ackground, quietly manipulating Imperial Intelligence to keep Jason out of custody.

And there was someone that was willing to help him, someone already helping him. The sister with the sword, that sounded like Lorna. She certainly had power within the Imperium, which could be a "sword" used in his aid, and she was already helping him. But how was she going to help him find his goal, which was the ejection of Trillane from Earth for their crime of practicing human slavery?

He watched as Meya separated her backplate from her breastplate, then turned her back to him as she shrugged them off, exposing to him a shapely, graceful, blue-skinned back. She certainly didn't turn out of modesty, that was for sure... Faey women had little concept of physical modesty. Their modesty was behavioral, not physical. But from what he saw of her Meya was much like most Faey military women... thin, athletic, and very, very shapely. That slender back concealed impressive physical power, of that he had little doubt. He'd tasted the grip in Meya's bare hands, and it was powerful. Symone herself was deceptively strong. She looked over her shoulder after stacking her breastplate neatly with the other pieces of armor, then gave him a puzzled smile. "What are you looking at?" she asked, not confrontationally, but out of sincere interest. "Do I have something on my back or something?"

"Just admiring," he told her honestly. "If there is one thing I can say for the Faey, it's that they are very lovely. You are a very beautiful woman, Meya, in both face and body."

"Well, what a nice thing to say," she said with a girlish bob of her head and a purplish blush of her cheeks. "Now I don't feel bad about giving you my armor," she added with a wink, then she turned around. "Make yourself useful, Jason, and come get this armor."

"Yes ma'am," he chuckled as Miaari sat back down on the edge of the airbike's saddle, leaning back on it and watching him as he walked over. He knelt down and turned over her breastplate, then stacked the other pieces of armor into it. She leaned over and removed her greaves, then stepped out of her boots, and he added those to the pile as she handed them to him. She squirmed out of the codpiece, then placed it atop the pile herself just before he covered it over with the backplate, sandwiching all the armor together, and stood up with it in his arms.

"Wait," she said, putting her hand on his neck. "I have to know. I just _have_ to."

"Know what?"

"Do you have talent, Jason?"

"Meya, I will _never_ admit that. Not to you, not to Kumi, not to anyone," he said, quite seriously.

"I'd never tell anyone," she all but pleaded. "I'm certain that you do, but I want to hear you say it. I want to hear you send. You do know how to send, right? If not, I can teach you."

"What is it with women and needing to hear something they already know?" he sighed. "It's like a woman's need to hear her husband say he loves her, when she _knows_ he loves her. I guess gender even crosses racial boundaries."

She looked at him, then she laughed delightedly. "I _knew_ it! But you never admitted it," she said quickly, with a straight face. Then she laughed again.

"I never said a word about that, Meya," he told her evenly. "Not one."

"Not a one," she said, eyes dancing with suppressed mirth. Then she pulled him with sudden strength by her grip on his neck, leaned over, and kissed him on the lips. Her kiss was short, but certainly wasn't chaste. She pulled back looked at him a moment, her eyes meaningful.

"Whatever it is you just tried to say, I didn't hear it," he told her with a slight smile. "I don't have any talent, remember?"

She gave him a puzzled look, then laughed. "_Suuuure_," she hummed. "Your Jyslin trained you well, didn't she?"

"Believe whatever you want," he said flippantly. "Now get dressed so you can get home."

"That lucky bitch," Meya grunted in a quiet tone as she dropped the jeans on the ground. "Why can't _I_ find a good man?"

"I should introduce you to Steve," Jason chuckled. "He's a nice guy. Smart fella, you'd like him."

"He's not _you_," she growled as she held the shirt out, then pulled it up and over her head.

"I'm taken," he told her.

"Faey men have lots of girlfriends," she scoffed. "I don't know any married man who doesn't."

"I don't think Vell has any girlfriends. Maya would kill him," Jason chuckled.

"Who are they?" she asked as she stepped into a leg of the jeans.

"Faey I knew back in New Orleans," he told her. "Maya is Vell's wife, and she doesn't share."

"You mean Vell is Maya's husband, and I feel sorry for him," she said primly, pulling the pants up, then buttoning them.

"Semantics," he said dismissively, taking her armor over to his airbike, and placing it in the cargo compartment. "Meya."

"What?"

"Thanks," he said honestly.

"Hey, I'm getting new armor out of it," she said with a wave of her hand. "And if it helps you, then it's worth losing it."

"It will help him," Miaari said from the back of the airbike. She looked into Jason's eyes, then smiled gently. "It will help him greatly. Now, prepare the ship for takeoff, Meya. I wish to say something to Jason that is for his ears alone."

"Yeah yeah, just punt me out," Meya complained, making a jerking motion with her arm as she turned and went to the fighter. She jumped up and grabbed a lip on the nose, then pulled herself up and into the cockpit by main strength. That little demonstration reinforced how deceptively strong Meya really was.

"She'll get over it," Miaari chuckled, rolling her eyes. "Kiaari will be here tomorrow, Jason Fox. To make things easier, I'll have her come to you in the form of a human. If the satellites above saw a Kimdori roaming the preserve, they would come quickly."

"What about you?"

"The eyes above are blind at the moment," she winked. "I will have her come with a gift for you that she'll share that you can use."

"What?"

"She'll bring you an understanding of how to use what you keep in your box," she said intently.

She was talking about the exomech! She was saying that she would have Kiaari teach him how to operate it... but that couldn't be done! Sure, she could share with him knowledge of switches and controls and what they did, but without practice, he'd flounder around with it. Knowing how it worked was knowledge, but actually piloting it was a _skill_, and _skills_ could not be telepathically trained.

"But that's impossible," Jason protested. "Skills can't be taught."

"Not _their_ way," she smiled knowingly. "She will _share_ it with you, not _teach_ it to you. You will have to practice, of course. She is different from you, so it will take you time to adjust. But she can share with you what you need in order to make it work. It will save you many months of aggravation. That will be her gift. I wish to give you one of my own."

"You've done more than enough, Miaari," he objected mildly.

"Silly human, I give what I give out of friendship, not for any other reason." She reached out and touched him, and he felt that same chilling tingle race through his spine. But this time, there was more in that touch. There was... _something_ there, an alien intelligence, but it seemed both alien and familiar. It touched him, bonded with him, _shared_ with him, bringing something into him that had not been there before. It was something given freely, given out of friendship and concern, something given with happiness, not a sense of duty.

She removed her hand from his neck, but the sense of that sharing didn't fade. It lingered in his mind, until it felt as if it had been there since the day he was born. He skimmed through it quickly, and was amazed at what he found there.

She has imparted to him a knowledge of her native language. He now spoke Kimdori, and unlike the forced telepathic implantation Jyslin had done to him, there was no confusion, no garbled thought, no mixing up what was old memory with what was new memory. His mind had seamlessly assimilated this new information without any complications, and had filed it away quite efficiently within his memory.

"I have taken, and I regretted having nothing to give you in return," she whispered in her native language, which he understood perfectly. "Now I have given. We have shared, Jason Fox. You have given something to me, and now I have given something to you. I hope my gift brings you pleasure."

"Yes, I'm pleased, Miaari. At that trust you've shown in me if anything else."

"We are a race of secrets," she told him with a sly smile. "And revealing to you one of our greatest secrets was necessary. In time, you'll understand why I did it. Until then, prove that humans too can be a race of secrets."

"I will," he promised as the Dragonfly's engines came to life. Miaari stood up, then put her hands on Jason's face, leaned forward, and put her forehead against his in some kind of ritual farewell. There were no tingles in his spine with her touch; he realized that she could touch him _without_ sharing, if she chose to do so. Without her having to share, he knew he had to reciprocate, so he raised his arms and put his hands on either side of her muzzle, cupping her head gently.

"Good luck, Jason Fox."

"Goodbye. Be sure to tell Kumi I came without armor."

She laughed. "Evil to the core. That's why I like you."

"One does one's best," he said modestly. "That young lady still has a lot to answer for with her showing that picture of me to her friends. I'm nowhere near done with her yet."

"When one has something beautiful, one doesn't keep it to herself," Miaari winked, removing her hands. "I thought it was an excellent picture. It captured your beauty quite well."

"Not you too," he accused, removing his own.

"I was the first one she showed it to," she winked. "I'm her best friend."

"You're on the list, Miaari," he warned.

She laughed. "You are welcome to try," she told him. "I'm not quite so easy to get as Kumi is."

"I enjoy a good challenge," he said confidently.

"You'll have one." Miaari went over to the Dragonfly, then vaulted up onto the nose with one easy leap, displaying superhuman strength. She then began to transform, as a sudden haze of dark air surrounded a rapidly compressing body, as she expelled mass by converting it to a gaseous form. A vulpar emerged from that pall, which jumped into the cockpit of the Dragonfly. Meya waved to him as it closed, then the fighter raised up from the ground and rapidly ascended up and out of sight.

Jason watched it go, and after it was out of sight, he sighed and mounted the airbike. He felt he had made a new friend today in Miaari, but she had brought more questions than answers.

Well, he'd have time to puzzle out her words, but for now, the community's needs took precedence. Miaari herself had told him that. He had to get them moved safely, and do it fast. Even now, she'd said, the members of Trillane involved in the slaving were hunting for him, so they could kill him. They didn't want him around to either ferret out their operations, or testify in court as to what he saw. Either way, right now the move of the community was top priority. That meant that he had to get in touch with Kumi again to arrange to get the projectors, and finalize the plans to install them and the reverse phase emitters at the new site as soon as possible.

But right now, he wanted to get home and get some lunch. Any time Temika cooked, his stomach always kept his brain from losing track of time.

                                        * * *

Jason brooded over all the information that Miaari had given to him all day, all evening, and most of the night. He lost half a night's sleep as he went over and over what she said to him, trying to make some headway into the tasks she'd dropped on him, as well as try to understand why she had said what she did. The one thing, the only thing, he'd managed to be certain of was that she had revealed the secret of her race because she had had no choice. He'd figured that out faster than she may have thought, and he did understand why it had been necessary for her. If he contacted a Kimdori and had an interview, then it would come out. She revealed it in a controlled situation, and established a foothold of trust with him, as well as securing his promise not to reveal that secret.

The reason for it was simple; he could _sense_ the Kimdori ability to share. That was why he felt the tingles when Miaari touched him, and perhaps that was why he'd felt that strange sensation the first time he'd met the eyes of a Kimdori, the first time he had locked eyes with Miaari. He could _detect_ Kimdori. And since it was Miaari, who had met him once before, she had somehow noticed this, and had come back. He hadn't sensed her yesterday because maybe he had been actively suppressing his talent, or maybe she could somehow hide it from him. He wasn't sure how he'd not sensed her yesterday, but that wasn't as important as the fact that somehow, he had the ability to sense Kimdori and their unique and powerful ability.

That was why she had revealed it. That was the main reason why she had come, he was sure of it. And he was also sure that he wasn't the only one who could do that. He'd bet that it had something to do with his talent, and that meant that some telepaths had the ability to sense Kimdori, to see through their shapeshifting by sensing their ability to share. It was probably rare, and he'd bet that there were any number of corpses of telepaths lining shallow graves scattered throughout the galaxy, the graves of those telepaths who had the ability to sense Kimdori, but whom the Kimdori did not trust.

They had little to fear from him, though. Jason Fox knew how to keep a secret, and he rather liked Miaari.

And maybe that's why Miaari was so willing to help him, why the Kimdori seemed to be quietly putting their hands into his situation.

No, there was more going on than that. Miaari had said so, in an indirect way. What had she said? Oh yes, plans whirl around him. He was a central figure in some kind of plot, but she was honor bound not to reveal it. It could be a convoluted Trillane plot to secure more power over Earth, or the machinations of some other house to weaken Trillane. The Imperials also had a stake in this, which was why the Bureau of Science was shielding him from capture.

Of course, that all seemed very odd, given that he really shouldn't be that important. That was the part that didn't make very much sense. Something else was going on here, but he didn't know what.

Not that it really should make any difference to him. What the Faey did amongst themselves was really their own business. He had only two concerns; moving his people to a safe place, and then kicking Trillane off Earth. In that order. If he could use the scheming of others to advance his own cause, then so much the better, but he couldn't get too involved in what _they_ were doing and lose sight of what _he_ was doing.

And that was exactly what he was attending to at that moment. Yawning, he authorized the purchase of the projectors he was going to need, and then ordered them shipped to a temporary warehouse where he had rented space. It bankrupted him, but it was necessary. He'd have to wait for another royalty payment before buying anything else, because he had exactly C3,758.25 in the bank. He wasn't sure how he was going to get them here, because they would take a cargo ship to move, but he'd have to work with Kumi on that one. Those projectors were _big_, and he had 27 of them.

That was just one of several things that had been done. He had taken Miaari's advice and ordered the distribution of some of the dry rations out of the community, creating caches of food, clothing, and some useful items that his people could use if they were forced out of town. They had made five caches, and there were plans on the table for six more. All those items and the food would be collected up just before the move, and plans would be made to create similar caches around their new home.

That new home would be visited today by a large team of surveyors. They were going to break up into elements, each of which would have a separate task. Jason would lead the team that would investigate sites for the projectors. Tim would lead a team to survey the electrical grid of the downtown area and begin making plans to restore it. Steve would lead a team that would survey the outlying areas and begin drawing up plans for defensive fortifications. Luke would lead a team that would investigate the water system of downtown and assess whether they could do in Charleston what they had failed to do in Chesapeake, and that was establish running water. Leamon would lead a team to search for possible squatter settlements within the city, and draw up plans to either eject them or invite them to join the community after Symone screened them.

He scrubbed his face in his hands, then turned and looked out the window. It was just past dawn, and he was tired. He'd only have a few hours of sleep, but his mind was whirling too much for him to sleep. He hadn't told anyone that Kiaari was coming yet, mainly because he wanted to talk to her first. Miaari had said that she was coming under the guise of a human, so he wanted to see how she was going to play it before making any introductions. He _did_ have a long talk with Symone about much of what Miaari had said, and she hadn't been much help. He had to be careful about what he said so as not to violate Miaari's secret, so there were some holes in his explanations that irritated Symone.

Someone knocked on his door. He cleared his monitor of the displays, then closed the top. "What is it?" he called.

The door opened, and into his room came a tall, athletic woman with fair, flawless skin, a beautiful face, and long, luxuriously thick blond hair. She wore a skin-tight black jumpsuit of some kind that seemed to merge with her skin, leaving not a wrinkle anywhere, like the most form-fitting spandex ever created. It was sleeveless, but its legs ended just below her knees. She wore no shoes.

It was just a borrowed form, however. Meeting her green eyes, he felt a strange shiver run up his spine, and that betrayed this woman as a Kimdori.

"Jason," she called.

"Kiaari?" he asked.

She just gave him a long look as she closed the door. "I'm here to interview you." She started walking towards him, and he stood up as she approached. She reached out a single hand, and placed it against the side of his neck. He felt that tingling sensation rush up and down his spine, and saw her green eyes seem to shine with an inner light for a moment. "Yes, I can work for you," she stated calmly. "You wished to hire me. I accept."

"I won't ask how you got in here without being seen," he chuckled as she removed her hand, then went over to where he had his armor and Symone's armor sitting on their racks. Meya's armor was stacked neatly at the foot of it. She picked up the breastplate and held it against her chest, checking its fit.

"I want to make sure I got the dimensions right," she said.

Jason looked at her, and realized that she was the exact same height, weight, and body type as Meya.

"Yes, I think it's going to fit," she said in a humming tone.

Jason sat back down in his chair as Kiaari sat on the bed facing him. "Miaari shared with me," she said immediately, using her native language. "So, where do you want to start?"

"Hold on," he called. "Did Miaari explain everything to you?"

"She shared with me what you're doing, and what I need to know," she nodded. "You need me to help you penetrate Trillane so you can gain access to their communications, and do it in a way that you're not detected and they don't _know _that you've breached their security. This I can do for you, Jason Fox. Easily. I'm also supposed to be here to help you in other ways, with other missions. Our mission for now is to successfully transplant your group to a secure location without them being detected. After that, we must find a way to force Trillane to relinquish control of Earth by any means necessary, short of invoking the wrath of the Empress."

"Right. The main thing here is that no one can know you're _not_ human, Kiaari."

"I know. I traveled to your town in an animal form, then changed into this after I got inside your town walls, so I wouldn't frighten anyone," she smiled. "Your sentries are half asleep, so I managed to get here without being detected. I'm not in a fully human form yet because it's cold out there, and I don't have any clothes," she chuckled, motioning at herself. "This is _me_. Miaari shared that humans don't commonly go without clothing because of social custom, so I altered myself to make it _look _like I'm clothed. What you think is a jumpsuit is just my skin, altered so it _looks _like clothes. Now that I'm here, I can do a full change, I just didn't want to trudge through the frost out there on feet that could feel the cold, and I didn't want to offend your people's custom."

"Why didn't you bring any clothes?"

"It was best if I didn't come with any additional gear or clothing," she said. "I can't pretend to be a human squatter if I'm wearing clothes made on Draconis, can I? I can't arouse any suspicion, even from your own people."

"Good point," he agreed after thinking about it a moment.

"Once I complete the change, I'll be indistinguishable from any other human here," she told him.

"Good. Miaari made it clear that we can't do anything right now that makes us stand out, or it'll invite an attack from those nobles that were doing the slaving. So you have to look like you belong here."

"Understood," she nodded. Her skin seemed to shiver, then shudder, and then the darkness drained away from it. Jason watched as her "jumpsuit" vanished, leaving behind what looked like perfectly normal skin. "There, now I'm completely human," she announced, getting up on her knees on the bed and looking down at herself critically, making sure she had managed a flawless transformation. She looked like a carbon copy of Meya's sleek form, just with pale skin instead of blue skin, and longer hair, and a different facial structure. In effect, she _was_ a carbon copy of Meya, a body custom built to fit into Meya's armor, just built as a _human_ instead of as a _Faey_.

"And you're violating one of those human customs," he told her pointedly.

"I'm just making sure it looks right before I have to fool humans. Besides, the rules between you and me will be different," she told him professionally. "We're going to become romantically involved."

"What?"

"Just a game," she told him quickly. "The only way that us spending extended periods of time behind closed doors won't arouse suspicion is if your townsfolk believe that we're in a relationship. It gives you a perfect excuse to move me into your house, and of course, your girlfriend is going to go with you when you split from the community after the move."

He turned that over in his mind. "Well, that does make a kind of sense," he agreed.

"And be assured, I can separate business from reality," she smiled. "We'll sleep in the same bed, but aside from sharing warmth, that's as far as it goes. So, our first step is me getting into your community. I'll be impressed by you, and I'll flirt with you, and you'll take an interest in me. After a couple of your weeks after I gain citizenship, I move in with you. Then we become a couple, and that will let us do our planning without arousing suspicion."

"That _is_ a good idea," he admitted. "I'm not sure I like the idea of pretending to be your boyfriend, but it does give all the convenient excuses."

"You'll do fine. You're a reserved person, it won't look too much out of character for you not to exhibit much affection in a public setting. Now, from our sharing, I saw that you're going to Charleston today to survey the area. That's where your people will find me, naked and injured. I'll concoct a story that I won't tell you so you can react to it with some sincerity, and we'll work from there. That sound good to you?"

"Yeah, that should work."

"Kiaari's not a common name here. From this point forward, my name is Kate. That's a common female name, isn't it?"

"Common enough."

"How many in your town speak _French_?" she asked, using the English word for the language.

He gave her a look. "Two or three," he answered. "There may be more, but I'm not absolutely positive."

"Good. You speak it, and I picked it up from sharing with you. We can use _French_ if you want to say something sensitive to me in a public setting. We can't speak Kimdori again once we leave this room."

She _was_ good. She had a quick mind, and she'd already started working everything out. Something told him that her coming here was going to be a great benefit to him. "Okay."

"You'll have to tell the other telepaths about me. Symone and the two humans. They'll realize I'm not what I look like the first time they try to probe me."

"They won't do that, well, the humans won't," he told her. "They have explicit instructions about things like that. In fact, nobody knows they're telepaths _except_ the telepaths."

"Ah yes, I remember now. I'll keep them secret."

"Good. Judging from what I'm hearing from you, you've been trained to fool telepaths."

"Of course. I know how to present a false front, and with training, we can use our own gift to defend ourselves from telepathy. I've already prepared my telepathic screen as part of the disguise I'll assume while I'm here."

"Okay. I _will _tell Symone about you, though. She'll have to probe you as a condition of gaining citizenship, so she'll find you out one way or another."

"Alright, so we let Symone know, but we keep me a secret from the other two. Right?"

"Right. At least for now, anyway."

"Now, when do you want me to go after Trillane's communications?"

"Later. Right now, the move is top priority," he answered. "I'm not sure how much you can help with that, but that matters more right now than anything else."

"I can pick up a box as well as the next person," she chuckled. "I can also help with the placement of counter-surveillance equipment and security. I've been trained in those kinds of things. You can't breach it if you don't understand how to lay it out."

He chuckled. "I guess not."

"Good. Well, I'd say we're about done here. I'll get started for Charleston so I can beat your group there and get myself prepared."

"Well, okay, I guess. Do you need anything?"

"No, I'll be fine. Shikki's tail, it's gonna be weird staying in this form for a while," she said, slapping her bare hips with both hands, then she ran her hands up her slender belly meaningfully. She then patted her lower ribs. "Not that there's anything wrong with humans, Jason Fox. It's just that all your internal organs are in the wrong places. I feel like a puzzle put together the wrong way."

Jason laughed in spite of himself. "You'll adjust, or at least I hope you will."

"I'll be alright. I once spent nearly a month as a Gambrian rock lizard. Now _that_ was unpleasant."

"Why?"

"If you ever saw one, you'd understand," she said with a shiver. That shiver seemed to travel through her, setting into her skin, skin that began to darken again to conceal her nudity behind a veil of misdirection, as she changed her skin to hide the fact that she was unclothed. Her nipples and pubic hair and genitals vanished, transformed to support the illusion that they were covered over instead of completely removed. It was so complete that she even removed the separating cleft between her buttocks, making it look like she was wearing pants. Skin-tight pants, but pants nonetheless. "I'll make sure I'm found. Just don't forget to come," she smiled.

"We'll be there," he promised. "We're supposed to leave in about three hours. Is that enough time for you to get there?"

"More than enough," she nodded. "I'll fly."

"You can fly?" he asked in surprise.

"I can when I take the form of a bird," she told him with a smile. "I'm going to like working with you, Jason Fox. Oh, I almost forgot. I have something to share with you."

"The exomech?"

She nodded, tapping her temple. "I received what you need to know last night, sharing with my brother. I'll share it with you later. We'll be able to pilot it. Not well," she said quickly. "Sharing can teach a manual skill, but it can only go so far. Still, it's a solid foundation. Practice can fix that... at least it could, if we could take it out of its box." She laughed. "My brother wanted to come instead of me. He's something of a dabbler in engineering, and he really wanted to meet you and see some of your inventions. Actually, he should have. He's older than me, with more experience."

"Why didn't he then?"

"Because we already decided that whoever came would pretend to be your girlfriend," she told him. "It's the perfect cover. And no matter how good an actor my brother is, he couldn't really pretend to be your girlfriend very well. He can take a female shape, but he doesn't have a female mind. And I don't think you'd much like the idea of playing that game, knowing you were pretending with a male."

Jason shuddered a little at the thought of that. "No, I really wouldn't like that," he agreed.

"We didn't think so," she grinned. "I'll get started. After I walk out, it's as if we never met, remember that. I'll look the same, but remember, I'm Kate."

"I can manage," he assured her.

"Oh, and don't worry. Your people will find me injured, and though the wounds will _look_ real, they're _not_. I'll shape them, just like I shaped this body. They won't hurt, but I'll act like they do. It'll just be part of the game."

"Thanks for telling me that," he said with a grateful expression. "I'd have felt awful if I thought you went out and intentionally injured yourself."

"You're welcome. See you soon, Jason Fox," she said, opening the door.

"Just Jason," he said.

"Jason," she mirrored with a nod.

"Good luck."

She closed the door, and he turned and opened his panel again, then put his elbows on the desk and leaned his chin on his interlaced fingers. Kiaari was an impressive woman. She was professional, seemed quite smart, and seemed sincere in her desire to help. From the way it felt to him, this _wasn't _just a job to her. She seemed genuinely interested in what he was doing here, and it felt to him 