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him tomorrow?"

Beryla Dean released a heavy sigh. "Since he has never been given a full 100

milligrams of the drug the Tribunal ordered, I don't really know. I made damned sure the

neuro-boosters required for full reinforcement assault therapy were minimal. Otherwise,

he would have had a full-blown psychotic episode. Thankfully, the psychotropic

suggestionaries we administered instead have produced similar results without

undermining our original intent."

Hael smiled nastily. "I'd give my right teat to see the expression on Onar's face when

he learns the Resistance was re-programming his Prime Reaper the entire time he thought

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you were reinforcing Cree's training!"

"Torturing the man, don't you mean?" Dean corrected. "That's all the assault therapy is and you know it. Reinforcement my ass!"

Hael spread her hands in sympathy. "True, but he's a Reaper, Beryla. They were

engineered to withstand massive amounts of pain."

"Yes, but the psychological pain I gave that man will haunt me for as long as I live. It was brutal and it's damned near driven him insane!"

"He is a Reaper," Hael repeated with a touch of annoyance. "A beast. Nothing more."

Dr. Dean shook her head. "You keep forgetting he is half human, Hael! His father is

my lover!"

"True, but his mother was a Morrígú!"

Beryla shivered. "I have not forgotten," she said.

"And when he is in full Transition; when he is Dearg-Duls..."

"Yes!" the Director hissed. "I know!"

Hael sat back in her chair. "Then stop worrying. We know the suggestionaries worked.

How could they not? Bridget is in no danger of being harmed; I have seen to that. I

designed the subliminals you gave him and there is no way he could ever harm her even

while in full Transition."

A worried look entered Dr. Dean's eyes. "She doesn't know the whole of it, Hael."

Hael's eyes narrowed. "And you had better be gods-be-damned glad she doesn't!"

CREE WAS wide-awake when Bridget entered his cell to check on him. "Can't

sleep?" she asked.

"It does not appear that I can," he replied a little more sharply than he had intended. He scooted up on the cot. "I thought you had gone back to your quarters."

"I had a lot of work to get done."

"What? Sharpening your pendulum and oiling the hinges of the iron maiden?"

Bridget laughed. "You've been reading Earth history."

He laced his fingers together and put them behind his head. "An interesting period of

history; your Inquisition."

She cocked her head to one side. "Is that how you feel when you're in the treatment

suite?"

"I never can remember what went on although I have an intense feeling of anxiety

when I leave there and even more anxiety when I'm being taken back. What happens to

me when I'm being treated?"

"I don't know," she answered truthfully. "The drugs stimulate all the hidden,

subconscious fears for survival and brings them up in such a fashion you can't negate

them. That much I do know. As for how it does that or what you actually feel, I can't say.

I've been told that no amount of conditioning will forestall the onset of whatever catalyst

is biologically engineered into your subconscious."

He looked at her for a long moment then nodded slowly. "So what I'm undergoing is an

intensification of any primal fears encoded into my DNA at my conception."

"I believe so."

He thought about that for a moment. "And this" he paused, trying to think of another word short of torture, then decided there was no other word. "...torture. What purpose

does it serve?"

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Bridge sighed. "I'm not sure it serves any purpose other than to punish you."

Cree had to agree with her. As punishments went, it sure as hell got his attention. And

if Onar had wanted him humbled, the reinforcement had achieved that purpose.

There was a chime and the Vid-Com clicked on. "Dr. Dunne?"

"Yes?"

"I was asked to remind you that you have a dinner engagement with Commander

Rhye."

"Thank you. I'm on my way."

Cree frowned sharply. "You have an engagement?"

"With Commander Konnor Rhye. Do you know him?"

"No," came the brittle reply.

"I don't suppose there's any reason you should. I'd better get going. He doesn't like to be kept waiting. Have I answered your questions?"

Cree lifted one shoulder with disdain and his voice was wintry when he answered. "It

appears you have."

Bridget did not miss the coldness in his tone and wondered why he wasn't as friendly

as he had become of late. Finally deciding it was nerves, anticipation of his last day of

treatment come morning, she thought it best that she leave.

"Then I'll see you in the morning," she told him. When he didn't respond, she left, a little concerned with the look he had given her.

Only one thought kept running through Cree's head that night: The faceless man in his

nightmares now had a name.

EVERY ONE of the people in the treatment suite was a stranger to him. Even the

orderlies who had brought him to the room had been unknown. As Cree looked at the

unfamiliar faces of the four women techs—faces that held no warmth, no compassion, no

interest in him—he felt a shiver of apprehension run down his spine. He glanced at the

physician who was standing off to one side and became even more uneasy when he

realized it wasn't Dr. Dean. This woman had a brutal, anticipatory look that made the

hairs stand up on his arms.

"Get on the table, Cree," Onar ordered from the gallery. "We don't have all day."

Cree glared at the man, but before he could say anything, the new doctor was almost

toe to toe with him.

"Do as you are told. Get on the table! Now!" she demanded, her spittle hitting him in the face.

He wanted to reach out and grab the woman's throat, squeeze until her eyes popped

out. He wondered what they would do to him if he did.

Dr. Delyn Sorn jabbed a stiff finger into Cree's chest. "If you don't get on that gods-be-damned table right this minute, I promise you I will keep you on it the entire day!"

Cree looked down at the finger poking into his bare chest then reached up, took the

woman's hand and bent the finger back almost to the point of breaking.

"
Gawwwwwwwh!
" the woman shrieked. Her eyes bulged and her knees buckled.

"Cree!" Onar shouted from the gallery. "Guards! Restrain him!"

Once he had his tormentress on her knees on the floor, Cree let go of her hand, turned

—and with a vicious smile on his face—hopped up on the treatment table, lay down, and

spread his arms and legs. He ignored the doctor's plaintive wails as she cradled her

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injured hand.

"You will regret that," Onar promised him.

"Yes, he will," the doctor blubbered.

Cree could have cared less. Even when she came to stand over him, gloating as her

techs clicked his restraints into place over his arms and legs and throat, he managed to

ignore her threats. She was glaring down at him and he thought she had to be the most

butt-ugly Diabolusian he had ever seen. Her fierce stare told him she could be as cruel as

any Defense Academy DI and was probably twice as perverted.

"I am going to hurt you, Cree," he heard her whisper.

"Give it your best shot," he muttered.

One of the techs stepped up to the table to fasten the EKG monitor band across his

chest. Her hands were rough as she made sure it was tight enough. "Fine specimen," she remarked to no one in particular and ran her hands over his pectorals, down his belly.

"Get your gods-be-damned hands off me, bitch!" he hissed.

The woman's face was without expression. Her eyes were steady on his, devoid of

emotion. Then a nasty, unhealthy smile settled on her face and her hand slid from his

belly to the spread juncture of his thighs and she caressed him.

Cree stared up at her incredulously, not believing she had dared to do something so

blatantly immoral. Hating her with every fiber of his being as she fondled him, his lips

pulled back over his teeth and he snarled.

"I don't believe our Reaper likes that, Jean." Dr. Sorn laughed.

"As I said," the tech whispered. "A fine specimen." Her hand tightened—painfully so

—then came away.

"You will pay for that," Cree grated.

"You won't even remember she did it." Delyn Sorn looked away from him. "Let's

begin!"

Cree had been about to curse the physician but before he could, his jaw was taken in a

brutal grasp and the awful rubber wedge was jammed between his lips, going so deeply

down his throat, he gagged on it. His furious glare impaled the woman standing behind

his head, but she merely smiled at him: an evil smile that held no pity at all.

The chill of the disinfectant on the inside of his elbow seemed much more intense than

usual. Even the sting of the needle was more painful, more noticeable. He felt the drug

race through the veins of arm, lapping at his nerve endings as it spread liquid fire all the

way up to his shoulder.

Then he felt a second injection—even more painful than the first—and barely had time

to wonder why before the crushing sense of doom slammed down on him with the force

of an avalanche.

Hael Sejm tucked her lower lip between her teeth as she watched what was happening

to Kamerone Cree. Her attention kept straying to a new visitor to the gallery: the Admiral

of the Fleet, Drae Cree.

"It will take a good five minutes for him to adapt to the drug before the sensations take full effect," Onar was explaining to the Admiral.

"What is happening now?"

"A very intense perception of impending destruction," Onar answered. "No fear, as yet, but a very real sense of deep, unrelenting finality racing toward him out of the unknown."

The Admiral glanced at Dr. Hael Sejm. "Is there any pain?"

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"A tremendous amount," Hael acknowledged.

Drae Cree's jaw tightened, but he didn't comment on her answer. Instead, he returned

his attention to the man lying spread-eagled on the treatment table.

"He's going into Stage One now," Onar informed them a split second before the

computer announced it.

CREE STRUGGLED against the ropes wound around his wrists. He was lying on

top of a vast expanse of barren rock, tied hand and foot to a jagged plateau whose jutting
points were gouging into his bare back. He stared up at the blazing overhead dual suns

beating down on him with merciless brilliance and licked at his dry lips, wanting water

so badly. Not that he was hot, he thought, confused by the sensation of frigid cold that

was washing over him. If anything, he was freezing beneath those fiercely shining orbs.

The cold was pressing down on him, growing in weight, pushing the air from his lungs

and denying him the ability to draw fresh air into his body. He felt sick, his belly

cramping him and he wondered if that was caused by the lack of food in his gut or the

foul tasting water he'd been forced to drink before Drewe had tied him to the rock out

here in this barren wasteland of fire and ice.

"Hold on, beloved. I will save you," she said, but he could not see her.

"Why did you go to him? Bridget, why?" But she did not answer.

Off in the distance, something wicked moved steadily toward him. The faceless being

had claws that scratched against the rocks as it crept stealthily upward. Even the smell,
rivaling the vile stench of his own unwashed body, reached his nostrils and made his eyes
water with the godsawful stink of the encroaching beast.

"He is jealous of you, beloved," she warned Cree. "He will kill me if he finds out I have
come to you."

"Why didn't you stay with me?" he asked. I could have protected you."

"Stage One complete."

"Remove the wedge," the doctor ordered.

The shadow spread over him and Cree squinted to see the face of the being hovering

over him. With a sigh of relief, he realized it was Drewe, and although the man didn't

speak, Cree knew the thoughts running through Lona's mind: "I hate you, Cree. I have
always hated you and now, I am going to rid the elite of our traitor!"

"I didn't betray you!" Cree heard himself deny.

Hael risked a look at the Admiral and saw that he was listening intently to the voice

coming to them over the Vid-Com.

"I am a reaper. I am no traitor!"

Drewe hunkered down beside him and the young lieutenant's face became clear

beneath the halo of sunlight framing his head. "You aided the resistance. For that you
have to pay."

Cree shook his head as best he could. "No, I did not. I have never had contact with the
resistance. I am a reaper. I would not dare disobey the empire."