like her help was more than just a command from her older sister. She _wanted _to be here, she _wanted _to help. He didn't have a good idea of her personality yet, but something told him that he'd get along with her quite well.

Her presence here was certainly going to change things, and more than just locally. She'd have an impact on the community, that was for sure... but it was the fact that she was _here_ that would change things. There was now an agent in the preserve, a spy whose eyes and ears would carry what went on here beyond just Earth. With Kiaari here, Trillane couldn't run roughshod over humanity and get away with it. Even if they killed him, Kiaari could escape and report what was going on here to someone that could do something about it, maybe even the Empress. She was a symbol that Miaari was right, that what was going on here wasn't just local, that there was something going on that involved other parts of the Imperium.

Of course there was. Trillane was selling humans into slavery. That was _highly_ illegal in the Imperium. But now Jason knew, and he was going to fight Trillane to get them off his world, force the Empress to take Earth away from them. And Jason had told Jyslin, who had told Lorna, which would bring the Imperium into this. Now the Imperium _knew_ that nobles within Trillane had been engaged in slavery. Those nobles knew who had discovered their illegal activities, and now they were going to try to kill Jason, either out of revenge or in an attempt to keep him from giving away anything else he might know, give away something that would trace the illegal operation back to _names_.

At least Kumi wasn't part of it. He was _so_ glad of that. He liked Kumi, and he'd have been crushed if she'd been involved. She was petty, immature, and maybe a little spoiled, but she was a good friend, and one of the few people he knew he could turn to when he needed help. She might blackmail him a little with her prices, but he didn't mind that all that much. She deserved to get something for her trouble, and he didn't mind at all paying her for the dangerous things she did for him. She could get into _huge_ trouble if they found out she was helping him, now more than ever. If the slavers found out that she was helping him, they'd come after _her_. That was why she had to be extremely careful in what she was doing. Her life could be at risk. But at least she appreciated that fact, he knew she did. She'd be careful. He had faith in her.

His door opened, and Symone stalked in. She was wearing a heavy bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, insulation against the cold as she scurried over from her own house. _Jason, who was that that just ran out of here?_ she asked.

_I hope you didn't try to stop her,_ he sent in reply.

_No, but I've never seen her before. Who is she?_

_That was a Kimdori,_ he told her steadily.

_A _Kimdori_?_ Symone sent in surprise, but with an audible gasp. _How did she get here? Why is she here?_

_Miaari sent her,_ he answered. _She's going to be working for me._

_How much is it costing you?_

_Nothing,_ he answered.

_What? Jason, the Kimdori _never_ work for free! They always charge something, even if it's one credit!_

_Well, Kiaari didn't quote any price at all. She said the interview was over, and said she would work for me. I think Miaari is paying for it, or maybe Kumi. Either way, it's not me._

_Weird. That's just weird,_ she sent fretfully. _That's not how they do things at all. It's just bizarre._

_Well, I'm glad you're here, Symone,_ he sent, motioning for her to sit. She did so, sitting on the bed. _Kiaari is going to join the community undercover. She's going to pose as a human squatter and get into the community. Since you have to screen her before she can get in, I have to let you know about her. But she's going to be a secret from everyone else, _including_ Tim and Temika. She's already assured me that she can fool both of them._

_Yeah, she can. Kimdori are trained to fool telepaths, because of us,_ she sent with an audible giggle.

_Kiaari's kinda under contract with me to do whatever I need her to do,_ he continued. _She told me as much when she was here. Miaari told her to do what I need her to do. Right now she's just gonna help us move, but afterwards, after I leave the community, she's gonna go after Trillane and get us access to their communications, and whatever else we need. She's going to be our spy. With Kiaari helping us, we actually have more than a snowball's chance in hell. Shit, we might even have a chance to _win_._

_True enough,_ Symone agreed. _Kimdori are _good_. If she's going to be around for the duration, we have a much better chance at getting Trillane off Earth._

_We never talked about dates, but the way it sounded to me, she's here to stay._

_When is she gonna try to get into the community?_

_Today,_ he answered. _She's on her way to Charleston now. She's gonna be found by our survey team She's already prepared a story and picked a fake identity. We're going to call her Kate. And part of the ruse is that she's going to pretend to be my girlfriend. That way we can spend long periods of time behind closed doors without attracting attention._

_Damn, that's pretty clever,_ Symone sent with a hum. _It _wouldn't_ attract attention, would it?_

_It also gives her the perfect excuse to leave the community and stay with me after I go,_ he nodded.

_Smart._

_Miaari's idea,_ he told her. _But a damn good one._

Symone laughed. _I've spent weeks trying to get Temika into your bed, and now I have to drop it so she doesn't interfere with the plan. I'll have to come up with a viable reason to stop, or she'll get suspicious._

_Push her towards Mike Colbert,_ he told her. _Mike's the kind of guy she'd be attracted to, and Mike's smitten with her. That's all the reason you need to stop pushing her at me._

_Really? I haven't noticed it._

_Trust me. If she pushes you, just tell her that Mike told you he was really interested in her, but was too shy to ask her directly, and he wanted advice from you on how to approach you since you're her friend. That'll get her going in the right direction._

_Why would she like Mike? He's all muscle. Faey women like muscle on a man, but not _that_ much. I think it looks ugly._

_That's what Temika likes,_ he shrugged. _She likes ripped guys._

_Yeah, I think that'd probably work on the Temika angle. I suggest you don't take what Kate does seriously, Jason. It's just going to be a game to her, nothing personal._

_Yeah, I know, she already warned me. I'm not sure I can pull off pretending to be in love with her, but she said I should do alright. I hope so._

_You'll do fine,_ she assured him. _I just can't figure out why they're breaking the rules,_ she fretted. _Kiaari should have bargained her price with you immediately after agreeing to work for you. No one should have paid for her work, because that implies that she was going to work before she ever showed up. Kimdori don't _do_ that._

_Well, I'm not sure of the specifics, but I was given the distinct feeling that there's something else going on, something bigger than what we can see, and the Kimdori are involved in it,_ he told her, dancing carefully around the whole truth to tell her what he could without violating Miaari's confidence in him. _For _us_, it's just gonna be about kicking Trillane off Earth, but there's another layer to this higher up than Earth that involves us somehow. What happens here is going to affect what goes on up there, and Miaari flat out told me that the Kimdori have a vested interest in what happens. That's why Kiaari is here. She's here to make sure that whatever interest the Kimdori have in Earth is protected. I'm not sure what that interest is, and how it involves me and what I plan to do, but I'll take Kiaari's help even if I don't understand what's going on. Even if I don't see the big picture, what I _can_ say is that I trust Miaari. She's not going to sell us out, I'm positive of that._

_You trust her?_

_Completely,_ he sent with conviction, his emotion reinforcing his thought. _You weren't there when we were talking, Symone. I can't tell you what she told me because I'd be betraying a promise to keep it secret, but believe me when I say that I trust Miaari with my life._

_I can respect that, Jason,_ she sent seriously in reply. _And you forget, I'm friends with a Kimdori, so I understand what you're saying about secrets, and about trust. If you trust Miaari, then I trust Miaari. It's that simple. We don't have to understand what they're doing, mainly because I doubt we ever could. Kimdori are _way_ smarter than most people realize. Odds are, their plan is just way beyond us. All we can do is our best, and hope that it's enough._

_Thanks, Symone,_ he sent gratefully, his sending tinged with honest gratitude. _I was afraid that you wouldn't understand._

_I understand. There's just one problem that I can see._

_What?_

_I hope Kiaari isn't the jealous type,_ she sent with a wink. _She has to share you with another girl. Right now, it looks like it's gonna be me._

He laughed. _And what makes you think that?_

"Pft," she hissed aloud. _She's just gonna be pretend, and I doubt she'll satisfy your needs the way I can. You're going to be living with a woman you can't touch, and that means that you need a woman you _can_ touch available when you need it._

_Symone, you haven't done any satisfying since the first and _only_ time we slept together,_ he sent with amusement.

_Hey, that's _your_ fault,_ she replied with an accusing tone, pointing to herself. _It's right here whenever you need to get off, cutie. I haven't been pushing it very much because I hoped you'd get horny and I could get you between Temika's legs, but if I'm going to be pushing her towards Mike, then that means that it's my duty as your friend to make sure you don't go without._

_You know I'm not comfortable with that,_ he reminded her. _You're my best friend's girlfriend. Even if he _does_ approve, to me, it's just not right._

_Yeah, that's why I've been working Temika,_ she answered. _She's still the most needful woman on this entire planet in the most dire need of a good fuck. She desperately needs a good fuck, you need a woman who won't think it's a permanent relationship, and you wouldn't have the same hang-up about banging her as you do about me. It was a good match._

_So that's why you've trailed off on the propositioning, Symone,_ he sent with a sly smile.

_Yup,_ she sent with a grin. _But now I'm back on the job. Any time I think you need some pussy, you're getting mine. I won't take no for an answer, so just deal with it,_ she warned. _You're my friend, and I won't let you go around without. I don't care if you have an issue with buddy sex because I'm with Tim. That's just a hang-up I have to break you of, that's all. And you'll be _easy_ to break of sexual hang-ups,_ she sent tauntingly. _I know how to get you excited, cutie. I learned that our first time. Actually, I learned that from Jyslin,_ she laughed. _She shared with me all the lurid details of her sex life._

_She didn't!_

_Of course she did,_ Symone answered. _I told her all about Tim, too. Me and her are _best friends_, Jason. We both knew that if one of us was busy, that it was the other's job to satisfy our men. If it was Tim and Jyslin here, she'd be doing the exact same thing, and I'm glad she would. Don't think of us as two couples, cutie. Think of us as a _quartet_. A Faey will send her best friend into her husband's bed if he needs attention and she's too busy to give it. She'd also send her husband to her best friend if she needed sex, but her husband wasn't available. I wouldn't hesitate to send Tim to Jyslin if we were still in New Orleans. I never did, but I _almost_ did, right before we left. She was starting to get bitchy, and I was about two steps from sending Tim to pop her spring._

Jason was a little surprised. He didn't know Jyslin did that. He almost felt betrayed, but in a way, it wasn't betrayal. What she said certainly fit into the Faey mentality. Symone and Jyslin were best friends. Given Faey behavior, it certainly fit that Jyslin would do what she did. After all, she was just taking steps to make sure that Jason was kept happy, at least in her own eyes.

_I've been working on Tim in the same area,_ she told him. _I've got him to where he understands you and me, but he's still having a bit of an issue with the idea of him and _Jyslin_. He's a bit self-conscious about the fact that one of the first things I'll do after we reunite with Jyslin is have her fuck him. I guess I should work with you too about that, so you don't take it personally,_ she reasoned in her sending, looking him in the eye.

_Yeah, that does seem a bit personal to me,_ he sent honestly.

_See? I knew I should have started sooner,_ she sent with an audible sigh. _Think, cutie. I'm just doing what a Faey girl thinks is right. Jyslin's not any different. She'll do the same for me that I do for her, and that's take care of my man, the same way I try to take care of you. She will because we're _friends_, Jason. She's just doing me a favor, and besides, she told me that she thinks Tim is sexy, so it wouldn't be a chore for her. Friends don't let friends go without, and friends don't let a friend's _husband_ stay frustrated. It's one of the marks of a close friendship when Faey share their spouses with each other _when it's needed_. We're not gonna be having daily orgies in the bedroom,_ she sent with amusement. _Though I admit, I wouldn't say no to the idea of the four of us getting it on in the same bed, since I think you're hot and Jyslin's my best friend. It's just an aspect of us you already know and understand applied in a slightly different manner, that's all. I hope you can understand it._

_I think I can,_ he sent after a moment of contemplation. _It creeps me out a little bit, but I think I can. It also surprises me, I'll admit. I mean, I know you thought of me as friend enough to be willing to have sex, but I never really considered _Jyslin_ the same way. I always thought of her as, well, as just being interested in _me_. It's a shock to realize that she really _would_ have sex with Tim the same way that you would with me, because he is her friend._

_Just so, because he's her _friend_, Jason,_ she sent, quite seriously. _She's still all about _you_, but she wouldn't turn her back to a male friend in need, especially a man who's your best friend. She'd take that as even more reason to be there for him whenever he needs pussy. And it's _just sex_. That's something you told me you finally understood._

_Yeah, but it's strange to think of applying it to Jyslin._

_Well, then this wasn't a bad conversation then. Just don't think any differently about Jyslin, Jason, just as you don't think any differently about me._

_I don't think I will, I just have to get used to the idea._

_Good. Now, need some, cutie? I'm right here, we have some time, I'm naked under this robe, and talking about all this sex has me in the mood. Care to feed the pussy?_

_Why don't you go see if Tim wants to play?_ he asked mildly.

_You're right here, and I fucked him last night,_ she told him, getting up and coming over to him. She sat on his lap and untied the belt of her robe, then opened it enough to let him see that she wasn't lying about having nothing on under it.

_No thanks, Symone,_ he sent sternly. _I'm not in the mood, and I have a lot on my mind._

_You're not in the mood because you _do_ have a lot on your mind. Every once in a while you have to just put it all on the top shelf and spend a little time on _you

_I'll have time for that when the community is safely moved and we're in our new place,_ he told her.

There was a knock on the door, and it opened quickly. Temika and Tim were outside, and they looked in with some surprise. Tim just grinned, but Temika gasped and put her hand over her mouth. "Ohmah_gawd_," she blurted. "What are you doin'?"

"What's it look like, Mika?" Symone asked archly, dropping the robe off her shoulders to advertise her nudity openly to Temika. "I kept trying to get you to come over here and get involved with Jason, but you wanted to be stuck up about it, so I'm taking care of it myself. Jason's a _man_, and he needs pussy from time to time. It could have been _your_ pussy, but I'm tired of trying to get you in here. I've neglected Jason for weeks because I was trying to get him interested in you, and you interested in him. Well, honey, you have _officially _missed your chance. From now until he finds a girlfriend, when Jason needs pussy, he'll get the one between _my_ legs, not the one between _your_ legs. Now shut the door. I'm not gonna let you watch when it could have been _you_ sitting on his cock."

Temika blushed so furiously her entire face turned almost black, and she fumbled for the doorknob for a moment before finding it, then slammed the door closed after she and Tim backed out. Jason gave Symone a surprised look, but her face screwed up into a silly grin, then she put both hands over her mouth so stifle the sound of her laughter. _Think that justifies me not pushing her towards you anymore?_ she sent privately to him.

_That was a front?_ Jason sent in surprise. _It sounded real to me!_

_Well, I think it worked, then,_ she winked. _I'll go apologize later, and start pointing out Mike to her. That should get Temika out of the picture and give Kate an open door. Besides, maybe thinking about the fact that she could have had you will start making her think of finding a man to be part of her life, and we can get her fixed up with Mike and happy with herself again._

_She's gonna be pissed once she gets over her embarrassment._

_I can handle it,_ she winked again.

Jason stifled a laugh. _Symone, you are an evil, evil woman._

_But you love me anyway,_ she sent grandly.

_God help me, I guess I do,_ he admitted. _Now put your robe back on._

_Hell no,_ she sent with a lascivious leer, her sendings tinged heavily with sexual desire. She got off his lap and immediately grabbed his belt buckle, starting to undo it. _They think we're fucking, I'm stuck in here to maintain that illusion, I'm horny, and I can't get to Tim right now. So, if you're really my friend, Jason, _fix it_._

_Oh my God, that will be_ such _a chore,_ he sent dryly.

_Shut up,_ she sent shortly, but she was grinning.


Chapter 12

_Vesta, 36 Demaa, 4393, Orthodox Calendar_
_Sunday, 22 December 2007, Native Regional Reckoning_
_Chillicothe, Ohio (Native designation), Orala Nature Preserve, American Sector_

Kiaari-Kate, well, Kate was... interesting.

That was about all he could say about that. His initial impression of her was that of a no-nonsense woman who knew what had to be done and set about it with diligence and determination. She impressed him with her intelligence and her training, and he'd been quite uplifted about the idea of having her help for what he wanted to do.

Kate, however, was _not_ Kiaari. Kate projected herself as a timid, unassuming woman who seemed to want to melt into the background when immediately presented with more than one person with whom to converse. Doc Northwood was the first to notice this trait in her, mentioning to Jason that it was as if she was struck mute the instant she could see two people at the same time. She presented herself as being incredibly shy... which wasn't a very good thing, given that the face that Kate possessed was similar to Meya's, just heavier in features due to the lack of Faey light-boned structure, and that made her beautiful. People wanted to look at her, to talk to her, but she was too timid to reply, to take any initiative.

The meeting of Kate with the community was suitably dramatic. Leamon had been the one to find her, and as he told it, she was naked, battered, suffering from multiple ragged lacerations, and laying in a pool of her own blood. Jason had gotten a good look at an "unconscious" Kate when Leamon raced her back to his skimmer early in the afternoon, when thick clouds overhead concealed the skimmer from orbital observation, and if he hadn't known that she'd faked those wounds, he'd have been horrified. The worst was the large gash over her right temple, which exposed her skull. She was covered in blood, and had parallel lines of ragged tears in her flesh all over her body, some three across, some four across, and a couple five across. The shape and size of the injuries caused Doc Northwood to immediately declare her the victim of a bear attack. This was reinforced by the fact that a bear was killed not four blocks from where Kate was discovered, when it came out of a building and startled Irwin, who killed it out of reflex. The way Irwin described it, the bear raced at him like a flesh-hungry demon, but Jason has a private suspicion that the fact that Irwin had known about Kate's wounds before he saw the bear caused him to recall that encounter much differently than it actually happened.

Jason was there when Doc Northwood sutured her wounds, giving her somewhere in the vicinity of 170 stitches in various places, and he was the first person she saw when she woke up the next day. He remembered to play the game out, telling her where she was and how they'd found her, and he even remembered to ask her her name before blurting it out. She told him her name was Kate, and then she blushed and immediately stopped talking when Northwood came into the room. It took Doc a while to coax her into talking to him, because all she did was stare at Jason, who was sitting against a counter across the room. It took him even longer to get her to open up to him, to chat with him and not just answer his questions, but she still kept glancing at Jason, as if her eyes were drawn to him against her own will.

She started planting the seeds of her cover immediately, Jason realized... clever girl.

People visited her, and everyone had the same impression. She was a nice girl, but very, very shy. Once they did get her to open up a little, they found her to be a sweet-natured, gentle, likable young woman, but she immediately fell silent if more than one person was in the room, and it took considerable cajoling to get her to speak when in company. But people _did_ like her. They just realized that her shyness meant that it would take her time to be more open with the community.

Her story was right in line with that personality. Kate wasn't a squatter by choice. From what she told everyone, she was a Canadian native, originally from Toronto, who had been going to law school before the subjugation, and had just been trying to get along under the new Imperium. But there was no place for lawyers in the new Imperial system, and she had little skill with technical things, so she ended up on a farm. She also ended up coming under the eye of a sadistic guard assigned to the camp, who found the shy young woman to be an irresistible target to abuse. She ran away from it to get away from that guard's persecution, but the motor scooter she'd been riding got a flat tire, and then she had to abandon it and all her things when armed squatters attacked her when she was trying to get the tire patched. She told them she'd wandered the forest for days with no supplies, living off creek water and desperately trying to find something to eat in houses that had been picked clean years ago, until she reached Charleston. She was searching for food in the abandoned city, and then she couldn't remember anything else until she woke up.

Doc Northwood told everyone that that was quite normal, that quite often people couldn't remember a traumatic event, and even some time before and after that event.

Jason realized that Kate's story and her personality were the perfect ingredients for making everyone feel _protective_ over her. She was playing the likable, pitiable, helpless innocent, exploiting the compassion of the community, and her ploy was swallowed by the community hook, line, and sinker. The community as a whole basically demanded that Symone screen the girl before she was even allowed out of bed, because nobody wanted to send the shy girl out on her own... she'd never make it. She was a city-raised young lady thrown out into the wilderness with no supplies, no tools, no training, not even any clothes anymore. If they didn't take her in, she'd die within days of being sent over the bridge, and people liked her too much to let that happen.

Damn, she was _good_.

Thanks to Doc Northwood's skill and his access to some Faey medical supplies, Kate was out of bed and moving around two days after bringing her back, with most of her superficial and light injuries "healed," thanks to the healing-accelerant supplies they had on hand. Most of her wounds were only flesh deep, and though she was stiff and sore and bandaged more than clothed, she wanted out of bed and to move about in the crisp December air. And like a moth to a flame, she immediately sought out Jason Fox. She never _initiated_ conversation, she never _asked_... she simply put herself in a position where Jason might notice her, where he might talk to her. This Jason saw for what it was, and he picked up on his side of the requirements for her cover and took an active interest in her. The very first thing he did was admit to her with others around that he was telepathic, but Kate simply blew that off as if it didn't matter in the slightest. After he got that out of the way, he could be found by others sitting with her on the porch in his overshirt when everyone else except himself and Kate were wearing jackets, enjoying the brisk air like true cold-climate denizens, or maybe walking along the streets, and just talking. Jason was impressed with how detailed Kiaari's cover story was. He'd _been_ to Toronto before the subjugation, and he was familiar with the city... and Kate's description of it and her non-existent life there was frighteningly accurate. She'd manufactured an entire fake life, complete with family, friends, memories of things and places and people, and she could recite those memories without error if asked to repeat them. Jason was stunned at how completely immersed Kiaari was in the persona of Kate... but then again, he realized that a trained spy like her had to be both a good actor and have a very good memory. She even spoke with a Quebec accent. They spoke in English at first, but after Kate discovered that Jason spoke French, they could be heard chattering away at each other in French. Everyone could see that though she was shy with everyone else, she was not nearly as shy when she was with Jason, but they could also see that she was battling her shyness to talk to him, to try to keep his attention on her, attention she seemed to both want and fear.

She was so good, several times during those first days of knowing her, he caught himself _believing_ that she was Kate.

It was very easy for her to snap his head back to reality. Kate and Jason would talk, then they would touch by accident, and she would share any pertinent information she needed to with him, or warn him he was going far afield, or just convey her amusement that he was starting to forget himself. That touch, and that sharing, reminded him starkly that this was _not_ Kate from Toronto, this was _Kiaari_.

Kate kept Jason's head in the game, and helped guide him along what she considered to be a nominal sequence of events that gets her into Jason's house in the shortest time without arousing suspicion.

Other things were afoot as well. He'd heard from Kumi yesterday, when she rather giddily informed him that since the admiral she was going to serve had an accident and got injured, her compulsory conscription, which was to start _today_, Kumi's 25th birthday, was now postponed. If she wasn't a Countess, she'd have been reassigned, but the clout of her Duchess mother and the guarantee of her gaining that assignment meant that she wouldn't be sent anywhere else. Admiral Duri would be on medical leave for two months, and since her induction phase would only last one month, she had a one month push-back in her conscription. Kumi, that clever little minx, got her mother to fix it so the month delay in conscription _counted_ towards her mandatory service time, since it wasn't _her_ fault that her conscription was delayed. So, now Kumi's conscription would officially begin on 36 Kedaa, instead of 36 Demaa.

Kumi had been busy before going off to conscription. She'd set up the shell company that would allow him to operate without her, and had everything set up so that there was a complicated series of shell companies that only existed on paper that made it extremely difficult for anyone to directly trace the company back to either him or her. Jason suspected the Miaari might have more to do with that than Kumi, though.

That had brought up a thought... did Kumi know what Miaari was doing? Did Kumi know about Kiaari?

Well, he bloody well couldn't ask Kumi, so he instead asked Kiaari. She told him that she knew Miaari had taken a personal interest in Jason, but she didn't know about Kiaari... and that was to protect Kiaari's cover. The only people who knew about Kiaari were Miaari, Kiaari, Jason, Meya, and Symone... and _no one_ else. The silence of everyone but Meya Jason could see immediately, but Kiaari seemed untroubled by Meya's knowledge. She simply told him that Miaari had interviewed Meya before coming to meet him at the lake, and she trusted her with that information... and that was that. No other reason was given, and as far as Kiaari was concerned, no other reason was even necessary.

Pack mentality. Kiaari trusted Miaari, completely, literally _blindly_, because they were sisters.

That company might be needed sooner than later, which was why he and Temika were on the outskirts of Chillicothe, ten yards from the border of official Faey territory at five in the morning, sitting in a truck and waiting. He'd hit a snag with the projectors... their _size_. They were _big_, and he could only fit one at a time in his skimmer. This wasn't a huge issue when it came to getting them to Charleston, but it _was_ an issue when it came him getting them to _Chesapeake_. He had to do this without a Kumi delivery because he didn't want her to have any idea at all of where he was moving the community or how he was going to conceal it. He'd already had the p