, as she toppled into the dreadful abyss of Jasak Olderhan's pain-and she gasped as Jasak's powerful arms caught her before she could tumble to the dock's splintery planking. It was all she could do to keep from crying out as he lifted her, as if she were a child, and his genuine concern for her cut through the churning vortex of his darker emotions.

Shaylar fought her way up and out of the darkness, frantically shutting down her own receptiveness, backing away from the contact she'd sought as a means to gather information. It took her two or three heartbeats to pull far enough back to regain her own sense of self, and even as she did, she sensed Jasak's consternation and worry over her reaction.

She managed to shake her head, smile up at him with a mixture of apology for her "clumsiness" and thanks for his quickness in catching her. And then Gadrial reached out, as well.

The other woman's gesture was oddly hesitant, almost halfhearted, unlike anything Shaylar had seen from her before. It was almost as if she were fighting a war with herself, making herself offer that token of assistance.

Warned by her experience with Jasak, and again by Gadrial's uncharacteristic hesitation, Shaylar braced herself for the contact shock before she reached out for the offered hand. Instead of opening herself wide, she buttressed herself, and even so, her nostrils flared and her face went white as her fingers closed on Gadrial's.

Jasak's pain had been terrible enough; Gadrial's was worse, and Halathyn's name burned so hotly through her chaotic, grief-torn emotions that Shaylar actually heard it. She'd never done that with a non-telepath before, and she had to bite down hard on an impulse to fling both arms around the other woman. Gadrial had done so much to comfort her, had somehow kept Jathmar alive long enough to reach this fort. Now her agony cried out to Shaylar, and the Sharonian woman felt a desperate need to repay some of that comfort. Yet she couldn't, not without risking the revelation of her Talent, and for now, that must remain secret. And so she managed not to, managed to simply take Gadrial's hand as the two of them made their way up the steep, swaying gangway together.

They reached the ship's deck, and Shaylar released Gadrial's hand. She stood beside the other, grieving woman, looking back across the wharf at the land they were leaving, and wrapped both arms around herself to hold in the shivers while she tried to make sense of what she'd just sensed.

Halathyn was dead.

She was utterly certain of that individual death, but there were others, too. So many others. That was clear from Jasak's churning emotions, not to mention the way she and Jathmar were being treated. Company-Captain Halifu must have attacked their base camp at the swamp portal, and it was obvious he'd blown it straight to hell when he did.

Which Shaylar found a terrifying thought. She and Jathmar were helpless, prisoners of war in a society that would undoubtedly see Sharonians as far more warlike than they really were after this second violent contact.

She didn't believe Jasak would retaliate against her and Jathmar, despite the fact that it was his men who had just become the latest casualties. She couldn't believe he would, not after the other things she'd already sensed out of him. But Jasak Olderhan was only one officer, and a relatively low ranking one, at that, unless she was seriously mistaken. Shaylar had been around enough military units since joining the field teams to develop a fairly good sense of the military pecking order, and Jasak clearly wasn't at the top of his. In fact, she suspected she was actually older than he was, given his apparent rank and assuming that his military worked at all like the PAAF and other Sharonian armies.

If events were escalating even remotely as quickly as she feared they were, it was unlikely that an officer of his junior rank would be able to protect them. Even if he was inclined to make the effort after his own men had suffered such brutal casualties.

The commandant of the fort-which looked strangely small from here, silhouetted against the endless miles of virgin swamp that stretched to the horizon-was obviously of much higher rank than Jasak, and considerably older, as well. He'd visited her and Jathmar in their quarters in his fort only once, and he hadn't spoken to them at all when he had. He'd simply looked at them for long, silent moments-studying first Jathmar, then Shaylar. Whatever he'd been looking for, it hadn't shown in his face. And whatever conclusions he'd drawn would remain a mystery, because he'd merely nodded to them once, then departed.

Shaylar would not-dared not-assume that other officers would show equal leniency. Especially not now. So she stood, holding in the shivers until Jathmar joined her on the deck. He wrapped a protective arm around her shoulders, and she turned toward him, wrapping both her own arms around him and holding on tight while the rest of the passengers passed them.

A half-dozen men who were obviously members of the ship's crew sorted out the new arrivals as they reached the deck. Like Jasak and the other soldiers, the sailors were uniformed, although their uniforms-composed of red jerseys for most of them, although one wore a red tunic with gold braid, over white trousers-were quite different from Jasak's. The one in the tunic was obviously a junior officer or petty officer of some sort. He and Jasak exchanged salutes, and the naval officer said something to one of his own men, then nodded towards Shaylar and Jathmar. The sailor started towards them, but Jasak said something, and the sailor stopped, looking back at his own officer. Again, the conversation was too quick for Shaylar's embryonic Andaran to follow, but it wasn't hard to guess what was being said.

Once again, Jasak was intervening on their behalf, asking the ship's officer to let them remain on deck at least a little longer before they were sent below to whatever quarters or confinement awaited them. After a moment, the other officer nodded in agreement and turned his attention back to more immediate duties.

The last few passengers trooped up the gangway, and the officer gave an order to one of the sailors. An instant later, the gangway began to rise. The sailors didn't haul it up. They didn't use a winch or a crane to lift it. It simply rose, detaching itself smoothly from both the side of the ship and the wharf below, turning until it was parallel with the centerline of the ship, and then rising still higher. It lifted until it was a good ten feet higher than even Jasak's head, and then nestled itself neatly into what were obviously waiting mounting brackets on the side of the ship's superstructure, one deck level above them.

Shaylar stared at it in disbelief as it drifted across above them, and she heard Jathmar's gasp of surprise when its shadow fell over them.

"How in all the Uromathian hells did they do that?" he demanded as a pair of sailors made the gangway fast in its new position. Shaylar was as startled as he was, but her memory flashed to that ghastly moment in the toppled timber when they'd first lifted Jathmar's stretcher.

"It's more of that levitation of theirs," she said wonderingly. "Remember your stretcher, or the ones they used for their own wounded?"

"Those little glassy cubes you were talking about?" Jathmar looked at her for a moment, then twitched his shoulders in a half-shrug. "I suppose if you can levitate stretchers, there's no reason you couldn't levitate gangplanks, as well, at that," he admitted. Then he snorted with a grimace. "Probably explains why they don't have any cargo derricks on this ship of theirs, for that matter. Why bother with cranes when you can just stick a little glass bead on your cargo pallets and fly them to where you want them?"

He shook his head wonderingly, then turned away as Jasak called his name quietly.

"Go to quarters now," Jasak said.

The quarters to which they were led were a pleasant surprise . . . and a far cry from the damp, dark, undoubtedly rat-infested cell Shaylar's imagination had pictured.

The cabin to which she and Jathmar were assigned lay one deck up in the superstructure, above the ship's weapons ports, on the outboard side and directly between Jasak's assigned quarters and Gadrial's. The older man with the iron-gray hair was given quarters on the other side of Jasak's, and the man in chains disappeared somewhere below-probably to the cell she and Jathmar weren't in after all.

It was a small cabin, but that was true of every shipboard cabin Shaylar had ever used. It might be even a bit smaller than what they might have received aboard one of TTE's Voyagers, but if she was right, and this was a warship, that was probably inevitable. At any rate, she'd always assumed accommodations would be more cramped aboard a man-of-war than aboard a civilian-crewed vessel.

It was also heartlessly utilitarian, but that didn't matter. It was clean, reasonably comfortable, with white-painted bulkheads and neat built-in storage compartments under its pair of bunks, and it had a porthole. It wasn't large enough to wiggle through, even for Shaylar, but it allowed them a view of the sea and-more important-it let in daylight, which was even more welcome for its contrast with the windowless cell she'd feared.

At night, they would even be able to see the moon.

She held back a sigh as she settled herself on the nearer bunk. It wasn't the softest bed she'd ever sat on, but it was softer than a sleeping bag on the ground. Then she looked up again at the sound of a cleared throat.

"Stay," Jasak said from the open doorway. "I come soon."

Shaylar nodded, knowing what came next. Then their door closed, but not before she'd caught a glimpse of the armed guard who'd taken up his station outside. A lock clicked, and Jathmar crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the door.

"We're in a room on a ship that will shortly be in the middle of the ocean," he growled. "That's a remarkably solid looking door, and it's locked tight. And that window isn't big enough for you to crawl through, let alone me! Why the hells do they bother with a guard?"

Shaylar felt the worry, fear, and frustration beating like a ragged headache under his sour mood. She went to him, brushed her lips against his, circled his chest with her arms, and rested her head against his heart.

"We must have hurt them badly," she murmured.

"I hope so!" he snarled.

"Shhh." She leaned far enough back to gaze up into his wounded eyes. "What's done is done. We have to live with the consequences. That means we'd better figure out what we're going to say when they ask how we got a message out. I'm learning their language, Jathmar, and even though it's maddeningly slow without another telepath to help, it won't be long before I know enough for them to ask that question-and expect an answer."

Muscles bunched along his jaw, but he didn't speak.

"Jathmar," she said gently, "you have to let go of at least some of the hatred and put your energy into figuring out ways to keep them guessing without making them suspicious enough to treat us worse than they have so far."

She thought for a moment that he would flare up at her, but he didn't. Instead, he bit back the surge of anger beating through him.

"They have treated us . . . decently," he muttered grudgingly, reluctantly. "All things considered."

"Yes," she murmured, "they have."

"But I can't stop hating, Shaylar. They've smashed everything we had, everything we ever wanted. Killed our friends, nearly killed us . . ."

He sucked down a deep breath, fighting to bring himself under control, but it was hard. Hard.

"I don't even dare try to love you," he whispered finally, miserably. "We don't even control the lock on our own door, can't know when someone's going to open it, drag us out of here! And what if you got pregnant?" He shook his head, teeth gritted. "Before, it would've meant dropping out of the survey crews, and that would have been bad enough. But now, what would they do with-or to-our child if they thought it would make us tell them things they want to know?"

He squeezed his eyes shut, tightened his grip on her, and buried his face in her hair. His aching need for her burned hot as lava through the bond, shot through with ripples and tremors of anger, fear, and despair, and she had absolutely no answer for him. She could only hold him, blinded by tears. They stood in the center of their comfortable little prison, and just held on while the awareness of their total helplessness and vulnerability burned through them.

Shaylar never knew exactly how long they stood there. Without their confiscated watches, it was difficult to gauge the passage of time, and so she didn't even try. She simply leaned against Jathmar, her cheek nestled against his chest and the strong steady beat of his heart, while she listened to the dim sounds beyond the locked door and the even more distant sounds drifting through the opened porthole.

Then the ship began to move, and once again she was reminded of the yawning gap between any previous experience and their present reality. There was no deep rumble of machinery, no throbbing vibration from engines. There wasn't even the flap of canvas, or the creak of masts and cordage. In fact, there was nothing at all except steady movement as the ship backed silently away from the wharf.

It halted once more, and she looked out the porthole as it rotated smoothly in place, swinging its bow away from the land. The motion swung the fort back into the porthole's field of view, giving her a last glimpse of the land, and tears stung Shaylar's eyes again. She gave Jathmar another squeeze, then wiped her eyes impatiently and moved to the window to look back at the vast sweep of marsh that ran along the coastline.

The ship began to move again, forward this time, still silently. Its speed built steadily, quickly, and there was sound at last-the ripple and wash of water and the creaking sound of wooden timbers flexing as they moved, but still not so much as a whisper to betray whatever power sent it slicing through the waves.

The fort where they had stayed for such a short time grew smaller by the minute as the ship accelerated quickly and smoothly. They were already moving faster than any of Trans-Temporal Express's freighters. It was hard for Shaylar to estimate, but they had to be moving at least as quickly as any of the great high-speed passenger ships, maybe even as fast as the new turbine-engined warships she'd heard about. Yet still there was that eerie lack of vibration, that silence. No funnel smoke, no noise, just this smooth, effortless sense of speed.

She pressed a hand to her lips, staring back through the porthole. That vast marsh and that tiny log fort looked inexpressibly lonely, kissed by the rising sun and populated only by great clouds of water birds and a tiny handful of people. Or perhaps it was only she who felt such unbearable loneliness.

Then Jathmar's arms tightened about her from behind.

"I'm here, love," he murmured. "Whatever else, I'm here."

She pulled his arms more tightly around herself and held onto them silently, her throat too constricted to speak. At the moment it was hard-so very hard-to remember that they'd come out here to see new sights, new places. Things no other Sharonian had ever seen, or even imagined. Tomorrow, perhaps, she would be able to remember that, but not just yet.

For the moment, she could only grieve . . . and hold tight to those loving arms which were all she had left in any universe.

Chapter Twenty-Eight.

Balkar chan Tesh looked up as someone tapped lightly on the small gong hanging from the peak of his tent. He recognized the towering, youthful Marine officer instantly, although they'd never met. The youngster looked exhausted, as well he might after what had to have been an even longer forced march than chan Tesh's own, but he was also the spitting image of his father. Even if he hadn't been, the blue-gray peregrine falcon on the far-from-regulation leather pad covering the left shoulder of his uniform tunic would have been a powerful clue. The bird was huge even for a peregrine-easily over twenty inches long, with a wingspan which must have been well over four feet-and it was neither hooded nor jessed, which was . . . unusual, to say the very least. Its powerful talons gripped the shoulder pad securely, but it was obvious they were also delicately aware of-and restraining-their own strength. Its dark eyes were bright and alert, and they focused on the company-captain with unnerving intensity.

It was, chan Tesh thought, quite possibly the most magnificent predator he'd ever seen, and well it should be, given the millennia-long breeding program which had produced it.

"Yes, Platoon-Captain?" he said, giving absolutely no indication that he'd recognized the newcomer.

"Platoon-Captain chan Calirath," the Marine introduced himself. "Company-Captain Halifu told me to report to you as soon as I arrived."

"I see." Chan Tesh laid down his pen and leaned back in his folding canvas chair. "In that case, I suppose you'd better come in . . . assuming you'll fit," he added with a small, wry smile.

"Thank you, Sir," the Marine said politely, and chan Tesh gave a small mental nod of approval.

Platoon-Captain His Highness Crown Prince Janaki chan Calirath, heir to the Winged Crown, stood at least eight inches over six feet, with his dynasty's powerful shoulders, but imposing size wasn't enough to explain the sense of presence he projected. Chan Tesh had been curious about how the crown prince would introduce himself, and he was pleased by the way Janaki had actually done it. Of course, in an odd sort of way, that simple "Platoon-Captain chan Calirath" had only emphasized that the young man introducing himself was actually the future ruler of the oldest, most powerful empire in human history.

Well, in our branch of humanity's history, anyway, chan Tesh reminded himself.

"Wait for me, dear heart," Janaki murmured to the falcon, and shooed her gently off his shoulder. She launched with a soft cry, and chan Tesh watched her disappear into the overhead foliage. The crown prince watched her go with a smile, then maneuvered himself into the tent cautiously but smoothly. It was apparent that he'd had plenty of experience moving his substantial bulk in and out of the tents the PAAF provided for field use. He seated himself rather gingerly in the folding chair chan Tesh indicated, and the chair creaked alarmingly under his weight. Fortunately, it held.

"I hope you won't take this wrongly, Platoon-Captain," chan Tesh said, "but I could wish you hadn't turned up for duty here at this precise moment."

"Sir-" Janaki began, but chan Tesh's raised hand stopped him.

"Platoon-Captain," he said, "I'm Ternathian. I know the tradition of your family, and I honor it. But there's no point in our pretending you're just one more platoon-captain. I don't wish to belabor the point, but you must be aware that who you are-and, even more importantly, who you someday will be-is going to play a part in the thinking of any of your commanding officers."

"Yes, Sir, I know." Janaki didn't quite sigh, but he came so close that chan Tesh was hard put not to smile.

"And you wish it didn't," the company-captain said, instead, as sympathetically as possible. "As it happens, however, in this particular instance I think I'm in a position to kill two birds with one stone. To be devastatingly blunt, Your Highness," he used the imperial title deliberately, "any sane CO would order you to the rear the instant he saw your face. Especially when the situation is as riddled with uncertainties and complete unknowns as this one is. In this case, though, the duty I have in mind for you could have been tailormade for someone with your experience."

"Sir?"

"We've got prisoners, Platoon-Captain," chan Tesh said much more grimly. "Several of them were pretty badly wounded in the fighting. Our Healers have done what they can for them, of course, and they're all at least stabilized now, but we need to get them transferred to the rear and better medical facilities. Even if that weren't the case, we'd need to get all of them-wounded and unwounded alike-moved to the rear for proper interrogation as quickly as possible. The only officer we took alive appears to have been their commander-he's one of the wounded I mentioned, and it doesn't look like he'll ever walk again-but we've captured several men who seem to have been senior noncoms. They're our best, and only, source of information, and we need to get them into the hands of someone who can at least start figuring out how to talk to them. Not to mention the fact that we need to move them farther back as a security measure against escapes or rescue attempts."

He paused, and Janaki nodded very slightly.

"I can't spare very many men as prisoner escort," chan Tesh continued. "I'm thinking that using your platoon for the job would make the smallest hole by avoiding pulling somebody out of my established units for the job. In addition, you're not exactly a typical platoon-captain. You've grown up in the palace. I'm quite sure you have a better ear than most junior officers for possibly significant political and military details.

"What I'd like to do is to send at least some of them all the way back to Sharona, and I'd prefer to keep the same officer in command of the escort detail the entire way. Some of these people appear badly shocked and demoralized by what's happened to them; most of them, though, are obviously prepared to resist divulging any important information. I suspect that spending two or three months with them could help engender a sense of familiarity which might get inside that defensive mindset of theirs. It certainly couldn't hurt. And if that does happen, I want the best attuned ears available to pick up anything they might drop.

"And, to be frank, I'd like the officer in command of the escort detail to have a certain stature-official or unofficial-to help discourage any of the intervening COs from poaching prisoners on the grounds that they ought to be interrogated closer to the front. In short, I think you'd make an excellent first filter for the analysts . . . and that you may have enough clout, despite your relatively junior rank, to actually get them all the way back to those analysts."

"With all due respect, Sir, mightn't there be some point to keeping them closer to the front, where whatever we learn can be gotten to the sharp end quickly?"

"Of course there is," chan Tesh agreed. "And I expect the bulk of the prisoners will be. At the moment, I'm assuming Regiment-Captain Velvelig will hold the majority of them-and probably all the more seriously wounded-at Fort Raylthar. That's far enough towards the rear to satisfy most security concerns, and big enough to have a capable Healer Corps detachment. But it's going to be equally important to get at least some of these people clear back to Sharona where the government and the staff's intelligence experts can gain a firsthand impression of them. Your job is going to be to expedite their delivery to Tajvana."

"Yes, Sir."

"In addition," chan Tesh said quietly, "there's the political situation back home to consider, as well. I have no idea how that's going to sort itself out, but I do know that some sort of unified military and political policy is going to be necessary. I don't think the Authority can handle that job as it's presently constituted, which means the politicians are going to have to come up with some new mechanism. I can't imagine that your family isn't going to be deeply involved in that process, and having you there couldn't hurt. Especially if you've just returned from the front, escorting the first prisoners we've taken."

The Marine looked back at chan Tesh without any expression at all for several seconds. The company-captain simply sat there, waiting. He very much doubted that anything he'd just said hadn't already occurred to the crown prince. As far as chan Tesh knew, there weren't any stupid Caliraths, and only an idiot could fail to recognize the sort of political catfight this situation was going to make inevitable back home. Nor could Janaki possibly be unaware of the role his family-and he himself-was going to have to play in that fight.

"Very well, Sir. I understand," the crown prince said, after a moment. He did not say that he approved, chan Tesh observed, but the company-captain was prepared to settle for that.

"In addition to all the rest of those considerations," he said, "there's one other job I'd like you to undertake for me."

"Sir?"

"Darcel Kinlafia-Voice Kinlafia-is the only survivor of the Chalgyn Consortium team." Chan Tesh's expression was grim. "Frankly, I'm . . . worried about him."

"May I ask why, Sir?"

"He was there, Platoon-Captain. He was linked with Shaylar throughout the entire battle. He Saw his friends being butchered all around him, and he couldn't do a single godsdamned thing about it. He blames himself for that. I think he may actually hate himself for it. It's . . . poisoning him, and he's a Voice. I'm sure it's inadvertent, but anyone with a hint of telepathy is picking up his leakage, and it's affecting our people. I don't need anything which might push our men towards atrocities in the name of vengeance if it comes to more fighting. Almost equally important, I think we need to get him away from here for his own good, as well. He needs a little space, a little time, if he's going to heal, and he's too close to where it all happened here."

"I see, Sir." Janaki nodded again. His sea-colored eyes held a small but unmistakable flicker of approval, but he also cocked his head to one side. "At the same time, Sir, can you afford to send him back? I understand that he's a Portal Hound, as well as a Voice."

"Yes, he is," chan Tesh agreed, impressed by how quickly the crown prince had picked up that particular bit of information. "But he's already been able to give us the bearing of the nearest portal-apparently the only other portal-in this universe. We know it's somewhere to the northeast, probably in Esferia or New Ternath. Of course, we don't know how far away it is, or whether or not they've got bases closer than that. And we sure as hell don't have any idea how they managed to get their people in and out of this godsforsaken swamp! But we know where to start looking for their portal if it comes to that, and that's about the best we could hope for from any Portal Hound. Frankly, we don't need any of the services he could still offer us, and we do need to get him out of here."

"And away from all of the memories," Janaki said slowly. "Somewhere he can start healing inside."

"Exactly," chan Tesh replied. "I'm not thinking just about Darcel, though. He was linked with Shaylar. I'm pretty certain there are more details still locked up in his memory than he's aware of, but he's . . . not very supportive of efforts to dig them out. I don't blame him for that. It must be pure hell to go back in there and relive it over and over again, especially for someone with a Voice's perfect recall. But I need someone who can convince him to do just that-someone who can wring every detail out of his experience.

"The information itself might be of enormous military value, but, to be perfectly honest, it may not be particularly significant, either. Not from the perspective of future operations, that is. But I've discussed it with Petty-Captain Yar, my senior Healer. He thinks it's important for Darcel to get it out, deal with it. Frankly, I suspect that he's a lot more likely to open up if someone like you presses him on it than he is if I do. And if you can convince him of the importance of his reporting his impressions firsthand back in Tajvana, we may actually manage to get him away from the front before I have to place him under arrest to protect any additional prisoners from him."