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"Enterprising little bastard, isn't he?" sneered Commander Tealson Hesar.

"He'll wish he'd never slimed from his sire's sword when I lay my hands on him!" the Reaper Captain swore. "He'll die in far more agony that poor Drewe Lona did."

"How many men have we lost, now?" Alexi Noll asked. As soon as he had heard of

Cree's capture, he had come to Kullen to join his fellow crewmembers.

Kahn shook his head. "We've lost two hundred thousand just in the last hour and a

half." He looked about the main concourse where bodies lay scattered. "If I had known

—"

"There is something I don't think you've considered," Hesar interrupted him. "You are now the highest-ranking officer in the Empire."

Kahn was silent a moment, then he shrugged. "I may be the only staff officer left."

"By the gods, how many will this thing kill?" Kullen demanded.

"What concerns me," Kahn put in, "is if it is contagious." He swept his arm before him.

"All these bodies will have to be incinerated before we do anything else. We can't take

any chances."

"If it is contagious—" Noll stopped, his eyes going wide. "Inse and Rhye were

vaccinated at the same time as Thorne and me. If they are on Rysalia Prime, could they

have carried the virus with them even though it didn't harm them? Is it lethal to the men

of other races?"

"Surely not," Kullen gasped. "Why would the Resistance wish to kill innocent men?

Men who played no part in the deaths caused by the V-7?"

"I haven't said anything because I hadn't had time, but I have reason to believe the

virus won't harm anyone but Rysalian males," Hesar stated.

"Why do you say this?" Kullen asked.

"Remember when Cree went to Hell-12?" At the other men's nods, he shrugged. "He brought back a Necromanian and a Serenian, princes of the royal houses there."

"So that's who those men are," Noll said.

"Where are they now?" Kahn asked.

"The last I saw of them, they were with the search party looking for Doctors Sejm and

Kym."

A horrible feeling closed in around Tylan Kahn. "We've got to get to Cree before they

hang him." He looked at the dead bodies then turned to Noll. "Alexi? Organize a party of men and start incinerating."

"Merciful Alel, Admiral!" Noll exclaimed. "It will take us days to take these bodies to the incineration unit."

Kahn shook his head. "Use your phasers, son." At the other man's flinch of

disapproval, he reached out and put a hand on the young man's shoulder. "We have no

choice, Lieutenant. It has to be done."

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"Where are you going?" Kullen asked.

"To the lab," Kahn replied. He crooked a finger at Cree's Keepers, Hern Belvoir and Andre Arbra. "You two come with me. I want you to guard our womenfolk. I've asked Dr.

Dean and Bridget to locate LeJong Kym's protocol book. If they can find her notes on the

vaccine, maybe they can make enough to inoculate Rysalia Prime and we can save some

lives."

"The way this thing moved through here, it was worse than an Ionarian firestorm!"

Hesar reminded the Admiral. "We can't even begin to have time to vaccinate five or six

hundred thousand men!"

"We have to pray to the gods that it can't be passed on by casual contact, then," Kullen put in. "If it's just this gas that was shot through the ventilation system, we're doing okay.

According to Dr. Burds, all the canisters on each station have been expended." He

frowned. "But if it can pass from one man to another, I fear our world is doomed."

BERYLA SAT on a lab stool and hung her head. "I can not believe they did this,"

she whispered.

"Do we have to worry about it being spread from one man to another?" Kahn asked.

"I don't think so, but I'm not sure," Beryla stated flatly. "Until I find that bitch's lab notes, I'll have no way of being sure."

"Have they found Dr. Kym or Hael yet?" asked Amala Dayle.

"No," Kahn answered. "But we will. And when we find them, I doubt they'll survive the trip to Rysalia Prime."

"If they aren't already there," Bridget said softly. She had cried until her face was swollen. Her worry over Cree had turned her ashen and she shook as though she had the

ague. When Kahn had come into the lab, he had tried to comfort her, but she had rebuffed

him.

"I am going after Cree," Kahn announced. "I want that vaccine brewed by the time I get back."

"LeJong might have taken them with her or else destroyed them," Dorrie put in.

"By the gods, woman, I don't want to hear that!" he thundered, glaring at her. He had slept with this woman many times—as had a lot of other men on FSK-14—but at that

moment, he despised her.

"I am sorry, Admiral," Dorrie replied, "but you have to consider it."

"I don't have to consider squat!" He put a hand to his head and rubbed.

"How is your headache?" Bridget inquired.

"There," he snapped. He was more concerned with her pale face and trembling than

with his own pain. He marched over to her and took her arm. "Come with me."

Bridget tried to shrug off his hold. "Where are we going?"

"Home for the moment," he growled, dragging her along in his wake.

"I am not going—"

Kahn didn't say another word. He merely stopped, hefted Bridget over his shoulder,

and left the lab with her beating on his back with useless fists.

"That man is falling in love," Tina remarked.

"I've known that for the last five months," Beryla sighed. "I wish to God I hadn't let it happen."

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times."

"What will happen to us if only a hundred or so men are left on our world, Dr. Dean?"

Ivonne asked, putting forth the one question that was uppermost in the minds of every

woman in the room.

"We can make do without them," said Dr. Burds.

"Who will fight for us?" Ivonne pressed. "Take care of us?"

"We can take care of ourselves," Dorrie spat. "We learned here today that we can fight."

"But we need men!" Ivonne protested. "Defenseless women are targets for ruthless men!"

"What we need," Beryla interrupted their argument, "is to find those damned lab books. Everything else can wait!"

BRIDGET SLAPPED him as hard as she could, putting her full weight behind the

hit. The blazing red imprint of her palm on his cheek when his head snapped to the side

and the satisfying sound of flesh to flesh brought her out of her self-imposed inertia.

"Don't you ever manhandle me like that again!" She slapped him again for good

measure before going to a chair and slumping into it.

Kahn fingered his stinging cheek and sighed. He no doubt deserved her anger for his

highhanded manner, but he didn't deserve to have his jaw broken. He worked his aching

chin from side to side, testing for breakage and winced at the pain still throbbing in his

temple.

"What will they do to him?" she asked.

He didn't want to tell her that at that very moment, Cree was more than likely being

tortured for the information locked inside his mind. He doubted very much that she could

take such knowledge. So he lied. "There will be a trial, but they can't start that until the Chief of Fleet Operations arrives and, I'm sorry to say, that's now my new job title"

"You said you were going after him," she accused.

Kahn nodded. "As soon as Coure has The Sirocco on line. I'll be taking the Reapers

with me. I'll insist Cree be brought back here for execution."

Bridget's eyes flared but before she could speak, he put his hand on her knee. "Bridie,"

he said. "You have to understand. They will want to hang him."

"No!" she shouted. "You can't let them!"

"I am not
going
to let them," he said firmly. "I will bring him back. Don't worry about that."

"You promise?"

"I promise," he said and stood. He looked down at her for a moment then leaned over and placed a light kiss on her forehead. "You stay here. There are still pockets of Tribunal devotees running around lose. Taking Cree's woman would be a real coup for them." He

turned to go.

"Tylan?"

Kahn looked around.

"Be careful."

He did not need to read her mind to know it wasn't his safety that concerned her, but

Cree's.

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"YOU SHOULD not have promised her what you can not hope to deliver,

Admiral," Symthian Kullen said as he joined Kahn in the corridor.

"That nasty little habit of listening in on other people's conversation is very rude,"

Kahn snapped.

Kullen snorted. "Even if Cree is still alive when we get there and he has survived the

questioning, there won' t be anything left of the man she knew."

"Shut up," the Admiral hissed.

"It would be a blessing for them to end his life if they have downloaded his memory. I,

for one, would rather see him hanged than spend the rest of his life as a mental cripple."

"I said shut up!"

Kullen's jaw tightened. "There are five Reapers waiting on board The Mistrial,

Admiral," he said. "Six Reapers, seven Shepherds, and nineteen Keepers. Between us, we
will
get Kamerone Cree back, but at what price to the man?"

Kahn thought of the six Shepherds left behind who were cleaning up the bodies on

FSK-14. There should have been seven, but Lona was gone. Out of the twenty-one

Keepers assigned to Reaper crews, two were also staying behind to protect the women in

Dr. Kym's lab who were desperately looking for a vaccine. Forty-one men—

"Forty-three," Kullen corrected, further annoying the Admiral.

Aye, Kahn reasoned. With the Serenian and Necroman there were forty-three.

The gods help us.

"Amen to that," Kullen agreed.

HE DWELT in darkness so complete, so cold, so silent, it was almost like already

being dead. They had taken away the warmth; they had taken away the light; they had

taken away the slightest sound, condemning him to utter silence. His body was one

massive welt of pain; blood and body fluids oozed onto the cold stone floor so that he

was forced to lay in the vile mess and shiver. The stench was unbearable and his fever

had gone way beyond his ability to comprehend it. He wondered that he still drew breath.

There was only one thing keeping him alive and he whispered her name: "Bridget..."

Her precious name on his torn lips was a soothing balm. Her lovely face a beacon in

the otherwise ebony darkness of his existence. Not even the intense hunger ravaging his

insides could keep him from seeing that beloved face floating in the darkness before him.

It staved off the thirst that was threatening to turn his flesh to cinders.

The Hunger.

Sweet Merciful Alel, the Hunger!

It was feeding on him, eating him alive. The parasite striving to survive was

cannibalizing Cree's body.

Voices from far away drifted to him and he stopping dragging the gurgling breaths into

his battered lungs. With the voices came the smell of fresh blood rushing through full,

healthy veins. The smell was intoxicating and he licked his split lips like the starving man

he was. His nostrils flared as he sniffed.

"No one is going to know. Open the gods-be-damned door!"

"I'll give you two five minutes and not a minute more!"

The door slid back into its wall niche and light from the corridor flowed dimly into

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Cree's cell. Konnor Rhye and Deon Inse moved past the guard and came to stand over the

Reaper. "How are you feeling, Iceman?" Rhye sneered. "Up to another gòround with your good buddy?"

"Don't underestimate a Reaper, Koni," the guard warned. "He hasn't fed since—"

"Look at him!" Inse laughed. "Does he look like he's something even you would be afraid of, Hein?"

The guard shrugged. "Do what you want; Lord Onar won't care. I can't stay to watch,

as much as I'd like to." The guard left, leaving the door open behind him.

Cree licked his lips again. The salty pulse of fluid that was Konnor Rhye's life essence

was bombarding his senses and he was giddy with the smell of it. He heard the two

human hearts beating: Rhye's a bit faster than Inse's; heard the blood swooshing through

their veins. Rhye was saying something about Bridget, but Cree wasn't listening. He had

tuned in on the
tha-tump
,
tha-tump
,
tha-tump
of Rhye's beating heart pushing rich red sustenance through miles of elastic veins.

"Kahn will tire of her soon enough," Rhye was telling him. "Then I will bring her home where she should have been all along; where she would have been if it hadn't been

for you!"

The thirst was lurching like a drunken man up his parched throat. It begged to be sated

and the scent drove the thirst wilder still. He felt his fangs pushing outward from his face; heard the furtive wet, sucking sounds they made as his nostrils widened and enlarged to

draw in more of the aroma that threatened to drive him into a state of ecstasy. He moved

his head deeper into the shadows so the men could not see the Transition beginning.