Ryan's Journey

Part One: Honor is My Life

Prologue

"What's a good vacation worth these days? That's what I'd like to know.

I've been from one end of this galaxy to the other and I'm more convinced than ever that there's nothing in it worth as much as a proper, honest-to-God vacation. I'd take everything I've ever earned in my entire life - money, friendships, a job as an interstellar Ambassador, and more adventure than a person could ever stand - and trade it all in for six solid weeks on a tropical island somewhere with the three 'S'-es: Sun, sand, and surf.

Alright, four weeks ... maybe. Sometimes I wonder if it's in the cards for any one of us to get a good vacation. Even a solid weekend is hard enough to come by. Okay, okay ... even if I could manage to trade in the adventure, I'd probably only get about a month for it all put together.

Of course, I'll bet that if I was given a weekend - a genuine, 48-hour, honest-to-God weekend - I could make it a good one. I'd get out in the open air ... maybe go for a little jog or two. Maybe if I didn't trade in the friendship I'd have somebody to spend it with. I could probably get in some football with Gorkath and his two brothers. Listen to some music with Yalara ... if the weekend was the right one, maybe I could even arm-wrestle Vorthrak. Sarah. God ... if she was still with me, I'd probably spend the second day just with her. If not her, then certainly Myavaar. I'd spend the evenings by the fire with either of them. I'd sure as hell trade in the money, job, and adventure all in one shot for some time with them.

Alright ... I'll admit it. If not to myself, then at least to my own God-forsaken journals. If it was the adventure that brought us all together and the friendships that made the adventures worthwhile, would it really mean anything if I were to give them all up for a day in the sun?

Come to think of it, aren't good friends and a little adventure all that a vacation really needs?"

• The Journal of Ryan Albertson, 2543

Chapter 1

"Hi, this is Andrew. I'm not at home right now, so if you'd like to leave a detailed video message, I'll be sure to get back to you as soon as possible." The computer gave a short 'beep,' after which its video interface blanked out and was replaced by a prominent message stating "Unexpected Error" over and over again.

Ryan Albertson cursed silently, stabbed at the "Retry" button a few times before finally giving up and hitting the "Fail" button. "Andrew," he said, in a voice that was altogether fed up with technical malfunctions for the time being, "it's Ryan again. My video interface is still acting up, so I doubt you'll get a video feed this time either."

"It's ..." Ryan drew out the last word while stealing a glance at his wrist chronometer, "two-one-three-eight GST where I'm at." He shrugged, purely for his own benefit. "Wherever that is. I'm running late on this latest trip, so it'll probably be at least two days before I'm back in your neck of the woods. Make sure you drop by my place and feed the cat, all right? The little beggar's probably half-starved to death by now. If you get a chance, tell Mom I'll bring her back something nice from Phi Delta."

He hit the "Send" button on the computer console before closing the communications software and bringing up the navigation package. Worthless, he thought. I spend more than fifty thousand credits on a new ship and it doesn't even have a working video interface. He made a mental note to send a complaint to the customer service people at the dealership. Of course, he thought, I can't even properly complain to them if they can't see how pissed off I am.

He pulled the keyboard from its drawer under the computer console and hit a few keys, directing the ship to follow an automatic course to Epsilon Kappa 5, his intended destination. Three hours with nothing to do, he thought. At least I don't have to touch the control column much.

He let the ship do its own thing ... he could count on one hand the number of times that the autonavigation system in a ship that belonged to him had done something untoward and caused him to go off into the void. Even if the ship did choose the wrong course and start moving toward nowhere, there were numerous safeguards to ensure that he'd never get any more than a day's travel from civilization. I'd need two hands to count those, Ryan thought. Redundancy at its best.

He brought up the communications package again and selected the news service. The video interface, still as recalcitrant as ever, refused to give him any image on the screen, although the audio stream was as clear as a bell.

"... however, they declined to be interviewed by this network," the computer began.

I wish I had a credit for every time I heard that, Ryan thought. But then again, even I don't like talking to the media.

"In other news this hour, another incidence of possible space piracy has been reported near the Epsilon Delta space station," the computer continued. "Sources have revealed that at least two spacecraft involved in a recreational cruise have failed to return on-schedule and could not be found by military forces anywhere along their declared route of travel."

Ryan flicked an involuntary glance at the gun locker near the rear door of the cabin. Two seconds to jump over there, he thought, three for the cabinet to unlock itself, one to grab the pistol, two for the pistol to arm itself, and two to blow the head off anyone who's fool enough to set foot on this ship without my say-so. He smirked. Even a pirate shouldn't be able to disable my ship and board it in less than ten seconds.

He leaned back in the pilot's chair and tried to relax a little as the ship guided itself through the void toward its destination. The chair was just fractionally more comfortable than what had been in his old ship, but it was that fraction that let him slip quietly into a sleep that lasted a few hours.

A quiet yet persistent tone from the navigation program roused him from his slumber and caused him to hit a few buttons on the console in front of him. According to the computer, which he had never known to lie about such things, the planet Epsilon Kappa 5 lay on a direct course in front of the ship and that he would need to take action within the next two minutes to avoid entering the atmosphere at an altogether unhealthily steep angle.

He brought up the communications program and directed a message toward the planet's surface. "Epsilon Kappa 5 ground control, this is Ryan Albertson, identification code 106-ADK-228, aboard the R-7 cargo carrier Silver Hammer, requesting approach vector to spaceport, over."

The intercom was silent for a moment, and then picked up a reply from the surface. "Silver Hammer, this is Control; we are receiving you loud and clear. Approach vector to spaceport is three-four-two mark four-eight. Please acknowledge our last, over?"

"Control, this is Silver Hammer," Ryan replied, "copy approach vector three-four-two mark four-eight." He made the necessary adjustments to the ship's course and then keyed the communicator again. "Request re-entry computer interface, over."

"Control; request granted. Computer interface in three ... two ... one ... mark!"

Ryan hit the appropriate button on the console to initiate the linkup. After a few seconds, a reassuring green light lit up on the navigation panel and he felt the ship roll slightly to port as the ground computer took effective control of the ship.

"Silver Hammer," Ryan said, "Computer interface established. Estimated time to planetfall is ..." He consulted the ship's navigation software. "Three-zero minutes."

"Control," the intercom replied, "we copy your ETA at three-zero minutes, over?"

"Silver Hammer," Ryan said, "thanks for the assist. Nothing further at this time. Out."

Ryan relaxed again as the ship continued its descent into the atmosphere until he could make out the mottled blue-green surface that was indicative of Epsilon Kappa 5. The planet had been extensively terraformed in order to make it habitable by humans, and Ryan tended to think that the authorities had done a remarkable job in that respect. On the planet, you could breathe the air without being poisoned and usually even have some of the local food and drink without feeling sick.

It wasn't Earth, however, and for anyone who might have guessed otherwise there were usually enough reminders of this fact. For example, the gravity was 1.2 Gee (so you felt unusually tired after spending a day planetside), the atmosphere bore down on the surface at 1.2 atm (so breathing and listening were slightly different experiences) and the air was only 11% oxygen (so you felt unsually winded after spending two minutes planetside). In short, it was Earth-like but not nearly as terrestrial as Terra. Perhaps for that reason, Epsilon Kappa 5 boasted a permanent human population of only 500,000 or so. It had no major industries aside from natural resource exploitation and no major commercial ventures aside from the ships that came and went -- some bringing, and some taking.

Ryan had always felt that the planet had a kind of mood about it, and he could feel it especially well as his ship touched down gently and he felt, almost all at once, the pull of its heavier gravity. The sense that this planet -- acting like a second-place competitor for Earth itself as it seemed to do, being little more than a rest stop for traders and a source of convenience for raw materials, and hosting multitudes with the same dog-tired, winded expression on their faces -- was tired, worn-out and depressing.

Ryan figured that if he decided to spend more than a few hours on the surface he'd begin to feel the same way. The sooner I get myself another short term contract, he thought, the sooner I can get off this rock and start heading back for home. He noted that the huge dome-shaped superstructure of the spaceport's main building was almost overpoweringly tall at this distance, meaning that he was probably close enough to disembark and walk the few dozen metres to the nearest entrance.

He unfastened his safety harness, reached into his pocket briefly to ensure that his credentials and licensing papers were where they usually were, and stepped over to the ship's airlock. He keyed in the appropriate number to deactivate the security feature, and stepped inside, bracing himself for a few seconds before the airlock began equalizing its pressure with the outside environment. With a slight hiss, the ship's main hatch opened, and Ryan found himself standing for the n-th time under an alien sun and just a footstep away from standing on an alien world. It's times like this, Ryan thought, that I realize why they say space couriering is like prostitution. If something extraordinary and breathtaking is done often enough, and most especially done for a living, it loses some of its savor.

The sun was yellow and approximately the same size as Sol, although since Epsilon Kappa 5 was somewhat further out from its primary than 1 A.U., the star appeared a little smaller and consequently a little less bright. Almost as if to confirm this, a slight breeze of cool air gave Ryan a chill sensation which hurried his steps from the landing pad, past the innumerable rows of shuttles, transports, freighters, and assorted aircraft, and into the nearest spaceport door.

As the door shut behind him, a scene by this time familiar to Ryan's eyes gave him some cause for reassurance. Some ten thousand or more people, milling in an assorted crowd at the bottom of a large dish-shaped auditorium, were shouting and gesturing wildly as the numbers on a huge display screen fluctuated. He had no interest in the dealings of those who made their living on the rise and fall of commodities, the profitability of businesses, or the safety of trade routes. While, in the strictest sense, he was one of those people, his interests were slightly narrower in that he worked on contract. Technically, so long as he could find someone who needed goods moved from A to B and was willing to sign a contractual obligation giving him cash on delivery, his livelihood was assured. Let someone else worry about the markets, he thought. My business is moving cargo.

Elevated above the entrepreneurs, risk-takers, and traders was an outer ring of hundresds of small booths, each with a single computer terminal and perhaps one attendant person for every dozen terminals. The attendants, looking even more bored than would be usual for any number of humans on Epsilon Kappa 5, were waiting for any sign of user intervention which might be required by the terminals. Many of the terminals were already in use, but Ryan saw a vacant seat only a few dozen metres away and took his chance to get the day's business started.

Sitting in the chair prompted the terminal's screen to light up, revealing a simple message which was simultaneously repeated via audio: "For service in English, please -"

"English," said Ryan, pre-empting the machine's attempt to determine if he was something other than an Anglophone.

"Please look directly into -"

Ryan stabbed his right thumb at a small, glossy rectangle beneath the screen, which promptly glowed at his touch and pre-empted the computer's attempts to otherwise determine his identity. The terminal made something which passed for an affirmatory sound, and the rectangle receded inside the machine.

"Please give confirmatory question for voiceprint and identity verification."

Ryan cleared his throat and carefully enunciated, "Mother's maiden name, Hume, H-U-M-E."

"Identity confirmed -- Albertson, Ryan Gwill-Owm"

I suppose I should be thankful the computer can even speak standard English well, Ryan thought, much less foreign words or names like Guillaume.

"Please enter your contract number."

Ryan typed in a few numbers on the terminal's keyboard -- space courier contracts were monitored and regulated by the government, and as such he was certain that the government had a copy of the contract in its records. The benefit of such a system, among others, was that he could claim part ownership of a single contract number and nobody could claim that it was invalid or taken by someone else. Another of those things that Ryan didn't mind the government having a hand in.

"Please enter your landing pad number."

"Six-two-five-eight." Ryan said, opting to keep his hands off the keyboard.

"Please answer 'yes' or 'no' to the following question." Ryan didn't bother to interrupt the terminal this time because he knew, from experience, that it would just stop and start over on this particular question if it felt it wasn't completely understood. "Pursuant to the terms of contract 0727394732925, do you legally certify that the cargo container occupying landing pad 6258, located at the Epsilon Kappa Five spaceport, contains all of the contents listed in Paragraph C, and solely those contents?"

"Yes." Ryan replied. He knew that with the level of automation present at the Epsilon Kappa 5 spaceport, the computer system would now automatically open an aperture beneath his landing pad, attach a small probe to the underside of his ship, use his own access credentials to unlock his ship, and neatly take ownership of his cargo pod. As soon as he left the planet, the landing pad would serve as a dedicated storage site, accessible only to his client. He waited while the computer validated the contract and his agreement.

"Contract terms confirmed. Subject to the verification of your previous legal statement, your terms under this contract have been fulfilled. Do you wish to search the database for open contracts at this time?"

Ryan pondered for a moment. Do I have time to make a detour on my way back toward Earth?, he thought. It certainly couldn't hurt to look. "Yes," he replied.

"State contract criteria," the terminal prompted.

"All open contracts," Ryan indicated, "Start date today. End date tomorrow. Source: Epsilon Kappa 5. Destination: Earth. Deviation factor 1.5" He figured that he could stand to have a contract of up to 50% longer duration or longer distance than ideal -- he'd still get home sometime late tomorrow evening at worst.

"Searching ..." the terminal replied. There was a pause of as much as five or six seconds before the computer replied, "Three matches found. Three matches currently being bid on by other competitors. You must input additional information before competing for these contracts. Please state your identification number."

"One-zero-six," Ryan said, "A-D-K-two-two-eight."

"Checking ..." the terminal replied. This time, there was a pause of thirty seconds, which Ryan found quite odd, before the terminal intoned, "Please wait for assistance."

An attendant, this one a middle-aged man wearing a rather plain technician's uniform, approached the terminal Ryan was sitting at, smiled in a friendly way, and began to examine the terminal from the reverse side. "Mr ... Albertson, is it?", the attendant inquired.

"Yes," Ryan replied.

"You were inquiring after a series of open contracts?"

"Yes."

"Ahh. Here's the problem. The computer couldn't make sense of your qualifications, so it stopped processing your request."

"Yeah," Ryan agreed. "I get that a lot."

"Well," replied the attendant, "let's confirm the information listed here." He typed at the keys of an unseen keyboard on his side of the terminal. "You have a class two spacecraft pilot's license?"

"Yes," Ryan replied.

"In good standing for the past five years or more?"

"Yes," Ryan repeated.

"Your spacecraft insurance policy number?"

"'Same as my identification number."

"Thank you," the attendant replied. "Let's see here ... two accidents in the past five years? That's quite low."

"Yeah," Ryan agreed, "and they were all involving my craft and some floating chunk of rock."

"Just as well," the attendant said. "Your employment history file number?"

"'Same number again." Ryan replied. "It's an efficient system."

"Just so long as it's secure," the attendant cautioned. "Ahh. Here's the real problem. Your reliability score is 98%, your contractual default score is 0% -- all very good numbers. But your time-averaged score for distance and value is ... well, it's unusually high. It's at 506."

Ryan sighed. "Yeah, I had this same thing happen to me last time," he indicated. "I know the software is supposed to scan for data suggesting money laundering or smuggling activities. Couriers who take standard contracts never have scores much above two hundred per year. I just look for clients who need valuable items delivered over long distances and ... well, I negotiate with them. That and I end up traveling for days at a time."

"Oh," the attendant said, looking a little embarrassed, "that would explain it. But you're right -- the software needs a manual override on scores above three hundred." He typed at a few keys again. "There we go ... and it looks as though you may have the qualifications to win one of the contracts outright. Was there anything else you might need help with?"

"No," Ryan replied. "That's perfectly fine. Thanks for your help."

"You're welcome," the attendant replied, retreating back to a group of his colleagues.

Ryan turned his attention back to the terminal screen, intent on examining the contract in question. If his credentials were high enough to give him the first pick of contracts, he'd manage to keep a relatively high rating even with his clients calling most of the shots. Smith & Co. Manufacturing Ltd., Ryan perused. Epsilon Kappa 5 to Epsilon Zeta 2. Depart at 0300h GST, arrive by 2200h GST. Cargo manifest attached (mostly manufactured goods). Reimbursement for fuel and spacecraft wear plus 1000 credits. In the scheme of things, it wasn't a bad contract at all, and it was coming from a company of good reputation. Unlike the standard contract type, which was for a flat rate, he could expect to be reimbursed for his costs no matter how he chose to transport the goods. He tapped the "Accept" button on the screen.

"Please answer 'yes' or 'no' to the following question." the terminal recited. "Pursuant to the terms of contract 0727394733895, do you legally certify that you will assume full responsibility for transporting the cargo described in Paragraph C in the container occupying landing pad 7821, located at the Epsilon Kappa Five spaceport, to the destination and before the time both described in Paragraph D?"

Ryan took a deep breath. It was at times like this whether he wondered if he was getting himself into deep trouble. "Yes." he replied.

* * *

After a brief foray into the spaceport shops for some food and other essentials, and a hop around the spaceport to retrieve the cargo for his next contract, Ryan had guided his spacecraft back out of the atmosphere and into the depths of outer space. When he was sufficiently far from the surface of Epsilon Kappa 5, he had briefly contacted Ground Control again in order to gain clearance to leave, and had then eased his ship onto one of the marked transit lanes between Epsilon Kappa sector and Epsilon Iota.

He brought up the computer's communications package and tried to locate a nearby beacon. As it happened, his ship was just passing one which was awaiting repair, but there was another one within a few thousand kilometres which was active. Ryan loaded his ship's log into the transmision buffer and began to add in his latest entry. "Ship's log entry, R-7 cargo carrier Silver Hammer, Year 2506, Date 121, 0405 hours. I am proceeding with cargo to Epsilon Zeta 2 station. Preparing to activate hyperdrive. Estimated time to Epsilon Kappa/Epsilon Iota boundary is one hour, twenty minutes. Will re-establish contact then. End entry and save." He then hit the "Send" button on the console, informing the general communications network of his progress and intentions. If anything were to happen to him -- disabled engines, faulty navigation, or even an exploded ship -- at least rescue personnel would know where to start looking for him.

"Computer," he said, "Begin tracking of reference point Epsilon Kappa three-five-four." He simultaneously brought the ship's throttle to the full stop position.

"Tracking ... " the computer replied. "Reference point locked."

He hurriedly typed in navigation data to the ship's computer and applied initial power to the field generator. He was rewarded by a low hum coming from the engine compartment and also in that his ship didn't suddenly start to move on its own. The stars in the far, far distance, although steady and unmoving, seemed to become slightly dimmer.

"Computer," he said, "adjust field strength to full, and increase velocity to one Uhler equivalent."

"Adjusting ... " the computer indicated. "Please secure all materials and personnel, and prepare emergency evacuation equipment. Hyperdrive will engage in thirty seconds."

Ryan glanced around the cabin. Everything was already stowed in lockers or was bolted to the floor, and the only thing he had in the line of emergency equipment was his flight suit and helmet. True, he could only expect to live for maybe eight hours if he took an unexpected spacewalk, but this was usually enough time for the civilian search-and-recovery teams to mobilize and find an ejected pilot. He carefully locked his helmet into place, put on his suit gloves, and verified the suit's integrity while the ship's computer continued its preparations.

"Ten seconds ... five seconds ... four ... three ..."

The hum from the engine compartment became more pronounced.

"Two ... one ... zero."

Ryan felt the familiar sudden building of pressure as he sank into the back of his pilot's chair. After almost a minute, and almost as suddenly, the pressure was released and Ryan found himself sitting normally. The starfield appeared to be unchanged, but a quick check of the ship's instruments confirmed that he was moving at approximately three thousand metres per second.

He took a deep breath. "Computer, begin controlled velocity increase to cruising velocity."

The computer's display screen began flashing a warning message and intoned, "Warning! Ship velocity will exceed realspace critical velocity in fourteen seconds! Be prepared to initiate emergency ejection procedures at first sign of structural breach!"

Ryan reached down and tightened his gloved fingers around the ejection loop, feeling himself sinking into the back of his chair again.

"Ten seconds ... five ... four ... three ... two ..."

The starfield began to acquire some noticeable streaking, and the stars directly ahead of the ship were becoming increasingly bright.

"One ..."

Ryan swallowed hard, and closed his eyes.

Nothing happened.

He ventured to open one eye, and was rewarded by a comforting sight -- the viewscreen was full of streaking stars which grew progressively brighter the nearer they were to the centre of the screen -- a normal viewscreen image for a ship in a stable hyperspace flightpath. He took a deep breath to calm himself and let go of the ejection loop, waiting a few moments before he shed his suit gloves and detached his helmet. It doesn't matter how many times I do this, he thought, that split second always scares the daylights out of me.

With a little over an hour of travel time before he would need to go through the deceleration process, Ryan figured it was a good enough time as any to squeeze in a decent meal. He put his gloves and helmet aside, and swung out a small folding table near his pilot's chair. He dug a few food packets out of storage and put them into a small microwave oven to cook while he fished around for some dishes and flatware. Normally, eating a meal would be something best left for a rest stop -- one where his craft was stationary and off the main transit lanes -- but Ryan regarded himself as something of a risk-taker when it came to his business enterprises. This was nothing more than cost-cutting of a sort, since the less time he spent idle, the more time he could spend making money. And besides, the absolute worst thing that might happen would be a sudden deceleration without warning -- causing a mess and maybe a few minor injuries.

The microwave oven gave a short 'beep', signaling that his food was ready. It gave him a little boost of spirits as he laid out a small dinner for himself -- salad, mashed potatoes, roast chicken, as well as a can of beer -- and proceeded to thoroughly enjoy himself for once as his ship cruised onward. For packaged food, it wasn't at all bad, and the beer tasted as fresh as if it had come straight from the keg. Of course, he thought, no beer made in the past three hundred years would have been brewed or aged in a keg -- wood, steel, plastic, or otherwise.

A beep from the computer warned him that deceleration would be necessary within a few minutes in order to avoid careening off the marked transit lanes. He knew from experience that while space was mostly empty, there were occasionally little bits of matter floating around in it. Most were only the size of an atom, while some were the size of a grain of sand, some the size of a baseball, and even some the size of a planet. The only benefit to staying inside the marked transit lanes was, aside from being relatively assured of passing through completely empty space, was that you could conceivably call up a lawyer and hope to successfully sue someone if your spacecraft did encounter anything substantial. If you strayed beyond the lane markings ... well, while there was only a slightly higher chance of smacking into something (and at the speeds in question, nothing was inconsequential), you could be assured that there would be nobody to sue.

Ryan quickly put away the remains of his dinner, suited himself up again, and strapped himself into his pilot's chair as the ship automatically dropped back down to sublight speed and came to a dead stop. Once the starfield outside became static and his instruments showed him to be motionless, he cut power to the field generator and began taking sensor readings to confirm where he was.

Odd, he thought, the beacon for this lane intersection is active, but I'm not receiving any signal from it. He tried the next buoy along his flightpath. Again, the beacon was active but not transmitting. All that the ship's sensors could detect were the beacon's power emissions. A faint creeping sensation began at the back of Ryan's neck and it was at this point that he began to worry.

"Computer," he said, "bring up the tactical interface, divert power to critical systems and configure the field generator for shielding."

"Configuring ... " the computer indicated.

He applied power to the field generator and was reassured when the starfield took on a slight blue-green cast. Even though the sensor information he was receiving was now diminished, at least his hull was protected.

"Computer ... " he said, "overlay tactical display with sensor information. Moving sensor contacts only."

The display lit up with at least a few hundred dots. Some were in front of his ship, and some were behind.

"Computer ... " he said, "remove all contacts which are only moving according to natural gravitational fields. Highlight remaining contacts in red, and adjust for mass"

The display was rapidly reduced to three red dots -- one large, and two small. Of the small dots, one was behind him and the other was in front.

"Computer, switch to overhead view and overlay velocity vectors onto contacts."

The display rotated and zoomed out until Ryan could see all three red dots. In the middle of the screen, his ship was represented by a white dot, and with no arrow (since he was stationary). The large red dot was also stationary, at a distance of approximately five hundred thousand kilometres. The two smaller dots were closer in, at two hundred thousand kilometres. The arrows indicating their flightpaths, however, were pointed right at the Silver Hammer.

Ryan felt the creeping sensation at the back of his neck spread all the way down to his toes. He brought up the comminications software and broadcast on a general frequency. "Any receiving craft, this is the R-7 cargo carrier Silver Hammer. Please acknowledge."

There was nothing but silence on the ship's speakers. On the tactical display, however, the two smaller dots accelerated. I'll be damned if those are floating rocks, he thought.

"Computer, rotate the ship on a reverse course from previous and give me a visual on the closer of the two incoming contacts."

The ship began to yaw to port as the viewscreen image changed to show that of a spacecraft of the light fighter variety and which was almost a matte black coloration. And I'll be damned if those are undercover police or military ships, he thought. No legally registered ship can have a hull that color. The light fighter also seemed to have a pair of missiles slung from two weapons pylons, and was bristling with an array of other weaponry. Pirates? He weighed his options quickly. Sticking around to figure out what these ships wanted might leave him open to capture or destruction, but at least he'd have his shields up. On the other hand, making a run back into Epsilon Kappa sector could carry him safely out of reach but his unshielded ship would be dangerously vulnerable to weapons fire before he made the transit. Do I have enough time to run for it?, he thought, as he watched the dots on the tactical display move closer to his ship.

He made his decision and quickly cut power to the field generator. "Computer," he barked, "reconfigure generator for hyperspace field and prepare to divert all power to the engines." He took a split second to re-open the communications frequency and broadcast at full power to any receiving beacon. "Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is the Silver Hammer in Epsilon Iota sector. Unidentified craft approaching, not responding to communications. Possible pirate attack. Any receiving vessels, please assist."

"Configuring ..." the computer indicated. "Warning! Approaching craft have acquired target lock. Recomme-"

"Audio off!" Ryan barked, gritting his teeth as he saw the range indicators for the two approaching craft climb down from the low hundreds of kilometres to mere dozens.

A light on the computer console changed from amber to green, indicating that the field generator was now ready. Ryan was about to apply full power to the generator and manually cut the engines in at full power when a warning tone from the tactical display heralded a new threat -- the approaching craft had both fired on him.

"Shit!" Ryan said, grabbing the throttle lever and shoving it forward while grabbing the control column in his other hand and pulling it back. The ship pitched up and shoved him back and down into the seat's cushion, rapidly gaining speed and maneuvering away from the incoming fire. A lightning-quick glimmer of bright light through the overhead window told him that the miss was very close.

He let go of the throttle lever long enough to re-open the communications frequency. "Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is the Silver Hammer, being fired upon by unidentified craft. Requesting immed-"

A sharp crack! and a raw humming sound from the bowels of the ship coincided with a sharp dimming of the cabin lights. Shit!, Ryan thought, an electron cannon blast square in the hull and me without any shields! The main display screen flickered and then began producing nothing but random garbage. Ryan very nearly slammed his fist down on the control console in frustration but decided against it. I don't need to be electrocuted, he thought, any more than I need to be boarded.

After a moment the humming sound faded to silence and Ryan became acutely aware that his ship was effectively dead in space. A slight queasy sensation in his stomach was followed by a complete absence of gravity -- he reasoned that even the ship's artificial gravity had failed. He fumbled for a moment with his gloved hands at the buckles to his chair straps and then pushed himself off so that he bumped into the ceiling.

Through the overhead window, Ryan could see one of the light fighters come to a dead stop relative to the Silver Hammer and rotate slowly to face him. Ryan saw the gleam of polished metal making up the fighter's forward cannons and he felt a trickle of sweat roll down his side from his armpit. It wouldn't take more than a blast or two to turn his ship into floating debris -- and himself into bits of floating gore. As he watched, the pilot of the fighter appeared to wave at him -- not a friendly "hello" kind of wave, but the kind of wave reminiscent of when children are saying "good riddance" and accompanying it by a smirk. Ryan felt particularly like flipping the fighter pilot a gloved finger but he reasoned that it would probably speed his demise.

He could also see in the distance, and approaching very rapidly, what must have been the larger, third ship in the area. It was a fairly large capital ship -- maybe the size of a military cruiser -- and it was heading his way.

Ryan pushed off the ceiling of the cabin and attempted to claw his way along the wall to where the gun locker was. It occurred to him that his original estimate of how long it would take him to free his pistol was based on his ship still having gravity. Nonetheless, he managed to key in the right security code and the locker opened. He grabbed the pistol and checked the power supply before arming it and setting its power to maximum. At that level he might not blow a hole in the ship's hull accidentally but it wasn't as if that would matter -- he was still suited up. He was more interested in blowing a hole in the first intruder he encountered.

He could see from where he was floating that a kind of shadow had passed over the cabin windows at the fore of the cockpit, and the ship lurched to one side as something caught hold of it and held it immobile. Ryan was sufficiently startled that he lost his handhold and began to float very slowly toward the ceiling again. He reasoned that the cruiser had to be fairly massive to impart any kind of gravity in the vicinity of his ship. He hit the ship's ceiling gently and caught at a handhold before he could bounce away.

A faint vibration built into an almost deafening roar. Ryan couldn't determine the source of the sound until he saw a large flat panel forming part of the ceiling start to deform and bend, and then to smoke slightly. Ultimately, a circle made entirely of sharp cutting facets emerged from the panel and, with a slightly more muted whirring sound, spun to a halt. It was at this point that the circular section which had been cut free of the ship was hit by a magnetic grapple with a slight bwong! and dragged into what was presumably the interior of the cruiser. The cutting circle withdrew with the sound of grating metal.

Ryan ran his tongue around dry lips, tried to calm his hurried breathing, and steadied his pistol at the dark, featureless hole which now adorned the ceiling of his ship. Not being directly below it, and having no desire to be, he couldn't see into it but couldn't imagine anything good coming out of it. He could faintly hear noises from the hole -- things like footsteps, the incoherent muttering of hushed voices, and even the click of weapons being brought off safety.

A faint whirr which grew abruptly louder was the only thing that warned him, a split second ahead of time, as something thrust itself through the opening and into the cabin. Ryan tried to bring his weapon to bear on it and squeezed the trigger, trying his best to see what he was shooting at and to get off a second shot, but the act of swinging his arm caused his body to spin slightly and his first shot went wide. A loud thunk! and something hit him solidly in his helmet, spinning him until his legs crashed into a protruding piece of equipment.

He shook his head to clear it and was instantly horrified to see a small dart embedded in the cracked plastic of his helmet. It was more or less pointed squarely at Ryan's left eye, and he was grateful that the helmet had stopped it from skewering him in such a tender spot. His relief was short-lived, as the dart began to glow dully and then red-hot, smoking as the plastic around it began to melt and blacken.

Ryan coughed violently and grabbed at the helmet latches to free his head as thick, acrid smoke billowed around his face. He hurriedly pushed it away from him, seeing it tumble aimlessly toward the opposite wall and trailing ribbons of smoke behind it. His attention was drawn back to the hole in the ceiling as another object passed into the cabin. He almost shot at this next arrival before realizing that it wasn't much larger than a baseball. It gently floated through the air until it bumped gently into the ship's floor, and then with a swish! it began to spin, spraying out jets of greenish gas.

Too late Ryan realized that the gas wasn't meant to choke him, as he began to feel drowsy and his limbs turned rubbery. The pistol slipped from his fingers as he tried to cover his mouth and nose, but there was nowhere to run to. Eventually, pressed into a corner of the cabin, he was forced to take a breath and found himself slipping away into a deep pit of blackness, falling ... falling ... falling ... as the wind rushed and roared around him.

Chapter 2

For a while, Ryan drifted.

He felt himself float aimlessly through a dark, featureless void. His eyes saw nothing but darkness, and his limbs felt remote and limp. There was nothing in his ears -- not even the roaring he had heard before.

And so he drifted. Without his bidding, a single sentence leapt from his memory.

"Dark. You can see nothing, hear nothing, taste nothing, feel nothing, and are not even certain who you are."

What was it that I was supposed to do?, he thought. He felt as though he was in some kind of distant waking dream, unable to make full use of either his mind or body, although he had some kind of control over his actions. There was something I was supposed to do when I couldn't see anything, hear anything, taste anything, or feel anything.

He mulled this over in the fuzzy depths of his mind and then managed to draw some air into his nostrils.

There was something in the air -- something sharp and pungent. He tried again.

The air was so strong-smelling that it prompted a sensation of burning in his nostrils and sinuses. He tried to escape it by shaking his head from side to side and managed to move perhaps a centimetre or two.

He heard a faint rumbling sound, which faintly resembled muffled speech.

He tried moving his tongue and lips in some semblance of order but only managed to moan a faint, "Whuh?"

"...oming ...ound"

"Whuh?" he reiterated. He swallowed to relieve some of the parched sensation in his throat.

He could hear laughter ... that kind of deep, coarse laughter that only a person without compassion could make. Ryan tried to remember what had happened to him but he got nothing aside from piloting his ship ... some other ships approaching him ... and then a complete blank.

He also realized that his eyes were shut. He tried to rub them but found that his hands wouldn't reach his face. A flat pressure on his buttocks and feet indicated he was probably sitting and slumped over his knees. With difficulty, he set about prying open his eyes.

A blurry light stabbed at the back of his eyeballs and he blinked a few times with effort, squinting to try to make sense of the scene around him.

A dark-haired man with sharp, thin features withdrew a small bottle from near Ryan's nose and grabbed his forehead roughly, raising his left eyelid with a thumb.

"Like I said ... " the dark-haired man said, tilting Ryan's head at an angle. "I think this one's finally coming around." He released Ryan's head and smiled mockingly. "Well, Sleeping Beauty, you had us worried for a while, there. Big Mike here figured that you'd breathed too much of the gas, and that we might have lost you." He stood up. "Not like it would matter much."

Ryan wet his lips and swallowed again. "Where am I?" he asked.

A voice from Ryan's left chuckled darkly. "No place you'd want to be," the voice assured. "'You want to tell him what kind of deep shit he's in, Bill?"

Ryan tried craning his head to the left but his muscles still felt slack and weak. He tried moving his fingers and toes and managed a small degree of freedom there.

Bill, the dark-haired man, shrugged. "I'm not getting paid to answer dumb questions," he replied. "I just make sure we don't kill them when we're trying to capture them alive."

Ryan's fogged memory suddenly began to clear with those words, and it suddenly dawned on him who these two men were, and what they wanted with him. Pirates!, Ryan thought. He managed to jerk himself up into a sitting position and only succeeded in banging the back of his head against the cold and unforgiving steel of a wallplate. He tried to bring his hands up to protect his face and neck, but again, his hands only made it as far as his chest. He looked down and saw that his wrists were actually chained to his waist by steel handcuffs looped under his suit belt.

"What the - !" Ryan exclaimed, scrabbling at the cuffs and trying to slide his back up the wall to a standing position.

"Now, now," Bill chided. "Don't do anything that might make us have to gas you again. I hear that stuff kills off brain cells faster than alcohol."

Ryan hesitated. At times like this, he knew that it might be better to think this thing through rather than react in the hopes of escaping. Besides, he thought, if these guys are professionals enough to use gas to capture me instead of an electron cannon or, God help me, a bunch of steel clubs, then they wouldn't need much help to recapture me if I tried to escape.

He heard Big Mike approaching from his left, and jerked his head over just in time to see him reach out and grab him by the suit collar. Big Mike was a tall, broad-shouldered brute and powerfully built. Ryan fancied that this was the kind of man who in past centuries probably would've made his living by breaking legs for nonpayment of debt. He'd always wondered if this kind of job description had survived the death of absolute capitalism, and now he knew.

"Why gas him?" Big Mike queried, smirking at Ryan. "Let's use something a little more low-tech."

A lightning pain in his stomach doubled Ryan over and he managed a strangled moan as he collapsed to the floor. Big Mike had moved with reflexes faster than he'd thought possible for so large a man and had punched him right in the solar plexus. Ryan felt badly nauseated and every breath felt as though someone was trying to poke a hole in his diaphragm with something sharp and dipped in acid. Little colored lights swam in his vision and it was a long few minutes before he felt like moving again from where he had his cheek pressed against the deckplates. He rolled onto his side.

Big Mike's boots tapped impatiently in front of his nose. Finishing a conversation he had been conducting with Bill that Ryan had been too preoccupied to hear, he cleared his throat. "Now ... " the brute rumbled. "You're going to lie here quietly until we tell you otherwise ... right?"

Ryan tried to summon the courage to make a defiant gesture but he didn't have the strength or the resources to back it up. Besides, he thought, a severe beating wouldn't help me. "Right," he answered.

"C'mon," Bill said from across the room and gesturing at a doorway, "let's go prep his cell."

Big Mike's boots pivoted neatly to the the left and plodded off, leaving Ryan nursing the ache in his gut and with some lingering fatigue in his muscles. His mind, however, was left racing with questions and other things. Worries. Fears. He shook his head to clear it and levered himself back up so that he was sitting against the wall.

Looking around the room he reasoned it to be a small storage bay -- the room was bare except for the door through which the two men had left, and a large set of oversized double doors at the opposite end. Ryan figured it was large enough for a vehicle carrying loads, and this was perhaps a clue to the type of ship he was on. Whatever it was it needed access for vehicles to ferry cargo between areas of the ship. Probably a military vessel -- maybe military surplus. If it were a freighter or a courier, there wouldn't be need for storing cargo internally -- an external pod like the one on his ship would suffice.

His ship. His ship. It was still worth forty-five thousand credits and he'd had it only a few days. Right now there were a bunch of goons going through his ship and probably stripping it of anything valuable. Anything personal they'd probably throw out of the airlock. He seethed. I'll pay these guys back for myself and for my ship!, he thought. You don't screw with a man's livelihood!

Lost in his thoughts and wondering what he could do to increase his chances of escaping, he was startled when the smaller door opened again and the all-too familiar faces of Bill and Big Mike stepped into the room. Big Mike held a small pole with a noose at one end, while Bill held a laser rifle. "Stand up." Big Mike said, waiting until Ryan had brought himself to his feet.

"Here's the drill," Big Mike said. "I'm going to loop this around your neck, and then Bill is going to undo your handcuffs. If you get it into your soft little head to try to hurt my buddy Bill here, I won't bother picking up the gun and shooting you dead. I'll just tighten this - " He took up the slack in the noose to illustrate. " - and leave you like that for about two minutes. If you're lucky, I won't bother lifting you off the floor as well."

Bill put the butt of the laser rifle into his shoulder and leveled the barrel at Ryan. "Turn around and put your hands against the wall."

Ryan glanced down at his hands, which were still securely attached to his waist. "But I - "

A bolt of energy sizzled across the room, missing Ryan's right cheek by a mere fraction and blasting a crater in the wall behind him. Ryan jumped and tried to shrink into a smaller target while Big Mike laughed in much the same manner as he had before. Bill looked calmly amused, and said, "The next time I shoot, I'm going to aim for your balls. Your choice, buddy."

Ryan turned and pressed his hands up against the wall. It was only a few seconds before Ryan saw the thin cable passing before his eyes and then some kind of cold, metallic wire being drawn around his neck. Big Mike ordered him to turn around, which he did by pivoting gently and keeping the small zone of slack in the noose from pulling at his skin. Bill slung the laser rifle behind his back and quickly stepped in to insert a small metal key into Ryan's cuffs. After taking them away, Bill backed away and again trained the laser rifle on him.

Ryan was rudely jerked toward the smaller door and through it into a similarly featureless corridor. He passed through a few hundred metres of similar corridors, passing by and passing through many similar doors, but never past any intersections or junctions. Each door rose quickly into the ceiling as Bill passed in front of it, and slammed just as quickly into the floor just centimetres behind Big Mike's back. Big Mike didn't seem to appreciate Ryan's attempts to crane his neck around, and thoughtfully took up enough of the slack in the noose to make Ryan's jugulars stand out. Whoever built this ship, Ryan thought, was certainly concerned about security. I doubt anybody could get through all these doors if they were ever locked down. The thoughts made him despair slightly of ever escaping, but he resolved not to let his fear show and tried to think logically. Are they triggering the doors by proximity, or is there some kind of transponder they're each wearing?

At last, they passed through a door into a larger chamber which looked not unlike a jail or brig. There were cells, perhaps one hundred of them, arranged in maybe ten rows of ten each, and separated by only a metre. Each cell was made of a kind of polished steel mesh which reached from floor to ceiling, and were maybe one and a half metres square. The mesh was made of wire not much thicker than Ryan's little finger, and the holes in the mesh might admit a hand but not an arm. Maybe half of the cells were occupied, and Ryan's heart sank to see the condition of all the other people inside. They looked downcast, frightened, and as though all the fight had been crushed out of their spirits. I can't let myself become like them, he thought. I'm going to get out of here if it takes me years!

There was also a platform near one end of the cell rows, and it was onto this that Ryan was jerked and finally stood, swaying slightly. Bill stood a few metres in front of him and trained the laser rifle at his head while Big Mike took the noose off his neck.

"Strip," Bill indicated.

Ryan hesitated.

Bill sighed, and adjusted his grip on the laser rifle slightly. "What do ice hockey, poker, and you have in common?"

This caught Ryan by surprise, and although he knew it was probably a rhetorical question he made a slight shrug as his response.

The barrel of the laser rifle started to swing downward. "At least two and possibly three I might find entertaining 'cause they don't have balls."

Ryan guessed that he managed to remove all of his clothes in under twenty seconds, despite the onlookers and the laughter from Big Mike. As a hum rose in intensity from the platform, he hugged his arms around his middle, the air in the room being noticeably cool, and waited while Bill consulted a computer console nearby.

"Well," Bill mused, "here's another traveler without anything concealed on his person." He stepped over to the platform, picked up Ryan's flight suit and tossing it behind him before he gestured at the pile of clothing. "Get dressed," he ordered.

Ryan hurriedly donned his clothes and shivered slightly as Bill consulted his console again. "Huh," he said, turning a disinterested gaze on Ryan. "Anything in your pockets? Don't bother checking -- just tell me what you've got."

Ryan searched his memory and came up with an honest answer. "Well," he replied, "an electronic access card, a few papers, and maybe a set of nail clippers."

Bill nodded to himself. "Dump 'em."

Ryan took the few items out of his pockets and dropped them on the floor.

"All right." Bill said, gesturing at the cells. "This is how things are going to be: You're going into number 5A. If you sit quietly in your cell, don't talk to the other prisoners, and refrain from screwing with the cell walls, you'll be just fine. Start acting like a fool and we'll withhold all of your food and water along with the food and water for all the others as well. If you start inciting a riot and trying to escape, I'm going to have Big Mike here start breaking legs other than yours. Understand?"

Ryan shot a brief glance at the inhabitants of the other cells, wondering if it was this kind of thing which had broken their spirits so quickly. He had no desire to remain here but there were these other human beings to consider, and he didn't want to be responsible for their suffering.

Bill made an impatient sound and gestured at the cells. "Mike, bring out 4A."

A man in a nearby cell, presumably number 4A, became visibly agitated as Big Mike started moving in his direction.

"No! Wait!" Ryan said, holding up his hands for emphasis. "I won't cause any trouble. I promise!"

Big Mike hesitated, glancing back at Bill, who cocked his head slightly. "You're sure?" he asked Ryan.

"No trouble, I swear!" Ryan vowed.

Bill flipped a switch on the computer console and the door to a nearby cell creaked open. "In you go, 5A."

Ryan quickly stepped down off the platform and hurried into the open cell, just in time for the door snap shut like the jaw of an ancient hunting trap. It was more or less at this point that the full gravity of the situation hit him -- that he was trapped and that all his anger and indignation did him no good. He sat down on the floor of the cell and ran a hand through his hair. He felt numb, unable to comprehend what was happening to him or why. What was becoming more and more certain, he knew, was the reality that he might never see his home again, nor any of his family or friends.

Bill and Big Mike, talking between themselves, exited the room through the entry door after pausing to toss Ryan's flightsuit into a trash can. Ryan sat in silence, thinking to himself that this was perhaps the lowest ebb in his career, and possibly his life. Mom always did have a problem with me plying my way across the stars, he thought. 'Thought I'd be safer down on Earth. She was right, too.

He glanced around his cell and found that there was a small tube sticking out of the ceiling and attached to a small bracket. Touching the wire mesh making up the cell didn't cause him any harm, but it was clear that he wouldn't get anywhere by trying to bend it. The door was made of the same wire and had reinforced hinges and no latch -- just bolts which were set into the ceiling and floor. There was a small gap in the door at floor level, about four centimetres high and twenty centimetres across. On the floor was a thin pad made of some kind of foam rubber, underneath which there was also a hole about ten centimetres across cut out of the deckplates. The hole was covered but stank to high heaven when he opened it. He quickly shut it again, grimacing at how his stomach began assailing him with a fresh bout of nausea. He figured he had nothing better to do except examine the small tube, and found that it yielded a small trickle of water when he sucked on it. The water was warm, however, and tasted slightly bitter. He grimaced again, and spat the mouthful out of the cell.

"No point in doing that," a voice whispered from nearby.

Ryan glanced around to see the man from cell 4A was watching him and holding a finger to his lips. He crouched down on his pad and brought his face closer to the mesh. "Why not?" he whispered back.

"There's something in the water," the man replied. "I don't know what it is, but from what the other prisoners are whispering, you won't get out of your cell without spending a week here, drinking that water. Some have tried to keep away from drinking it; all they managed to do was to get sick, and the guards just made them stay longer."

Ryan glanced up at the tube. "Poison?" he whispered.

The man shook his head. "Probably a drug. Maybe to pacify us. Maybe to get us addicted. I don't know exactly what it is or what it's for, but it can't be good news. What Bill was saying earlier was part bluff -- they have withheld our food sometimes, but never the water."

Ryan mulled this over for a while. "How long have you been here?"

The man scratched at his chin -- it was covered in stubble. "Five days, I think." he replied. "I don't know what happens to the others when they go -"

The sound of an alarm klaxon, coming from somewhere in the ceiling, sounded once through the chamber.

The man hurriedly put a finger to his lips, and pointed to the ceiling. After a long moment, he seemed to relax. He made a sweeping motion encompassing all the occupied cells with his arm, made the universal "bla bla bla" motion with his hand, and pointed to the ceiling, shooting out the fingers of his other hand. Talk too much and the alarm goes off, Ryan thought. Figures. He nodded his understanding. The man continued, making the sign of the klaxon before repeating the same sequence but at the end he made the sign of the klaxon twice.

Ryan nodded, and made a quizzical expression while pointing at the ceiling and making the sign of the klaxon three times. The man's eyes widened and he pointed to the door through which Bill and Big Mike had left. Keep talking too much and the guards will pay us a visit, he thought. That also figures. He nodded again.

The man sank back down onto his pad and lay on his back, apparently unwilling to talk further. Ryan sensed that there was some pressing reason for this, and so he wasn't offended, but his mind still burned with unanswered questions. He too sank down to his pad and tried to get comfortable. He was drained by his recent experiences and still feeling the lingering effects of the gas, but couldn't do more than toss and turn for a while with the adrenaline still singing its way through his blood.

Minutes passed, and the passing minutes seemed to stretch into hours. At length, the man in cell 4A rose from his pad and whispered, "Psst!" across the distance. Ryan rose to one elbow and looked over at him. "The alarm takes a little time to die down. You might have ten seconds to talk per hour if you're lucky."

Ryan nodded but was silent. He waited a good few seconds before he dared to respond. "Can you stretch it out at all?"

The man considered his response carefully. "It seems pretty smart."

Ryan shrugged. "I'm Ryan." he said.

The man gave a tight little smile, as though Ryan agreed with him on the unspoken bit about 'better circumstances.' "Steve," he replied.

Ryan leaned back on his elbow and glanced around at the other cells. One, two, ... eight, nine, ten cells per row. Rows one through four are full, plus my cell, so that makes forty-one cells. Let's say everybody's been here for a random amount of time. Forty-one divided by seven is about six. That means maybe six people got caught today and maybe six others will get moved out if the numbers stay the same. Six per day. One every four hours. On average.

"Any idea what time it is?" Ryan whispered.

Steve shrugged. "After breakfast and before lunch," he indicated with an apologetic smile.

Ryan nodded. He was feeling a little hungry, but he figured it would've been just his luck to get gassed and be unconscious until after suppertime. At least this way, he'd get fed. He was getting fairly thirsty, and despite the prospect of swallowing something that might do him some harm he slaked his thirst with some water from the tube.

The sound of the door opening startled Ryan, and he nearly began to cough on his mouthful of water as he turned his attention to see what was approaching. Bill, Big Mike, and two other men entered the room. Bill and Big Mike were carrying laser rifles, whereas the two other men each had the same long pole with the wire noose which Ryan had been so helpfully maneuvered with.

Between the four of them, they were escorting the largest humanoid alien that Ryan had ever seen, and even then he'd only seen such things in books and occasionally on film. What's it called?, he thought, racking his brain for the proper noun in question. It's not a Sembla -- those are those green, scaly, lizard-like things. This is a ... Sh ... Sha ... a Chakri! Yes. Truth be told, this one was bigger and looked more vicious than he'd expected.

The Chakri was somewhere over two metres tall, and was built even more powerfully than Big Mike. It was unmistakably humanoid in appearance, but all Chakri had an aspect that make them look decisively mammalian, feline, and quite feral. This Chakri had a pelt of short, golden fur which dominated most of its face and neck . Two large, domed ears were flattened against a longer, thicker mane of chestnut-covered fur which stretched from the top of its head to its shoulders, bunched up only where the two nooses were securely tightened around the Chakri's neck. Ryan was too far away to see some of the features of its face, but it looked quite upset and liable to start a bloody rampage at the slightest provocation. It was wearing what appeared to be a black hooded cape or a cloak of some kind, fastened at the neck with some kind of jewelry, and reaching almost to the floor.

Bill and Big Mike were scowling, neither of them saying a word. The two other men maneuvered the Chakri onto the platform where Ryan had stood a while before, and then loosened the nooses attached to their poles. They couldn't seem to get them up past the Chakri's neck, but both of them seemed bound and determined not to get within arm's reach of the massive figure.

Bill cleared his throat. "Take those things off," he said, motioning at the Chakri's head, and Ryan was sure that the detected a little more caution and a lot less confidence in the man's tone.

The Chakri turned a decidedly cold glance at Bill, but was silent. After a moment, the Chakri stretched out from under its cloak a heavily-muscled arm and a large, clawed hand, and then reached up and slowly gripped one of the poles, sliding the wire noose up over its face and then off to one side, but never taking its eyes from Bill. It did this again, with all the casual grace of a natural predator. The two men backed away, while Bill and Big Mike kept their weapons trained squarely on the Chakri's chest.

Bill cleared his throat again, belying the fact that it was dry. "Take off your clothes," he said.

The Chakri made no movement for a few seconds, but faced with the prospect of getting shot, Ryan was not all that surprised when it reached up to its neck and unfastened the clasp holding its cloak together, sweeping the garment from its shoulders and holding it at arm's length before letting it drop. What was revealed was a musculature which would have impressed most observers, spread generously over a broad chest and shoulders and long, sinewy limbs. A broad waist disappeared into some kind of black loincloth fastened with another clasp. Bill and Big Mike tightened their grips on their weapons but didn't appear overwhelmingly threatened.

Bill inched his way over to the computer console and made some unseen adjustments, trying to keep his weapon as well as his gaze trained on the Chakri. The hum from the platform rose and fell, and Bill shot a glance at Big Mike long enough to nod. "All right," he said shifting his grip on his laser rifle again. "Don't make trouble for us, and we won't make trouble for you." He turned slightly, pressing a final button on the console, and motioned with the barrel of his weapon. "Get yourself into cell 5B."

The door to the cell behind Ryan opened up. All of a sudden, Ryan felt a constricting fear clamp itself around his heart and throat. They're going to put that thing in the cell next to mine?!? "Hey!" Ryan exclaimed, rising to his feet. "Wait a min-"

"Shut it!" Big Mike demanded, giving Ryan as quick a glance as he dared, turning his attention back to the Chakri. "Be thankful I'm not putting you and him in the same cell! He looks hungry as hell and liable to eat just about anything."

Ryan bit back a protest and thought back to some of the stories he'd heard. Wartime stories, some of them. Stories about how the Chakri were as predatory, as bloodthirsty, and as violent as their appearance and reputations suggested. Soldiers with their guts slashed out ... civilians with their necks torn out by fangs ... survivors with missing arms or legs. War veterans recounting the lightning-sharp pain of claws, the crunch of hand-to-hand weapons, or (as many recalled) a gaping maw of pointed teeth dripping with saliva and blood.

Something primal and savage chilled Ryan to his absolute core as the Chakri slowly walked from the platform, with Bill not far behind. Ryan tried to bunch himself up against the far wall of his cell as the door nearby swung open and the Chakri stepped inside. With a dull clank! the door shut and was bolted, leaving Ryan flattened against the mesh and staring wide-eyed at his new neighbor. Up close and through the mesh, the Chakri reminded Ryan of some kind of caged, predatory cat from Earth's prehistoric era, something which might have spent its time feeding on higher apes and human ancestors.

However this Chakri seemed content to stand still and quietly, watching Ryan intently past the mesh. Ryan could see that this Chakri had some pattern to its facial fur -- some kind of horizontal striping across the forehead and a few streaks of lighter-colored fur in its mane. It had yellowish-green eyes, with pupils in the form of a vertical slit. A broad muzzle projected from its cheeks and ended in a small, pinkish nose. Thin, black lips drew back to reveal a broad, pink tongue and polished, gleaming teeth as the Chakri seemed to test the air between the two of them. Can it smell fear?, Ryan thought, desperately.

Bill seemed to look the Chakri up and down and finally managed an unimpressed chuckle. "Hmmph," he indicated, "it doesn't seem like so much once it's behind bars."

The Chakri turned its attention from Ryan to Bill in a lightning-fast turn and was instantly pressed up against the mesh, baring its teeth in a rumbling snarl and causing the other man to raise his weapon and take a step back. Ryan might have laughed except that his immediate impulse was to try to shrink back and even further away. The Chakri lowered its hands and resumed its relaxed stance.

Big Mike laughed in much the way he had when Ryan had first heard him. "Scared?" Big Mike's voice called out, mockingly, from near the platform. "Don't worry, 5A, here's something to make sure the big kitty doesn't hurt you." He made an unseen adjustment to the console next to him and a sudden excruciating sting at Ryan's bare neck made him jump forward. Luckily, he fell short of the mesh between his cell and that of the Chakri, as the entire row of cells began to hum with some kind of invisible power and the laughter of both Bill and Big Mike echoed in the room. The Chakri sniffed the air, glanced up and around at the cell's dimensions, and then calmly folded itself up into a sitting position on the floor. In the scheme of things, Ryan suspected that the cell was probably too small for the Chakri to stretch out and lie down in.

"C'mon," Big Mike called from the platform, "let's go get the other one."

At this, the Chakri's ears pricked up slightly and he watched as Bill left the row of cells and followed Big Mike from the room. As the door slid shut after them, Ryan found himself no less tense as he sat with the Chakri only half a metre away and looking at him. Ryan sensed something other than hostility in the Chakri now, but he was certain that the Chakri would be perfectly capable of violence if so disposed.

The Chakri slowly lifted its oversized hand to the mesh separating them and extended an ivory-white claw, gleaming in its smoothness and some seven or eight centimetres long, and tapped at the barrier. A small spark could be seen at the point of contact, but the Chakri made no indication that it felt the spark or endured any discomfort. It made another quick glance at the confines of the cell, and then lowered its hand to its lap. Glancing once more at Ryan, which again gave him a cold prickling sensation down his spine, the Chakri closed its eyes and appeared to sink into a state of light sleep.

After a few minutes, Ryan was again startled by the sound of the door opening, and he craned his head around to see that Bill and Big Mike had returned, and were escorting another Chakri toward the platform. A rumbling from behind him made Ryan glance around again, and as though by cue the Chakri in the cell behind him had opened its eyes and was watching the scene intently with narrowed eyes.

Bill and Big Mike seemed slightly more relaxed in the company of this new arrival, possibly because the newer Chakri was a little shorter and less muscular than the one in cell 5B. The two had been dressed the same, and this smaller Chakri was forced to remove its black cloak in turn. It appeared to have fur which was lighter in color, but perhaps incrementally longer. It still had an impressive physique by any standards, although this one might be hard-pressed to compete with the other if it came to a physical confrontation. But perhaps the thing that Ryan found more puzzling than anything else was that this Chakri didn't seem upset, or angry, or perturbed by being held captive. It seemed as though it was in a daze ... and perhaps a little downtrodden. From what Ryan had heard of Chakri, they were almost universally regarded as masters of morale and spirit. It was unheard of for anyone to dampen a Chakri's vigor or drive, but this Chakri seemed to be suffering from the effects of ... something.

The door to cell 5C clanged shut after the arrival of the smaller Chakri, and with the departure of the guards again the entire room found itself in empty silence. Up close, Ryan looked past the larger Chakri and could see that the smaller Chakri had amber eyes instead of greenish ones. For a brief moment, their eyes met and Ryan felt a faint connection, something between the two of them before the Chakri blinked and turned his amber eyes back to the other Chakri in the adjacent cell. Aside from their eye color, there was very little that Ryan could use to distinguish between the two. He supposed that this was probably a failing of his human heritage, this inability to see unique details in anything but human faces. The two Chakri, however, sat quietly facing one another and appeared to sink into a light sleep or a meditative state. Ryan watched them for a moment, but when they didn't stir for several minutes he turned his attention to Steve.

"What are those two doing here?" Ryan whispered. "We're nowhere near the borders of Chakri space."

"Beats me," Steve replied. "We didn't move into hyperspace."

Ryan pondered this for a moment. What would two Chakri be doing this close to the borders of the Earth Confederation?, he thought. Chakri almost never travel outside of their Empire.

"Maybe they went off course," Steve offered.

Ryan shrugged. He had nothing but unanswered questions spinning through his mind, and there seemed little point in pondering them when he could be doing something a little more productive - like sleeping, perhaps. He considered the usefulness of asking the two Chakri what they were doing in this part of space, but he had no way of knowing if either of them spoke any English.

The door to the room slid open again, and both Bill and Big Mike entered the room laden with an armful of foil pockets, each of them perhaps the size of a dinner plate. "Lunch time, folks!" Bill intoned, giving his audience at large what Ryan figured was his least sincere imitation of a chef. "For those of you who are tired of getting the standard military rations, we've got ... " He paused for effect. " ... more standard military rations!"

Ryan, who was an amateurish student of the performing arts, found himself unimpressed by this display. Judging by the faint groans he could hear from the rest of the cellblock, a few others shared his displeasure but wanted to remain anonymous.

Bill paused long enough to bend down and scoot one of the packets under the door of a nearby cell. It rasped against the smooth floor with a kind of scraping sound. "Just be thankful (scrape) you're getting fed (scrape) at all. Our wages (scrape) are high on the budget list this year (scrape) and we've all been petitioning the boss (scrape) for a decent raise (scrape). On the other hand (scrape), food for prisoners is (scrape) somewhere near the bottom (scrape) of the list." He straightened from his task, having only three packets left cradled against his chest.

"Now," he continued, sauntering over to Ryan's cell and regarding him with a mock frown, "I've got good news and bad news for you, 5A. Which do you want first?"

Ryan had always found that it didn't matter which he received first -- good or bad news -- but that invariably he could always count on feeling a little better about his situation if he opted for the good news last. "Uh ... the bad news."

"The bad news," Bill informed him, sliding Ryan's food packet under the cell door, "is that we looked through the ship's stores and we don't have anything to feed these two Chakri sitting next to you."

Ryan darted a glance over at the Chakri in cell 5B and was not surprised to see the Chakri staring intently at Bill with rather undisguised contempt visible in its yellowish-green eyes.

"I don't suppose you'd care to spend the night sleeping next to two rather hungry creatures who might take it upon themselves to break into your cage and eat you alive, eh?"

Ryan suppressed a shudder at this new and frightening mental image and remained silent.

Bill pressed ahead anyway. "So the good news is that we've decided to feed them in order to keep you from getting killed accidentally." Ryan felt a slight glow of relief at these words, but Bill's false comical air suggested he wasn't through being cruel. "More bad news, though," Bill continued, grinning a wicked grin and tossing the remaining two food packets casually behind him. "The only thing we can spare for them to eat is your left leg." He put a hand behind his back, withdrew one of the largest knives Ryan had ever seen, and reached for the cell's door.

Ryan scrabbled for purchase on the floor of the cell as he tried to press himself against the opposite wall of the cell. In a distant part of his mind he realized that the mesh was no longer electrified, since he wasn't being electrocuted at that very moment, but he was more concerned with the intensity in Bill's eyes as the other man hefted the sliver of polished metal in one hand.

Big Mike's voice broke the tension. "Give it a rest, Bill," he indicated with a slight chuckle, doing unseen things with his food packets at the other end of the room. "You can be a really sick bastard when you want to be."

Bill flicked the knife up and behind his back again in an instant and patted the door to Ryan's cell with his other hand. "Yeah, sometimes I worry even myself," he commented happily. He retrieved the two food packets he had discarded and carefully slid them under the doors to the cells of the two Chakri. "That should keep the big, bad aliens from eating you, 5A."

Ryan caught a glimpse of the Chakri with the yellowish-green eyes eyeing Bill intently, its gaze traveling up the man's thin frame, before it licked its lips menacingly. A faint flicker of worry crossed Bill's face before he turned on his heel and stalked away to the computer console a few metres away. Ryan, now keyed to some of the changes in his captor's moods, made sure he wasn't touching the walls of the cell when he heard the telltale hum from around him.

Ryan didn't feel especially hungry but he carefully picked up the food packet from the floor of his cell and had a look at it. Block letters indicated the contents as a sealed, theoretically non-perishable two-course meal. Past its expiry date, Ryan observed, hoping that this only meant that some of the flavor would be lost and that it wouldn't mean the meal was spoiled. Still, he reasoned that he should try to keep his strength up, despite any lack of appetite he might be feeling. He tore the packet open, and was not entirely disappointed to see that his meal would consist of salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, some kind of imitation apple crisp, and a small peppermint.

A rustle of metallic foil from the adjacent cell caught his attention, and Ryan saw that the Chakri had both opened their packets to reveal something he couldn't immediately make out. As one of the Chakri lifted a small, dark strip of something hard to its nose, Ryan caught a faint smell of something smoked, and reasoned that the packets contained some kind of meat jerky. The Chakri took a tentative nibble of the strip, made a noncommittal rumbling growl, and popped it into its mouth.

Moments passed in silence as Ryan and his neighbors ate, the sounds of chewing and swallowing mingling into some kind of organic orchestra in the background. Ryan took a moment or two to think about his situation. I've got food, I've got water, I'm reasonably safe, he thought, stretching the definitions of all three, and I'm totally unable to get out of this cell. Wouldn't it be wise just to sit here and wait? Won't they just punch, strangle, shoot, or stab me if I try to escape? This line of reasoning was appealing to him, but for reasons that made him feel vaguely guilty. He tried bribing his ego with a piece of apple crisp, and this seemed to help.

The rest of the meal passed in relative silence as Ryan finished off the last few bites of his dessert and began to roll the peppermint between his tongue and the roof of his mouth. Wise even if Bill keeps on terrorizing me and just about everybody else in here?, he thought. He reasoned that even that kind of abuse would get worse and worse over time. On the other hand, if they're going to these lengths to keep us alive and well-fed, they probably need us to stay that way. He wasn't sure if he felt comfortable using this as valid excuse to stay in harm's way, but he couldn't see any alternatives.

The meal ended, and Big Mike clapped his hands loudly in midair, gaining the attention of all present and interrupting a few who still had their mouths full. "All right, folks! Most of you already know the drill. For those who don't, here it is: Take your foil, flatten it down into a little sheet, and push it back under the door." He paused thoughtfully. "Last one to finish gets a special prize: A kickboxing contest with yours truly!"

Ryan took a fraction of a second to register this and began purposefully mashing his foil package into a little flat sheet and skidding it across the floor and out of his cell. There was a faint crack! as the foil grazed the mesh of the cell on its way out.

"5A! You idiot!" Bill cursed from across the room, "don't start frigging around with the door or I swear I'll strap you to the walls myself!" He strode over to the row of cells in which Ryan and the two Chakri were housed, bent to pick up Ryan's sheet of foil, and straightened. Neither of the two Chakri had done anything in the last few minutes aside from eating, although they watched Bill intently as he stood impassively outside. Eventually, Bill held up Ryan's sheet of foil and waggled it at them.

After a few seconds of blank looks and almost insolent staring in Bill's direction, the larger of the two Chakri took the foil packet from his companion and scrunched it up into a fist-sized ball that was obviously too large to fit under the cell door. For a moment, Ryan was concerned that this new display of arrogance was going to come to an ugly boiling point between the Chakri and their jailer, but the Chakri holding the foil closed a clawed fist around the oversized foil ball and squeezed for a moment, the tendons in its arm standing out like cables. It then tossed a small nugget of silvery metal onto the floor, something no bigger than a golf ball, which tumbled and wobbled under the cell door before coming to rest near Bill's feet.

The word 'showoff' came to Ryan's mind briefly, but he had no time to consider this before he heard Big Mike's voice booming through the air. "Lunchtime's over! Time for quiet reflection and meditation," he intoned, making his way over to the door with Bill. The smaller man stood impassively for a moment, trading an unwavering stare with each of the Chakri, and then kicked the small foil ball into a corner of the room before making his exit.

Ryan was beginning to get the impression that things wouldn't be at all stable in this cellblock until there was something else to occupy all the free time and negative energy Bill seemed to have in abundance.

Chapter 3

Ryan had suspected something was up the moment Bill had stopped being his usual cheerful, if sadistic, self. A full week of bad food and questionable water had been bad enough; Bill's penchant for having a laugh at the expense of the prisoners and Ryan in particular had worn on his nerves.

The ship had made one jump into hyperspace a few days ago, and given the duration of the trip, Ryan had surmised that they were probably very far from where he had been picked up.

As if the food and supervision hadn't been bad enough, Ryan was largely unable to make meaningful contact with any of his neighbors. The Chakri, especially, seemed unwilling or even unable to make sense of any of the scant conversation surrounding them, and had kept very much to themselves.

All of this was less unnerving as when Bill began that morning by making all of the prisoners stand up in their cells after their breakfast and keep from moving. He even had the electricity cut from the cell walls surrounding Ryan, the two Chakri, and the six newer prisoners in his row of cells.

Big Mike and Bill both stood near the door to the chamber with something approaching anticipation on their faces. After an indeterminable time, the door snapped open to reveal two severely dressed and armed individuals, followed by a grey-haired man, who was himself followed by another two, seemingly identical, severely dressed and armed individuals.

"Good morning, sir," Bill said, using the first element of deference Ryan had heard from him at all.

The grey-haired man looked like he had seen more than his fair share of hard knocks in his lifetime. He had a crisscross of scars visible in the weathered, tanned skin of his face, and a portion of his right ear was missing. He gave Bill a nod which spoke of a long history between them, and glanced at the rows of cells. When he spoke, his voice was gruff and full of a lack of patience for this exercise. "Are they ready?"

Bill nodded. "1F through 5C are ready for the usual indoctrination before we send them planetside," he indicated.

So we're in orbit, Ryan thought. I don't suppose it'll be a sunny and cheerful place. What's worse, there's going to be no chance of escape at all if I can't get off this ship before we're landed.

"All right," the grey-haired man said, "get them cleaned up and send them into the assembly area."

"And these two?" Bill asked, with a jerk of his head toward the two Chakri.

The grey-haired man gave a cursory look toward the two Chakri, and then shrugged. "Send them along anyway." He and his bodyguards made their way back toward the door while Bill manned the console at the end of the room. Big Mike stood impassively near the first row of cells, fingering what looked suspiciously like a club made out of something like oak or mahogany.

Bill hit a button on the console and the doors to the first row of cells resounded with a sharp clack! as the bolts at the top and bottom were retracted. Big Mike casually tossed his club into the air and caught it before spinning it around and tucking against his side. "Starting with 1A and going all the way to 1K, I want everybody to file out, one at a time, and line up single-file in front of the door. No talking, and no messing around or I'll give you a thumping you won't forget." He gestured with the head of his club at the man standing in the nearest cell. "Move!"

After a minute or two, after the other cells had been emptied, Ryan's cell was unlocked and he slowly made his way to the tail of the line. Big Mike tossed his club to his left hand and pulled a small pistol - one that looked like a miniaturized electron cannon and not unlike those carried by in-system police - from his belt before leveling it in the direction of the two Chakri. "I'm going to say this once," he said. "The boss wants you two alive and intact, but that doesn't mean I won't hesitate to shoot you both full of enough power to give you the twitches for a year."

The larger of the two Chakri merely glowered at Big Mike while its companion seemed to let its gaze drop to the floor. The doors to their cells unlocked, and Big Mike gestured for them to step out. They carefully stalked forward, the claws on their feet making a faint click as they stepped to within a couple paces of their captors. Bill retrieved a laser rifle and a dark bundle from near the console and stepped over to cover the two Chakri as they stepped behind Ryan.

Having two aliens of a probably carnivorous type standing behind him was, Ryan decided, one of the more disconcerting things to happen to him in the past week. He forced himself to stare at the neck of the person in front of him. He heard Bill remark, "If it were up to me, I wouldn't give you two the time of day, but there's someone else on this ship who thinks you two might be more cooperative if you keep your dignity. So take your clothes back before I set fire to 'em." A slight rustling of fabric behind him confirmed Ryan's suspicion as to what was going on.

It was an uneventful, slow march down the featureless corridors which seemed to stretch minutes into hours. Ryan, ever aware of the click! of sharp claws against the deckplates behind him and not far away, did his best to keep within arm's reach of the person in front of him. Every so often, the column of prisoners would stop dead, forcing Ryan to come to an abrupt halt, and at other moments the man in front of him would break into a fast walk or even a jog, forcing Ryan to catch up quickly. After a few long minutes of this, Ryan was feeling vaguely exhausted and worn - but eventually, the lot of them made their way into an open chamber not unlike the cellblock.

This chamber, on the other hand, had no cells -- indeed, no features of any kind at all except a raised platform at one end. Ryan had very little time to reflect on the significance of this before he and the rest of the prisoners were herded into a long rank stretching from one end of the room to the other and facing the raised platform.

Big Mike casually gestured for the two Chakri to stand next to Ryan, and with almost an air of nonchalance they both fell into place. Ryan couldn't help turning his head slightly to the side to look at the larger of the two, who happened to be right beside him. Despite the perpetual unreadable expression on the Chakri's face, which had persisted up until that moment, the Chakri managed to convey in a brief glance the question, "What are you looking at?"

Ryan quickly turned his attention back to the opposite wall and swallowed hard, hoping Bill or Big Mike weren't about to discipline anybody. Being at the far right of the line, which itself was flanked by Big Mike on the left and Bill on the right, Ryan felt less inclined than usual to attract the attention of his caretakers.

A door at one end of the chamber opened, and through it walked what Ryan had been half-expecting: two severely-dressed and severely-armed guards, followed by the grey-haired man, who in turn was again followed by two more guards of the same flavor as the first pair.

The grey-haired man, flanked by his escorts, stepped up onto the raised platform and, getting Bill's attention, made a slight nod. At this signal, Bill stepped out into the middle of the room and faced the row of prisoners. "All right! This is simple: Pay attention and keep your mouths shut! You might think that I don't have any patience for stupidity, but the Captain here has less!" He stepped aside as the grey-haired man cleared his throat.

In a voice made gruff by years of experience and carrying a tinge of boredom, the grey-haired man said, "I'm the captain of this ship and the commander of this outfit. Some call me Captain Kirk."

Ryan's brown wrinkled in puzzlement for a moment, but clearly one of the other prisoners caught the reference sooner and found it more humorous; a small titter of laughter was heard off to Ryan's left.

The captain turned his head slightly, and on identifying the individual, raised his arm and pointed. To his right, one of his escorts whipped a laser rifle up to his shoulder and the room was filled with the familiar crack! of an energy bolt tuned to very high output.

Ryan cringed involuntarily as a man in the line had his head and neck whipped backward in a spray of gore, after which he fell backwards and started to twitch and shake as the row of prisoners quickly transformed into a knot of clustered, shouting, screaming, and wailing people trying shrink further and further away from the guards around them.

The man on the floor twitched more weakly, the pool of blood around his head widening slowly. Ryan felt his mouth hanging open and tried to close it, but nothing short of a focused effort was able to help him clamp his jaw shut against a surge of nausea. That was a person a moment ago, Ryan thought. Now ... God, I don't know what.

After a moment, seemingly more aware of the potential dangers of making any noise which the captain might also find offensive, the prisoners quieted down into a knot of merely clustered, trembling, weeping people making very little noise at all.

Only the Chakri seemed to be unimpressed by the sight of the man lying dead on the floor a few metres away - they both stood where they had originally, if perhaps with a little more tension in their stances.

The captain cleared his throat again and gestured in the direction of the dead man. "Every time I do this," he said, "I find it necessary to kill a person to illustrate how serious I am. The first time I tried this, I waited a full two weeks before I thought to kill one of you as an example, and by that point everybody had gotten so lazy and bitter that I had to kill a whole lot more before everybody figured out that I wasn't a man to fuck with." He shrugged. "Less waste this way," he indicated, nodding at Bill again.

"Back in line!" Bill's voice commanded. Ryan, who had moved fractionally out of his place, straightened himself out and tried to look normal. He didn't feel normal, and doubted that he would for a while. A few metres away, the line of prisoners wiggled for a moment before settling into a semblance of

straightness. Ryan didn't doubt that someone was trying to edge away from the body on the floor. Nobody had yet made any indication of wanting to have it removed.

"Now," the captain continued, "my name is Kirk, in case you were wondering, but Kirk is my first name. Not that it matters - we won't be on a first-name basis. But our working relationship will be simple. Trust me." He raised both of his arms and pointed, presumably at Bill and Big Mike. "Someone tells you to do something and you don't do it, I'm going to get these experts in human motivation to motivate you. If that doesn't work, well ..." He shrugged again and turned to the guard at his right hand. "Jim, do I pay you to use your people skills?"

The guard barely hesitated. "People skills, sir?"

The captain grinned. "That's all."

Bill gave a slight cough nearby. The captain shifted his attention to Bill for a moment, puzzled, but then his face brightened. "Oh, of course." He stepped forward, off the platform, and made his way over to where the Chakri were standing. His escorts remained carefully a few paces behind him but raised their weapons to point at the Chakri in an obvious show of force. Very slowly, two of them circled around to the right and ended up somewhere behind Ryan, who was too scared to crane his head around and determine

exactly where.

The captain regarded the two Chakri gravely and said, "I know that the two of you at least understand some English, so let's start with something simple, like 'don't move.'"

There was some unseen movement which involved the rattle of chains and metal against metal, punctuated when Bill's voice unexpectedly called out, "5A! Get over here!"

Ryan turned to see Bill gesturing at the spot in line between the two Chakri. Reluctantly, Ryan stepped backward a pace and slowly eased himself between the two massive, brown-furred figures. He had a sudden burst of insight into what a zebra might have felt like between two lions on the African savannah.

"Don't you move either, 5A." Bill said, grabbing a hold of Ryan's right arm as he did. Ryan almost twitched when he felt the cold grasp of a handcuff close around his wrist, and almost twitched when he felt the same sensation on his left wrist, but when he glanced down at his hands and saw that he was securely fastened to not one but two Chakri, he was unable to contain himself.

"Hey! What the f-"

A sharp, stinging pain in the back of his neck made him suppose one of the captain's guards had jabbed him with the muzzle of his laser rifle. He clamped his mouth shut and braced himself for some kind of retribution, but he was semi-relieved to see that the captain had a vague smirk on his face. Looking to his left, he caught the gaze of the larger of the two Chakri and saw that the huge figure was bristling slightly with what might have been indignation or anger.

"Mister Albertson," the captain said, at which Ryan whipped his head around to stare at the other man. "You see? I know a few things, so I'm not just your average bloodthirsty psychopath." The captain languidly examined his fingernails. "Like you, I'm an entrepreneur of sorts. I find things of value and hold onto them until I'm sure that releasing those items will gain me a higher price than gaining them in the first place." He gestured. "Like these Chakri, for example." He turned to Big Mike. "Go and fetch Torak."

Big Mike plodded across the chamber and exited briefly before returning a few seconds later. Accompanying him was, to Ryan's surprise, another Chakri. The Chakri to which Ryan was shackled both tensed at the arrival of the newcomer and Ryan felt the vibration of an unfriendly growl from each.

This newcomer was a Chakri not unlike the other two -- tall of stature, muscular, and with a pelt of golden fur perhaps a fraction darker than either of the other two. Unlike the others, this new Chakri was dressed in a more utilitarian one-piece suit of the kind worn by the captain's guards. It was not unlike an armoured space suit, only without a helmet and possessing a pistol holster besides.

"Sir?" the new Chakri said, in a deep rumble of a voice which seemed not to spring from its chest, but rather to unearth itself.

"Torak," the captain said, "I may need to you translate, especially if these two are unwilling to speak. Although, I must confess, I would hope they are amenable." His gaze shifted to Ryan, who by now was feeling acutely as though his day was going from bad to worse and on to hellish rather quickly. "Mr. Albertson may need to suffer in order to loosen their tongues."

Ryan's shoulders sagged. The stress of the previous week, coupled with the death only a few moments ago of another prisoner, and in addition to his being very recently connected to two fearsome-looking aliens, was wearing on his nerves. The prospect of adding torture onto the list of things he could expect made his limbs feel heavy and a sinking sensation fill his stomach.

"You see, Mr. Albertson, these two Chakri are worth quite a lot of money by virtue of who they are, as opposed to what they can do." The captain smiled, gesturing at Torak. "I have a Chakri capable of delivering a ransom demand to their homeworld and believe me, they are both worth a considerable sum. But there's the problem, you see - if they know they're going to be ransomed then what's to stop them from fighting their way free? I can't very well try to ransom a Chakri who's missing body parts, so it's not like I can restrain them or threaten them with violence."

Ryan felt another prickling sensation start to crawl its way up his back as some of what the captain was proposing sank in.

"That's where you come in, Mr. Albertson," the captain explained. "If these two Chakri start to get out of control, I'm going to punish you instead." He gestured at Torak again. "If Torak is any indication, these two Chakri are probably born killers, just like him, and a match for all four of my guards on any given day. But they're not so uncivilized as to want you dead in order to get their chance. You're going to be my insurance they behave."

"Speaking of insurance," the captain continued, addressing the entire row of prisoners, "I'd might as well explain why the water you've been drinking tastes the way it does. It's not poison, as some of you might believe. No, when you get planetside you'll be finding yourself exposed to a valuable and rare mineral crystal which you'll be mining for us. Problem is - it's the thing that's toxic, and the effects persist for weeks. You've been drinking the antidote, and if any of you get any ideas about escaping, be forewarned that you won't live more than a month." He paused. "So that's the situation. We'll give you food, water, shelter, maybe even some occasional rest, and all I ask is that you work and keep from complaining."

He turned to Torak. "I want you to tell them, word for word, that if they bide their time and do what they're told, they'll go home unharmed after only a few weeks. If they attempt to resist us or escape, then Mr. Albertson here will die."

Beads of sweat broke out on Ryan's brow at the word 'die.'

Torak uttered something in a harsh, gutteral tongue which grated on Ryan's already-abused ears.

The captain stepped forward a fraction and looked the larger of the two Chakri squarely in the eye. "Do you understand?" he asked.

The Chakri at Ryan's left met the captain's gaze levelly and bared its teeth. A voice laden with restrained anger and contempt replied with something barely more intelligible than a hiss as it said, "Yes."

Chapter 4

Ryan felt more dazed than he had ever felt before as he and the rest of the prisoners were marched through another set of seemingly endless corridors. His arms were twisted awkwardly about his body as they were being marched single-file, and it added a new dimension of discomfort to what he had previously thought of as only a saying - a chain-gang arrangement. Nobody in Ryan's lifetime, or perhaps even within the past ten generations, had ever been punished by way of being chained together in order to participate in forced labor. Ryan didn't feel particularly nostalgic about this, and wished that the Captain hadn't resurrected this old tradition instead of leaving it decently buried.

At length, the column of prisoners emerged into a large hangar which housed a few large, utilitarian shuttlecraft. Ryan's brain was a little too dazed to do more than gloss over the fact that they were highly modified shuttlecraft too - turret mounts and additional thrusters in abundance. Bill and Big Mike left the prisoners standing in a ragged line while they walked over to where some of the pilots and crew were congregating.

Ryan glanced down at his left wrist where the metal of the handcuff was chafing the skin slightly, and then hazarded a glance up at the Chakri on the other end of it. He let out a sigh to ease his nerves slightly. "You didn't tell me you spoke English," Ryan muttered.

The Chakri twisted its head slightly to look at Ryan. For a moment there was the unnerving impession of barely-restrained violent rage in the eyes of the Chakri as it glared down its broad, tawny muzzle at him. Then, almost as if the Chakri had become as downtrodden and morose as its counterpart chained to Ryan's opposite side, the Chakri blinked, and regarded him with mere irritation. "It would not have mattered," the Chakri rumbled.

Ryan was at a loss to say much in response. It was true -- in all the time that they had been prisoners in the cellblocks, conversation had been kept to a minimum anyway. "I s'pose," he replied. He fell silent for a moment, his gaze wandering around the opposite hangar wall and his brain searching for a way to make conversation with an alien being with which he had virtually nothing in common except a steel handcuff. "Can I ask your name?" he ventured. "My name is Ryan, by the way."

"5A!" shouted a voice from across the hangar, at which Ryan flinched slightly and caught the unfriendly sight of Big Mike looking at him from not far away. "Keep your mouth shut!"

Ryan tightened his jaw and tried to look as unobtrusive as possible. At length, Bill and Big Mike sauntered over to the prisoners again and began to reassert their usual roles as hostile caretakers. "Single-file, follow me into that shuttle right there," Bill indicated, pointing the muzzle of his laser rifle at one of the craft nearby.

As it happened, the shuttlecraft in question had a single hatch set into the rear and snugged against the port side. As the line of prisoners filed through it, Ryan saw that beyond the hatch was a corridor which bent to the right but also had a bench set at waist level into the wall. At regular intervals, a seatbelt and shoulder brace was fastened to the wall as well. The line of prisoners slowed and then came to a halt as the last of them filed into the shuttlecraft, leaving Ryan and the two Chakri to occupy three of the last four spaces. Not unsurprisingly, Big Mike followed them in and sealed the hatch behind them.

Ryan remarked to himself that perhaps the only thing more difficult than strapping one's self into an improvised flight seat while under stress and the unfriendly gaze of an armed felon was to attempt this same feat while handcuffed to two aliens, both of which he felt extremely uncomfortable being around in the first place and didn't feel like antagonizing. There was something distasteful and embarrassing about jerking an alien's hand over onto his lap while he fastened his belt that Ryan wasn't able to immediately rationalize.

Big Mike settled himself into his seat next to the Chakri on Ryan's right and called out, "All ready?"

Bill's voice came from around the corner, "Yeah."

Big Mike reached and touched a small switch within arm's reach, which had the effect of lowering the shoulder brace above Ryan down onto his shoulders. Simultaneously, all of the other braces lowered to secure each prisoner neatly into their respective seats. Big Mike took this opportunity to stow his laser rifle in a wall bracket safely out of reach of anyone else, and fished a small packet out of his pocked. From the packet he withdrew a short, slender tube, of which he stuck one end into his mouth, then fished another small device out of his other pocket, and then appeared to Ryan's eyes to light the opposite end of the tube on fire. It smouldered for a moment, and then began to produce a thin curl of smoke which wafted toward the shuttlecraft's ceiling. Big Mike appeared to inhale deeply, and blew a cloud of foul-smelling smoke toward the opposite wall.

Ryan recognized the smell as tobacco - about as illegal as a cargo-hold full of slaves but not unheard of in certain parts. Big Mike noticed Ryan's interest and flicked some white ash off the end of the tube. "Something funny, 5A?"

Ryan hesitated a bare fraction before hazarding a reply. He figured that of the two guards he'd met so far, Big Mike was the more stable and friendly, and it made sense to try to get on his good side. "You harvest that stuff as well?" he asked.

Big Mike glared at him for a moment, and then shrugged. "Much more profitable," he remarked, taking another lungful of smoke. "We can get machines to harvest this stuff." He regarded Ryan with an indifferent expression. "And other stuff too. Not the mineral, though."

"And that's what we'll be doing?" Ryan ventured.

"You're into business, aren't you?" Big Mike queried. "A smartass like you must know all about supply, demand, and profitability, right?" At this point, the Chakri between Ryan and Big Mike made a stifled single cough. Big Mike glanced at the impassive face between them and grinned unapologetically. "'Seems that your right-hand man," he quipped, smiling at his own weak irony, "doesn't like the smell." He took another lungful of smoke and held it, studying the Chakri carefully. "'Can't say I'd blame him -- it takes some getting used to."

He finished studying whatever he found interesting about the Chakri and turned his attention back to Ryan. "I can't figure these guys out, 5A. They say we've had diplomats and traders and a shitload of intellectual types over to talk to them and everything, and we've fought three major wars with them, but they never seem to want to come over and visit."

Ryan mulled this over for a moment. It was true, of course, that in the century and a half that humankind had known that the Chakri existed, relations between the Earth Confederation government and the Chakri had been chilly at best and severely inflamed at worst. Ryan had never even seen a Chakri in person before that day, and before had only seen the usual public broadcasts of diplomatic missions and documentary features which depicted well-known and famous Chakri in an expositive if clinical manner. Ryan himself knew only what his schooling had told him about Chakri, and this was very little indeed. Almost no human spoke their language, although they were reputed to be excellent linguists and thus were known to learn English to an extent in order to increase trade. Ryan recalled that their government was some kind of parliamentary monarchy -- whatever that was.

Big Mike grinned at the two Chakri and flicked some whitish-grey ash toward the opposite wall. "I'll bet this is the first time you two have seen any humans up close, eh?"

The Chakri between Ryan and Big Mike, sitting at Ryan's right, made no indication that it had heard anything. The other Chakri slowly turned its head so that it could stare over the top of Ryan's head at Big Mike. Before their interaction could devolve into what Ryan suspected would be another useless primal display, the intercom nearby came to life. "All systems okay. You two ready back there?"

Big Mike stabbed at a switch nearby. "Yep. Rear hatch secure, Bill and I are getting seated right now," he affirmed. Further to this, Big Mike reached up and pulled his own shoulder brace into position.

The voice from the intercom resumed, saying, "Main engine powerup in one-five seconds."

Big Mike settled himself back into his chair and crushed his small indulgence against the wall to extinguish it before fastening his seat belt. Before long, Ryan felt a rumble from the opposite wall and a vibration through the shuttle as its main engines came to full readiness. A force which he felt through his shoulders and thighs jerked him a fraction to his right as the shuttle accelerated, to be replaced a moment later by the familiar sense of weightlessness he always felt when he entered the void. He wished he had his helmet with him - it would've made him feel marginally safer about making planetfall. The shuttle made a slow turn to the right and then straightened out its course again.

Ryan's gaze dropped to his lap. Well, he thought, I guess this rules out stealing a shuttlecraft and trying to escape that way. Odds are there won't be any chance of escape once we make planetfall. He noticed for the first time that the handcuffs secured around his wrists were not the simple kind made of steel which had found popular use over the centuries. These were made of an adjustable, ratcheting steel core designed to fit snugly around the wrist, two of which were secured to each other by a thin but high-tensile metal cable with a central link made of some kind of electronic lock. With the cable fixed at a length of perhaps twenty centimetres, there was very little Ryan could do to get very far from either Chakri at the moment. In addition, each of the steel cores forming the cuffs had a small grille, only a centimetre square. It might have been a ventilation port, or perhaps even a speaker -- Ryan wasn't sure.

It was a long five, perhaps ten minutes before Ryan felt the shuttle begin to shudder and shake as it plunged into the upper atmosphere of whatever planetary body they were approaching. At the same time, he became acutely aware of a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach -- the first pull of natural gravity he had felt in over a week. As their descent continued, the pull on Ryan's limbs and the sinking sensation in his stomach settled into a semblance of normalcy, while the turbulence of the atmosphere against the hull of the shuttle diminished to a softer, more distant roar. The shuttle banked slowly forward and then to one side, describing a slow spiral down to what Ryan hoped was a hospitable place -- he figured he'd be in his present company for a long, long time at the rate he was going.

After an eternity of staring at the opposite wall, Ryan heard the shuttle's intercom say, "Touchdown in three-zero seconds." He braced his feet a little more stiffly against the deck as the shuttle dipped and banked again. After about half a minute, Ryan felt the not-so-gentle shove of the shuttle's braking thrusters as they started crushing his spine and ankles into the floor. A moment later, the pressure eased as the shuttle settled with a final gentle thud! After a moment or two of silence, the shuttle's intercom continued, saying, "Touchdown confirmed. Equalizing pressure." A slight pressure at his ears made Ryan wonder just how much like (or unlike) Earth this place might be.

Big Mike made a point of yawning loudly before pushing his shoulder brace up and unbelting himself. He reclaimed his laser rifle and set to work unsealing the hatch, after which a flood of noticeably moist air permeated the shuttle cabin. "All right," he bellowed. "one by one, on your feet and out the door!" He stepped out and onto the landing pad after hitting a switch on the wall.

As they were sorting out the unpleasantness of unbuckling their seatbelts, the shoulder brace for the Chakri to Ryan's right rose, but the braces for Ryan and the other Chakri stayed firmly put. Big Mike's impatient query came through the hatch in an instant. "What part of 'on your feet and out the door' didn't you understand, dumbfucks?"

Ryan hazarded a response. "We're still chained together, boss."

Big Mike's infuriated face intruded back into the shuttle. He appeared on the verge of physical violence, but glanced at the trio of Ryan and the two Chakri for only a fraction of a second before his rage turned into frustration. Muttering something profane under his breath, he stabbed at a few buttons on the wall before the shoulder braces for all three had finally lifted. "Okay," Big Mike rasped, his voice low with a complete lack of patience, "you three -- up and out the door." At this, Ryan and the two Chakri rose and filed out the door, followed by the sound of the rest of the prisoners being released one by one.

The light which hit Ryan's eyes was harsh -- this world's sun was brighter than most suns he'd ever seen, but this one was a shade more orange than that of Earth. Not that he glanced at the sun for more than a fraction of a second -- he might be risking blindness. The gravity seemed about normal, but perhaps this was a local phenomenon -- there were planets with unevenly-dense cores, or with hugely varying altitudes, and to assume that the gravity would be the same as here at all points on this world would not necessarily be wise. As for the atmosphere, it seemed both denser and a lot more wet than Ryan was used to. There was a slight haze at ground-level which only disappeared in the presence of direct sunlight on bare ground like the landing pad.

All the extra moisture in the air explained the scenery -- in every direction as far as Ryan could see (with the possible exception of a wide, earthen path leading off into the distance), there were huge plants forming an almost impenetrable wall of foliage. The plants themselves were broad and leafy, but seemed a darker shade of green than what he'd seen on Earth. More like blue-green than anything else. No flowers were in evidence -- it was entirely possible that the plants themselves weren't terrestrial in origin and didn't flower at all. Ryan had seen more than a few alien plant species -- if you could call them that -- and there was no guaranteeing any similarity or analogy of form with anything from Earth.

A few metres away, another man dressed in the familiar one-piece armoured spacesuit of the pirate guards gave a broad, friendly wave to Big Mike and stepped over to greet him. "Long time no see, Mikey," the new guard indicated, clapping the other man on the shoulder with a broad, gloved hand. "I was starting to think you'd never make it back to planetside."

"I like feeling dirt under my feet," Big Mike asserted. "Never mind that the cooking down here sucks. You should take over as the cook, Pierro."

"Only if you take over as my dishwasher," Pierro quipped, grinning like a madman. "New group coming in?" he asked, inclining his head at Ryan and the rest of the prisoners beyond.

"Yeah," Big Mike sighed. "We got saddled with these two furballs by accident," he added, motioning toward the two Chakri. "Although I feel kinda bad for this poor bastard here. 5A got stuck with the job of keeping them quiet and agreeable." Ryan wasn't sure if the term 'furball' got across, but he didn't think it made the Chakri feel any more welcome here.

"Rotten luck," Pierro agreed, although not sympathetically. He stepped over to where Ryan and the two Chakri were standing idly, looking the three of them up and down. Pierro was not unlike Big Mike in that he was tall, broad-shouldered, and appeared to have toned his considerable muscle over the years by being unpleasant to others. Still, in the scheme of things, he was shorter than the larger of the two Chakri by a fraction and looked a lot less dangerous.

Big Mike had again taken the small packet from his pocket and tipped it in Pierro's direction. "Smoke?" he offered. Pierro reached over to claim one of the small white tubes and accepted Big Mike's offer of a flame put to careful use before straightening up again and studying the Chakri.

"I've always wondered if the rumors were true," he mused. "They say that most Chakri are skilled at hand-to-hand combat, but I'd wager that these two, being from rich families, might be softer than that."

Bill's voice came from somewhere behind them. "All of them are off," he said, coming into view at Ryan's left. "Can we get going now?"

"Eventually," Pierro confirmed. He blew out a cloud of smoke which temporarily obscured his face. "What was it the Captain said about situations like this?"

"I suppose we could do it now, since we're all planetside and there isn't another shuttlecraft for klicks," Bill ventured. Pierro nodded, at which Bill produced a small communicator from his pocket and spoke into it. "Secure all hatches and rig for takeoff in three minutes."

"All right," Pierro said, reaching into one of his pockets for a small security keycard. He regarded the two Chakri gravely. "I know the two of you speak English, and I know the Captain's already given you the usual speech, right?"

The Chakri at Ryan's left gave a slow nod.

"So the deal is," Pierro continued, "that in addition to doing what you're told and not trying to escape, you both have to stay within five metres of prisoner 5A." He held up the keycard. "If either of you steps beyond five metres from him," he continued, pressing a small button on the keycard, "we'll know."

An earsplitting tone from the two pairs of handcuffs made Ryan wince as his ears were assailed by a noise fit to wake the dead, but its effects on the two Chakri were more noticeable. The two of them made a sudden grab for their ears, jerking Ryan's arms up and almost out of their sockets as the Chakri each bared their teeth and made a hostile growling noise.

Pierro pushed a different button on his keycard and the noise stopped as abruptly as it had started. After a few seconds, the two Chakri seemed to relax and slowly straightened to their usual posture. Pierro, having made his point, stepped forward and fiddled with the keycard and the lock on each of the sets of handcuffs to which Ryan was attached. Each in turn detached not only the lock but the cables as well, leaving the cuffs themselves in place. Great, Ryan thought. Now I've got some fashion accessories which will probably give me a rash.

"All right," Pierro continued. "Let's get moving. Mike, you take point. Bill, you take the rear. I'll stick beside Tweedle-Dee and Dum and make sure they don't try and run for it." Ryan and the two Chakri began to follow Big Mike as he trudged up the earthen path with his laser rifle casually cradled across his chest. Pierro glanced over at the larger of the two Chakri as the noise from dozens of other feet began merging into a cacophony of footsteps. "I don't suppose either of you have names, do you?"

"Aren't we giving them numbers?" Big Mike's voice floated back.

"Mikey!" Pierro sounded wounded, but only insofar as he was being cruelly sarcastic. "Have some respect, will ya? It's not like these two are going to be working here for the rest of their lives." He smirked. "Not if their families pay up, anyway."

"So what are we going to call them?" Big Mike queried, not looking back.

"C'mon," Pierro assured, "we're a civilized bunch here. These two esteemed aliens are our guests. We should deal in proper names. Right, guys?" He plucked the smouldering white tube from his lips neatly between his first and second fingers and grinned. "My name is Pierro de la Costa," he indicated, pressing a gloved hand to the centre of his chest.

Neither of the two Chakri made a reply, although out of the corner of his eye Ryan could see the larger of the two Chakri rotate his head around to where he could look at Pierro with what Ryan guessed was distaste.

"You do have names, don't you?" Pierro asked, trying to sound good-natured in a phony kind of way.

At this, the larger of the two Chakri slowed his pace until the four of them were at a slow walk, and Pierro took this opportunity to halt altogether. The column of prisoners began to bunch up behind them, but kept their distance as they undoubtedly suspected something was up.

The larger of the two Chakri parted its lips and let out some of its breath in something like an exasperated sigh -- and from its source it sounded more menacing than it might have from a human. It said, "I keep my name for my friends."

Pierro frowned. Even Big Mike, some metres away in front of them, stopped and turned around with a firmer grip on his weapon. Pierro, on the other hand, didn't put a hand to the pistol holster snugged against his left side but instead poked a finger at Ryan's chest, causing him to back up a few steps. "Are you saying I'm not your friend? I don't think you'd want me as an enemy."

The Chakri spoke with surprising venom. "I would prefer you dead, human."

Pierro didn't even blink. He pointedly inhaled some more smoke and paused for a moment before blowing it in a wide stream into the Chakri's face, then looking the larger creature up and down with an unimpressed eye. "You think you could make it happen, pal?"

"Yes," the Chakri replied promptly.

"Hey!" said Big Mike, shouldering his way past Pierro and standing face-to-face with the larger Chakri. "Shut the fuck up before I drag 5A out into the woods and shoot him dead!"

Ryan backed up a few more feet and raised his hands, trying to look as though he had no part in what was happening. Meanwhile, however, the other Chakri, who had up to this point remained both silent and somewhat detached from what was going on around them, stepped forward a fraction and placed a clawed hand on the larger Chakri's shoulder, muttering something short and pointed in their alien tongue. The larger Chakri glanced at his fellow for a split second before baring its teeth in an unfriendly sneer and turning its attention back to the earthen path ahead of them.

Big Mike kept a disapproving eye on the larger Chakri as he stomped back up the earthen path ahead of the prisoners. Pierro lingered for a moment, stepping to where he was able to look the larger Chakri squarely in the eye, albeit from a slightly lower elevation, with a smirk on his face. "You'll get your chance, tough guy. We'll see who's got bragging rights after I kick the crap out of you." With that, he strode up the earthen path and caught up with Big Mike in the distance.

The two Chakri started, to Ryan's eyes, a reluctant march up the path behind the two guards. Recovering his composure, Ryan broke into a light jog to keep up with them, not yet willing to risk another assault on his ears. Or on his person, which he reasoned the alarm might precipitate. For a few seconds, Ryan walked alongside the pair in silence, unwilling to disturb the temper of either one -- and he estimated that both might be feeling more than a little unbalanced after the exchange between Pierro and the larger of the two.

"I apologize," Ryan heard one of the Chakri say. He turned his head in surprise, and saw that the larger Chakri was looking at him.

"Wh ..." Ryan started, and lost his train of thought immediately. Of the first few things he had heard the Chakri say, and based upon what little he knew of Chakri in general, 'I apologize' seemed to be one of the more unlikely things he had expected.

"I do not like being held captive," the Chakri continued, in a voice low enough to escape the notice of the guards nearby. "And I do not like how those criminals are acting toward us." The Chakri gestured in a surprisingly human way at Ryan, although with a broad, furred, and clawed hand that was anything but human. "But I let my anger get the better of me, and it was possible that you might have been harmed."

Ryan was still dumbfounded. He was still trudging along but his mouth was still hanging open. He realized this and forced his teeth back into contact. "Uh ... " he started. "That's ... uh, that's all right," he managed. "Don't worry about it."

The larger Chakri made an exaggerated nod -- more like a courteous bow done with the neck and shoulders. It said, "You said that your name was ... " Here, the Chakri's command of vowel sounds was taxed -- " ... Rhaiyan?"

Close enough, Ryan thought. "Yes," he said. "Could I ... uh ... ask your name?"

The larger Chakri appeared to ponder this for a moment. "My name is Gorkath," it replied. "I come from the House," -- this was said with a capital-H -- "of Go-mekh. My family, you understand?"

"Yeah," Ryan replied, "my own family name is 'Albert-son.'" He felt a twinge of sadness at this -- he knew that the odds of him ever seeing his family again were pretty slim -- about the same as him having an 'Albertson' tombstone erected in his memory if he died on this planet. "'Pleased to meet you," he added, extending his hand.

Gorkath -- the larger Chakri -- looked down at Ryan's extended hand for a moment, and then seemed to remember what protocol required. It closed a firm, almost bonecrushing grip around Ryan's hand with a large, furred hand nearly twice the size of the other. The sensation of oddly-shaped bones and velvety pads against his flesh was curious, to say the least.

The earthen path along which they were moving had turned at this point into almost a corridor of sorts -- packed dirt underfoot, blue sky above, and a wall of vegetation the color of spinach on either side. Big Mike and Pierro had both moved slightly into the distance, but not so far away that they couldn't turn around and incinerate anybody wanting to make trouble. Making an escape at this point wouldn't be possible anyway -- the first person foolish enough to make a break for the woods might get their head and shoulders into the thick of the vegetation but would promptly have their ass shot off. Ryan also noticed that the sun appeared to be slowly heading for the opposite horizon, and that it was a small bit darker than it had been at first.

The smaller of the two Chakri looked over at Ryan with its amber eyes, and Ryan saw for the first time that there really was an element of sadness in the other Chakri's face. Whatever it was which was bothering it, it must have been important. It spoke in a low voice, polite but subdued, saying, "My name is Ki-Toh-Ran."

"Ryan Albertson," Ryan indicated, reaching out to clasp the offered hand.

"5A!" shouted a voice from behind. Ryan nearly jumped out of his skin as Bill came striding up with fury in his face. "You're not here to make friends, dipshit!" Gripping the stock and the barrel of his laser rifle, Bill gave Ryan a straight shove to the center of his chest that send him sprawling onto his back in the dirt. For a moment, Bill simply stood over him, training his weapon squarely on Ryan's head and probably, in Ryan's mind, pondering if it would be worth the trouble it might cause to cut Ryan's life short. Whatever emotion won, Bill jerked his head around to shout at the rest of the prisoners, "Stop gawking and get moving!" Turning his attention back to Ryan, Bill spat into the dust and hefted the rifle. "Just remember, pal -- there are plenty of ways to die out here." He leaned close enough that Ryan could discern the stubble on his chin. "That guy who got his head blown off today? That was quick and easy compared to what I've got in store for you."

Bill whirled and strode off, leaving Ryan propped up on his elbows in the dirt and speechless before he had the presence of mind to lever himself to his feet and start walking again. He glanced back, making sure that Bill was again taking up the rear and was inclined to divert his attention elsewhere. His mind strayed to what Bill had mentioned -- the image of the other prisoner lying on the deck of the starship in orbit above them, blood pooling around his head. That's a fucked-up way to die, he thought, and if that's what Bill calls quick and easy, I don't want to know what his idea of 'excruciating' is. He trudged alongside the two Chakri for an indeterminable time, keeping his head down and his eyes on the ground.

At length, they rounded a bend in the earthen path, after which Ryan was momentarily surprised by the appearance of a wide but shallow bowl-shaped depression in the ground, probably several hundred metres across but only a few dozen metres deep in the centre. In the depression were number of grey, simple, one-storey buildings which looked like they had been easily constructed out of blocks of concrete or weather-resistant plastic. They were hard to discern exactly with the naked eye -- it looked as though someone had gone to some trouble to find a color of building material very close to that of the native dirt. A crisscross of worn footpaths described where between the buildings a series of roads might have been paved if camouflage hadn't been an issue. In the distance, Ryan thought he could see a small landing pad and a number of small craft stationed on it. Not shuttlecraft, he thought, seeing the assortment of wings, fins, and stabilizers. Aircraft, maybe.

Ahead, Big Mike and Pierro had stopped at the corner of a long but thin building with a single, steel door set into the end of it. Ryan and the two Chakri stopped a respectful few paces away as the rest of the prisoners began to catch up with them. Pierro stepped up to the door and tapped a few buttons on a nearby keypad before it opened. Big Mike pointed to the door as Pierro stepped through it and called out, "You three -- get in there! The rest of you! Follow them inside, single file!"

Ryan hesitated as the two Chakri appeared to take the initiative and filed through the doorway. Ryan followed after a brief moment, not surprised to see that there was a long row of small cots arrayed from one end of the building to the other - ten in all. Each appeared to consist of no more than a thin metal frame and a fabric surface. They were also, Ryan noted, firmly bolted to the floor. Pierro made his way toward the opposite end of the building, stopping at the last cot and turning around so he could keep track of Ryan and the two Chakri as they approached. "Everyone take a bed and listen carefully," he said. "Now that you're here, the Captain doesn't care if we're a little nice to you." He paused. "Nicer than before, anyway. These beds are all wired into an alarm system. If you pull the bed off the floor, the alarm goes off. If you're supposed to be sleeping, and more than one person gets out of bed or you start making noise, the alarm goes off. I don't need to tell you how much I hate getting roused out of bed early in the morning." He smirked. "All the more reason to make sure you use the john in relays. Speaking of which --" He pointed at a pair of doors situated halfway down the length of the building. "Ladies' and men's washrooms." He paused again. "You know, I don't think I ever got the chance to ask." He turned to the two Chakri, each standing at the head of a cot perhaps two metres from him. "I don't suppose you two are male, are you?"

"Yes," replied Gorkath.

Pierro shrugged. "Hard to tell if you've got any balls," he mused, peering at Gorkath at about waist-level, "with all that fur."

"I know where mine are," Gorkath replied, with undisguised contempt, "unlike you."

At first Ryan though he might have been hearing things, but it wasn't more than a half-second before Pierro's jaw dropped and the color drained from his face. The oversized guard clapped his hand to the butt of his pistol as the other two guards in the room were heard moving up from the other end of the building.

"Didn't I tell you to shut the fuck up?" Big Mike's voice came booming from one side as he stopped near Ryan. "You must not care what happens to 5A, 'cause I'm seriously considering giving him an extra hole in his head." Ryan was so astonished at what Gorkath had said that Big Mike's threat didn't even register with him -- he stared at the big Chakri with his mouth hanging partway open again.

Gorkath didn't even acknowledge Big Mike's presence, but kept his eyes squarely on Pierro. "If Mister de la Costa wishes to hide behind a technicality," he enunciated, "I will not challenge him."

"No, no --" Pierro protested hotly, his eyes blazing with restrained fury. He took his hand from his pistol and pointed it at Gorkath's face. "I told you I'd kick the crap out of you and by God I'll meet you wherever or whenever you want, furball!"

"And what of five-A?" Gorkath inquired, canting his head slightly toward where Ryan was standing.

"Whatever you say, buddy," Pierro retorted. He pointed at Ryan in turn. "I want this guy left alone until after we've take care of business."

Bill gripped Pierro by the shoulder and hissed in his ear, "Remember what the Captain said!"

"Fuck that!" Pierro spat. "I won't hurt him that badly -- at least not until he knows who's boss around here." He turned back to Gorkath and made an expansive gesture, spreading his hands wide. "So when do we do this?"

Gorkath didn't blink. "Fifteen minutes," he stated, flatly. "Outside."

Pierro nodded slightly. "I may not kill you, you freak," he rasped, "but you'll wish you were dead when I'm through with you." He whirled away and headed for the door, followed closely by Bill

As Pierro and Bill headed out of the building, Big Mike scowled at Gorkath and then turned his attention to Ryan. "Talk some sense into your buddy, 5A," he said in a low voice. "At this rate, he's going to get you killed." With that, he turned and strode toward the door. As though it was an afterthought, he called out over his shoulder. "Everybody be ready to head out in forty minutes!" The door closed behind him with an abrupt slam! and there was the sound of very heavy bolts being rammed into the doorframe.

As the room quickly dissolved into a cacophony of independent, hushed conversations between the others, Ryan looked over at Gorkath, who was standing calmly near his cot. "Are you sure that was necessary?" he asked.

Gorkath regarded him with an unreadable expression. "I am sure," he rumbled, "it was inevitable."

"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" Ryan asked. He sat down on the edge of his cot. "They've already threatened to cut my leg off, or torture me, or shoot me dead, or whatever happens to appeal to them at the moment. What makes you think they won't?"

Gorkath slid a flat, pink tongue from between his thin, black lips briefly, appearing to moisten them. "I think that if they wished you to be harmed," he ventured. "they would have started by refusing to feed you."

"Maybe," Ryan said, "but that's hardly -- " All of a sudden, the absurdity of the situation caught up with him and he just just put up his hands. "Okay ... okay," he started. "This is all just too weird." He spread his hands in Gorkath's direction like an art appraiser trying to size up the lines of Botticelli's Venus. "Who the hell are you and how the hell did you get here?"

"Be patient," was all Gorkath said in reply, as he leaned down to where the other Chakri was sitting on his own cot and intimated something in the harsh alien tongue the two of them shared, while pointing at the walls. The other Chakri responded with some kind of monosyllable which probably translated as an affirmative, at which Gorkath walked a very short distance to a nearby wall, studiously inspecting the surfaces and joins of the blocks of stone.

Ryan shook his head at the impossibility of it all, staring down at his hands and his handcuff bracelets. Nearby, the other Chakri sat and appeared to be deep in thought, staring at the floor but also into the middle distance.

"You ... uh," Ryan started, searching his memory, "said your name was 'Ki-toh-ran?'"

The other Chakri raised what seemed like sad eyes to meet Ryan's. "K'Toran. Yes."

"I was wondering ... uh," Ryan continued, grasping at whatever he could use for conversation, "I mentioned that I come from the family Albertson. I wasn't sure if you and Gorkath are brothers or not. What is your family name, uh ... may I ask?"

K'Toran didn't respond for a moment, except by a lowering of his eyes and a slight tightening of his mouth. "My House ... I have no House, now," he murmured, his voice of a slightly lighter timbre than Gorkath's but husky with something like grief. "They were killed."

"Oh," Ryan blurted, mortified, "I'm ... good God, I'm sorry to hear that. Um ..." He searched frantically for something to add. "Your whole House?" He just about kicked himself at the last thing to escape his lips.

"Yes," K'Toran replied, looking back up at Ryan. "My parents, and my two older brothers."

And I thought my week has been going poorly, Ryan thought. "How did it happen?" he asked, and again he cursed his choice of question.

K'Toran drew in a deep breath which gusted out in a rumbling sigh. "I am not certain," he replied. "They were traveling together when their spacecraft was destroyed under ... " Here the Chakri's command of English failed. "different ... circumstances?"

"You mean 'suspicious'?" Ryan interpolated.

"Yes." K'Toran replied. "I have reason to suspect that others were involved. Do you recall Torak?" K'Toran pointed a clawtip at the ceiling. "From the spacecraft above?"

"Torak? Yeah, I remember," Ryan agreed. "He had something to do with it?"

"Likely not," K'Toran said, "but his family -- the House of Rajaan -- are known as criminals and are not above committing murder." He pursed his lips slightly. "My House, the House of Kataar, have long been jurists and law-yers. Always opposed to such Chakri." He bowed his head slightly. "There was word that my father was to bring the full force of our laws to bear against them." He closed his eyes. "And now I am the last of my family. Gorkath believes we have a chance of escape, but at the moment I do not share his ... op-ti-mis'm."

From a scant few metres away, Gorkath muttered something which sounded incomprehensible but somehow upbeat to Ryan's ears.

"What did he say?" Ryan asked.

"I said," Gorkath interjected, "that we will escape."

Ryan mulled this over for a moment. "Well," he reasoned, pulling on his resources of charm and wit. "I've got only three options, as far as I see it."

"First, if you guys attempt to escape and I don't help you, there's a good chance that these alarms --" he pointedly held his wrists toward the Chakri, "will give us all away. That means you guys get disciplined and I get killed."

"Second, if you guys attempt to escape and you don't want to be given away, you'll need to take these with you. That probably means I'd lose both of my hands, which I can't say I like the idea of."

The two Chakri looked at each other with obvious discomfort.

He paused. "So basically, if I want to get out of here alive, and with my hands attached to my body, I have to take the third option."

Gorkath cocked his head very slightly to one side. "And your third option is ... ?"

"That I help you two and we escape together."

Ryan hadn't experienced the small pleasure of seeing the two Chakri even remotely impressed yet. Both pairs of eyes that were regarding him widened in surprise. K'Toran inclined his head at Ryan slightly. "You would help us?"

Ryan shrugged. "As I said, my options are pretty limited -- die, get maimed, or 'none of the above'. I'll take my chances with number three, thank you."

K'Toran paused for a moment, and then did something peculiar. He threw back his head, opened his mouth to show a set of gleaming canine teeth, and produced a deep rumbling laugh which had the effect of startling Ryan and the rest of the humans in the building into a sudden silence. "You have an unusual wit, Mister Albertson, and you seem to be quite clever. I think these things will serve us well if we are to escape."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" a voice inquired from behind them.

Steve, who had occupied the cell numbered 4A, was standing at the fore of the rest of the prisoners, looking awkwardly at Ryan and the two Chakri and apparently not very comfortable speaking with an alien. "I mean, " he said, "if you three were to escape, they might think about taking it out on the rest of us as punishment."

Ryan took a deep breath. "Well ... we were just discussing the possibility that they need us all alive."

Steve hesitated. "Perhaps that's true, but they don't have to kill us to punish us. And even if they did, it's not like people traveling alone in deep space are in short supply, right?"

"What I had not mentioned," Gorkath interjected, causing all of the humans except perhaps Ryan to draw back a half-step, "was the problem of time. If we wait to escape, then we become weaker and less likely to succeed."

"What about the mineral?" a woman behind Steve protested. "If we get exposed to it as early as tomorrow, then we'll all need the antidote to stay alive." There was a murmur of agreement from the crowd.

"I think we should stay!" another man called out. "What's the worst that can happen to us if we just sit tight and do what they ask?" More murmurings from the crowd.

Steve nodded. "We can't leave until we know what we're doing and where we're going. That means tomorrow at the earliest and then we'll have the mineral's toxic effects to worry about."

"Perhaps that is a trick to keep us docile," Gorkath supposed. "In any event, it may not be toxic to us, and I will not stay here for a moment longer than is necessary."

"You'd risk our safety just so you can get home a little early?" Steve asked, incredulous. Ryan sensed that the other man was getting angry. "You of all of us have smallest risk by not doing anything. Hell, you'll be going home in a week or two."

"No, he won't." Ryan interrupted quietly.

Steve fell suddenly silent. "What?" he managed.

"Think about it." Ryan insisted, working his way through a series of conclusions he didn't like the sound of. "People have been disappearing without a trace in deep space for the longest time, but did anybody ever say 'there's this bunch of pirates who kidnap people and they just released us last week' or something like that?"

Steve and the others looked around at each other, silently gauging the likelihood of this.

"Nobody was ever recovered in an escape pod with severe amnesia, either. All I ever heard on the news reports," Ryan continued, "was that there were disappearances where 'possible piracy' was involved. Nothing to look out for, no patterns in the disappearances, nothing. So that means nobody ever gets out of this alive. Nobody." He looked over at Gorkath. "If they actually are planning to ransom you two, then they must have a really clever way of making sure you don't know where you are or where you'll be taken. You've seen their faces, and you probably remember where you were captured. What do you suppose would happen if word got back to your government that human pirates had taken to kidnapping Chakri citizens?"

Gorkath pondered this for a moment. "There is the possibility that my family might take matters into their own hands, but this would depend on if they could trust our captors at their word to release me unharmed. If not ... at the very least, it would mean a number of inquiries made to your government. At worst ... my people might take it upon themselves to send in a small task force."

"Either way, something these guys wouldn't want to risk." Ryan pointed out. "No, there's no way you're getting ransomed. And there's no way we're getting out of here except on our own."

Silence gripped the room for a moment. Eventually, Steve was the one to clear his throat and say, "Well, I guess we need to work together on this."

Ryan nodded. "We should organize first, and figure out how we're going to go about this." He turned to the two Chakri. "I know this is going to be awkward at first, but perhaps we can pool our resources and improve our chances."

Gorkath said nothing. K'Toran looked up from his reverie and said, "You believe that our chance for success would be greater if we were to wait, and to study how our captors behave?"

"I think so," Ryan replied. "And perhaps they'll develop a false sense of security with time."

Steve nodded. "That's how I see it."

K'Toran made a slight bow of his head. "Then I will act with you." He turned his head to regard Gorkath, who was still silent.

Gorkath eventually gave a deep, rumbling sigh and turned his gaze on Ryan. "Perhaps this is not the best course of action, but I will not be the cause of any suffering that you all might endure. So I shall act with you as well."

"All right," Ryan said, rising from the edge of his cot. "Well, first things first ..."

There was the sudden sound of the door's bolts being retracted. The door opened, revealing Bill as he stepped into the room and stalked toward the cluster of people in the middle. Bill wore his usual scowl and was porting his laser rifle in an especially casual way across his pelvis.

"Listen up!" he said, addressing the entire room. "Prisoners 1A thru 1J: form a line over here." There was a hurried movement within the crowd of prisoners as ten emerged and lined themselves up. "You'll be going to eat, and then you'll be going to your work site and returning in five hours." He gestured at the door with his weapon. "You'll meet with Jason outside. Go!"

The ten prisoners began a light jog out of the room. After a slight pause Bill continued, saying, "As for 2A thru 2J, you'll be going with Alex and coming back in ten hours. Go!" Another ten prisoners sorted themselves from the crowd and headed for the door. "Likewise, 3A thru 3J will be going with Salvatore and coming back in fifteen. 4A thru 4J will be going with Big Mike and coming back in twenty. Get moving!"

A flurry of disorganized activity left Ryan, the two Chakri, and six other people standing in the suddenly spacious room facing Bill. "And I was saving the best for last," he asserted. "The nine of you are going to get to sleep for five hours. Well, maybe not five hours, but ..." Bill grinned, "... five hours minus whatever time it takes for Pierro to take this big guy right here and kick his nuts up between his shoulders. After that, you go eat and then head out to work with Pierro and myself for twenty hours. Maybe you won't have to carry him from here to there, if you're lucky."

He stepped over to where Gorkath was standing, and gave the big Chakri a look from head to toe. "You know, " he said, almost matter-of-factly, "Pierro is an instructor in Brazilian jiu jitsu and he's taught most of us all we can learn in the martial arts. Even if he doesn't cripple you, there's a good chance you'll be hurting at the end of this."

Gorkath appeared to close his eyes halfway while a crude chuckle escaped his lips. "I have been subjected to more pain in my lifetime than you or Mister de la Costa could ever inflict on me, human. You will find that I do not frighten easily."

"Is that so?" Bill mused. "Well, you can't say I didn't warn you. I'm just here to remind you of something." He inclined the muzzle of his laser rifle at where Ryan was standing. "I might have to replace 5A if I accidentally blow his guts all over the dirt. So make sure you fight fair."

Gorkath's fur bristled with such speed that Ryan could've sworn a porcupine would have looked less prickly. With a lightning movement, Gorkath snatched the muzzle of the laser rifle in his right hand and deflected it upwards while grabbing Bill by his neck and hoisting him a fair ways off his feet. Baring his teeth in an open-mouthed snarl which filled the room, he brought Bill's face within a handspan of his own. "I will never be accused of dishonor by one who hides behind the safety of others and captures slaves for his amusement!"

Bill's face had turned the color of chalk and he was gripping at Gorkath's wrist with both his hands and without effect. Gorkath by now was almost nose to nose with the man. "You once suggested I might have to eat Mister Albertson's leg? Perhaps I might make a meal of your face instead."

Bill shrieked in protest and freed one hand to search around his back for the handle of his knife, but before he could grasp it Gorkath flung him away with a mighty heave. Bill flew across the room, hit the floor on his back, and slid for a metre or two before coming to halt in a breathless heap. A split second passed before he scrambled to his feet, but he hesitated in doing anything as he realized that Gorkath still had his laser rifle, now being carried in two oversized, clawed hands.

As Bill unsteadily climbed to his feet, Gorkath shoved the rifle toward him. Bill almost fumbled it, but recovered it and stood uncertainly with the rifle pointing at the floor. "As I said," Gorkath said, more calmly, "I will always fight fairly."

Bill seemed to hesitate, and then stood a little straighter and pointed with his free hand at Gorkath. "I'm going to make sure that Pierro breaks both your arms for this." He strode for the door, not looking back.

After the door had closed and locked again, Ryan turned an open-mouthed expression of shock in Gorkath's direction. "Did you have to do that?"

Gorkath brushed some of the fur on his arms to lie a little flatter. "Inevitable," he asserted.

"Is it also inevitable that I'm going to get my ass shot off if you keep on responding to their provocations?" Ryan retorted. "Where the hell did you get such a temper from anyway?"

Gorkath responded with a slight extension and retraction of his claws - the sight was unnerving but the Chakri seemed to have his emotions under a firmer control than previously. "Perhaps I should have restrained my anger, but you must know this, Ryan - to insult the honor of a Chakri is the gravest insult imaginable. Unforgivable, some say." He cocked his head a fraction. "You ... do not share this view?"

Ryan took a deep breath to calm himself. "No, actually," he replied. "Most humans throw insults around pretty casually - if someone tried to insult me like that, I wouldn't take him seriously."

Gorkath pursed his lips in a frowning expression. "Perhaps that is a sentiment that humans and Chakri do not share."

K'Toran spoke up. "I wonder, Ryan, what you have learned of Chakri and how we live."

Ryan shrugged by way of embarrassment. "I don't know an awful lot, uh ... I mean, aside from what little they taught us in school there were the usual rumors."

Gorkath gave a low, throaty chuckle, baring his teeth slightly. "It was likely the same with us," he supposed. "Excuse me for a moment." He stepped away from the wall slightly, making sure to keep himself a short distance from Ryan all the while, and purposely removed the small clasp holding his cloak in place. Setting the trinket and the garment on the cot he had claimed for himself, Gorkath then began a series of curious tipping motions of his neck. Side to side, twisting to the left and right, and then a rolling motion both clockwise and counterclockwise. After a moment, Ryan surmised that this was an activity to stretch the muscles and ligaments, although it was more thorough than anything Ryan had ever granted himself in his younger years as a public school athlete.

Just as Gorkath was working his way down to the smaller muscles of his legs, there came the sound of the door being unlocked again, and both Bill and Pierro stepped through. Bill looked furious, whereas Pierro merely looked placid and condescending. "Well," Pierro said, "it's been fifteen minutes. Are you going to keep me waiting?"

Chapter 5

Gorkath started a slow walk toward the door, casting a brief glance back at Ryan and K'Toran as he did so. Ryan got to his feet and caught up with him, followed closely by K'Toran, both of whom were acutely aware of how painful it would be to hear the warning alarm from their handcuffs again. The bright sunlight caught Ryan by surprise and he squinted frantically to regain his vision.

Perhaps ten metres away was a ring of men, all dressed as Bill and Pierro were, and all forming a circle that was perhaps five metres across. Most of the men appeared to be of the same kind - rough, vulgar individuals who probably, in Ryan's estimation, had cultivated a disdain for both hard work and the laws of civilized behavior very early in their lives. And hence why they're all here, Ryan thought. Easy money and the prospect of doing whatever they want.

Bill grabbed Ryan by the upper arm and hustled him into the circle, so that he was standing in the midst of perhaps two dozen or more armed guards and feeling acutely self-conscious at the fact that he was armed with neither a weapon nor a decent excuse why he shouldn't be dumped in a ditch somewhere to save on inconvenience. What's going to happen if Gorkath wins?, he thought. Will the rest of these guys want to string me up from a tree and take turns punching me? What if he loses? I could be stuck nursemaiding him from place to place until he heals ... if he heals.

Pierro was already opposite Ryan in the circle, stripped of his uniform and boots and dressed in a simple short-sleeved shirt and athletic shorts. He appeared to be doing a boxer's warmup - stretching out the muscles in his upper arms and dancing on the balls of his feet.

Abruptly, the crowd to Ryan's left parted, and Gorkath stepped past him into the circle. When the circle had re-closed behind him, Ryan found himself shoulder-to-shoulder with two nasty-looking guards, both with expectant and eager expressions. One put a hand on his shoulder and grinned in a mock display of camaraderie. "I'll bet you two hundred credits that Pierro wins this one in two minutes."

Ryan swallowed and said nothing. The other guard leaned closer and seemed to speak past Ryan's nose, saying, "I'll bet you he takes longer than four."

"You're on!" the first guard replied. By now, the circle was cheering intermittently, goading Pierro to stop wasting time and to hurry up with what he was doing.

Pierro, for his part, merely cracked his knuckles and grinned at Gorkath standing opposite. "Well, bud," he said, "this looks like the end for you. Any last words?"

Gorkath spread his hands wide. "Someone had mentioned a fair contest ... did you have any rules you wished to set?"

Pierro laughed, planting fists on hips and throwing his head back. "Rules?" he asked. "The only rules for what I'm about to do to you are this: I keep you in ransom-able condition for the Captain." His eyes narrowed. "Besides that, I'm prepared to beat you until you beg for mercy, for what you did to Bill a few minutes ago."

"Very well," Gorkath replied. "In that spirit, I will not harm you so that you are kept from doing the work of your position here." He slid a clawed, heel-less foot a pace back and raised his hands in front of him, taking a peculiar stance. "Although, I must confess, I have never used my claws to cut the flesh of a lackey."

Pierro's mouth twitched. "Get ready," he grated.

Gorkath merely stood still as Pierro dropped into a defensive crouch and began shifting slightly to his right. The sound from the circle increased until it became a cacophony of shouts and jeers, alternately goading Pierro to get on with things and taunting Gorkath for standing completely still, and all the while hurting Ryan's ears.

Suddenly, Pierro ducked and spun, kicking a heel toward Gorkath's unprotected gut. Ryan winced in anticipation that Gorkath would probably be laid out on his back in the dust, or at least be staggered back a few steps. Instead, with a movement seemingly as fluid as a gust of wind, the big Chakri sidestepped and waited patiently while Pierro returned to his previous stance.

Pierro wasted no time in launching another strike, as he jumped into the air and aimed a spinning roundhouse kick at Gorkath's head. Again, the Chakri ducked down and to one side, avoiding the force of Pierro's blow and waiting until the other man had regained his balance.

Pierro scowled. "Are you going to dance around all day, or are you going to fight?" he bellowed. Gorkath said nothing, except by way of easing to his left so that he stood opposite Pierro in the circle. After a moment, Pierro stepped lightly toward Gorkath and aimed a jab at the Chakri's nose.

Gorkath sidestepped the blow as before, but this time he grabbed Pierro's leading wrist and his opposite shoulder, swinging the other man around and releasing him. Pierro recovered his balance but fell back against the circle of guards surrounding them.

Pierro's scowl intensified. "You're no rich kid, that's for sure," he muttered, "but don't think you're as good as me." He jumped into the air and aimed a drop kick at Gorkath's chin.

For answer, Gorkath caught Pierro's foot as it was descending, rolled onto his back, and planted a clawed foot in Pierro's middle as the human sailed overhead. With a mighty kick, Gorkath sent Pierro flying to where he crashed to the ground outside the circle, some five or six metres away.

Gorkath took up the momentum of his fall and pushed himself up into a handstand, and then flipped back over onto his feet. He turned around just as Pierro was furiously pushing his way through the crowd and back into the circle. This time, the human said nothing as he aimed a flurry of punches at Gorkath's face, and on the second time that Gorkath dodged, grabbed ahold of the Chakri's upper arms and delivered a headbutt to Gorkath's nose.

Gorkath's head whipped backward with the force of the blow, but already his clawed hands had gripped Pierro by the elbows and with a mighty shove freed the human's grip on him. Gorkath settled his head back into its usual inclination, snorted through his nostrils once, as if in irritation, and shoved the human away,

Pierro dropped back into a defensive crouch, awaiting what the Chakri might do now that he had been struck. Gorkath merely put the back of a hand to his nose, which appeared to be trickling blood, and narrowed his eyes.

"Stings, doesn't it?" Pierro quipped.

In the space of an eyeblink, Gorkath stepped inside Pierro's guard and delivered a knife-handed chop to Pierro's throat. As the human put a hand to his throat and gasped in astonishment, Gorkath chopped him again, at the side of the neck with one hand and at the base of his skull with the other.

Pierro dropped to his knees in the dust, while Gorkath stepped back and regarded his opponent with what might have been amusement. Shaking his head, Pierro cleared his throat and rasped, "Bill!"

Nearby, Bill tossed a heavy object at Pierro, which the other man caught deftly and hefted in his grasp. Ryan recognized it as the heavy club which Big Mike had been carrying earlier in the day. From this distance, Ryan was almost certain that it was something like oak, and with Pierro's muscle behind it the club looked like it might easily crack Gorkath's skull if it connected.

Pierro levered himself back to his feet and started to toss the club from hand to hand. "I said I was going to teach you a lesson, you freak!" With these words, he swung the club at Gorkath's head, missing by only a fraction as the Chakri managed to dodge out of the way. Pierro clearly had both strength and finesse, as he swung the club with the ease and speed with which one might swing a knife.

Ryan's brow was sweating, and he slid the back of his wrist across his eyes. All bets are off, he thought. Pierro isn't fighting fair anymore and I don't think he'll stop until Gorkath gets killed. Gorkath, for his part, was doing an excellent job of dodging the swings and thrusts that Pierro made with the club. By now, the circle of guards was going nearly mad with excitement, their cheers and shouts mingling into a noise so loud and offensive that Ryan could only restrain himself from clapping his hands to his ears.

"C'mon!" Pierro shouted, between swings of the club, "I know you're holding back. Stop pussyfooting around and fight me, you coward!"

All of a sudden, the club connected squarely with the palm of Gorkath's right hand and stopped. Pierro tried to pull it free of the Chakri's grip, but for all his strength he managed to move it only a centimetre or so. Gorkath was watching him with intensely narrowed eyes, and his broad, muscular chest was heaving as though he had all of a sudden been exerting himself - which he hadn't.

In a voice as low as the dust and as cold as an arctic wind, Gorkath bared his teeth and said, "I will show you which one of us is the coward."

A sudden flick of Gorkath's wrist and the club was sailing over his shoulder and away into the distance. Equally as suddenly, a silence fell over the onlookers while Pierro looked very unsure of himself and dropped back into a defensive crouch.

Gorkath sprang at Pierro with such speed that Ryan could scarcely follow his movement, and with a swipe of his hand to Pierro's head sent the man pirouetting into the wall of men behind him, where he collapsed to the ground for a moment. Picking himself up, Pierro swiped a dusty hand across his forehead where Gorkath's claws had raked him, and stared at his hand for a moment after it came away bloody.

Pierro let out an enraged cry and scrambled to his feet, grappling for Gorkath's face and searching with his feet for a way to trip the Chakri to the ground. Out of nowhere came the sound of a laser rifle being fired, and everyone present turned to look for the source of the noise.

The ship captain stood not ten metres away, flanked by his four bodyguards. Of these, three had their weapons trained squarely on the circle of guards, on Ryan, and on the two Chakri, while a fourth had his weapon trained on the sky. The captain had his fists planted on his hips, and a deepening scowl twisted his reddening features. "What the hell is this?!?" he grated.

Pierro still had Gorkath by a wrist, but quickly shoved him away. "This one was trying to escape - I ..."

"Bullshit, 'Costa," the captain retorted, "I heard about your little run-in with the big one and I knew you couldn't resist wanting to fight him. Get over here!"

Pierro risked a withering glance at Gorkath and jogged over to where the captain was standing. "Get back to work, the rest of you!" the captain bellowed, which had the effect of scattering the rest of the guards to their respective duties elsewhere. Ryan and K'Toran both stepped over to where Gorkath was standing, while two of the captain's bodyguards moved out to either side, taking up flanking positions where they could easily cover the cluster of prisoners.

From where Ryan was standing, he could still hear some of what the captain was saying in a heated whisper to Pierro. "The next time I catch you dicking around with my prisoners I'm going to have your balls for trophies! Those two are worth a shitload of money and I don't intend to let you fuck that up for me. Get yourself over to the infirmary and out of my sight!"

Pierro, displaying the first good sense Ryan had seen from him yet, obediently turned and jogged away toward one of the other buildings. Meanwhile, the captain strode over to where Ryan was standing and gave his prisoners a stern, almost grave look. After a moment, he wiped a hand over his eyes and brow and into his hair. "I suppose you've got a good explanation for this, do you?" Ryan had no idea whether the captain was speaking rhetorically so he opted to say nothing. However, the captain continued, settling his gaze on Ryan and saying, "You heard me when I said that I was going to have you killed if those two misbehaved, right?"

"Yes," Ryan admitted.

"And your excuse is ... what?" the captain asked.

Ryan swallowed. "I think, sir ... Mr. de la Costa had a personal grudge and a point to make."

The captain sighed and looked toward the heavens. "That's probably the first intelligent thing I've heard said today." The edge of his mouth quirked upward in a half-grin. "You know, I found that bottle of single-malt scotch in the storage locker on your ship. I didn't think someone with half-decent drinking taste could be foolish enough to go traveling in deep space without an escort ..." he shrugged, "but there you go."

Ryan risked a gamble. "You know, sir ... I had a second bottle concealed in the engine compartment."

The captain's eyebrows - one scarred and one not - shot upward fractionally. "Oh?"

"Yes," Ryan said. "The conduit labelled 'Tertiary backup reactor plasma conduit' isn't a backup at all - it's a hollow tube where I stash my liquor."

The captain made no reply. At length, he glanced aside to one of his bodyguards, made a curt dismissive gesture with his hand, and then turned to leave. "I'd advise you, Mr. Albertson, not to let your friends here be provoked into providing anyone else's amusement. I meant what I said earlier - I don't intend to let you live if they start getting out of hand. No amount of liquor is going to spare you the next time." With that, he turned on his heel and strode off toward the middle of the settlement.

Bill, who had been judiciously hiding behind the corner of a nearby building, popped back into sight after the captain had gone. He trained his weapon on the two Chakri and grimaced. "I don't know what you're up to," he said to Gorkath, "but I'm going to be watching you very closely from now on. You got that?"

Gorkath made a slight nod of his head. "I understand," he said evenly.

Bill gestured with the muzzle of his weapon toward the building where the remainder of the prisoners were housed. "Go on," he ordered.

The three of them made their way back to the building and stepped inside, whereupon Bill sealed the door behind them. Almost immediately, Bill's voice sounded over a hidden loudspeaker. "Lights-out in five minutes."

For a moment, nobody moved. Ryan and the two Chakri stood opposite a group of six humans, four men and two women, who stared at them anxiously. Ryan let out a sigh and clapped his hands to his face in weariness. "I don't know how we got out of that one alive," he groaned. Gorkath was gingerly fingering the top of his muzzle as Ryan glanced over at him. "Is this going to be a common occurrence while I'm stuck with you guys?" Ryan asked.

Gorkath dabbed the back of his hand against his nostrils again, which were still faintly oozing blood, and snorted. "Considering that these humans are without comfort or entertainment," he said, "I suspect that we will be at the mercy of their tempers until they grow bored of us."

Ryan didn't know what to say in response to such an elegantly-crafted statement that he just trudged over to his cot and sat down on the end of it. Looking over at the other humans in the room, who were still watching Ryan and the two Chakri as they might have watched a group of lepers, Ryan sighed again. "I suppose we're going to have to make do with just the nine of us, since I think they're trying to keep us from organizing an escape committee by having us work in shifts."

The man standing at the fore of the group - a tall, red-haired older man whom Ryan hadn't had a chance to speak with while aboard the ship, nodded his agreement. "I suppose," he replied. He spoke in a faint Scottish accent, not nearly as thick as some Ryan had heard but strong enough to be noticed. "Well, what do you suppose we should do first, eh? Introductions?" He walked over to the foot of Ryan's cot and stuck out his hand. "My name is Ian MacPherson."

Ryan rose and shook the man's hand vigorously. "Ryan Albertson," he indicated, wincing as the other man's hand felt like it was about to crush his own knuckles. Like putting your hand in a bench vise, he thought. "Have you had a chance to get acquainted with your friends here?"

"Of course," Ian replied, gesturing at the group. "I've been introduced to Patrick ... Federico ... Ilsa ... and these are Xiaopeng and Mei-Ling.

The short, narrow-featured man of Asian lineage smiled timidly. "My wife," he confirmed, indicating the woman at his side."

Ryan smiled back. "Ryan," he indicated, lightly touching his chest by way of greeting. "Well, it seems like we've all been thrust into this thing rather suddenly."

"Understatement," the man identified as Patrick said. He seemed like a younger man, barely into his twenties. Ryan figured that his accent placed him from somewhere on Earth in North America but he couldn't tell precisely where. "For a moment I thought we were going to have the benefit of a larger group and maybe have Steve organize things for us."

Ryan nodded unhappily. "Yeah ... that would've been nice. I'm not saying I'm just going to lie down and take it, but without the help of so many others, we aren't going to have an easy time of it." He looked round for Gorkath and K'Toran. "Do you two have any objections to counting the rest of us as friends? I mean, it'd be nice if we could all deal in first names."

Gorkath licked his lips briefly. "I said that I would act with you - so we shall be friends unless circumstances change." He bowed slightly in their direction. "I am Gorkath of the House of Gomekh."

"I am K'Toran," said the other, "of the House of Kataar."

"Good," Ryan said. "Well ... uh ... I'm thinking it would make sense if we each got settled and ready for sleep - there's bound to be something going on in five hours and I'd rather face it having got some rest."

The rest of the humans nodded their assent, and started toward the far end of the row of cots. Gorkath and K'Toran remained standing, however. Ryan glanced from one to the other for a moment, quizzically, before Gorkath made a huffing motion to clear his throat and waved vaguely with one hand toward the opposite wall. "I require the use of the ... er ... wash-room?"

"Oh," Ryan replied, caught slightly off-guard. "By all means." He walked with them to the door of the men's washroom set into the far wall, and noticed for the first time that the small, cabinet-like structure between the washroom doors was a water fountain. Pausing briefly to take a small drink, he straightened and then continued through the door. Inside, there was a spacious and well-equipped facility, with a few toilet stalls, a few urinals, a few sinks, and an open shower area large enough to house perhaps ten individuals at once. The fixtures, Ryan noted, were universally made of plastic instead of what one might usually expect - porcelain and chrome--and the taps for the showers and sinks only had one knob. On a whim he tested one of the sinks, and found that the water was neither hot nor cold. I suppose, he thought, that I was dreaming when I thought they might have hot water for showers. The sinks didn't have plugs, either, and had very wide drains.

Gorkath, meanwhile, had opened one of the stalls and stepped inside. Ryan stepped over to one of the urinals, unzipped his pants, and set about relieving himself. It wasn't easy, however, as he kept visualizing the (unlikely) scenario where K'Toran might be gawking at him from behind. "So ..." he said. "Do they have the same kind of toilets where you come from?"

K'Toran made a noncommittal rumbling sound. "Similar, but different," he said.

"They are made to accommodate our larger size," Gorkath added, from behind the stall door. "I feel as though I am sitting on one made for a child."

Ryan couldn't help but laugh a little at that. "'Little low to the ground, eh?" He tried to concentrate on what he was doing. "I just didn't know if they had things like flush toilets or toilet paper or whatever." He smirked to himself. "I suppose that there's a lot I take for granted in the universe."

"I suppose," K'Toran continued, turning on a faucet nearby, "that we should be grateful that our captors are human. If not, would they even have facilities such as these for us to use?"

Ryan grinned to the wall. "Perhaps not. I think we'd all be stuck for a solution then." He finished what he was doing and re-zipped his pants before joining K'Toran at the row of sinks. There didn't appear to be any kind of soap, so Ryan merely rinsed and scrubbed his hands thoroughly. There wasn't anything on which to dry his hands, either, so he was left merely to flick droplets of water into the sink a few times and then wipe them on the bottom of his shirt.

K'Toran had filled his cupped hands full of water and was casually lapping at it, although with the shape of his hands and the fur coating his fingers he seemed to be ill-adapted for it - more water was escaping back into the sink than making it into his mouth.

"Did you see the fountain outside the door?" Ryan queried, good-naturedly.

"Yes," K'Toran indicated, "but I cannot drink from it." Noting Ryan's curious expression, he swallowed and shook the rest of the water back into the sink. "I might choke," he explained, pointing at his throat.

"Oh," Ryan said, not understanding fully but taking the Chakri at his word.

Just then, a familiar voice sounded over a hidden loudspeaker. "Lights-out in one minute," came Bill's voice again.

Gorkath shoved the door to the toilet stall open and stepped over to the sink, quickly setting about washing his hands and shaking them dry as he headed for the door. In the main part of the building, the rest of the prisoners had already settled onto their cots, leaving the three on the end free for Ryan and the two Chakri. Ryan opted to take the very last cot, allowing the two Chakri to sleep adjacent to one another. As he was trying to find a comfortable position in which to sleep, the lights dimmed abruptly and Bill's voice was heard to say, "Lights-out! Remember, no more than one person out of bed at a time and no making noise! If you're going to talk about anything, talk about how you can make my life easier. Wake-up is in five hours." The loudspeaker shut off, leaving the building's occupants in near-darkness and in relative silence.

"Well," Ryan murmured, "does that mean we get to talk?" After a moment's pause, he cleared his throat and said more forcefully, "Test one ... test two ... ?" There was no reply, no siren, and no admonishment from Bill when he spoke at a normal volume, so he reasoned that they could all talk semi-freely. "Well, I guess we can talk a little ... unless, that is, everyone else wants to have a decent sleep?"

There were some murmurings of assent from the rest of the group. In the dim light, Ryan could see the shape of Federico sit up on his cot. "Please excuse me for a moment," he said, rising from his cot and then kneeling at the foot of it. Ryan heard a soft but urgent whispering from him, recognizing some of the words after a moment as, "... Kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven."

I could use some religion myself right about now, Ryan thought. It might give me something to focus on instead of the odds we're going to face. He slipped his hands behind his head and stared up toward the ceiling. "Gorkath?" he whispered, after a moment's pause.

Gorkath made a disinterested grunt.

"I never got to find out where you learned to speak English so well."

Gorkath was heard to shift on his cot. "I learned from a human tutor who was hired by my family many years ago. He was, I believe, a teacher of languages at a high-ranking school on Earth. I ... I forget the name of the school, however."

Ryan mused for a moment. "Harvard? Yale? Oxford?"

"Cambridge," Gorkath surmised. "Cambridge. Yes. That was the school."

"What about you, K'Toran?" Ryan asked softly. "You seem to speak excellent English as well."

There was a pause while K'Toran appeared to collect his thoughts. "I learned from a human as well, although it has been many years since I had the opportunity to speak the language and many more since I first learned."

Ryan pondered this for a moment. "And how old are you ... if you don't mind my asking, I mean."

K'Toran responded readily. "I am fifty-eight years old."

Ryan almost sat up on his cot with surprise and tried desperately to smother his outburst. "Fifty-eight? You're that old?" he queried.

Gorkath let out a rumbling chuckle. "I am seventy-one years old."

"You've got to be kidding me," Ryan said. "I'm only thirty."

Gorkath chuckled again. "This is merely one more area in which we differ, Ryan. Let us talk more after we sleep."

Ryan nodded to himself and stretched out a bit. After weeks of being confined in a very small cage and without any comforts at all, the cot seemed like a luxury by comparison. He allowed himself to relax and let his mind wander.

Chapter 6

It was perhaps four and a half hours later when the relative peace of the prisoner housing building was disrupted by the booming of an impatient voice over the same hidden loudspeaker as before. This was not the only disruption, as the building's interior lights came to full brightness only an instant before. The voice said, "Wake up ... wake up ... wake up. You've got five minutes to be ready for departure."

Ryan sat upright and tried to shake the cobwebs from his head. Over the years he'd tried to cultivate some ability to sleep on demand and wake fully alert, but it was at times like this that he was reminded of the fact that he was not a morning person. If this even is morning, he thought. No guarantees it's even a twenty-four hour day. Sliding his palms over his eyes reminded him that he was still wearing the remnants of the handcuffs used to secure him to Gorkath and K'Toran the previous day. Day, night, whatever, he thought. "Hey, Gorkath," he muttered patiently.

"Yes?" came the reply.

"We should probably get moving," Ryan advised. "Plus, I need to use the washroom before we head out."

Gorkath made a curious rumbling sound which could have passed for a sigh of exasperation to Ryan's waking ears. "Very well," he replied.

As Ryan brought his legs over the side of the cot he noted K'Toran was already awake, although he looked as bleary-eyed as Ryan imagined he himself looked. "Rough night?" Ryan quipped.

K'Toran nodded. "We are fortunate that our captors plan to feed us before we are sent to work." He patted his stomach in an almost human gesture. "I feel as though I could devour the whole carcass of a der-et-ei."

Ryan gave a half-smile. "So could I - if I knew what a ... uh, der-et-ei is."

Rising from his cot, K'Toran started for the washroom. "On our homeworld, we have an animal we call Dr'Etei." He held his hand perhaps one and a half metres from the floor. "It stands on four legs. Not very tall, but ..." He held his hands at their furthest span. "Heavy. A fast runner."

"Kinda like a ... horse, maybe. A cow?" Ryan suggested. K'Toran blinked a few times, but looked as though he didn't comprehend.

"Not unlike a cow or bull," Gorkath supplied. "It has horns, however - I would hesitate to hunt one without some kind of armour."

Ryan shrugged. "Does it taste good?"

Gorkath licked his lips suggestively. "Far better than what we have been fed lately," he assured Ryan, pushing open the door to the washroom.

Ryan stopped for another quick drink at the water fountain, and then followed them in. After a brief stop to relieve his bladder and a quick wash of his hands and face at the sink, Ryan felt almost human again and felt that he could probably stand whatever the pirates had in store for him today - unless it was something truly unexpected.

As they filed out of the washroom, they met Patrick, Federico and Xiaopeng on their way in - presumably on the same mission. They all exchanged the requisite brief hellos, mindful of the fact that within two minutes or so, one of the guards would probably be knocking at the door.

The two Chakri donned their black cloaks with surprising speed, and it was only moments after the other men had arrived back from the washroom that there came the now-familiar sound of the door being opened. Bill walked in, boots thumping on the floor with all the impatience of a man having finished his daily break, followed by Pierro, who sported strips of surgical tape over the wound on his forehead. Pierro himself looked nonchalant but pleasant with the desire to do Gorkath some harm as time passed and expectant with the likelihood that the occasion would arise.

Bill cleared his throat. "Follow me - we're going to eat and then we'll be heading to work."

Pierro held out a restraining hand. "Hang on a sec," he said, folding his arms across his chest. "While I don't have any desire to pamper you idiots, the Captain wants to make sure that you have everything you need to stay alive. So, if you need anything like medical supplies or drugs to keep from dying, speak up."

A moment passed before K'Toran ventured a reply. "We cannot use the water fountain," he explained, gesturing at the appliance sitting innocently across the room. "Would it be possible ..."

"No," Pierro interjected, with all the curtness of a well-rehearsed reply. "No cups, no bottles, no containers of any kind. If you get caught with anything like that, we have instructions from the Captain to execute you - ransom or no ransom. Make do with what you have. Understand?"

K'Toran gave an exaggerated nod.

"Anything else?" Pierro demanded, waiting for a fraction of a second before continuing, "Fine. Follow us."

Exiting the building into