Kiedron was well enough to walk a little. Howell had persuaded Hesslin to leave her unguarded when the commandant visited her. He watched her make slow progress around the room, clinging to the walls for support. The IV, on a spring frame, waddled after her like a skeleton robot. Kiedron seemed afraid of falling. She jumped at the slightest sound, and she was becoming much more listless and vague. Howell was worried.

"Tell me about the recruiters, Kiedron. One of them is due any day and I don't know what I'm up against." Howell sat on the chair beside the bed and watched her progress around the room. She was dressed in a medcorps jumpsuit of a shiny yellow fabric; it made her skin look jaundiced.

"You should ask Jens that." Kiedron rested by leaning a shoulder against the wall. She reached up to wipe the sweat off her upper lip. "Are you going to let him have the kids he wants?" She sounded as though she were trying to work up some enthusiasm for fighting Howell, and not succeeding too well.

"I don't know yet. I thought you could help me decide. It's understanding the system on Mithras that's so damned hard. I need your help."

"Why?" Kiedron slid limply to the floor in a tangle of limbs and IV hose that tangled themselves into a sort of lotus before Howell could come to the girl's aid. She waved him away and sat, staring at the floor. "You're the CCS and I'm fighting you. Why should I help?"

"You're supposed to be convincing me that I should fight the CCS along with you; we're both prisoners here, aren't we?" Howell was worried about her apparent lifelessness. Perhaps she did believe she was only a deposed hero now… or she could be working on a very sly method of escape by pretending she didn't really want to escape. It was very puzzling. Howell sighed, wondering what to do next.

"Talk yourself into anything you want. The other CCS louts did it, so can you," Kiedron laughed bitterly. "You have no idea how to run Mithras, do you? Don't they give classes in terrorism at the Academy? Try Granthum's, or even Lustvogel's methods. Didn't dear Gulimel give you any briefing on your predecessors? The blessed Confederation Colonial Service doesn't give a damn what you do to us just as long you don't try to leave Mithras."

"I was never told I couldn't leave here. That's one of the little surprises Mithras has for its commandants," Howell said. "I was dumped into this mess with as little briefing as could be arranged by my superiors. By the time I found out anything it was too late to stop it. I was so slow I had to find out from Hesslin what my real status was."

"Oh, Hesslin," Kiedron yawned, a pink-and-white-kitten yawn. "He doesn't know some of the real dirty stuff, and since you don't either—I'm not going to tell you, so there!" She gave Howell the finger and waited for his reaction.

Howell unsmilingly returned the gesture. "I played this sort of game when I was fourteen, too." He stared pointedly at the girl's childish figure, eye-tracking her small breasts and then glancing away as if distinterested.

"Puny," he remarked, and then went back to contemplating the IV

apparatus.

"Are you going to rape me?" The question was abrupt and caught Howell off guard. Here he was playing silly games with a naughty child, and she had to come up with something like that. He had to stop and work at the comment from several angles. Mainly he had to guess just what sort of an answer this wicked-minded cherub might be expecting from him.

"No," he said coldly. "Immature females never were a fixation of mine. I prefer my partners voluptuous, well-trained and willing. Besides, you have no figure to speak of."

"You left out that I was a colonial." Her voice was as cold as his.

"I said that when I mentioned you had no figure. Like most colonials. I've seen around here, you're short and on the bulky side. In a few years you'll run to fat. I never liked fat women—or fat men, for that matter."

"Oh, so you prefer men. That explains why you and Jens—"

"That explains nothing. We were discussing you, remember? I suppose at your age you have done a certain amount of the clumsy fumbling that you think is sex. So did I when I was fourteen. When you're older, and find a man who does like his women on the stocky side, you'll probably find out what sex really is."

"And what is it, O fountain of wisdom?"

"Sarcasm, child, will get you nowhere quickly. But I will answer your dumb question. The fact that you ask it proves my point. Sex is a sport for mature adults who know how to play the game well and who care very much about pleasing themselves by pleasing another person. Also, it's the friendliest thing people can do together. You're not a friendly person, Kiedron; ergo, you are not sexy."

"Chanoch thinks I am." Her lower lip jutted in a gamine pout. "He thinks I'm terrific!"

"Then why hasn't he swooped down and rescued you from a dirty old man like me? I take better care of someone I think is 'terrific' But I'm a lot older than Chanoch, and a whole lot smarter."

"I'd rather have Chanoch than you!" She was starting to sulk, Howell noted, amused.

"As I thought I made clear, it isn't a choice you get to make. You don't appeal to me sexually at all."

"But you hugged me when I was brought into the ward. I thought—"

"I have a fondness for children. I like them; they're self-centered and selfish and they know it. Children are too young to have picked up the habit of lying to themselves. I admire the cunning and deviousness of looking so innocent while being quite sure the world belongs to them. Sex has nothing to do with it."

"Then are you going to turn me over to the CCS?"

"The CCS will get you over my dead body."

"That can be arranged," Kiedron said wickedly.

"Funny, that's what Jens told me, too, and he said you'd do the arranging."

Kiedron sat up and looked very shocked. "But I…" she stammered. "Pa did it only when it was worthwhile and helped Mithras. I'm not going to…" She ran down abruptly and sat open-mouthed. Her eyes were wide and frightened.

"What? Who made it worthwhile and why?"

Kiedron shook her head and wouldn't answer. She got slowly up from the floor and walked stiffly over to the bed. Staying as far from Howell as possible, she slipped beneath the covers and turned away from him. "I don't want to answer any more questions," she said. "I'm too sleepy to talk."

"We're planning to move Kiedron to a holding cell today if that's all right with you, sir." Hesslin, Howell and Jens were cleaning up after a training run out on the tundra.

"Good. What about the other kids, are they well enough to go back to their parents?" Howell ducked under a cool shower and waited for it to warm up. He was getting used to the cold, no longer feared it, but still wasn't very fond of being outside.

"Back to their parents? Burian, are you letting them go? I thought you'd be keeping them for the recruiter."

"What recruiter? I've been hearing recruiter, recruiter, recruiter until it's coming out my ears, and he's not here yet. Certainly I'm letting them go, I got what I wanted—namely Kiedron. So I have no further use for them. Let this mythical recruiter round up his own children. I won't fight him, but I'm not about to help him, either." Howell stepped out from the shower and dried his hair. "Say, Jens, now that things are quieter around here, how about taking me to your home? I've never been there, and I'd like to meet this wife you keep bragging about."

Jens grinned with pride. "Sure, come to dinner tomorrow. Afterwards I'll have Arnie give you the fifty credit tour of our grotto area. That boy knows the whole Homecave better than I do. I think he'll make a good nab."

"You ought to see my oldest, sir." Hesslin pulled a clean uniform over his head, his voice muffled by the stretch cloth. "She's a crack shot and a whiz at psychology and crowd control tactics. I'm training her to fill my spot someday."

"Do most nabs train their children to follow in their footsteps?" Howell was fascinated. It was one more example of how the Service perpetuated the system.

Jens nodded. "Sure, it's a better life than being a miner, and both jobs are about as safe—which is not much on Mithras. But I've always felt dying as a nab was quicker than being buried in a cave-in or getting the lung-rot. Besides, it makes for better nabs if they were born here rather than shipped up. New fish die too quickly; the survival figures are stinking."

"Oh, what are they, on the average?" Howell felt he was on to something. Mithras was like a puzzle, a bit here, a word there, and he intended to solve it.

"Two thirds die in the first year, sir." Hesslin supplied the data. "We try not to get to like a new fish until he's been here a while; keeps his death from being too personal."

"Umm," Howell had finished dressing and was busy stuffing his dripping uniform down a laundry chute. "Jens, I'll want to talk to some of the Cavers about this kind of thing, so if you'll round up a few of them willing to talk—oh, and by the way, I'm bringing Kiedron with me."

"By the Lady! Why do you want to do anything that foolish? She'll either duck out on you or be killed by some buckethead with a grudge."

"Not necessarily. I want to show the Cavers that she's all right and that I'm looking after her. It might stop some of the coup counting if they know they'll have to face me if anything happened to her." Jens shook his head in disbelief. "You're a nice guy, Burian, but you're soft in the head."

CHAPTER EIGHT

Kiedron was finding her captivity both boring and nerve-wracking. She was becoming less and less sure that Chanoch would rescue her, and more and more frightened about her future on Mithras. The actions of the nabs in her room had convinced her that she wouldn't last a day out in the Caves without some protection. There were too many people she had lorded it over, too many that she had extorted food and clothing from, to expect anything but retribution. She had failed as a leader and couldn't be of any more help hiding children from recruiters. She had nothing unless she could regain her past position as a source of power. Chanoch couldn't hold things together for very long, and if she didn't get back in control quickly she would find her organization either changing radically under his rule or, worse, falling apart at the seams. Her father had never prepared her for failure; she was psychologically unfit for the role Howell had cast her in. She had been taught to either succeed or die—nothing else. Kiedron had never expected the turnabout in the people around her, the hatred for a has-been hero that the Cavers obviously felt for her. They had worshipped her father, but he had died a hero's death—she had been caught like a cave mouse. There was no glory in being a cave mouse, she decided.

Chanoch was unstable, and their last fight before she had gone out after the children had made it clear he was becoming restive at taking her commands. It was only the fact that the rest of the children, and the Cavers, followed her that had kept him in line—but what was happening to him now? He would have the children behind him because they would have no one better to follow. There might even be a struggle for the top spot. Kiedron didn't trust Ponce very much, either. He was smarter than Chanoch and a great deal more ambitious.

She wasn't going to be rescued.

It was that simple. Any getting out of the CCS cave would have to be done on her own. She looked down at the barbed IV needle and grinned sourly. She could just see herself dragging that contraption across the snow with a squad of nabs in pursuit. It would be almost laughable, if she felt like laughing.

There were four nabs in the room, all armed. Hesslin had the viewscreens going and monitored around the clock. She wasn't going anywhere right now.

Hesslin wasn't going to help her, nor would Jens. Both men had made it quite clear they took their orders from the new commandant. And she could understand that very well.

This new man was completely different from any commandant Kiedron had ever met. He reminded her of the tales her father had told about the man he had known as "the commandant" when he was a boy. Someone who seemed to care about Mithras, the Cavers—and her.

He cares! Kiedron found that thought warming. No one had really cared about her, Kiedron, since her father had died. Oh sure, there were a lot of people to fear her, to respect Tovo Agata's kid, and even to help her when she was on top. But there had been nobody to really care how she felt, or what she was thinking about or wanting. She wanted someone to care about her.

Not like Chanoch. His idea of caring was a clumsy roll in the furs and grumbling about things not going more his way. He had been coldly selfish, she realized Chanoch had seen her primarily as a step up to the power he wanted. Alancia mattered more to him as a woman than she did—and he certainly didn't treat that poor stick very well. Life with Chanoch as a mate wouldn't be any too easy a thing. Kiedron hadn't really thought seriously about the boy in quite that way. He was useful to her, an occasional help and somebody to talk to—nothing else. He didn't even understand what I was saying half the time— the dolt!

Kiedron's father had taught her about men in the abstract. How to get them to follow her, how to make them mad enough and how to use that mad. The uses of propaganda and how to control mobs. But not very much about men as individuals. Sex was no mystery to a Caver child; what with the crowding in the caves and everyone sleeping in the same room, most Caver children knew what there was to know about sex and where babies came from by the time they were five or six. But Tovo Agata hadn't taught his daughter anything about love. He had been too busy; teaching her how to set explosives and where to place a good ambush to worry much about her emotional life. He had been the only man she'd had any close contact with, and he had been everything to her. They had been partners and co-workers. He had always treated her as another adult. She really couldn't remember being a child. "Freedom" had been the first word she'd been taught to say. No dolls for Kiedron Agata, only a toy Molotov cocktail and a wooden vibroblade. On her sixth birthday, her father had given her a knife and had shown her how to use it to cut throats. At ten she had her own vibroblade—a real one this time. Tovo had promised her a laser when she turned fifteen—but Tovo was dead and there would be no laser from him. There would be nothing from him except his blueprint on how to take over Mithras, and she had failed at that.

She wanted to cry, but forced herself not to. She had vowed never to cry. The daughter of Tovo Agata was made of tougher stuff than that. She buried her face in her pillow, the unshed tears stinging behind her eyelids. Even with the guards in the room she felt lonely. Kiedron had never slept in a real bed before. In the Homecaves, bed had been a pile of furs, which she had shared with both of her parents. Even after her mother had died, she had bundled with her father and whatever other Cavers he was working with at the time. When she had left the Homecaves, there had always been other children in the furs, or Chanoch. She didn't like being alone. No matter how many of those cold-faced nabs Hesslin crowded into her room she would still be alone.

Howell's visits slowly became something to look forward to. The man was different and his feelings about giving the children to the recruiter did match her own. "Over his dead body!" Kiedron giggled, a sound that made her nab guards snap to suspicious attention.

"Can't I even laugh in this hell-hole?" she asked. None of the nabs answered. They very rarely talked to her. They had learned that threats or taunts would gain them quick reprisals from the commandant. So most of the time they spent their watches in sullen silence. These nabs had feared her once, Kiedron knew, and they might be made to fear her again. But not while she was strapped to a glucose bottle. She had to get out of the CCS cave.

But there was no place to go.

There was nothing in her future except the commandant. He held her life in his hands. He could turn her over to the CCS recruiter, he could kill her himself, or he could…

She had nothing to fear from him. His soft voice and gentle smile made it quite clear he wasn't going to hurt her. And he wasn't interested in her body—or so he said. That had rankled— him and his chatter about what a child she was when it came to sex. Give me a few minutes in the right circumstances with you, Howell, and we'll see what a child I am! Oddly enough, that thought gave her a great deal of pleasure. Someone to snuggle with, to be close to, and to care a bit. There would be no selfishness in him when he bedded a woman. How she knew that was a puzzle to her. He was different from her father—better in some ways; the very bottom of her mind told her that, and she pushed it away. She didn't want to think about her father as being less than perfect. He had to be perfect. He had died a hero. Anything that would tarnish his name she would bury forever in the dark parts of her mind. She was supposed to have been living proof of his greatness, and here she was, the prisoner of the CCS.

No. She was Howell's prisoner. He had made that very clear. The CCS

wasn't getting her away from him.

He wants me!

Kiedron didn't even care what he might want her for, the wanting was enough. She could tell he didn't want anything from her—not power, or sex, or her revolutionary's talents. He just wanted her to be herself, Kiedron. No one had wanted that—ever. Not even her father. Even her mother had made her more than just "Kiedron." She had to be the proof that Tovo Agata and his woman could have a child. She was the next generation, proof of their immortality. She was to live on—an Agata—for them.

Howell was so gentle, so concerned with her health. He would spend time arguing with the doctors over the care she was getting. He even sat on the edge of her bed and tried to spoon-feed her some soup. She had been feeling more than a little fractious that day and had upset the whole bowl of the steaming stuff into his lap. Instead of yelling at her or slapping her face, he had just looked sad and had left the room to change his uniform.

"Burian Howell." She rolled the name around on her tongue. "Burian Howell—Burian Owl!" He did look like the pictures of owls that her father had pointed out to her in a nature infocube. He had even found an owl-like creature living in the woods north of the cave hills. He had brought it home, a fledgling like her, and she had loved it. That funny beak of a nose and the tufty feathers on its head—and the scraggly beard. Howell had the beard, not her pet owlette. A scratchy straggle of a beard. It tickled when he bent over her bed and patted her on the shoulder to say "goodnight." She wasn't sure she liked the beard. Her father had never had one. She gave it some thought and decided she preferred her men without beards. She would have to speak to Howell about that.

" Owl, the beard has got to go. I don't like it!" Silly to think about something as unimportant as a beard when the man wearing it had the power of life and death over her. But it did matter.

Do I love him? That thought was almost too stunning for her to even begin to cope with; love for a commandant went against everything her father had taught her. But yet there was a feeling of safety and warmth she hadn't had since her father had died. Her father had been the one constant in her life. And now she felt as if she might love Howell, too. Chanoch had never made her feel safe; quite the contrary, she was always having to patch up his blunders for him. She had made Chanoch safe, not the other way around. But Howell was CCS and a commandant. I can't let him know, not yet. She had to be sure of what she felt and what to do next. Then too, there was the chance that Chanoch would get her out of the CCS cave and back in position as the hero of Mithras. That could make a lot of difference about herself, and Howell. But Chanoch wasn't going to rescue her. If he had any such plans, she would have heard about them by now. She was on her own—except for Howell. She would never have to worry about Howell. He wouldn't be fighting her for top spot, he already had it. There would be no blunders to clean up; Howell wasn't a man to blunder, and if he did, he cleaned up his own messes. He wouldn't yowl for help from anyone. Her father had been like that; the only help he had needed was hers.

But he's old. Older than my father. But the Confederation had all kinds of drugs and stuff to make a man seem much younger than he really was. Howell could be any age he wanted to be. Age didn't matter that much. She had loved her father and he was older, and she hadn't loved Chanoch, so that must prove something. I wonder what Owl's like without his clothes. There was one way to find out. But first she had to get out of this med ward and get the needle out of her arm. There was nothing sexy about an IV needle, even to a doctor. I'll get well, and I'll show Owl how wrong he is about me. I've managed to kill commandants before, I should be able to bed one. Look at Lustvogel, the pig! All I had to do was take off my shirt, and the fool didn't even see the vibroblade until it was too late. The image of Lustvogel out on the tundra, staring pop-eyed at her exposed chest gave her a warm glow of satisfaction. It had all been so easy. But Lustvogel had wanted her body. Well, commandants are generally men, and men are alike in one way . . . this one only thinks he's different!

Kiedron smiled up at the ceiling and plotted how to get Burian Howell. Howell was present when the doctors removed the barbed needle. Kiedron had become bored with the dullness of the IV feedings and was now willing to eat. She had lost several kilograms, and the needle digging into her arm each time she moved had made eating seem like the wise thing to do.

The attending doctor, an ex-schizoid named Hanici, pressed his thumb to the locking plate on the end of the needle coupling. The barbs at the point of the needle would only fold into the shaft by responding to the lines and whorls of his thumb—something Kiedron had found out only by long, painful experimentation. The needle slid easily out of her arm, and Kiedron breathed a sigh of relief. "Only the damn CCS would think up something that nasty," she muttered, glaring at Howell.

"Child, it's people like you who make the wonders of science possible. Without your lack of cooperation it wouldn't have been necessary; ergo, the fault is yours."

"Go twiddle a futzed compbox." Kiedron said it with a half-smile that removed part of the sting.

"If you're trying to shock me, you'll have to do better than that. Try telling me to squat on a reactor or something. Never curse in a small way, Kiedron; if you are going to waste your breath in such a half-assed manner, try doing it right. I've met very few women who could curse well. Most of them are better at actual fighting—they're dirtier and less principled. That and sarcasm. Women have raised sarcasm to a fine art. We men pale by comparison."

"Bug it, so I can get dressed. I don't want a dirty pig like you standing around eyeing my body." Kiedron got out of bed and reached for the CCS

trimslax and tunic; on the chair next to her bed.

"Sure, but I didn't know you had a modest bone in your body. That kind of self-consciousness is something most Rads lose very quickly. All that banding together in socialistic goodwill has something to do with it, I think. I learned more about sex than I did about politics when I was Rad."

"Shove…" Kiedron stopped and waited for him to leave.

"Good girl, you're learning fast. I'll leave, as you wish," the door dilated at his approach, "but I won't promise not to watch over the monitor." Kiedron threw the tunic at the door as it closed behind Howell. Hesslin brought Kiedron, under guard, to the CCS cave entrance. Jens and Howell were already suiting up. "Is she going to need a suit?" Howell asked. "Or isn't two weeks enough to decondition her?" Hesslin laughed. "Put her in a suit and she'd die of the heat! I brought some extra men along; I thought it would be safer."

"For whom?" Howell eyed the two husky guards with interest. Hesslin had used women guards in the ward and this was the first time he'd put a couple of men on Kiedron.

"For her, unfortunately. There's a lot of nuts out there waiting for her skin."

Howell nodded and adjusted his helmet. "Open her up, Jens, we're going out without Hesslin's guardbears."

"Now wait a minute!" Hesslin growled.

"He's right." Jens slid his helmet into place. "You show up with a couple of momeraths like that and the whole Homecave goes off the deep. We can't risk it. Howell and I are armed, and I sent Arnie with word of what would happen to the first lard who laid a finger on Kiedron. The Cavers might not be afraid of Kiedron, but after his time in the blizzard they sure are afraid of Howell."

"Well, all right, but I'll be in a sled outside the cave if you need me. Use the high frequency, the squeal will be enough for me to come running." Jens clumsily nodded and opened the air lock. Howell grabbed Kiedron as she dashed by him. "Easy, child. I think we'll fasten you to my suit for now." Howell slid the lifeline out of its pouch and attached a coded lock. He fastened one end of the line to Kiedron's arm and the other to his suit; then, peeling off a glove, he thumbprinted the lock. "Got you now. I'll be hooked to Jens and you'll be hooked to me—how cozy." Kiedron started to say something, then paused and subsided into lumpish sullenness. She followed Howell out of the lock and into the bubble sled. She sulked all the way to the caves, refusing to answer any comment Jens or Howell directed her way. Both men ignored her sulks and talked around her personal black cloud.

"I'd better fill you in on a few things, Burian. Like the smells and the cold, they—"

"Not now, Jens. Only tell me anything I need to know to save my skin. I prefer to form my own impressions, if you don't mind. And as to smells— I worked on a farm with a thousand stinking pigs when I was in my teens. Made the Academy seem like a paradise by comparison. My father was never one to believe in idle hands."

"A pig farm!" Jens sounded incredulous. "Where did your father find a pig farm to send you to? Most meat factories only accept trained farm technicians, and since you were at the Academy—"

"Pa owned it. He was a biologist working on some sort of immunization program for the colonies and needed all those pigs. I had to take care of them. Lead out your Cavers—nothing smells worse than pigs!" Once inside the cave, Howell cracked open his helmet and was forced to admit the smell was close to pigs, at that.

The caves were cool, which kept down some of the smell, but after generations of Cavers and their smoking fires, rotting furs, damp children and strange eating habits, the place was a little ripe. Jens explained that part of the smell came from the hydroponics caves and the yeast farms. The air was cool in the caves, but the fires scattered around the various chambers and the presence of so many people in so crowded a space did keep the area warmer than outside—though not much. Howell stayed in his coldsuit with the helmet open, but Jens took most of his suit off. Howell felt his nose turning numb—whether from the cold or the smell, he wasn't sure.

Jens's cave area was a small collection of grottos he shared with his wife's family and a fellow nab and her family. There was a motley array of children playing in the center of the floor. Most of them were naked or had scraps of clothing covering their dirt-encrusted bodies. Howell shuddered at the primitive conditions. Jens grinned and said nothing. Arnie wasn't at home but his younger sister, Gem, came over to Kiedron and shyly asked her how she was doing in the CCS cave. Kiedron jumped and braced herself while she sorted out what the child was asking. Realizing that Gem was not being mean, she relaxed and sat on the floor with the girl and the tangle of children. As soon as Howell took off the lifeline she was quickly engrossed in a game involving a stack of small stones, a slab of dry bread and a captured cave rat. Howell, after watching a bit, figured out that the game was a combination of gambling and lion taming, but he was hard put to figure out the rules. The children's finger motions were too fast for him to follow and he only caught an occasional gesture. After ascertaining that Kiedron would be safe with the children and that Gem was guarding her, he followed Jens to a deeper part of the grotto to meet Rhoiannin, Jens's wife. She was bending over a yeast tank when the two men found her. She straightened up and turned to face Howell, and he was struck by how beautiful she was. Rhoiannin had startlingly red hair wound in a loose knot on top of her head, bright green eyes and a tall, slender body. Howell understood what had sent Granthum rampaging through the Homecave if other Caver women were as lovely as Jens's wife.

Jens beamed with pleasure as Howell bowed and took Rhoiannin's hand. Flustered, the woman bowed back and welcomed him to the cave. Her voice was soft with a hint of a lisp. It, too, Howell found lovely.

"We left Kiedron playing with the kids," Jens explained as he led the group back into the main part of the grotto.

"It is a good thing we are not out on the main floor, love," Rhoiannin said. "There are those who would like to kill her." Howell noticed that her speech patterns were stilted and wondered if that was an attempt on her part "to speak like the wife of a nab. It was an interesting affectation and a bit amusing, too.

The children were still playing with the rat. The animal was as big as a standard cat and its fangs were at least five centimeters long. None of the children appeared to have been bitten, and all of them were noisily enjoying the game. Kiedron's clear, bell-like laugh sounded out over the others like a chime on the wind. She looked like what she was—a child. Rhoiannin offered Howell some fresh milk from her goat and Howell accepted. The milk was good and warm. Rhoiannin milked the goat right into the cup that she then handed to Howell. He had not noticed the animal when he had entered the grotto and he soon understood why. As soon as Rhoiannin did up a cup of milk for Kiedron the goat wandered out of the grotto and was quickly lost to view.

"We let her roam. That way other people feed her and that saves our grain stocks a bit."

"Don't other people milk her, too?"

"Oh, yes," Rhoiannin answered, "but that's all right. If they feed it, they should get some milk. That is only fair."

"But aren't you worried that someone will steal her?" Rhoiannin looked genuinely perplexed. "Who would steal my goat? All know that it is mine and that my husband is your second. No, to steal my goat would be very foolish. That is a good way to end up in a slag puddle with your bones boiling."

"Caver Justice," Howell murmured softly.

Jens started and yelled for Howell. "Someone's coming, they're running this way—hide, Kiedron! It's a man from the sound of it." Kiedron ducked swiftly under a pile of furs in one corner and vanished as if she had never been. Howell was amazed at the speed of the girl and the fact that she could conceal herself under the furs without leaving a telltale bulge.

The running man turned out to be Hesslin.

"Chanoch is attacking the CCS cave, sir!" Hesslin stood panting in his coldsuit, his chest heaving like a bellows. "He's inside the cave with about twenty of his brats and they're looking for Kiedron."

"The turd, the stupid, stinking slimeworm!" Kiedron erupted out of the furs, her face pink with anger. "Who told him to do anything that stupid?

He should have checked where I was first. Oh, that piece of sewage, he could have gotten me out of here so damn easy. I'll kill him, I'll throw him alive into the recycling vats, I'll—I'll…" Kiedron sat down abruptly and beat on the furs in an agony of frustration.

CHAPTER NINE

Jens jumped to his feet, reaching for his helmet and the top of his suit.

"I'll head back to the CCS cave, Burian, but I'd suggest you stay here. If Chanoch was foolish enough to think Kiedron was in the ward he may be too foolish to figure out where she really is. Hesslin and I can stop that lardhead, but it would be better if you and Kiedron were well out of his way."

Howell, to Jens's amazement, quickly agreed. The two nabs left for the caves while Howell sat on a stone bench and placidly drank a cup of Rhoiannin's yeast beer. Kiedron sat on the heap of furs and sputtered. Howell was pleased to see how quickly the girl would turn against someone she had liked. It gave him more than a few clues on how to wean her from her father's politics. Rhoiannin sat silently beside Howell, her face creased by worry lines.

"Don't fret, my lady." Howell set his empty beer cup on the bench, "Jens is a good nab and he won't come to any harm."

"I'm more worried about Chanoch. The boy is such a clod, a real waxbrain." Once Jens had left the grotto her vocabulary and speech patterns changed abruptly into standard Caver. Howell noticed it, but made no comment.

"Who's in line after Chanoch, Kiedron?" Howell asked the still-fuming girl.

"A twitter called Ponce, and he's as big a fool as Chanoch. When I was there to keep them in line things went really smooth, but now… oh, sleam squat on both of them!"

"Go back to your sulking, child, until your swearing vocabulary improves."

Howell leaned against the stone wall and considered how he would handle things if Jens managed to catch Chanoch. He had no interest in the boy and wasn't sure what he would do with him. Jens had told him the recruiters had refused to take him, and Howell was mentally going over a list of all his old friends at the Academy who might be bribable when Arnie came into the grotto.

" 'Lo, Ma, I hear the recruiter's in. Has anyone started collecting kids?" His mother frowned at him and jerked her head in Howell's direction. Kiedron stopped fuming and Howell watched an expression of calculated cunning slide over her features.

"Where is the recruiter now, Arnie?" Howell asked. "Your father's over at the CCS cave stopping a bit of foolishness from Chanoch and I would hate a recruiter to see some of that."

"He's just got into the port, sir. Shall I have some of the nabs give him the long way 'round?"

"Good boy—get on it!" Howell watched with satisfaction as Arnie shot out of the room like the rat when the children had tired of playing with it.

"I'm going to make that kid a field assistant as soon as I can figure out how to falsify his age so it'll pass the CCS computer," he told Rhoiannin. She shook her head. "I'd want something better for him, like the right to pick what he wants to be. But if he can't, a nab's better than nothin', and much better than bein' grabbed by a recruiter."

"Oh yes, the recruiter." Howell fell to thinking busily. The CCS was sending him a new problem, bless their furry little brains. It might be wise to go along with the recruiter and gain some points, but if Hesslin was right that Mithras was his prison, there was no reason to cooperate with anyone but the colonials. Howell was enjoying all this plotting, he admitted to himself. It made him feel alive and warm to think about shafting the Service; maybe he, too, would get used to the cold like Jens had. And then there was Kiedron. Howell looked at the girl and then at Rhoiannin. The comparison was ludicrous—Rhoiannin was beautiful and Kiedron was a half-formed child, but yet…

Howell chewed the inside of his cheek and realized just how important Kiedron had become to him. She was resourceful and clever, and in time he thought he could get her over her worship of her father. Then what? he wondered. Will she worship me? Is that what I want from her?

Husbandhigh, that's what Jens had said. No one would think much of it; she was free and so was he.

"You gonna sit there lumping, or are you gonna do something about that sleamjumper of a recruiter?" Kiedron's voice cut through his thoughts like a vibroblade.

"You're the expert on recruiters, you tell me," Howell challenged.

"They're bad." Rhoiannin answered his remark, Kiedron said nothing.

"They take the kids and we never see them again anymore. They can't come back. They can't marry another Mithran. Lost, they're lost to us."

"Is that why your father helped you fake the tests, Kiedron?" Howell was trying to get the girl to speak.

Rhoiannin again jumped on the question, annoying Howell enough to make him want to snarl at her. "Yes, Tovo taught Kiedron and she taught the other children, but then the CCS got suspicious and started taking all the children. That was no good, too."

" Kiedron, I want to know how you feel about the recruiters!"

"Why, how could she feel anything but hate for them? They're pigwash, all of them." Rhoiannin's voice was maddeningly calm, and Howell could see she was impossibly stupid as well as beautiful. Kiedron grinned at his discomfort as Rhoiannin babbled sweetly on in her soft voice. "They go around like they own us and they steal our things as well as our children. I had a yellow shawl, it had belonged to Jens's mother. It was so lovin' with a long fringe on one side and a green bird sewn on it. I really loved that shawl. Jens said I looked like a queen in it. I don't know just what a queen is, but it must have been nice if Jens said that of me. And I know I'm pretty. All the men was after me and Jens got me to...." Howell blocked out the sound of her chirping voice and watched Kiedron soundlessly laughing at him. The imp, he thought. My little snow-imp.

He smiled warmly back at the girl, startling her into open mouthed surprise.

Jens found Hesslin's men mopping up the last of the raiders. Chanoch was fighting near the air lock with Ponce right beside him. Hesslin and Jens attempted to bracket the kids while the nabs inside the cave drove them out toward their stunguns. A young blackhaired girl ran screaming at Jens and he shot her down. Ponce shrieked and slid to his knees beside her fallen body.

"You sleam trash, you've killed Chieng, you killed her!"

"Chill it, Ponce. She's all right. I only stunned her. It's Chanoch we want, and you, too, not the girl," Hesslin yelled.

"Well, you're not gettin' me, squat!" The laser came out so quickly from under Ponce's shirt that Hesslin had only a brief glimpse of it before Ponce shot him down. Jens hit the cave floor as Ponce aimed for his head.

"Let's get out of here, Chanoch!" Ponce ran for the door with Chanoch right behind him. The lock was opened swiftly and Chanoch disappeared into the outside whiteness. Ponce hesitated in the doorway and then walked over to Jens. "I'm gonna kill you, nab. I'm the last of Mithras you're gonna see."

"Ponce?" Chieng sat up and began retching. "Ponce, help me." Ponce turned at the sound of her voice, and Jens stunned him down.

"You lardhead, you filthy lardhead." Jens got slowly to his feet and moved over to Hesslin. The laser had cut a wide hole through the squad leader's body. There was no sign of life. Jens closed the man's eyes and walked over to pick up the laser. It was the mine foreman's missing weapon. Jens looked at it in his hands, then turned to glare at Ponce. He hefted the weapon and sighted along its barrel to Ponce's head.

"Don't, Gulimel, please don't." Chieng reached out to touch the fallen body. "He's mine. He's all I have. Don't kill him." Jens sighed and lowered the laser. "Get him out of here, girl. Take him away to the far places where the Outcavers are. I swear if I ever see him again I'll kill him with my bare hands."

Chieng nodded and pulled Ponce limply to his feet. His eyes were not quite focusing, but he could make out Hesslin's body on the floor. Ponce's mouth hung open in surprise. "Damn!" he said softly. "I didn't even know if I could hit anyone with that thing."

"Look good, squat, look good at what you've done. A man died today because of you. A good man. And I have to tell his widow. Do you have any messages for her or the kids he fathered?"

"No. Damn, I didn't know it would really work…" Jens and the remaining nabs watched Ponce and Chieng leave the cave and vanish into the snow.

"Why'd you let them go, Gulimel?" one of the nabs asked.

"Simple; someone's got to feed Hesslin's family. As long as those two are alive, there's a chance they'll help support Hesslin's kids. It's justice," Jens said bitterly. "Caver Justice."

CHAPTER TEN

Howell found the Academy recruiter waiting for him when he got back to his office. Captain Forbes was a regular staff type with shoulders full of official lettuce masquerading as decorations. He had the standard poster-type square jaw, regulation crewcut and the sort of bland persistence Howell recognized as one of the worst characteristics of the service man.

Howell had stopped to change into a fresh uniform and to pay his respects to Hesslin's body. Forbes was fuming at being left waiting. He was pacing Howell's cubbyhole office and polluting the air with an Aldarianweed cigar. Howell hated him on sight. He had dealt with hundreds of men just like him and expected he would deal with a hundred more before his life was over. It had always been Howell's contention that the Service stamped its regulars out of some kind of mold. Calling them androids would have been too kind.

"So, you're Howell. I've been told a lot about you." Forbes showed a mouthful of perfect white teeth around the cigar. "Too bad none of it was good."

"Put the weed out, kid. I don't allow smoking in here, and it's Captain Burian Howell to you."

"In that case, I am Captain Dav Forbes, special recruitment branch, CCS."

"Yeah, the baby stealer. I've been wondering when you'd drag your ass in here. I wouldn't sit down if I were you, you're not staying. I hope the captain of your ship wasn't planning a long stopover. The sooner you're off my planet the happier I'll be."

"That can be arranged, captain. I'm no happier than you are. Now, we'll just round up the children and I'll be long gone before you know it."

"You're not getting any children."

"Now, Howell—"

" Captain Howell."

"Captain Howell, I know from the reports I was given that I am to pick up twelve children. Unless you can tell me that some unforeseen accident has occurred to those children, I will leave here with them. Let's see, I was to pick up—" Forbes took a sheaf of papers out of his shoulder bag. "Ah, yes. Reif Tabler, Kit Aseko, Marv—"

"None of them are leaving. You recruiters are destroying the people of this colony. The tests show that mental abilities are dropping and scores are lower each year. You are going to turn Mithras into a planet full of morons if you keep this up."

"As long as they can mine ore and have kids, the Service doesn't care about their I.Q.s at all. I want those children, and I have the right under CCS regulations to take them."

"And I," Howell said coldly, "have a colony to run. How can I keep the mine production up if you barge in here and get my people mad? There'll be less ore if you take the kids. It upsets the miners." Howell held a careful control over his tongue. It would do no good to blurt out that he knew he had no more power on Mithras than the lowest colonial. As long as the CCS didn't know that he knew he was a prisoner as well, they would have to keep up the polite fiction that he really was in command of Mithras. Howell smiled at the recruiter and waited.

"The last men here managed to get ore out, kids or no kids. I think you're just going at this wrong, captain. The other commandants went according to regs and were the richer for it. I suggest you do the same. You'll be rewarded far better than you might expect."

"The only reward I'll settle for is the right to leave Mithras as soon as possible."

Forbes smiled coldly. "I have, I'm sorry to say, no authority to offer anything of that nature. But if a raise in pay, some little luxuries, women—"

"Mithras is a prison, and I have no training in penal control. I'm the wrong man for the job. All I am interested in is leaving here and going to a planet where my experiences would be of more use to the Service. It's that, Forbes, or you don't get the children."

"I hear you managed to catch the Agata brat. You're to be congratulated on that nice bit of work." Forbes abruptly changed the subject. "I intend to give you a commendation in my reports for that, you know. We've been wanting that child for quite some time. There are several tests we want to give her. I'll be taking her back with me as well as the other children. I have to admit I'm more than a little interested in her, too; I hear she's pretty, for a colonial."

Howell's hands knotted into fists. "Lay one hand on that girl and you'll end up in a slagpit by my orders. Kiedron's under my protection and she's not leaving Mithras without me."

Forbes sleam-smiled. "Ah, I think we've established your price at last. I'll leave you your little bedmate, and I get the children. Naturally there won't be that favorable report in your records that I was mentioning, but you can't have everything now, can you?"

Howell's fists came up too fast for Forbes to block them. Howell knocked the wind out of the man with one blow and decked him with another. He stood over Forbes's body as the man slowly regained consciousness, vomited and then gagged. Howell watched the man's efforts to stand up with cool satisfaction.

"You've made a bit of an error there, Captain Howell—in fact, you've been very rash, very rash indeed." Forbes choked on his own vomit and the rest of his speech was lost in a coughing fit.

"You're the one to worry, Forbes. I can have you drop-kicked from here to the south pole and no one would be the wiser. Even if I'm caught, what would the Service do to me—give me a worse planet? I have news for you, there aren't any worse ones in our entire system. The CCS would have to ignore me or kill me, and to do that they'll have to bring me to trial. And I'll make such a stink the Confederation would never get it out of their noses. You and the CCS have no control over my actions until you take me off Mithras—and then will you get some action!" Howell turned and walked out of the office. "And I want you to clean up that mess before you leave. I keep a neat office around here," he said as the door dilated. "I'll be at a funeral if you want to talk some more—come out and join me, if you dare."

Arnie had been waiting at the air lock when Howell came to suit up and had requested that Howell be present for the committing of Hesslin's body to the wasteplant. Howell had morosely agreed to come.

The wasteplant was situated in the last cave of Home village. It was a hollow sounding room filled with the echoes of rushing water and the smell of chemicals. There was a round, well-like opening in the center of the cave. The body, wrapped in a fur robe, was resting beside the well. A woman was on her knees beside the body, and Howell knew this must be Hesslin's widow. Two children were with her, and Howell sadly realized he had never bothered to ask Hesslin very much about his children. Hesslin had been a good nab, and his children would be good nabs, too. Howell made a mental note to place on record the fact that these children could not be taken from Mithras, and then remembered what Jens had said about only his remaining alive would keep his kids safe from a recruiter. Hesslin's wife would have to remarry very quickly or Forbes would claim her children along with the original dozen he was after. Then too, Forbes would be testing the smaller children and recording them for a later scoop. The system was very thorough and quite vile. Howell knew he had to stop it and he had to do it here while people were stirred up about Hesslin's death.

Odd, how he had asked Jens to get a group of the Cavers together for Howell to talk to—but this hadn't been what he'd had in mind at the time. Howell moved slowly through the crowd to Jens's side. "Tell me," he whispered, "is anything said over the body, any kind of proper farewell?"

"Not generally." Jens wiped a tear off his cheek. He and Hesslin had been close. "The family sort of says goodbye and we help put the body into the plant."

"Would people mind my saying a few things? I have an idea about stopping the recruiter and I think now would be a good time." Jens frowned. "I don't…" Then his face cleared a bit and he almost smiled. "You cave lizard! How right Hesslin was about you being good for Mithras. Tell them how you're going to save Hesslin's kids and you'll have them eating out of your hand."

"I intend to do better than that. I want them to eat the CCS's hand clean off at the wrist and go looking for more." Howell smiled his hungry predator special and elbowed his way out onto the sand surrounding the well.

"Fellow inmates of Mithras. Are we going to let the CCS take Hesslin's children from us?" he shouted to the Cavers.

The crowd muttered and swayed with surprise. Hesslin's wife reached up to grasp Howell's hand. "Don't let them have my babies, sir. Please don't let them, they're all I've got now." She broke into fresh weeping and the sound of her sobs blended with that of the rushing water.

"If we don't stop it, the CCS will have them. You all know the only safety for a child is having a living nab parent, and—"

"I'm gonna marry Helsa and raise the kids," a miner called from the edge of the crowd.

"Ah, but that won't work, my friend. You're not a nab, and Forbes is hungry to make his quota."

"Let's kill the recruiter!" someone shouted.

"Dump him in a wastepit!" a woman's voice cried out.

"Now what good would that do?" Howell held up his hands in the position for attention and silence. The use of the miners' hand talk was not lost on the Cavers. There was a murmur of approval from the crowd. "If we kill this one there'll only be more sent here, and a new commandant as well. I might end up in a wastepit if any CCS types die. No, I have a better idea. What is the sole reason the Confederation bothers with Mithras?" Howell waited expectantly. The crowd muttered and growled. Howell began to tense; what if no one answered him?

"Ore! We mine the ore. The buggers need that for their machines!" Arnie's clear voice sounded like the heavenly host to Howell. The crowd picked up quickly on the answer and loudly agreed that ore was what the Confederation wanted even more than the children.

"So are we going to give them our children and the ore as well? Never. Nothing of ours leaves Mithras until we are free to leave as well." Howell jumped to the coping around the well and stood a head taller than the Cavers. "I'm a prisoner just like you and I want to live in freedom, too. I swear that I am on your side, not the Confederation's. They sent me here to Mithras as an exile and a tool. I'll be no one's tool but my own. Are you with me in this, or are you going to hide in your beds like children?" Howell could feel the rising hatred he was feeding. The air was thick with the Cavers' loathing of the CCS. Howell knew he was one of them, an inhabitant of Mithras. He reached up and tore off his captain's stripes from the shoulders of his coldsuit and threw them on the ground. The Cavers screamed their approval.

"Let's bury Hesslin as a hero of our battle. We will fight in his name and never be ashamed. The memory of Hesslin will lead us!"

"Hesslin! We fight for Hesslin!" The cry was ragged but sounded determined. Howell hoped no idiot in the crowd would cry out that it had been a Mithran who killed Hesslin and not the CCS. Howell didn't want these people to think, just to fight.

Jens moved forward into the center of the cave. He stood by Hesslin's body, tore off his nab insignia and threw them at Hesslin's feet. "Hesslin," he cried, "I will fight for your children!" Then he stepped back and let the next in line come up to the body and swear her oath. One by one the nabs swore to end the CCS on Mithras. Hesslin was fast becoming a saint. Howell stood on the coping and watched his handiwork with pride. He was going to do in the CCS with a weapon they could never have anticipated—their own men.

"I, Kiedron Agata, do so swear also. Hesslin, your children will be safe." Kiedron knelt by Hesslin's fur-covered body and touched it. "I will carry on my father's work with you, Howell," and she looked up at the man towering over her, "for you are a better man than my father ever hoped to be."

Howell had felt annoyed at Kiedron daring to show herself in the wasteplant cave. He was afraid the Cavers would remember that it was Ponce, her follower, who was guilty of Hesslin's murder and, through him, herself as well. But in this charged atmosphere they did not remember anything but that this girl was the daughter of a fallen leader and as such a fitting avenger for Hesslin.

"Kiedron! Kiedron!" The Cavers shouted her name until the walls of the cave echoed with it. Howell leaped off the edge of the coping and took her in his arms. Hugging Kiedron's chunky body, he turned her head away as Jens and five other Cavers slid Hesslin out of the furs and into the open well. The body splashed wetly in the deeps of the wasteplant while the Cavers shrieked his name in bellowing triumph.

Bottles of liquor appeared. Arnie had a basketful, which he busily passed around to the Cavers. Howell noticed other baskets making the rounds; bottles were being opened and toasts drunk to Hesslin. Howell moved away from the well, dragging Kiedron with him.

"Over here, you'll be safer," Jens beckoned from a recess in the cave wall. "Cavers get violent when blind drunk, and this lot intends to get both blind and staggering before the night is over. I can smell the animal rising."

"Yes, let's get out of here before the orgy starts," Howell said, moving toward the cave opening. "Jens, your grotto would be fairly safe for Kiedron and me, wouldn't it?"

Jens nodded and went with them to show the way.

The drinking and wildness was spreading through the caves. Men pawed at Kiedron as she passed, and a bottle was thrust into Howell's hand. He drank deeply and passed it on to Jens.

Jens took a swig, shouted, "Hesslin!" and threw the bottle against a wall, smashing it. "We've started something, Burian. I hope you can finish it. The Cavers will tear you apart if you go back on what you've said in there."

"Go back on it? Not on your life! I intend to see it through to the bloody end, and damn the CCS." Howell hiccupped and grinned foolishly. "I never had much of a head for liquor. Damn the CCS and damn Forbes, too. Damn, damn, damn...."

Jens motioned for Kiedron to take Howell's arm on her side while Jens supported him on the other. Slowly they led Howell into the grotto and placed him on a bed of furs.

"Do you think he can go without his coldsuit?" Kiedron asked, tugging at the commandant's helmet.

"I think so," Jens giggled. The two-hundred-proof liquor was getting to him, too. "It's warm enough in here if he's covered in furs. Let's strip him down so he'll sleep like the Caver he is. Then I'll go back to the mob out there and try to keep them from tearing the place apart. Take good care of him, Kiedron, he's the answer to our prayers."

"I intend to take very good care of him, Gulimel. I've been waiting for him for a long time." Kiedron unfastened the coldsuit and she and Jens pulled it off of Howell. Jens left the girl peeling Howell's sodden tunic off his unprotesting body.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Howell dragged himself awake in the dim light of the cave. Fuzzily he looked up at the flickering light panels and tried to remember where he was. The stirring of a scantily clad body next to his own brought him fully awake. Kiedron lay snuggled beside him in the nest of furs, her dark hair gleaming in the light. He plumbed his memory, trying to recall how he and the child had gotten there, and what might have happened. He could remember nothing beyond Hesslin's funeral.

"Kiedron!" he hissed, shaking her. "Kiedron, wake up."

"Uhuh?" She turned over and snuggled closer to him.

"Come on, twit-child, wake up! What are you doing here?"

"Seducin' you." She was groggy with sleep and unwilling to leave whatever dream she was in. She buried her head under the furs, and from the sound of her breathing Howell could tell she was again fast asleep.

"Children!" he muttered, and settled down beside her. She was warm and the cave temperature was cooler than he was used to in his own sleeping quarters.

Jens and Rhoiannin were not in the cave. Howell could see the lumpish outlines of their sleeping children wrapped in bundles of fur around the room. The adults, Howell reflected, might be sleeping in one of the inner parts of the grottos. Did they know he was here with Kiedron? Had Jens planned this to keep him happy on Mithras? The questions were fruitless at this time of night. He knew he would find out soon enough, so he sank deeper into the furs with the sleeping girl. Kiedron murmured in her sleep and flung one arm over his belly.

He had no way of gauging the time. He had dozed off and on, but did not know for how long. His watch was missing from his wrist, and was probably somewhere with his clothing. He hoped someone had taken the time to hang his tunic and trimslax in a warm place; he knew they would be soggy from the coldsuit. He could, he supposed, borrow something of Jens's, but the idea of himself in Jens' larger uniform brought out an involuntary chuckle. A fine commandant he'd look in one of Gulimel's baggy suits!

Kiedron yawned and opened her eyes. She smiled dreamily up at him and stroked the side of his face with her fingers.

He caught her hand and held it still. "Enough, kitten. I want to know what you're doing here— but then, I suppose the answer's kind of obvious."

She nodded and grinned. "I thought I'd climb into bed with you. I stripped you down because you were too drunk to do it yourself, and I bundled you up in the furs. Jens helped."

"Ah, and what else did the obliging Jens help with? If I'm going to be messing around with a half-dressed female, I'd rather do it of my own free will."

Kiedron giggled, a childish sound. "Oh, you haven't done anything yet—but if you really want to…"

Howell groaned and reached out to smack her rump. "Where did your people get the idea I would bed with an underage hellion like you?" he demanded. "I prefer not to feel like a criminal when I take my pleasuring. Here I am, eighty-seven years old and they stick me with a fourteen-year-old infant."

"Fifteen. I had a birthday this month."

"With cakes and candles, I presume?" Howell's voice was mildly enquiring.

"Mean!" Kiedron struggled away from him and proceeded to sulk elaborately. When that received no notice, she turned her head to look at Howell. "I feel safe with you, like I did with my father," she announced.

"Damn. Never say that to any man who can still breathe. It'll make him want to prove he's neither safe nor your father—even when he doesn't bed with babies."

"I am not a baby!" Kiedron flared. "Don't you know I'm no innocent?

Chanoch and I—"

"Oh hush, I have no need to hear about your snuffling, amorous experiments with that clod. Spare me the details. I have a weak stomach for infantile slobbering. I know perfectly well you're considered old enough to marry on this benighted planet, but that doesn't mean I want you." Howell was more angry than he had realized at the thought of Chanoch and Kiedron together. He found himself taking that anger out on Kiedron and berated himself soundlessly for it. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. Taunting you about your inexperience isn't fair."

"And you think I'm ugly, too," Kiedron pouted. "I thought you were just teasing when you told me that. But I can see you mean it—you do think I'm fat and ugly!" She hit the furs with her small fists.

"There, there," Howell took her hands gently in his own. "When did I tell you anything about being ugly? I can't remember saying that. You're anything but a fat troll, my dear. A little short, but—"

"You see? You're doing it again." Kiedron's eyes filled, and threatened to spill over.

"What, calling you short? But you are. Short and round, with baby fat on your tummy. That doesn't make you unattractive. I do recall telling you I liked my women tall and skinny, and that's quite true. Men and women both have certain tastes, but that doesn't mean that only one set of tastes should be the right one for everyone. You'll find a person someday who'll think a round little kitten like you is the sexiest thing in the universe.

"I once knew a woman who was—"

Kiedron punched him lightly in the ribs. "I don't want to hear about the women you've known, either. I can tell you don't want me here, so I'll get myself lost." She started to climb out of the bed and Howell reached for her and pulled her, protesting, down beside him. "Look, imp. Both of us have a lot to learn about each other, and this is a warm way to do it. Maybe I was wrong about skinny women—bags of bones, all of them."

"Then you don't think I'm ugly!" She grabbed him around the chest and hugged him fiercely.

"Blessed Lady, give me strength. I'd forgotten how persistent children were. I'll be hearing about how I called you ugly for the next thousand years."

"But we won't live a thousand years, so—"

"Don't be so literal, child. It's wearing on the nerves. Can't you see there's a major difference in our thought patterns?"

"I know, I'm just a stupid colonial, an ugly, stupid child who—" Howell clamped his hand over her mouth.

"Kiedron, one more word, just one more and so help me, I'll… I'm not sure what I'll do. I'm being a fool. I should have let you leave. The gulf between what you know and what you should know to be my woman is so wide there's no measuring it. But you are so special, ice-imp. Why do I finally have to meet the one person I've been searching for all my life when it's too late?" He took his hand quickly away when she made a motion as if she were going to bite his fingers.

"Then we're stuck, aren't we? You're the right man for me, you know. I knew it when I first saw you in the hospital ward. You cared about me—admit it."

"Kiedron, you're too big to spank and too little to do anything else with. Yes, I care—I care a lot. If I had met you fifty years ago we would have ruled the universe by now; that's how right we are for each other."

"So let's be right for each other now; the universe can wait." She reached over and brushed his hair out of his eyes.

"No. There's too much time between us, and too many places and things. You'll never catch up and I'll never be that young again. It's wrong, child—for both of us. We'd only make each other unhappy in the end. I do love you, but the time's out of joint and so am I." Kiedron sighed and lay still in the furs. "I thought we could be important to each other, like Jens and Rhoiannin."

"Rhoiannin is a fool and a chattering widget."

"I figured you didn't like that. There you were, looking like you had found a real piece of cake and then the way your expression sure changed when you found out the cake was moldy. Jens knows she's not too bright, but what choice has he? That's the way things happen here. All the ones with brains get picked off by the Confederation. If Rhoiannin hadn't married Jens quick, she'd likely have been taken on an oreship as a comfort girl. That's what she was afraid of when she first met Jens. So she married him."

"Why couldn't someone have married you and saved me all this trouble? I don't believe in adultery, thank the gods."

"You're being silly." Kiedron sat up and looked over at the sleeping children to make sure none of them had been awakened by the conversation. In the half-light, Howell could see clearly her pudgy childlike body.

"By the Lady, what am I going to do?" He pulled the furs over his head and pretended to snore. Kiedron snatched them away, giggling.

"I got very curious about you when I was in the hospital ward. You were so different from any commandant I'd ever met. I asked Jens a lot of questions about you—what you were like, and all. One of the things he told me was that you faked being asleep when you wanted to get out of something. I see he was right."

"Jens, I'll kill you for this." Howell grabbed quickly for the furs. Kiedron was attempting to clear them off his body, and he had a good idea what she had in mind for his anatomy. "No you don't, brat. It's cold as a strumpet's heart in here. Now stop it or I'll beat the daylights out of you." Howell buried himself in the furs up to his eyebrows, but Kiedron dived to the bottom, pulled up the furs and began to tickle his feet.

"Stop that, child. I'm too old a man to be treated without respect—that's my leg!" Howell kicked out at her. "Now get away there and be still—go to sleep, even."

"I'd rather talk about you, if you don't want to do anything else." Kiedron came up from under the furs, rosy and warm. "I love you. I wanted you to know that. No matter what we do together, I'll always love you."

"And I love you too, imp. I've loved you ever since I first saw you out on the tundra. My magic child—fool that I am."

"Why a fool? We love each other, we're both stuck on Mithras, why not enjoy it?"

"Because I don't intend to stay on Mithras. I think we can stir up enough trouble here for the CCS to want to change things—in fact, they'll have to change them. I want to be on top when those changes are made. And that'll have to be on my own, love. I have only one drive in life; getting to the top of the Confederation Colonial Service and then changing it into what it should be, a way of bringing developed planets into the Confederation, not just some form of slavery. We have—" Kiedron yawned and cuddled under the covers. "You'll manage all that, Jens says so. You're tough."

"And you don't understand a thing I'm telling you. I can't be sidetracked now, Kiedron. I can't let myself be pulled down here like Jens—with a wife and children to protect. I have a job to do and nothing—not even you—comes ahead of it. My taking over the Service is too important to risk. Do you understand that?"

"All the men I care about have something else they want to do. I can go with you, you know. I'm not too old to get acclimatized to warmer planets. The other children do it when they go to the Academy. Howell, please!

Take me with you."

"I can't It's too dangerous. You might be killed or hurt and I couldn't run the risk of that. I can't spend more of my time worrying about your safety than about my goals. I'm sorry, dear. I'm sorry you're not old enough or independent enough to go with me. I do want you to remember I was glad you came to my bed—even if I don't exactly sound like it now. Think about that when you're older—it'll help make you understand me better."

"But I wanted to be here and anywhere else you go. I wanted it! You're nice and I love you. You'll do a lot for Mithras and I want to do a lot for you. You're like my pa, and I loved him, too."

"Not the same way, I hope!" Howell lay back on the furs and looked into her bewildered face and cursed himself for getting so involved with her

"Never mind that, I'm an old crock with a mean streak—I never meant to slander your father's good name."

"Pa worked for the CCS as their paid spy." Her voice was so matter-of-fact that Howell was sure he had heard her incorrectly.

"Would you mind going over that bit slower? For the record, I mean. I don't think I understood what you said there."

"Pa was taking credits from the CCS as their spy. His job was making trouble for whoever was in charge." Her voice dragged like a death-knell for Tovo Agata. There could be no doubt. Howell had heard her correctly the first time—Tovo had been a traitor to his people.

"Ah, a fox in the henhouse to keep all the little chickens stirred up so they wouldn't turn and rend the farmer stealing their eggs. Clever, very clever— and very CCS. Of all the double-dealing pretties to play on a planet. If it weren't so clever, I'd cry." Howell wearily closed his eyes in thoughtful pain. "But why, child? Why did he do it?"

"I don't really know, exactly." Her soft voice was beginning to break around the edges. "I guess it might have been the importance, the hero stuff, or maybe the chance to be truly safe from the nabs—I just don't know."

"The money?" Howell hated to ask that question, but it hung there in his mind like a dead, bloated thing.

"Or the money." Her words were a thready whisper. "I loved him better than anyone. I knew it wasn't right, but I loved him too much to hate him for being CCS. I killed for him, and lied and cheated, and all the time I knew he was wrong and evil. I—loved—him." Her sobs were coming faster and her body shook with the wrenching force of the pent up pain. Kiedron's sobbing was something new to Howell, and his heart melted with the sound of that harsh weeping. He had seen her yowling, spitting, or defiant with silly speeches. But tears were something he had thought impossible from her—an Agata wouldn't cry, ever. Gently he pulled her close into his arms and rocked her slowly.

"There, there, my sweet, my baby—it's all right. You're going to be fine, I'm here." Kiedron cried as if she had been storing those tears for a lifetime—two lifetimes, hers and her father's. Howell held onto her trembling body and let her cry herself out. The sobs slackened and a watery hiccupping took their place. She had left long shining trails of tears across his grizzled chest and all over his shoulder. She sniffled and Howell wiped her face with one of the covers a«d kissed her reddened nose.

"Now, baby kitten, as soon as you can, I want to hear about the CCS, your pa, and… Lustvogel, too." Howell remembered Jens telling him that Kiedron had seen her father die and had killed Lustvogel for it . Howell felt a stirring of vengeance in his gut and knew that the CCS had a lot to pay for. They might find themselves dealing with a troublemaker they couldn't buy off. The thought filled him with a very real pleasure.

"I want to talk about it, but I'm afraid I'll start crying again." Her sniffling was louder and Howell reached out a leg to snag his still-damp tunic.

"There's a handkerchief somewhere in here if it's not soaking wet." It was, but Howell passed it to Kiedron anyway. She clutched it like a security blanket and continued to sniffle.

"It started before I was born. There was a lot of trouble here with people killing other people. Nabs doing in Cavers, and commandants doing what they damn well pleased. Not much ore was getting mined. So the CCS decided something would have to be done about it. They tried to get some of the nabs to spy, but that didn't work— those guys found out they couldn't get wives if they were reporting on the Cavers. Then too, some of them ended up in the slagpits. So anyway, the commandant at that time, a man named Trent, he got hold of my pa when he was a boy and brought him up to work for the CCS. Pa was to make the miners go back to work and get lots of ore. So he pretended to be helping the Cavers hide their kids. He couldn't hide all of them, but even the trying made him a hero to the Cavers and they did whatever he said—like mining ore and stuff. He made all kinds of hoorah throughout the caves and it was real exciting, Pa said. He was doing what the commandant told him to do, and that way the commandant didn't have to come down so hard on the Cavers.

"It worked out good for everyone, so Pa didn't feel bad about taking the CCS money. He thought he was helping people more than he was hurting them. Sure he had to kill someone now and then, some Caver who was too much trouble to the CCS or the commandant, but he generally managed to blame that on the nabs or something. Pa said he really liked that guy Trent. Things went along that way for quite a while, then Trent was killed by a drunk nab and Pa got mad and became a real revolutionary most of the time. And the CCS still paid him. It was weird. He thought they'd be coming after him, but they only paid him and let him go on stirring things up. Since the CCS didn't care, Pa just did what he pleased. No matter what he did, both sides thought he was great. He killed a few commandants, when they needed killing, and he lived like the king of Mithras. Pa had the most beautiful wife, the best grotto and lots of bathing water—and heat in his cave, too.

"I was born and everything was just wonderful. I was the only kid Ma had—she was sickly—so Pa trained me to follow his work. He didn't tell me about his money from the CCS, not until Ma killed herself. Then he hated Commandant Granthum and the CCS. He tried to turn down their money. But they said unless he kept on being their man, they'd tell the Cavers what he really was. Pa, he thought about that for a while and then he took the money. He felt he couldn't do anything for Mithras if he was dead. He would have been, too, if the Cavers had found out he was a spy. So he went along with the CCS. But he had to kill Granthum. Justice and all. Then Lustvogel came—"

"Lustvogel killed your father, didn't he?" Howell had hardly dared to speak for fear Kiedron's flood of words would stop. He was seeing the core of this child, trustingly loving of anyone who cared for her.

"Yes, and I killed Lustvogel." Kiedron's face screwed up with pain and the tears began to track down her cheeks. "I killed him! I killed them both!

Me, it was me!" The girl dived into Howell's arms for comfort; he held her, stroking her hair.

"Don't stop your tears until they're done. Cry, baby girl, you've a lot of crying to do." He knew he would have to protect her. Kiedron would need someone to tell her what to do for some time to come. Howell sighed at the responsibilities, but he knew he would accept them out of love for Kiedron.

"Love comes in many shapes and sizes," he murmured into her soft dark hair.

Kiedron clutched the handkerchief and began to talk about her father and Lustvogel. "Pa taught me how to fake the tests. He knew his work for the CCS wouldn't keep me on Mithras, so we did what we could. Lustvogel found out from Doctor Ronson, where Pa had me studying medicine, that I was smarter than the recruiters had thought and he came to talk to Pa. He wanted Pa to go on helping the CCS or lose me to the recruiters. Lustvogel said he would hand me over to the recruiters himself. I was standing there and I begged Pa to send me away. I didn't want him to have to listen to scum like Lustvogel just to keep me safe. Pa was wavering a bit, then Lustvogel did himself in. He looked at me, up and down, and he reached out and ripped my shirt off. He said to Pa, 'I'll keep her here on Mithras if I can have her as my woman.' Pa got real mad. Not because Lustvogel wanted to bed me, I was almost old enough; but because it was a commandant pawing another of his women. He was remembering how Ma died and he just went all red. He tore at Lustvogel and knocked him down and then he kicked him hard. Lustvogel had a knife and he used it. Pa was dead where he stood. I just stood there and screamed. I could hear the Cavers coming and I screamed and screamed. Lustvogel ran; he knew what the Cavers would do to him for killing Pa. Jens took care of me until I got over the shock."

"Did Lustvogel try to tell people what your father had done?" Howell asked softly as he stroked her hair.

"Yes, but no one would believe him. They knew he was scared. He was going to die. He knew it, and he was scared. He didn't know who was going to kill him. Lots of Cavers claimed the right to do it. Jens says he went crazy there before I got him. It was my place to kill him, the Cavers accepted that. Caver Justice is very fair. I got him out on the tundra and I cut his throat. I kept remembering his knife sticking out of Pa's throat and I was slashing at him until he was dead." She paused. "Can I stop now?

Talking about it makes me really sad."

"Sure, you've told me enough for now. Rest, try to sleep a while. You're safe, elf-child. I'll keep you safe."

"I wanted you as my man because I knew nobody could make you sell out—you're a real hero. My pa was just a pretend one. I wanted to look up to him and think he was the best person in the whole universe, and then I found out he wasn't anything but a thing the CCS owned like they own everything else around here—everything but you."

"A father. You need the right man to play father, but no husband. I would be better at that, you know. I could teach you the things your own father didn't; things like ethics and fighting for a goal instead of a slogan—oh, so many things I could teach you. But it would have to be like that—no sex. Fathers generally don't do that sort of thing." Howell closed his eyes and waited for whatever she might say next. It would probably be silly and illogical, but it would be completely Kiedron, the child he loved. In time maybe he would get over thinking she was only a child. And he might even manage to overlook the damage he could do to her—just to keep her with him.

"Well, in that case, I guess I'll have to settle for your being my father. That could be kind of nice, too," Kiedron said reflectively. "I need your help in figuring out what to do next, now that I'm not a revolutionary any more. I like the idea of ending the CCS and I want to help with that if you'll let me. I'll even stay here on Mithras if you say I should." Howell opened one eye. "Then you'll accept what I'm offering you? No questions, no recriminations, just blind acceptance?"

"Yes. That's what I gave my pa, and he didn't deserve it half as much as you do. You're a better Mithras man than he was."

"I see," Howell answered weakly. He was amazed at her casual letting go of the hero worship she had left for her real father, and a bit hurt by it. He had, with a small part of his mind, hoped she would fight a while longer and even manage to convince him that her way was best. But he could see too clearly what marriage to her could mean: the gradual growing apart as Kiedron matured, the possibility of her finding someone more suited to her as an adult. He wanted her to be happy. That mattered more than anything physical that might happen between them. Howell shrugged under the furs and decided to do some accepting of his own.

"We'll manage it, baby. You and I will manage it." He kissed her on the lips, a gentle, fatherly kiss. "Rest, I'm here." Kiedron sighed and snuggled closer to Howell. One hand was tangled in the chest hair, the other clutched his damp handkerchief. She slept easily, like a child. Howell wished he could sleep so effortlessly—but then, he now had more to worry about than Kiedron. She had managed to hand her problems successfully over to him with calm assurance. Howell remembered too late that he had always disliked dependent women. But then, Kiedron wasn't a woman, either. Smiling, he touched her cheek and tried to relax.

The children were starting to stir, and Howell realized he had managed to sleep a little. Jens was awake; he could hear the aide's rumbling voice in one of the inner grottos. Howell turned to wake Kiedron, then decided to let her rest. Her eyes had dark circles under them and she did look a bit peaked. Howell was trying to figure out how to free his numb arm from under Kiedron's limp body when the children started yelling and pointing toward the door.

Howell looked up and saw someone who could only be Chanoch with a band of armed men. They had only knives, sticks and a few vibroblades, but they still looked too dangerous to argue with.

"Look, he's got her in bed with him!" Chanoch screeched. "Rape!

Commandant rape!"

"Now look, you snot-nosed brat…" Howell sat up in the furs and looked around for a weapon.

Kiedron woke up, took one look at the intruders and screamed. The pack was on them in seconds. Jens came running from the other room with a stungun in hand. But it was impossible for him to sort Howell and Kiedron out of the writhing tangle of bodies on the furs. Kiedron was kicking and punching savagely. She was much smaller than most of the men, but she was used to such infighting. Howell had learned his fighting style in a hard school as well and was doing a lot of damage to his attackers.

Chanoch grabbed for Kiedron and pulled her out of the heap of bodies. He had ducked down beside the furs and done very little of the actual physical work. With a vibroblade held at Kiedron's throat, he shouted for the fighting to stop and demanded that Jens drop his weapon.

"Don't move, Kiedron—don't do anything." Howell tried to put all of the feeling he had for her into his voice. "Don't fight Chanoch, he's got the upper hand now. Just hold still."

"He's right, Agata, I do have the upper hand now, and you're gonna do what I want, not what you think should be right all the time. So you shut up and be good." He held her small body close against his own, and Howell felt physically ill at the contact between the two of them. Kiedron's eyes were wide with fright, and she watched Howell hopefully, waiting for him to make his move. She would obey him; she was going to do exactly what he told her. As long as she did that she was safe from anything Chanoch might take into his mind to do. For now his target seemed to be Howell, and the commandant preferred it to stay that way.

"We only came for this woman-raping commandant, not you, Gulimel. Stay nice and you and Agata won't be hurt. But if you don't…" Chanoch left the rest of the threat dangling, as he nicked Kiedron and brought blood trickling down her neck.

Howell was pinned to the furs by six husky men. His mouth was bleeding and he had been kicked in more places than he cared to think about. "Leave her alone, Chanoch," he said, struggling "to get an arm free. The man holding his arm shifted and then sat on the almost-free limb with a sickening crunch. The radius snapped like matchwood. Howell grimaced and tried not to cry out. Any signs of weakness would bring out the blood cravings in these animals. "I'll go with you, just let Kiedron alone." He tried for as strong a voice as he could manage.

"No, Howell, they'll kill you," Kiedron shrieked. "Chanoch, you pig kisser—"

Chanoch laughed and held her body closer to his own. "I've come back for my doll, just like I told the kids I would. Don't worry, I still love you, even if you were raped by this stinkin' nab."

Howell waited for Kiedron to start yelling or fighting, praying she would have the good sense to hold still as he'd asked her to. Kiedron was very still—but then, a vibroblade at the throat was a good teacher of patience and nonresistance.

"Get them out of here," Chanoch snarled at the men with him. They were far too old to be part of Kiedron's regular gang, and Howell knew he had won the support of most of the miners last night. These disreputable specimens, Howell surmised, must be Outcavers, the renegades Lustvogel had banished from the caves for real or imagined offenses. Chanoch leered at Howell as he added, "We've got business with you, commandant—Caver business." He tried to sound ominous but his voice cracked in the middle of the comment, adding a ludicrous note to the innuendo.

"He comes with us, but Agata stays," a burly Outcaver said, moving between Howell and Chanoch.

"She's mine, Shand, mine! I decide what to do with her."

"There's a recruiter on planet looking for kids. We'll be busy with the commandant. Who'll take care of the kids—you, Ezhno?" The boy seemed to hesitate, his hold on Kiedron's neck lessened.

"Look," the man called Shand continued, "have you ever known a recruiter to catch the Agata? We need her here, not with us. Let her go."

"I'll think about it. This is my raid and I make all the decisions, do you get that?"

"I was only suggesting, boy," Shand answered with deceptive mildness.

"But you can't take Howell out of the Homecave without his coldsuit," Jens said desperately. "You'd be killing him right out with no chance for a trial—that's not Caver Justice, Shand." Jens pointed to the heap of clothing on the floor. "He's good at getting into a suit—I taught him to be fast."

"Gulimel's right, we don't want to kill him fast-like. That wouldn't be decent or just," another of the Outcavers spoke up, then began to pick up Howell's suit. After checking it for weapons he handed it to him. Chanoch whirled to glare at Jens. "I decide what's done around here, Gulimel. Maki, put them things down—make the pig do his own slopping around. Don't wait on him like some slave.

"Get dressed, commandant, but do it slow and nice or I'll forget I care about Kiedron and stick this blade into her."

"Nice it is." Howell dressed as quickly as he could with one arm broken, pulling on the soggy garments while watching the blade at Kiedron's throat. Chanoch had it turned off, but the edges were sharp enough to cut and all it would take to reactivate it was a quick wrist movement. Several plans for escape ran swiftly through his mind. None of them seemed very feasible until Chanoch let go of Kiedron, and even then it would depend on the girl's presence of mind and good reflexes. He knew that Jens would do everything he could to save him, but his life would be worthless with Kiedron dead.

What will Kiedron do? That thought ran yapping through his brain. Would she hunt Chanoch down to rescue him, or end up crying on Jens's shoulder? Would his being so quickly caught by Chanoch make her change her mind about loving him? His elf-child couldn't desert him. He trusted that as the only true fact in the universe—otherwise everything was meaningless.

He signaled that he was ready to go with the Outcavers, and his use of the Caver handspeak, even hampered by the broken arm, had as much of a good effect on them as it had on the Cavers themselves. Howell smiled to himself. Knowledge had always been the currency of power. He nodded reassuringly at the silent girl, and watched, motionless, as Chanoch fondled her roughly and then threw her back into the pile of furs.

"Keep it warm, doll, I'll be back as soon as we take care of this squat," he boasted.

Two of the Outcavers grabbed Howell by the arms and marched him quickly out of the grotto. Kiedron's crying was the sound that followed Howell out of the Homecave. He could hear Jens yelling for help from the other Cavers.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The mine that the Outcavers had dragged Howell into was one that obviously had not been in use for years—officially, that is. Its location was unknown to Howell, and he was sure it would not still be listed on any current CCS map.

The walls dripped moisture and there were clusters of luminescent fungus dotting the ceiling and outcroppings of rock. The air was warm enough for Howell to crack open his faceplate. His actions were slow and clumsy; the pain in his arm was sickening and he was terrified of passing out before he could reason with the Outcavers.

"Can I sit down? My arm's broken." Howell directed his comment to the Outcaver named Shand. Chanoch, he decided, he would ignore if possible.

"Sit, but don't try anything funny or I'll kill, you." Shand seemed to be in charge of the Outcavers and, hopefully, a reasonable man.

"I'll decide what to do with this swill; I told you where to find him, he's mine!" Chanoch pushed his way in front of Shand. "Look, Kiedron's my woman, you just came along for the helping, remember? When we toss him into the slagpits it's gonna be me doin' the pushing."

' We haven't figured out if we are going to deep him. He might be worth more to us alive, Ezhno. And you remember this—I run the Outcavers, not you. Stick to your kids and leave my men to me."

Howell leaned back against the rock walls and breathed a sigh of relief. He did have a chance with this Shand as long as the man could keep Chanoch in line. Howell glanced around the cave, looking for some way to escape. There were indications of human habitation in the piles of gnawed bones, scraps of dirty furs and the remains of fire rings. He caught a glimpse of a being, man or woman, scuttling off into the dark. It had been working on something hanging in the dim light— something that stank of fresh blood. Howell peered into the dark trying to make out what the blackened lump might be. He remembered Jens mentioning the rumor that some Outcavers had been reduced to cannibalism, and he had a stomach-churning fear that it might be a half-eaten nab or Caver. Shand, seeing the direction of his gaze, laughed and held up a torch. The carcass of a small deerlike creature was clearly outlined against the wall, its blood forming a slushy puddle on the cave floor.

"Don't worry, Howell, you're not near the dinner a dead royca will be—you'd be too damn tough, for one thing."

"But he raped my woman!" Chanoch insisted. "It's my right to kill him."

"Funny, she didn't tell me you were her man, Chanoch." Howell gently touched his arm and winced. Without care it would become infected or permanently crippled. He was sure now that Shand had very little intention of killing him. "I've always thought a Caver woman decided whom she slept with. Most of them brag that rape by a nab isn't possible. Nabs haven't the guts for it."

Several of the Outcavers yelled their agreement and made ribald comments on the power and endurance of a Caver woman.

"Take care of the bigstroke's arm, Shand. He's a man, he is," one of the Outcavers said, pointing to Howell's awkwardly held coldsuit sleeve.

"It's your idea, Halle, you fix him up." Shand stood watching, his hand on his blade as the Outcaver called Halle circled in on Howell and pulled out his own vibroblade.

"Gotta cut your suit, laddy—fix that there arm." The Outcaver was old and dirty, stinking of mold and raw gin. Howell lifted his free hand away and waited for what he knew would be a painful ritual.

Halle cut into the thick coldsuit and bared the arm. There was a large purpling bruise on the skin, but no sign that the bone had punctured the flesh.

"Now you just rear back there and bite your teeth. This'll hurt some."

"Got some of that gin you're breathing on me, old man? It would help." Howell shivered, more from shock than the cold.

Halle cackled and produced from a greasy pocket a cracked half liter flask stoppered by a moldy rag. "Drink up, it'll put hair in your ears!" Howell held his breath against the stink and threw at least thirty cc of the fiery brew as far back in his throat as he could manage. His mouth and lungs were instantly seared, and he knew he could take on his weight in wild sleams. It was strong stuff, but effective. "Do what you have to, I'm ready," he announced in an unsteady voice.

"But he drugged and raped my woman, and you're treating him like he was king of Mithras," Chanoch protested, grabbing Shand's arm. "We all saw him in bed with her, pawing around like some animal. Agata was too scared to even call out. I want him dead. We Cavers know what to do with a commandant that'll take our women."

There were growls of assent from some of the Outcavers, and Howell knew he would have to stop Chanoch before he could get enough of the men behind him. Shand seemed to be his best bet. The older man was clearly in charge of the Outcavers and didn't like Chanoch. Howell thought busily of a plan as he fought to take his mind off what Halle was doing to his arm. Above all, he must not faint or get too drunk to defend himself. He refused a second swig of the alcohol and gasped while the bone was maneuvered into place.

"Now I don't know about your sexing, Shand," he said when he could get his breath, "but I generally don't try rape in a roomful of other Cavers and their children—too damn noisy for one thing, and it's downright inhibiting. I don't mind the kids getting a sex education. But I've always felt that sort of thing was up to their parents to provide, not a total stranger. So there I was with a woman and you burst in on me screaming rape. I, for one, take that as an insult to my powers of persuasion. I have yet to hear Chanoch prove that Kiedron was complaining. In fact, shouldn't she be the one screaming rape instead of Chanoch?" Howell looked the boy up and down slowly. "Sorry, kid, you're just not my type." Howell knew that trying to explain he had never touched Kiedron wouldn't work with a crowd like this, and he couldn't possibly get them to believe him. It would only weaken his argument. The Outcavers had as strong a view of the importance of women's sexual rights as any Caver—more, even. Not many females would leave the relative safety of the Homecaves for the uncertain life of an Outcaver; any of their women would be well cared for. Even desperation would not drive an Outcaver to rape or kidnaping; the penalties were swift and deadly. No Caver who considered himself a man would allow such a shame on any of his women, and no Caver woman would allow herself to go unavenged. Suicides, such as Kiedron's mother's, were comparatively rare. Howell was sure her death might have been due to some knowledge of Tovo's connection with the CCS as well as being pregnant by Granthum.

Howell mentally blessed Jens for all that the man had told him about the Outcavers. Caver Justice was just as strong among these men as any regular Mithras people. It had been the CCS, and particularly Lustvogel, that had outlawed these men, not their fellow Cavers. On Mithras, death, not exile, was the accepted punishment for any serious transgression. Only the CCS would think of exiling someone who was already in exile. A gambler's move seemed to Howell like the best course of action. While the old man splinted his arm he took the opportunity to give Shand more of a looking over. The man was big and brawny; several-generation Caver by the look of him. His dark red hair flowed down his wide back and his arms seemed each as big around as Howell's chest. Also, he was obviously smarter and better trained than the average Caver.

"Let's decide one thing here, Shand—are we having a rape trial or aren't we? If we are, let's get it out of the way so you and I can get down to the serious talking. The brat," Howell jerked his head in Chanoch's direction,

"is getting to be a bore."

Shand grinned and slapped his hand against the cave wall. "I knew you were a smart one the minute I heard how you survived out on the ice. I figured you'd be someone I could talk to about the CCS. But I wasn't sure how to get to you without being cut down by a pack of zap-happy nabs—so I used Ezhno to lead me to you. And he did a fine job, too, even if he is an idiot."

"But he—" Chanoch started to say before a large Outcaver clamped a dirty hand over his mouth.

"Thanks, Lioni. One more word out of the brat and we tie him up. Sit on him for now. I'll talk to him later." Lioni took Shand at his word; he pushed Chanoch to the cave floor and straddled his struggling body. The other Outcavers laughed and pinched the squealing boy.

"Let him up when you think he's learned to mind his manners in front of his betters," Shand said, turning then to Howell. The other men retreated so that the two leaders could speak privately. "Now, you and I have a lot to say to each other, and it isn't about rape, either. Or at least not the kind Ezhno was blathering about. It's Mithras that's getting the raping, and no one gives a damn."

"It matters to me. I haven't been here long, but long enough to see that Mithras is the worst-run colony in the CCS system. You know, it's odd how a bureaucracy works. Get a thing going and no one bothers to change anything without a lot of glue in the wheels. The CCS could have had a model arrangement here with happy colonists and all the ore they could use. Instead, they got 'Mithras is a prison' stuck somewhere in their collective minds and here we all are." Howell pulled the edges of his coldsuit tighter around his arm. The cave was cold and the moist air inside the suit was chilling rapidly.

"Can you stand that cut there? I haven't another coldsuit around—never needed one of the things myself. This talk is important, but I don't want you freezing on us."

"I won't freeze, I'm too tough an old bird. You're right, the talking is more important, so stop blathering about me. I do agree that Mithras is being raped of its minerals and the children. There is no way this can become a self-supporting colony under the present system—and since the CCS likes the system—"

"We sweat and die in the mines so's the Confederation can have our kids and our only source of income. Why, on a free market I could get double the price those CCS flea skinners give us for our ore. If only I had my own oreships."

"But they need Mithras as a prison, Shand. Never forget that. I think it's almost become the most important thing about this benighted hole. I managed to make a few top people uncomfortable, but they couldn't get rid of me on the grounds that I didn't do my job well—so they sent me here. It was the same with all the others. I've seen the files, and I knew Marios Rap; this is a penal colony for the CCS, not just for your poor fools who happened to be born here. It's lovely. No need for a trial, no messy inquests; just kick a man up the stairs until he falls over them and breaks his fool neck. I checked the Mithras charter—it's still listed as a prison for malcontents. And by the Lady, am I a malcontent!"

"Don't you got no friends in the CCS?" Shand asked. "If you were such a good bossman, someone must be interested in what happened to you." Howell laughed. "Bureaucracy again. It takes time to find a man in the Service. They were counting on Kiedron's killing me before anyone got around to even asking where poor old Howell was stationed. After all, there have been an awful lot of dead commandants around here in the last year or so. I was just going to be one more statistic in the files on Mithras. And it's not just me, that's the hell of it. Every new nab or technician sent up here is a prisoner, too. I wonder what Jens, or poor Hesslin, ever did. I guess I'll never really know until I can get off Mithras. I'll fix this little game but good."

"But how can you stop it?" Shand scratched at his wiry red beard.

"They seem to have it working to their liking, not ours."

"They weren't counting on my catching Kiedron—and by the way, it wasn't rape."

Shand laughed. "Naturally it wasn't. Never have I seen a woman so snuggled up to a man who's just took her by force. I could see it was a two-way thing. But I'll lay bets you'll end up more her father than her husband. I know her kind."

"Got that, did you?" Howell smiled ruefully. "I'm her new dad. Speaking of which, how much did you know about Tovo Agata?" This was the big risk, finding out how solid a local saint's feet really were. Shand bent closer to Howell so only he could hear him. "Tovo was on the CCS payroll," he hissed. "Most people don't know that, but I do. I worked down at the port and I saw a lot of things the CCS didn't want seen. That's why I'm here. Knowing too much to let live and too popular to kill. Most of the port crew would've suspected something if I'd had an

'accident,' so I was accused of stealing a drug shipment and Outcaved." Shand spread his hands and shrugged. "They shouldn't have accused me like that—it gave me ideas. I've stole more than five whole shipments by now, I'd bet!" Howell laughed and slapped Shand's shoulder with his good hand. This was a man after his own heart.

"If we could turn this place into a model colony, we'd have the CCS over a spiked barrel. I think we can manage it, too. They don't dare admit they're holding us without benefit of trial, and they can't complain that they need more troops here, if the ore is coming in regularly."

"But what about the kids? We need them here."

"Simple—blackmail. We tell the miners they'll keep their kids if they turn out the ore on time with no trouble. We tell the CCS we won't blab to the Central Council about what they're doing to Mithras if they leave the kids alone. That should do it."

"That should get us a quick blooding. The CCS will kill off me and you and then continue business as usual."

"Possibly. But I think there's someone here on Mithras who's the new spy for the CCS. What if we started feeding him what we wanted them to know? What if they had to worry about a commandant working with the Cavers instead of against them?"

"Aye, but how do we find your spy? Tovo was almost impossible to spot. This one will be twice as hard."

Howell nodded. "I'm working on it, and I have a few ideas of my own. Let me think them out and then prove it. Right now we've got some talking to do with the other Cavers—and as far as I'm concerned there is no such thing as an Outcaver. If your men want to come back to the Homecave, they can do so. No nab of mine will lay a laser on them. Word of Burian Howell."

"I'll take that word and shake on it." Shand reached for Howell's free arm.

"What about the lardhead?" Lioni asked from atop the struggling Chanoch.

"Oh, let the kiddy go, he's harmless. Boot his tail out of here, and if I hear him cry 'rape' one more time—"

Chanoch was only too glad to be free of the Outcavers. Glancing warily from man to man, he edged his way to the mouth of the cave and ran out into the snow.

"Born coward, that boy. Can't do a thing with him. Gods know, I tried."

"Why'd you bother?" Howell asked.

"Man'll sometimes take a bit more trouble with his own son. At least, I think he's mine—Bettena always was a busy woman, and you learn in the Caves not to ask too close about that sort of thing. I had my pleasures and she had hers. We had no complaints, so it was fine with the rest of the Cavers too. Naturally, any man laid a hand on Bettena without her wishing it or liking the idea— well, I'd've had to kill him, you see?" Howell shook his head at simply one more example of the way things were done on Mithras. No wonder some of the genealogy charts made no sense at all.

"You know," Shand said, "it's probably better I'm not sure if he's mine or not. If I had a really good doubt, I'd have drowned him years ago. Agata kept him out of my way for a while. I had hopes of her making a man of him—but here he is, back making trouble for everyone." Howell was about to reply when there was the sound of a scuffle at the mouth of the mine. A voice was calling his name, the sweetest voice he could imagine. He jumped to his feet and ran toward the opening, knocking Outcavers out of his way in his haste to reach the opening.

"Kiedron, Kiedron! I'm here and I'm all right." Kiedron fell into Howell's arms and hugged him painfully. His broken arm was agony, but it was worth it to know she was here with him and safe, too.

"Oh, Howell, we were so worried about you! Jens tried to get the Cavers out on a hunt, but Forbes was loose in the Homecave and he's rounding up the children. You've got to do something! Everyone is fighting and there might be some killing this time—Howell, help me."

"Well, Shand, shall my ice-elf and I go arescuing on our own, or will your crew of Caver uglies back me up?"

"You heard the commandant, men. He needs us for a fight," Shand bellowed. He and his men left the cave at a fast trot, Shand giving orders to round up the rest of the Outcavers on the way back to the Homecave.

"There'll be recruiter blood on the walls, Howell," he promised, brandishing a vibroblade in each hand.

Howell held Kiedron to his good side and then regretfully let go of her.

"Let's go, ice-elf, we've got a job to do, too—but without all the bloodshed, I hope."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Homecave was in a state of chaos. Children ran screaming through the corridors with Forbes's nabs in hot pursuit. The recruiter obviously wasn't taking the time to designate which children he wanted; his men were taking every child they could catch. The bedlam in the main cave reminded Howell of Brueghel's painting of the slaughter of the innocents—only these children were giving as good as they got. Several nabs were bleeding from knife wounds and one man was down with three boys on his back, hitting him as hard as they could with their small fists. There was no sign of any nab that Howell knew as a Mithras regular. All the uniformed men were from the oreships, the Port Authority or Forbes's own cruiser. There was no sign of Jens, either.

Howell made his way quickly to tens's grotto and found Arnie holding off two nabs by himself. Three smaller children cowered in a corner and watched the battle in round-eyed wonder. Howell knew that with his arm done up in Halle's makeshift sling he would be of very little use in a pitched battle. But nothing short of having his other arm broken was going to keep him away from the Homecave now. He reached for one of Rhoiannin's cooking pots and neatly clipped one of the nabs across the skull. The man dropped like a rock, and as the other nab turned to see what had happened to his partner, Arnie kicked him in the gut. The nab doubled over, and Howell delivered the coup de grâce with the soup pot.

"Good going, sir." Arnie bent over the two men to make sure they were both out cold, then beckoned to one of the children to tie the men up. All three of the children, with whoops of joy, jumped to the task and, using an assortment of makeshift ropes, soon had the nabs well confined and very uncomfortable.

"Where's your father? Did he get out of the CCS cave yet?" Howell asked as he searched the grotto for a more substantial weapon than the soup pot.

"I'm not sure, sir. He tried to get some help from Forbes after you were taken off by the Outcavers. But the recruiter wasn't about to try and help you. He tossed Pa in the brig when he wouldn't go after any children, and then he took off chasing Kiedron. He has most of the squad leaders locked up, too; they wouldn't help him any more than Pa would. They wouldn't go against the Homecavers for no damn recruiter, anyway. Forbes's a fool not to know that."

"Huh! Think you and some of the bigger boys can spring the brig door—particularly if I told you the combination to the lock?" Howell grinned at the boy. Jens had raised one fine nab in Arnie.

"Oh, I wouldn't need a combination, sir. I'd just blow the door with a laser. I know where Pa has one hidden in your office."

"Why that sneaky bugger! Get the laser, then, and get your father—and if you're up to it, boy, try and get me a stungun."

"Why not take theirs?" Arnie gestured toward his two captives. Howell winced at his oversight. "You're right. Where is my mind today?

Having a broken arm shouldn't have short-circuited it that much."

"I don't think there's much wrong with your mind, sir. I saw you coming in with all of Shand's men. Pa was right—he was sure you'd win them over pretty quick. I would have joined you, too, but I knew the littles were here and I couldn't risk Forbes's men taking them. Pa wouldn't forgive me nohow for that. He didn't think their being a nab's kids would count for much with that squat."

"With you and me, Kiedron and your father, we should be able to give Forbes a run for his children. And he's not counting on the Outcavers, either. Killing me isn't going to be as easy a job as the Service thought it would. Let's go get us some recruiter's nabs, Arnie!" From the looks of the caves, Forbes and his men were getting the worst of the battle. By Forbes's own orders nothing stronger than a stun-gun was being used. He wanted the children alive, and the use of lasers would be hard to explain to his superiors. Once the Cavers had realized he was using only stuns they lost all fear and were attacking with real vigor. No finicky rules about not killing would bother them. Vibroblades were in evidence and more than one nab was dead of knife wounds. One of the oreshipmen had his head smashed in by three children armed with a good sized rock. The kids were celebrating their kill with wild whoops of joy until a group of Forbes's men stumbled on them, scattering the children to deeper parts of the caves. The nabs were at a distinct disadvantage because they didn't know the layout of the interlocking grottos as well as the children and the Cavers did. Even those men who had studied Forbes's maps found them useless in the maze of tunnels and sleeping grottos. They also had not counted on the women being fully as fierce as their menfolk, if not fiercer. The children were the hope of a better Mithras, and too many of these women had seen other kids taken from them and never returned. Forbes had no willing commandant behind him, no local nabs to depend on; he had nothing except his own sense of self-righteousness, which was worthless on Mithras. Forbes was reaping the CCS harvest and was finding it a tough weed patch indeed.

Howell yelled like a banshee, egging the Cavers on. He ran from grotto to tunnel shouting approval of his people's actions and firing off his captured stungun. Forbes screamed at him to come to the aid of the Service, and Howell threw a rock at him. Howell was a Caver that day, fighting for his children as much as any native born to Mithras. He had a child to save—his child, Kiedron.

She was fighting side by side with Shand in the wasteplant room, their vibroblades stinging and slashing at the nabs that encircled them. Ducking around the well in the center of the room, they held the nabs at bay by operating as a well-matched pair.

"By the Lady, if only you'd been my kid instead of Ezhno." Shand watched a spectacular duck-and-slash to the ribs maneuver by Kiedron and then jumped high to avoid a stun blast aimed at himself. "Where is that piss-ant of mine—in hiding?"

"More than likely." Keidron kicked out at a nab and stopped long enough to hear the crack of the man's ribs. "He never was one for fighting."

"No, there're better ways of getting what I want, Agata." Ezhno Chanoch and Forbes stood side by side in the doorway of the cave. At a signal from Forbes the nabs backed out of the room, leaving Kiedron and Shand alone by the waste well.

"You were a fool, sweet, not to take up where your father left off with the CCS. I wasn't so stupid. When you told me how much money there was in being a terrorist, I decided to find out if it was true. Now I work for the CCS just like your pa." Chanoch swaggered toward the horrified girl. "I can have everything—gin, fancystuffs, power, all I want. And I can have you, too. Howell's not takin' you away from me. You're my woman, Agata."

"And you're my son." Shand Chanoch looked at the boy as if he were some alien monster. "I let you run wild. I lied for you, even stole things from the ships for you; and all this time—"

"Shaddup, old man. You're a bigger fool than Agata is. Her father filled her full of pap about the glory of Mithras, but you knew better. You knew he was on the take before Agata did, and you didn't even cut yourself in for a slice. I had to stand by and watch you call me an idiot when all the time you was the real clown around here." Chanoch spat in his father's face.

"You coulda killed Howell for me, but you made like a buddy with him. I would've let you be a big man here when I took over as the new hero. But you had to mess up my plans, so now I don't need you at all." Chanoch drew a laser out from under his jacket, raised and fired it, Shand lunged for him, but he was too late. The beam sliced neatly through his chest, leaving a charred hole. Shand Chanoch's face was a mask of shocked grief as he stumbled backward and finally tripped into the wastewell. Kiedron heard his body strike the liquid far below, and cried out in anguish.

"He was a good man, Chanoch, a good man, and you killed him!"

"I'll kill anyone who gets in my way, even you. I want you as my woman, but on my terms. I had to knuckle under to you for so long, Agata. Now it's my time. I get to be the boss and you'll go along with everything I say. Isn't that right, Captain Forbes?"

"You got it." Forbes smiled at the girl, showing all of his too-white teeth. "Howell is finished here. I'll have him sent to have his brain short-wired, so that the most violent thing he can think of is banging two blocks together."

"Do you really think the Mithrans would follow your pet monkey, Forbes?" Howell's voice was cool and nonchalant from the doorway behind the recruiter.

Chanoch and Forbes swung quickly around to face Howell and most of the inhabitants of the Homecave. More Cavers were pouring into the room. There was not one of Forbes's nabs to be seen. The edges of the cave were rapidly filling with Outcavers who clearly looked to Howell as their new leader.

"Your men are running, Forbes. Those who can run, that is. My Cavers are a tough lot for untrained men to take on on their home territory with only stunguns. You've lost; Mithras is mine. If the Service wants anything from us, they'll have to deal with me."

"They'll have you up on charges just as quick as I can report in," Forbes squeaked.

"Clod," Chanoch snarled, "can't you see he's not going to let you report anything about Mithras. He's going to be the new dictator around here. Oh, he'll be nice to the Cavers for a while but then, as soon as he knows he can manage it, he'll be no better than the rest of them. Killers, that's what commandants are—pure, bloody killers."

Chanoch was making a last desperate play for the sympathy of the crowd, one last chance to pit Cavers against the CCS and their nabs—but it wasn't working this time. Chanoch could see the hate in the Cavers' eyes, see them closing in on Forbes, and he knew he would have to wriggle out of the situation quickly or die with the recruiter.

"You're not going to be killed, Forbes," Howell said softly. "You're going back to headquarters and tell them all about Mithras. You're going to tell them there aren't any more children worth taking off this planet, and that there have been some more ore strikes and the production will triple in the next two months."

"Don't believe him!" Chanoch screamed. "Can't you people see it's a plot to get you to work harder? He's gonna let this recruiter go because they're working together. He's no better than all the others. I'm Shand's son, believe me!"

"You killed him—you killed your own father." Kiedron faced Chanoch.

"You gunned him down with a laser, and you're the one working for the CCS. You sold out, Chanoch. You sold us out for CCS credits!" Chanoch drew the laser from his shirt once more and jumped to the lip of the wastewell. He aimed the laser for Howell, snarling for everyone else to back off. He was too busy watching the commandant to see Kiedron launch herself across the well coping and shove him at knee level. With a scream, Chanoch fell over backwards into the pit, the laser beam deflecting off the walls of the well. He hit bottom, still screaming. Kiedron didn't dare look over the side to see if he had been killed. She clung to the edge of the well and was thoroughly sick.

Howell ran to the lip of the wastepit. "Someone get a squad down there and see if he can be pulled out alive! I want Chanoch so we can show the Cavers just what the CCS felt was good enough for them in the way of a hero." He knelt beside Kiedron and put one arm around her shaking body.

"It's all right, the worst is over," he soothed. "We can go on from here and make Mithras a better place for all of us—even the Chanochs of this universe."

"You may not have very much to say about Mithras when I make my report, Howell. You'll be lucky not to be court-martialed." Forbes stood stiffly waiting, surrounded by a squad of nabs with Jens and Arnie in control. Arnie held a laser pointed directly at the Academy recruiter, and it didn't seem as if it would take much to make the boy shoot.

"Why don't you let me kill him, sir?" he asked. "And leave Chanoch down there in the pit, too? It'll be a lot quieter around here if you did."

"Quieter, but not much better." Howell glanced back over his shoulder down into the wastepit. He could hear the sounds of the rescue party searching for Chanoch. "I don't want to be just another tough, running this place the way I feel like on any given day. There are rules to government, Arnie—some of them have to be obeyed."

"And you've broken most of them," Forbes protested. "I, for one, will never give you any kind of a good report on your conduct here. You took the side of the insurrecting colonials against their true government. That, sir, is treason!"

"Forbes," Howell said wearily, "spare me the patriotic speeches. You and the CCS suffer from the same case of mental constipation. The Colonial Service is not the true government of these people—the Confederation of Planets is."

"But the Service rules in the name of the Confederation. We—"

"Terrorize, make unjust and unconstitutional laws, and kill a lot of people. I've been through the CCS from Academy student on up, and I know the system. That was the one thing I realized early in my career—you have to work from within. I got big enough and high enough in the CCS to make some waves, and lo, Mithras. I knew I was onto something when Hesslin told me what this planet really was. The Service knows it's got to work with me or kill me—well, I'm still alive. Make your reports, Forbes. Write them any way you want. They'll all say the same thing—Captain Burian Howell has not failed the CCS; but the CCS has failed Captain Burian Howell. I'm going to make Mithras into the best planet in the colonial system by being fair, by setting up sensible rules and by sticking to them. Leadership, that's what I'll give Mithras—not toy heroes or revolutions, just good government. The Service will be down on me like a chicken on a two-meter worm, but they're going to find me hard to swallow. And in this universe, what you can't swallow you learn to live with.

"Jens, get Captain Forbes's ship ready for takeoff as quickly as possible. I want those reports in fast. But make sure you replace all the men he lost here in this messy little war of his—are you going to report that as well, Forbes?" Howell asked with a grin. As the recruiter sputtered, he added,

"We will take care of your every comfort— but every man we put on your ship will be a blabbermouth of the first order—my order. Don't think changing ships will help, or killing my men. Think about every oreship leaving Mithras from now on having reports scattered in every hiding place on it—reports from me or my representatives. The silence about places like Mithras is what makes them prisons, not the nasty climate or the nabs."

"We found Chanoch, sir, but he's in bad shape." The squad leader, a man called Helms, pushed his way through the mob. His clothing was torn and stained by chemicals. There were red welts on his arms that would turn into scars. Going down into the wastepits had clearly not been easy, but this man had gone—at Howell's orders. Howell smiled at the nab. He had never met the man and barely knew him by sight! But the fact he had been ready to risk the dangers of the wastepits because Howell ordered him to was already a sign that Howell's command of Mithras would be different. The men would follow him because they wanted to, not because they feared him. A wicked idea occurred to Howell, and he grimaced as he turned back to Forbes. "I'll tell you what, captain. As a token of my esteem—and so that you won't lose face completely when you return to headquarters—I'll let you take one of our children with you: Ezhno Chanoch." The recruiter sputtered some more. "But I didn't want him. He didn't test out high enough; he'd wash out at the Academy."

"We know now those tests can be faked; maybe that's how he scored so low. Besides," Howell added, nodding his head to indicate the guns that were still trained on Forbes, "we insist. The two of you deserve each other so well. We'll give him some preliminary medical treatment overnight here, and you can finish the job when you leave with him on your ship bright and early tomorrow morning."

Forbes wanted to speak further, but Howell cut him off with a wave of his hand. "Take them both away," he told Helms and his men. "I don't want to look at either of them again."

And, turning to his aide, he said, "We also have the matter of Ponce. What did you do with that boy?"

Jens's jaw hardened. "I sent him out to the hills with his woman. I told him never to come back or I'd kill him."

"Bad. Remember your telling me about never giving orders that wouldn't be obeyed? The boy will need food and shelter, and he'll gather others around him sympathetic to his cause. You just might be setting up another Kiedron for me to deal with, and I don't think I can cope with more than one. Get the boy back; I'll deal with him. I'm told he's smart and he may have some good qualities I don't want to let get away. Have him pay his debt to Mithras by caring for Hesslin's family and by working his ass off in the mines. Make something a little more useful of him than a pile of waste products—alive or dead."

Jens nodded stiffly. It was clear he disagreed with Howell, but wasn't going to say anything in the face of the popular approval Howell's decisions were receiving from the Cavers.

"Jens," Howell said softly so that only he and the aide and Kiedron could hear. "I don't want Ponce to think he's got a good reason to kill me—

I have too much work to do around here."

"He wouldn't dare!" Kiedron yelped. "I have the concession on doing in commandants, and I want you alive for a long time. If Ponce so much as looks cross-eyed at you, I'll—"

Howell kissed her gently, oblivious to the cheering of the Cavers.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"I knew the past six months were too good to last." Jens stood in the wreckage of Howell's office, watching his commanding officer directing the enlargement of the ceiling and walls. Howell was covered with rock dust, happy as a Caver, and signaling wildly and obscenely to the miners exactly what he wanted done with the enlarging of the room.

"All that blather about building schools and making things better for Cavers—and here you are, working the poor pigs overtime to fulfill your dreams of grandeur. I knew it—inside every commandant there lurks a monomaniac."

"And an aide to make him that way—watch out for that drill, you motherjumping…" Howell waved a fist cheerfully at one of the Cavers who had nearly run him down with the massive machine.

"Come on, Jens, let's get out of this madhouse. I think they know by now what I mean. And if they don't—by hemlock, I'll show them what I want done!"

"Yeah, Kiedron was telling me you were getting pretty proficient with a drill yourself. Do you have to have a hand in everything around here, Burian? Arnie tells me you've been teaching the advanced calculus classes, and Helms was describing some innovation of yours of faster skis for the nabs.

You're too busy for your own good." Jens shook his head good-naturedly. The changes on Mithras had been phenomenal. Howell had set up schools, gotten the Cavers interested in improvements and, as a result, tripled the ore production. Forbes's reports might never have existed for all the news they had received from CCS headquarters. Jens had the feeling Howell was waiting patiently for something to happen, but what it might be, he wasn't saying.

"What do you think of my new office plans?" Howell asked as the two men moved through the CCS tunnel toward the new connecting tunnels for the Homecaves.

"Well, I was a bit surprised. I thought you were used to its being small by now—then Arnie told me you were doing so much work in there that most of the Cavers swore you thought you'd found a new vein of ducocite."

"No, nothing like that. I just felt I needed some room to stretch out in—room for more bloody file cases, too. Without Kiedron to steal them, the records are getting way out of hand. Then, too, with my moving into a grotto in the Homecave I couldn't see any use for sleeping quarters in the CCS cave, so I thought we could do without the wall between office and private room. The project grew from there. I much prefer sleeping in the Homecave anyway, much cozier."

"And Kiedron? How does she feel about your sleeping in the Homecave?" Jens asked the question with some trepidation. Howell had never spelled out to him what the relationship between the two of them really was, nor would Kiedron talk about it. She had been spending most of her time in the medical section, picking up from where her lessons from old Doctor Ronson had left off. She had stated that medicine would be her choice for a career, and Jens knew this would necessitate her leaving Mithras soon to take advantage of better training under the CCS

programs.

"She's too busy to spend much time with me anyway, so I haven't told her yet. But I don't think she'll really care where I sleep, just as long as she can find me easily. She feels she owns me, the twit." Howell sighed.

"Maybe she's right. She's been bugging me to bring up more doctors and a complete hospital—says the only way to teach about coping with cold-caused problems is to have the students in a cold environment. She's got me at least half convinced it'll work, too. I've been cubing a medical friend at the Academy about her ideas and he agrees. We might soon see Mithras turned into a training school for cold-condition medicine. Isn't that a turnabout— Mithras, an Academy!" The commandant beamed with pride. "My little girl's a smart one, really smart." Too smart to lose you by leaving here, Jens reflected. There was more than one woman in the caves who had been making it clear that Howell could share her furs anytime he wished it. Even Rhoiannin had been hinting gently. Jens found Howell's embarrassment about his wife a bit amusing, but knew the commandant had no interest in anyone but Kiedron. As far as Jens knew they were never alone together and they never shared a bed. He shook his head and put it down to a commandant's idiosyncrasies. Every commandant had to have something wrong with his thought processes somewhere. Kiedron was Howell's one and only bit of insanity, it seemed, and Jens found that a very tolerable state of affairs; much quieter than any other commandant he'd worked with. Howell still looked like an old gray bird of prey. Even Kiedron couldn't persuade him to take the youthening drugs. He still refused to color his hair or tighten up on his aging skin. Jens tried to imagine Howell after youth treatments, and gave up. Some people were impossible to picture young. Howell would always be old and patriarchal, even if Kiedron did try to make him shave his beard or cut his shoulder-length white locks. Howell liked looking old, Jens decided. It fit him somehow.

"Sir. Oh sir!" Arnie was running down the corridor after his father and Howell. "Mail just got in from the port and some of it was CCS—I saw Forbes's chopmark on part of it. I think something…" The boy fell into Howell's arms, panting. The commandant held onto him until he could recover his breath. "I think they sent a ship—I saw it, a full honors cruiser, sir. I think— it was—for you."

"Easy, boy. Probably just some biggy making an inspection tour for his health. Let's head back to my office and—" A look of comic horror spread over Howell's face. "Gods, how am I going to receive any brasshats with my office looking like that? Bring them to the grotto, Jens—and where the hell is my dress uniform?" Howell turned abruptly and trotted, storklike, in the direction of the Homecave. Arnie and his father watched him fondly for a moment.

"Son," Jens said, "you go take him his mail, and I'll see to the ship and whoever's in it. Our commandant needs some time to pull himself together and remember he's not some rough-mannered Caver."

There were no dignitaries on board the ship, nor any high ranking CCS

personnel. The crew, all richly dressed and polite, were of the opinion they were taking someone away from Mithras rather than bringing anyone. Their smooth, efficient calm unnerved Jens a bit and reminded him too pointedly of his own overweight state and patched, ill-fitting uniform. He left the ship as quickly as possible and returned to the Homecave a very puzzled man. The scene of riotous hoopla going on in Howell's grotto was equally confusing.

Rhoiannin was smiling blankly at Howell, who was twirling Kiedron around the room in an awkward waltz, and Arnie, holding a large open bottle of champagne, was getting noisily drunk.

"Would someone mind telling me what's going on, or am I the only sane person left on this planet?" Jens demanded, snatching the bottle away from his protesting son.

"Howell gave it to me. It came from the ship and he said I was old enough to—"

"Howell! Kiedron! Please, someone tell me what's going on— please?" Jens shouted in growing frustration as he wrestled with his boy over the wine bottle. Arnie won, and clutched the foaming Jeroboam to his scrawny chest.

"We won!" Howell reached out to grab Jens and swing him into the impromptu dance. "The buggers gave in—we've won! Mithras is mine. Ooph." The dancing and wine had made Howell dizzy and he sat down abruptly on the floor. "Pass me the champagne again, boy. That stuff always was my downfall—I almost got married once because of that angel's dew."

Jens took the bottle from Arnie and handed it to Howell. He watched his generally abstemious commandant drain about a third of what was left, leaving very little for him to pour gleefully over Kiedron's head and shoulders. The girl squealed and giggled at the bubbles running down her face. Howell kissed a stream of it off the end of her chin.

"They sent that frigging ship for me," Howell chortled. "They want to give me a high mucky-muck job with the CCS—a fancy planet to run riot on. Lots of warmth and comforts—just so I leave Mithras and put you in command." He blinked owlishly at Jens, and sobered up immediately.

"They wouldn't really let you be the commandant. One month and you'd be up to your ass in CCS advisors and assistants. Then you'd be out of the job and probably digging ore in the mines if you were lucky enough to be left alive. They don't want Mithras changed, and they know you're my man all the way. I can't let you have Mithras now, Jens, but soon I'll leave and you'll have to keep it. I'll make you commandant of Mithras after I retire—and since you're an independent enough man they'll find they won't be able to get it away from you at any price. But we need the time and we need the Mithrans behind us."

"But you've got that. You're the best-loved commandant this planet has ever seen," Jens said. "Yes—that's why the Service wants to get rid of me. I'm doing my job too well. I'm the best damn commandant around anywhere. And I'll prove it on any planet they send me to—they said it would be warm, Jens, warm!"

"But you're not leaving?" Jens grabbed his again-tipsy superior by the shoulder. "You can't leave us, not ever, Burian. We need you too much. Don't even think of retiring. We can put up with you—large office and all." Howell peered down into the now-empty bottle. "Arnie, my lad, see if the good ship CCS has any more of this good stuff in her hold. I want everyone in the Homecave drunk tonight on angel's dew. Hell no, I'm not going for quite a while— I've got them licked! I got them to give me what I wanted. They gave me these!"

Howell ripped open his tunic and taped to each nipple was half of a set of admiral's stripes. "There they are, and I'll wear them wherever I please, regulations be damned! I am Admiral Burian Howell of the Confederation Colonial Service and I am the toughest man in this here universe— and they know it. Blessed Mother, how they know it! Kiedron, let's go take a bath in vintage champagne. I feel like celebrating something or other!"