 standard hours. It's only gonna take us about two hours to get there, so I'll be in orbit over Terra in about eight standard hours. Now, I have to go through some stupid meetings with some other house people, and I'm supposed to get a tour of Washington by the Imperial staff, then my time's my own. So, let's give me a few hours to get some rest, and then I'm all yours." She brought up a map of the eastern United States on an interactive window, then touched her panel display, which caused a red dot to appear on the map. "I'm gonna land _inside_ the nature preserve, and I'm gonna set it up so I land there in the late afternoon, then leave after dark. We'll do our business after the sun goes down," she told him, dragging that red dot back and forth. "I already told them I want to check out the nature preserve and see if I can find some interesting stuff to take home."

"You get a tour of Washington? Nice."

"I hate it, but they expect use to do it when house nobles of our rank visit. Especially since my mom decided to go with me," she fumed a bit.

"What are you in the house, Kumi?"

"My mom's ninth in line for the house throne," she answered immediately. "I'm twenty-second. I'm a Countess. My mom's a Duchess. We're _way_ up there."

"I see," he said with a whistle. "No wonder she wants you more involved in house affairs."

"Yeah," she grinned. "She missed out on being the Governor of Terra by _this_ much," she said, holding her thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "But the Grand Duchess decided to give it to one of her daughters instead. Anyway, so let's pick a spot. Make it close to where you are, but not _right_ where you are. There won't be no trouble with me getting there, cause I already told my mom to stuff all the security. She knows I'll just leave them behind anyway. We've been through all this before," she grinned. "I'm bringing a personal security detail, and convinced her they'll be enough She won't know I'll leave them in Washington too. Only people coming with me are Fure and a few servants I can trust, and a couple of personal bodyguards I _know_ I can trust. I figure you'll have chased out anyone on the ground that might cause us problems."

"You're right," he agreed, looking at the map. "Does it being in the open matter?"

"Not at all," she answered. "The ships in orbit know better than to spy on _me_. I'll kick their asses if they try."

"Meanie," he chuckled.

"I'm a girl who likes her privacy, and I _mean_ it," she said bluntly. "The drop ship I'm bringing has some anti-surveillance gear, and it's going to be running when I come down."

"Ok, how about right here?" he asked, touching the screen over an old national park called Beech Fork Lake. It was only about ten miles from where he was, but it was an open area with access for a dropship as well as immediate access to the cover of the forest. "It's an open area by a lake, you should be able to land there."

"Can you get there in time?"

"Yeah, I can get there. I'll wait in the forest until after sundown, then come out to meet you."

"Okay."

"I'll park an airbike in the clearing to tell you where I am."

"No, just wait. My dropship has sensors, once we're close they'll lock onto you. We'll land in the nearest clearing."

"I understand," he assured her.

"Okay, so, be there at sunset tomorrow _your time_," she ordered. "I've added a bike carrier so you can carry this stuff off, so don't make any other plans for that."

"What's that?"

"It's an anti-grav attachment for an airbike, for hauling shit."

"A bike trailer," he mused.

"An archaic word, but yeah. Military airbikes are all capable of pulling a carrier. Just one should do it, there won't be _that_ much. Just don't pull it all the time, the _carrier_ won't have a signature masker."

"Alright."

"I gotta go. Tomorrow, sunset, here," she said, causing the light to illuminate Beech Fork Lake.

"I'll be there."

"You better, I've got all your money," she said with a wolfish grin.

"By the way, you're dead sexy in that," he teased, returning her compliment from the day before.

"Well thanks, babe," she said with a demure smile. "Don't be late."

                                        * * *

And he wasn't. He arrived at Beech Fork Lake very early, at four o'clock, but it had been slow going. He'd wanted to get there _much_ earlier, to give himself time to check over the area, but an unpredicted glitch had slowed him down. Temika hadn't come back yet, so he was forced to tow the second airbike by starting it up and putting it in "neutral," which was just making it float, then dragging it with a rope using the other airbike. The riderless airbike's computer didn't want to move, trying to retain a static position, so it was like pulling an anchor sometimes, especially when he went downhill. He ended up going at a virtual crawl almost all the way, because the faster the towed airbike was pulled, the stronger the engines tried to retain its position. There was nothing he could do about it; it was either tow the airbike like that, or turn it off and drag it on the ground, and that wasn't really an option. He ended up moving at a speed that was just a bit faster than a walk all the way down the pothole-infested Route 152 that linked Huntington to the road leading to Beech Fork Lake.

It had been a nervous ride. He'd seen movement up in the hills several times on the way, but he wasn't sure if it had been wildlife or people. Three times he nearly cut the rope with a knife and bolted, but there had been no attacks or anything like that.

He arrived at what used to be a narrow parking lot in front of a strip of waist-high grass that covered the ground between the forest and the lake's edge. This was some kind of a spur off the main lake, for the lake looked more like a narrow estuary; it was only about a hundred feet to the steep opposite bank, which rose up directly into forest. There was the rotted remains of a rope in the water, and the faded signs told him that this had been the swimming area. Well, the partially overgrown parking lot was perfect, for there was enough open space that wasn't overgrown with high grass for Kumi to land her dropship, and he was only fifty feet from the treeline.

With his railgun in his hands, he carefully patrolled the woods around his chosen site, and found them to be empty of any human life. That took him about two hours. So, confident he was alone, he rode each airbike up into the treeline one by one, then sat down on a log and played a game of chess against the computer using his panel to pass the time and wait for sunset.

About a half hour before sunset, he heard the high-pitched whine of the dropship's engines. He suspended the game and put his panel away in the backpack he was wearing, then set it down by the airbikes and moved up to the treeline to look. Kumi's dropship was _huge_, painted bright red, and emblazoned with the crest of Trillane on both sides and on the undersides of each large wing. It was a whale-looking vehicle, with a wide beam and a shallowness that made it look like it wallowed through the air, but the pilot maneuvered it with surprising agility as he lined up in the old parking lot and the landing skids extended. He set her down as gentle as a feather, and the back doors opened as the back ramp extended, even as the pilot was shutting down the engines. There were two people in that doorway, two women wearing bright red combat armor but not helmets, carrying MPAC assault rifles readied in their hands as they walked down the ramp. They were either sisters or twins, because they looked _very_ similar, and had the same bluish-white hair cut in a pixie style. A tall, thin Faey male stepped out behind them, and then, to Jason's surprise, he was followed by a three foot tall humanoid-looking creature with bright red skin, short white hair, a pair of red whip-like antennae jutting out of that hair, dead black eyes, and seven fingered hands. Kumi herself appeared a moment later, wearing a black jumpsuit of sorts with the Trillane crest sewn onto the left side of the chest, over her heart. He felt four separate mental sweeps pass over him, but he kept his mind carefully silent, causing them to slide over him without recognizing him. It was an automatic reflex for him to do that, but he wasn't quite ready to give himself away yet.

_You think he moved before we landed, my Lady?_ the Faey on the right asked in an open sending, which Jason could pick up.

_No, he's right around here,_ Kumi's mental voice replied. _I checked him out before we came here Meya, he's supposed to have unusual mental discipline for a human. So much so that he can defend himself against talent._

_I thought humans were defenseless, _the one on the left mused.

_Not all of them, I guess,_ Kumi answered. _Cause he's within two hundred _shakra_ of us right now, but I can't find his mind._

_I think there's more to this human than he leads you to believe, my Lady, _the male sent with quiet reserve. _Given this kind of remarkable defense the human seems to have, and given the fact that now we _do_ know that at least _one_ human has expressed talent, I think it's safe for us to assume that this human ran because he feared backlash. After all, it _is_ very well known and documented that he has exceptional mental discipline and a strange resistance to our talent. It might entirely be possible that he has talent himself, and if that's the case, you should have nothing to do with him._

_You have the soul of a worrier, Fure, _Kumi scoffed mentally. _Even if through some miracle he _did_ have talent, I really could care less. He's paying me _very_ well to help him, and besides, I like him, and he needs me. If he really did run because he's afraid they'll think he has talent, or he really _does_ have talent, then hell, he did the smart thing._

_That's almost a treasonous position, my lady._

_If you're so patriotic you're willing to let someone turn you into a walking zombie for the good of the Empress, then why don't you prove it? _she challenged with surprising vehemence.

_Ah, I'll pass, my Lady._

_Then can the hypocrisy, _she sent at him shortly. _If you knew the Secret Police were coming for you and you had a place to hide, I'll bet my panties you'd be gone so fast your shadow wouldn't know where you went._

That caused both the Faey bodyguards to start laughing.

_I probably would, my Lady,_ Fure admitted candidly. _Shall we begin to unload?_

Jason looked back to check on the airbikes, then moved to a different tree for a better view. He had no idea why he was hiding, but he had to admit, he was picking up some good information by doing so. He was easily within their sending range, and he was eavesdropping on it all. So far, he had to admit, what he'd heard endeared him to Kumi more and more. If she didn't care if he had talent or not, maybe that would help her keep silent if it ever became common knowledge that he really _did_. He doubted that would ever happen, but it seemed that Kumi would never rat him out, no matter what she heard about him. That was good, and made him feel better.

A faint sound to his flank caused him to glance that way, then he caught a glimpse of something move. Immediately he raised his railgun and aimed it in that direction, opening himself slightly to listen for any random thoughts that would tell him if it was an animal or a person. He wouldn't actively sweep, because that was _active_, and one of the Faey might notice it when his mind ghosted across theirs. So he was instead using the passive version, listening for thoughts. It wouldn't do much good against a Faey who had her mind closed, but it would tell him if another human had somehow managed to slip in on them. Jason went hot on his railgun, and the cable capacitors gave off an ascending audible whine as they charged, which only took about half a second.

"Freeze!" a harsh barking command came from behind him, in thickly accented English. He glanced over his shoulder and saw one of Kumi's bodyguards on the other side of the tree, about ten feet away, with her MPAC aimed at his back.

"Hold on!" Jason called in Faey. "I'm here to meet Kumi!"

"Turn around," she ordered in Faey, and he saw her partner step out from behind a tree in front of him. She'd made the sound he'd heard, and he was _impressed_. In that brief moment he'd looked away, both of them had slipped off, and the one in front of him had gotten that close to him before making any sound that he could hear, and she did it wearing all that armor. She was _good_.

Jason complied, raising both hands with his railgun held by the barrel. "I'm here to meet Kumi," he repeated.

_Stand down you two, that's him,_ Kumi ordered with her mind.

She lowered her weapon and nodded. "What is that thing? Some kind of human weapon?" she asked him curiously.

"Something like that," Jason answered as he lowered his arms, put his weapon back on safety, then slung it over his shoulder.

"Well, don't just stand over there," Kumi called to him as she came down out of the dropship.

Jason met her outside her ship, and she offered her hand to him with an impish smile on her face. He took it, careful to hide his true thoughts from her the way Jyslin taught him, and shook her hand firmly. Jason was very certain to totally lock his mind so he couldn't hear them send anymore. He didn't want to give away that he _could_, and since he was almost too comfortable with being able to do it, he might let something slip in conversation that he wouldn't have heard any other way. He didn't want to run any risk at all that Kumi would leave here thinking him to be anything other than a normal native. He figured that Fure was already _very_ suspicious of him, so he had to be very, very careful. "I'm glad to meet you in person, Kumi. You're taller than I expected."

"You never saw me with anyone else," she grinned. "Ok, I have it all packed onto this carrier here," she said, pointing up into the dropship at a squarish device that was sitting on the deck. "Everything you asked for is there. Korm," she prompted, holding out her hand. The little red guy reached by the door's bulkhead, then brought out a large black case that he had to carry with both hands. He waddled down the ramp and handed it to her, then she gave it to him. "This is your money. There's about thirty thousand there, more or less. It's the leftover minus five percent. Here's a list of it all, and how much it cost, so you can doublecheck the figures." She handed him a small panel display, which was really nothing more than a display for showing very small embedded files. A Faey's version of a spiral notebook.

"I trust you, Kumi. Even if that is a bad thing," he added with a smile, pushing it back at her.

She laughed, pushing it back. "Keep that," she told him. "I put a few things in there I thought you might need, that you didn't ask for. But I didn't get exotic or expensive," she assured him. "Oh, yeah, give me your panel."

"Why?"

She took the case from him, then knelt down and put it on the ground. She opened it, then took a sleek black panel off the top of a series of neatly stacked credit notes. "Because of this," she told him. "Just dump your panel on a stick and trade me. You want this one."

"Why?"

"Because it's got a hardwired tightbeam link to an orbiting transceiver, about this big," she explained, showing him her clenched fist. "And that one's set to tightbeam directly to a CivNet satellite. It'll redirect your panel's CivNet signal so they'll think it's bouncing directly off a satellite, and they can't track that unless the sensor array literally gets directly into the path of the tightbeam signal. That way you can use CivNet anywhere in the nature preserve, and they won't see it."

"Wow, that's-_thanks_ Kumi. This is _nice_," he said sincerely, taking his backpack off his back. He set down his railgun and started working his panel out, then he reached into his pack for a memory stick and inserted it in the stickjack. He brought up the panel and had it dump to the stick, wiping out the panel's onboard memory in the process. It only took it about five seconds. Then he removed it and offered the panel to Kumi. She took it with a nod, but her eyes flashed as Jason noticed motion to his side. He looked that way, and saw that one of Kumi's bodyguards had picked up Jason's railgun.

"Myra!" Kumi snapped authoritatively.

"I've never seen anything like this before," she told them all professionally. "It's _custom_. Did you build this, human?" she asked him curiously.

"I'm not going to answer you," he told her flatly. "And I'd appreciate it if you gave it back."

She just smiled at him, then to his surprise, she disengaged the safety. She must have seen him do it. The indicator light went green as the backglass panel turned red, indicating the weapon was hot and ready to fire, and she quickly turned and brought the railgun up to her shoulder. Jason jumped up, having to crush the urge to actually try to attack her with telepathy-a suicidal stunt given his current company!-but he was too late to prevent her from aiming the weapon safely at the opposite bank of the lake, then pulling the trigger.

There was that familiar _BEE-yah!_ sound followed up by the sharp _crack_ like a whip, and the instant corkscrew smoketrail that linked the muzzle of the weapon to the sudden explosion of mud, dirt, and buried root on the steep hill of the opposite bank, as the slug impacted the embankment and was stopped, which caused the backblow effect that made the weapon's round blow huge holes in things it couldn't go through. Bits of dirt and wood arced high into the air, dropping into the lake like rain, and one particularly large piece of root landed not five feet from Myra's foot.

"Trelle's garland!" the bodyguard gasped.

"Demir's sword!" the other bodyguard exclaimed.

"Holy _shit_!" Kumi said, somewhat less diplomatically, but just as emotionally, as her bodyguards.

"And _that_ is why I'm here," Jason snapped angrily, ripping the weapon out of Myra's hands. Now it was time to talk fast, and he clamped down tightly on his own thoughts, projecting only the thoughts that would back up what he was saying, so it would seem to them that his thoughts reinforced his words. They would see his thoughts suddenly become audible to them for a moment, as if he'd lost his control of his mind in a moment of anger, and what they saw there would back up his statements. "I will _not_ give this to the Faey. I will _not_ give them weapons to use to oppress my people, or any other people."

"What is this thing?" Myra asked, pointing at it. "Some kind of mass driver? It fired a solid mass, didn't it? How did you propel it? Is it explosive? Have you tried it against armor?"

"Myra!" Kumi shouted at her. "Get back on the dropship, _now_," she ordered hotly, pointing at the red craft. "That-I'm sorry. I did _not_ give her permission to do that. I swear to you, Jason."

"I believe you, Kumi," he said shortly, glaring at the Faey bodyguard openly.

"But I have to say, I'm _impressed_," she said appreciatively, looking at the gun. "I'm surprised a student could build something as complicated as a weapon, and make it actually _good_."

"Thanks. I think," he added uncertainly.

"You weren't planning on taking over the Imperium, were you?" she asked with a wink.

Jason laughed ruefully. "Actually, it was just an experiment," he answered honestly. "It worked, but a little bit too well. When I ran, I brought it with me, and it's the best weapon I have right now."

"I thought you said you had good guns. I'll give you a couple of MPACs, Jason."

"I have a couple," he told her. "But this is lighter, and easier to carry."

"That it is," Myra agreed before she started walking away.

"You sure?"

"I'm sure, thanks for offering, though."

"Okay," she said with a nod, as Fure backed the first airbike down out of the dropship, the one with the carrier. The carrier looked like a big black box, complete with a lid. "There's just you, so you're going to have to tow the second airbike. I have a tow cable for you, we'll just hook up the airbike with the carrier to the other one, and you can tow both the bike and the carrier."

"I had to tow the others here, and it took _forever_," he growled. "The bike didn't want to move."

"These are a bit different," she chuckled. "When you hook up the tow cable, the bike will go into _tow_ mode, and it'll follow the towing bike."

"Thank God," Jason said fervently. "I wasn't looking forward to creeping along all night to get back home."

After Fure backed the other airbike down, Jason got a good look at them. They were bigger than his other airbikes, though they were built on the same basic design concept. Both were painted black, and they had the familiar extending windscreen and backglass display in the dash, but these also had a heads-up display that appeared on the windscreen, and a few more controls on the panel below. "These ride just like regular airbikes, but they go faster," she told him. "I have the manuals for them on a stick in a box in the carrier, so you can read up on the extra controls they have. These are _military_, babe, remember that. They're _armed_. I didn't take the weapons off. The only things I took off them were their locator beacons. So don't just go and randomly press buttons, babe, you might be in for a nasty shock."

"I'll be careful," he nodded.

"Ok, here's the tow cable port, and here's the hook for the hard connection," she said as she pointed, then Fure handed her one end of the tow cable. It had a looped eye and a plug, with a data cord wrapped around a reinforced metal cable. She deftly plugged in the data cord, then hooked the towing cable into the receiver. She unlooped it as she walked to the back of the other bike, then pointed out the reciprocal parts on the other airbike before hooking them in. "There, now the towed bike will follow the one you ride," she told him, going back to the first one and pointing at the display panel. It had [TOW MODE: SLAVE] blinking across the top border. "When you take them, just inch out 'til you pull the cable taut, then wait a few seconds for the towed bike to calibrate. After that, just go. The towed bike will mirror every move the bike you're riding makes."

"Okay, I can handle that."

"Good. Now, come up into the dropship so we can do one more thing."

"What is that?" he asked as she started up the ramp. He followed out of curiosity, up into the dropship. He saw that only about half of it was the cargo compartment, and there was a door at the far end for the cabin. They went past Myra, who gave his railgun a long, speculative look, and he followed her into the crew cabin. The short red-skinned servant scurried out quickly as he moved into a cool cabin with rows of deeply cushioned chairs covered in what looked like beige leather or some kind of synthetic material, like vinyl or something.

She turned around, and to his surprise, she was unzipping the front of her jumpsuit. "Strip, babe," she ordered.

"What?" he asked in confusion.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to rape you," she said with a naked leer. "You can't wear _this_ with clothes on." She turned a chair around, and pointed to an open-topped box with black armor in it. "Remember when I had you strip down to your undies?" she asked with a wink. "Well, I got a good enough vid of it to get your proper measurements for heavy armor. So I had it made. I'm going to teach you how to put it on, using this," she said, turning the chair on the other side, which had a box of armor as well. "I do it, then you do it, because I want to make sure it fits properly before you leave. Oh, and I get a picture."

"Of what?"

"Of you naked. It's for my collection," she winked. "I collect naked pictures of handsome guys. Nothing sexual or anything, just a naked picture of you. Call me a soft porn collector," she said with an outrageous grin. "Now, if we had more time, I'd be jumping all over your bones in a heartbeat, babe. You're drop dead sexy. But my mom will start looking for me if I stay here too long, and I don't think either of us want to see a squad of fighters drop in on us. Especially if I'm banging an outlaw native in my dropship at the time," she grinned.

"No, that would be a bit embarrassing," he said mildly.

"Embarrassing my ass, I'd just have trouble explaining all the equipment sitting outside the dropship," she snorted, pulling her jumpsuit down off her shoulders, exposing a pair of firm, smallish breasts. The breasts of a teenage girl, and that reminded him that that was exactly what she _was_. It was easy to forget that, since she seemed so mature. "Mother doesn't care who I'm fucking, babe, as long as I don't make it common knowledge if I'm banging commoners. She says it'll tarnish my reputation. She's such a hypocrite," she growled, shimmying her jumpsuit down over her hips. "I think she's had every servant in our house between her legs, and they're all commoners." She pushed her jumpsuit down, then bent over and pulled off her boots before stepping out of it. She had no panties on, showing off a very tone, very tight little body, complete with her pubic hair shaved down a single narrow strip. "You can stare to your heart's content after we get this done," she told him.

"Sorry," he said calmly. "Just had to take a moment to appreciate you."

"Why thank you babe," she said with a demure smile, turning around for his benefit, tilting her hips, putting her hands on her hips, and looking over her shoulder at him before turning back around. He understood Faey mentality enough to know that she would not be offended by that kind of remark. In fact, she'd take it as very high praise. "I work out enough. I'm proud of this body."

"You do a good job," he complimented sincerely.

"You're so sweet," she gushed as he started undressing.

He felt a tad awkward as he stood there naked, but she didn't seem to notice. The first thing she did was pick up a small camera. "Okay, I get my picture first. Just stand there, babe, you don't have to pose or grab yourself or any shit like that. Like I said, I just want a picture of you," she told him as she backed up a few steps and brought the camera to her eye. He felt _very_ uncomfortable at the idea of that, but she'd done so much to help him, he couldn't really refuse her. Not over something that was just mildly embarrassing. She seemed to take several, then put the camera back on the seat from which she'd taken it and grinned at him. "Thanks."

"You're welcome, I guess," he said uncertainly.

"Don't worry babe, I won't do anything with it. I just like to collect them. I don't even jerk off to them."

"I did not need to know that," he said ruefully.

She laughed and picked up the codpiece of her armor. "Okay babe, this is what you start with. It all anchors to this, so we put this on first."

Seeing Jyslin put on her armor was not the same as doing it himself. He watched Kumi and tried to mimic her, but he didn't do it very well. She had to help him with each piece, showing him how they locked together. At first he was afraid that those joints would pinch him, but after he got some of it on, he realized that the interior of the armor blended together, the padded lining actually seemed to anneal with itself to form a continuous surface. He brought that up to Kumi, who just nodded. "It's a kind of gelatinous material that merges with itself when it's touching," she told him. "Before they discovered it, they wore a skin-tight body suit under the armor. Now the inner lining does that, so it's one less thing we have to put on."

"That makes sense," he said, picking up the front of the breastplate. It had a _gorgeous_ etched relief of some kind of large, majestic looking bird, its wings spread to cover the upper chest and its head just under the upper edge of the breastplate. Very detailed, very life-like and just damn _beautiful. _He also noticed after looking more closely at its edges that it had dataline fibers embedded in the edge. "This is _powered_?" he asked in surprise. There was no other reason there would be dataline fibers in the armor.

"You think I'd have them make you those outdated pieces of _shit_ they make our soldiers wear here?" she challenged. "I wouldn't put my _vulpar_ in that junk! This is _mainstream_ armor, babe, not hundred year old surplus shitty-ass junk. Crystallized neutronium carapace, laminated neutronium interior carapace, environmentally sealed, climate control, on-board computer, anti-grav system, on-visor display with multiple vision modes, comm and ECM integrated into the helmet, nested MPAC autocannon pods in the forearms, smartgun links for rifles and weapon systems, bio-reactive servo strength augmentation, what you'd find in a suit of _real_ fuckin' armor."

"I've never seen this before, and I've never heard of some of that. I have no idea how it works."

"I've got manuals and tech specs for it," she assured him. "You'll be able to figure it out. Oh, you like the bird?"

"I _love_ it!" he said immediately. "What is it?"

"A picture I found in your human literature. It's called a, er, _fee-neex_," she said in uncertain English.

"_Phoenix_," he corrected absently, looking at it. It did kind of look like a picture of a Phoenix. Very majestic. "That explains the flame relief on the greaves."

She nodded as she locked her breastplate to her stomacher. "I've always been one for fashion, even in armor," she grinned, holding out her own. It had the profile relief of a Vulpar on it, the ring pattern on the tip of its two tails marking it as a female. "Just like my name," she winked, then reached down for the back of the breastplate.

She walked him through getting the armor on, then once it was done, he let her inspect him. "Good, it fits perfectly," she nodded. "Is it pinching anywhere? Does the weight feel distributed equally? Feel any gaps? You should feel the lining against every square _kidin_ of your skin. There shouldn't be any gaps, except maybe in the cup," she said with a teasing wink. "I had to kind of guess there, since I didn't get to see."

"No, it's very comfortable," he told he, rotating his shoulders and swinging his arms back and forth. The armor was thin, it was light, and it did not hinder his motion in any way. He felt curiously naked with it on, because it didn't feel like clothing. The