  He couldn't think of any rational--or irrational, for that matter--explanation as to why there was nothing there when he sought to explore his feelings about his actions.
	The Cat had changed him a great deal since that fateful day when he'd been bitten, but he couldn't quite come to admit to himself that it was changing him still.  Was his lack of remorse from him, or from it?  Was the Cat turning him cold, or was it his own reaction to it?  It would certainly make things easier.  If he no longer felt bad about the things he did while out of control, it would take alot of stress out of his life.  But his human morals wouldn't allow him to think about something like that.  Tarrin was not a heartless person, and that made his own lack of feeling about causing injury to others so much a mystery to him.  By all intents and purposes, he should feel tremendous guilt and remorse about what had happened.  But there was nothing.
	What did it mean?  Was he changing, or was he being changed?  Did he want to be like this?  To walk through the world and cause destruction and chaos wherever he went, yet be unmoved by the sorrow that he left in his wake?
	His eyes caught the glint of the manacles that were still on his wrists, and he sighed.  He had alot of burden to bear already.  Maybe another stone or two in his burden wasn't making much of a difference.  He was a solitary, untaught Were-cat cast into the human world, a world that, should they understand his true nature, would try to destroy him.  He was on a mission that he didn't want to be on in the first place, obeying the will of the Goddess, whom he called patroness.  It was a mission he had volunteered to do, and that seemed to sting at him now.  He didn't want to do what he was doing.  He wasn't even sure what he was doing.  About all he really knew and understood about it was that he had to recover the Firestaff, because it could be used to make a mortal a god.  He was out to find it to prevent that from happening, to keep it out of the hands of people who would use it to raise themselves to divinity, and set off a war between gods that would ravage the world.
	He didn't know anymore.  Nothing seemed to really make any sense.  Not him, not his mission, not the world, not anything.
	None of the others would really understand.  Besides, he doubted that he could look any of them in the eye, even Allia, and admit to them that he was almost militantly indifferent to the suffering he had left strewn behind him.  They'd probably never look at him the same way again.  And he wasn't sure if their rejection of him would impact him.  If killing a few hundred people and laying waste to a portion of a city didn't incite any remorse in him, he couldn't see how being rejected by his friends and sisters would.
	There are many kinds of pain, my kitten, the powerful, choral mental voice of the Goddess sang into his mind, overwhelming him with her presence and her power, subjugating his soul by the mere contact she made to speak with him.  She was the reason he was going against his instincts, his own desires.  She was the driving force behind his current position, and there was no way that he could deny the fact that he loved her, both as a goddess and as a friend.  That in itself never ceased to confuse him, but it seemed to be the way that his mysterious, capricious deity preferred it.
	He felt a sudden wave of intense shame.  Nobody but her could look inside him, to see the ugly truth within.  She knew his turmoil, so she knew its cause.  To think that she saw his soul bare caused a powerful pang of both pain and embarassment.
	Stop that, she said harshly.  When I accepted you, I fully understood what I was taking.  I know you're not perfect, my kitten.  And we all do things that we would prefer nobody knew.  But I think you know that everything I see in you never goes any further.  To break your trust like that would be a horrible transgression.
	"Transgression?  Against me?" he asked with a derisive snort.
	Of course, she said.  You may not understand it yet, my kitten, but the relationship between a god and a mortal devoted to that god works both ways in many respects.  Just as I preclude you from speaking my name aloud, I'm expected to keep the inner thoughts and dreams of the mortals under my care in the strictest confidence.  If you really studied it, I think you'd find that for every single thing that you give to a god, by devotion, sacrement, vows, or devotions, you receive it back in the form of a favor or gift.  It's not a one-sided relationship.  Because of that, even us gods have some rules to follow, or we'll lose our mortal followers, and in a way, our own power.  But what's worst, we'd lose the respect of other gods.  Not even Berrok, the god of corruption and strife, would dare divulge the secrets of one of his followers.
	"What does that have to do with anything?"
	Nothing, she replied with a light chuckle.  But I like to give my followers a more enlightened understanding of things than other gods.  Most like to keep their followers in the dark, to maintain that mystique surrounding them  and their power.  Keep a mortal in awe, they think, and he'll be a bit more devout.  I happen to think that when a mortal makes a conscious choice after all the cards are laid out on the table, his devotion is twice as powerful as the awed mortal's would be.  There was a short silence.  I guess what I really want you to know is that I'll love you no matter what, kitten, she said.  I accepted you for what you are, and despite what you think, I knew that your actions would occasionally go left of center.
	"Thanks," he said quietly, but with utter sincerity.  The powerful shame he felt lifted somewhat; it was still there, he doubted that it would ever go away, but her kind words had lifted it partially away.  "But what does it mean, goddess?  Why don't I feel anything?"
	That's something that I can't answer, my kitten, she said seriously.  For me to simply explain it away wouldn't do you any good.  I told you once before that there were some things that you had to discover for yourself.  Well, this is one of those things.  It won't have any meaning for you unless you're the one who discovers it first.
	"Sometimes I think you say that just because you don't want me to know."
	Time will tell, she replied calmly.  When you have the answer, you can look back to this moment and make that conclusion for yourself.
	"It doesn't make it any easier."
	It was never supposed to make it easy, she replied.  Anything gained easily isn't valued as much as that gained through hardship.  There are some lessons that can only be learned in pain, Tarrin.  I don't like seeing you in pain, but it makes you stronger, and it teaches you to learn how to make the pain go away for good.  If I were to soothe that pain, it would make you feel better now, but then the pain would never go away.  If you learn to conquer it yourself, then it will be gone forever.  Now, which would you prefer?
	"I hate logic," he growled after a moment.
	There was a sound not too much unlike a girlish giggle.  Just keep your chin up, my kitten, she told him.  I have to go now.  Be well, and I love you.
	And then the sensation of her was gone, leaving him feeling peculiarly empty inside.  And it left him even more confused than he'd been in the first place.
	She wouldn't help him.  That stung a little bit, but part of him could understand why.  Just like letting a child stick his hand in the fire to teach him not to do it, she was leaving him to sort things through for himself, so that experience would be more help to him in the long run.
	But what if he messed it up?  Tarrin's control had evaporated over the months.  The short term, the now, that always hung so heavily in front of him that he often forgot to look at things from more than one side.  Had he simply stepped back a moment and thought things through, he could have easily led the female away safely, rather than get into a fight with her.  But he hadn't.  He had looked at right now and had acted on it with little regard as to what his actions would incite in the future.  What if the answers to his questions were found in the long view, and he passed it over to take the shorter, more immediate path?
	Doubt, worry, they had become such unwelcome friends lately.  He doubted himself, his mission.  He worried over what he would do next, how badly things would turn out.  There seemed to be no escape from it.  It surrounded him like the walls of his tiny cabin below, hemming him in and making him feel like he was trapped.
	The wind kicked up a loud whistling keen through the jags in Shipkiller Rock, and Tarrin pulled the blanket a bit more around his shoulders.
	There just didn't seem to be answers to anything this night.

	The ship plied the surging waves ever southward, and everyone was on edge.  There were a various number of reasons for it.  The ship was on half rations until they reached the port of Roulet, because they hadn't loaded up all the supplies before the explosion.  The reduced food made most of the men on the ship cranky, and numerous lines were cast out by sailors not on duty, to try to supplement what salted meat and hard tack remained with fresh fish.  The explosion itself had put many of the men on edge.  Such a thing had never happened before, at least not that any of them had seen, and it was all the men talked about between grumblings of a light breakfast.  Tarrin's solid position near the bow itself had unnerved many of the men, for he stood at the rail and gazed out to sea for hours on end, unmoving, only the swishing of his tail reminding all who stared at him that he wasn't some kind of elaborately decorated statue.
	But it was the birds that unnerved everyone the most.  Hundreds of them, gulls, albatross, darts and even land birds like swallows and pidgeons, they peppered the sky like a moving cloud.  They seemed to follow no specific pattern, yet they seemed to be moving in a general direction, circling and gliding on the brisk sea breeze blowing in from the west.  None of the sailors had ever seen so many birds concentrated into a small region before, and it seemed unnatural.  Sea eagles, hawks, and other raptors shared space peacefully with the birds which would usually be their prey, as if they had put aside their natural rivalry for some other purpose.  The ship was travelling southerly, but the birds seemed to be drifting to the north, and they had already passed underneath the majority of them.  The deck showed that passing in the many splatters from the birds above, which caused the captain to grumble and spit irritably.  The captain was a compulsively neat man, and such a mess certainly got on his nerves.
	Though it was certainly unusual, the birds themselves had demonstrated that they posed no threat, so they were only a curiosity to all but the most superstitious of the sailors, who saw them as a bad omen.  It was the ship sitting on the horizon behind them that had the captain and many others worried.  It was a Wikuni clipper, one of the fastest ships on the sea, and it was moving right towards them at full sail.  The extreme distance made little detail clear, but the Star of Jerod's rather unusual cargo made any Wikuni ship's appearance cause enough for Captain Kern to fret.  Anything that could make the legendary Abraham Kern fret was enough to send his junior officers and crew into a panic.  But only the captain and the first and second mates knew who her little Wikuni Highness really was, so those were the men that showed the most concern.  They knew what would happen if they were caught ferrying a fugitive royal princess.  It would not be pretty.
	Dolanna was on the steering deck, trying to soothe Kern, trying to explain in calm words that she had no idea what was going on, either with the birds or with the Wikuni ship.  Faalken and Azakar were on deck, stripped to the waist, stepping lightly around birdstains as they practiced with their swords.  Miranda and Keritanima had their heads together near the wall of the steering deck with Binter and Sisska standing very close guard over them, and Allia and Dar were playing a game of stones near the mainmast, sitting on a deck hatch.
	One by one, his friends had tried to talk to him, to gently try to find out what had happened.  Only Dolanna, who had bandaged his wounds, knew the full story, and Tarrin doubted that she had fully told the others yet.  But Tarrin was in no mood to talk.  Even Allia walked away shaking her head, telling him that she would be there when he was ready to talk to her.  But he wasn't quite ready to do that yet.  Things felt different now, and he wasn't sure how he could talk to his friends without having to explain what happened.  And if he did that, he wouldn't be able to tell them anything more.
	Tarrin looked down into the water, where those fish were.  One man had called them dolphins, and they commonly followed ships to either eat the scraps thrown overboard or simply ride in the ship's wake.  They were very common in the southern reaches of the Sea of Storms.  They were very sleek animals, fish that breathed air instead of water, and they moved in a sinuous, graceful harmony.
	"You are very quiet today," Dolanna said casually, coming up to the rail beside him.  She looked up at him when he glanced at her, her eyes steady and her demeanor calm.
	"I don't have much to say, Dolanna," he replied quietly.  "What did the captain have to say about that Wikuni ship?"
	"That it could possibly catch up to us before we reach Roulet," she replied.  "If they know who we carry, they may try."
	"I doubt that," he said soberly, looking out to sea.
	"Perhaps," she said.  "It is almost time for the lesson.  As always, you are welcome to join."
	"No," he said, lowering his head.  "It won't do me any good, Dolanna.  If I even try to touch the Weave, you know what will happen."
	"Yes, but there is never a reason good enough not to keep growing," she replied in a steady voice.  "Even though you cannot use what I teach, would it not be a good thing to know it?  For that day when you can wield Sorcery without danger."
	"I already know what I need to know," he told her.  "I'll wait until the teaching does me good before learning anything more."
	"But it will do you good.  Can you not see that?"
	"No, I can't," he said, turning to stare at her with his penetrating green eyes.  She didn't flinch away, though his gaze would have made almost anyone on the ship shrink back from him.  She knew him too well to be afraid of him.
	"Very well," she said after staring up into his eyes for a moment.  "Remember, dear one, I will always be here when you need to talk.  I will always be here for you."  She said that with a light touch on his arm, then she reached up and grabbed him by the back of the neck, pulled his head down, and kissed him lightly on the cheek.  That she would do that, knowing what he was and what danger he posed to humankind, impressed him.
	Dolanna.  What a friend she had been.  He smiled slightly as she walked away, marvelling at her small, compact, shapely frame.  It was easy to forget that she happened to be a very pretty woman when he always thought of her as a mother figure.  She had always been there, even at risk to herself.  No human would take the risks around him that she would, and she had no fear of him.  In its own way, that was more comforting than many things he could think about.  Through all the turmoil of his turning Were, and alot of what happened in the Tower, Dolanna had always been there for him.  He owed her a great deal, and a part of him felt bad about snubbing her that way.  But she didn't understand what he was feeling, and he had to make sure she understood that he wasn't quite ready to go back to some other life, to forget about what happened or pretend that everything was alright.
	The Wikuni ship stayed on their stern, just at the horizon, for most of the day, and was there again in the morning as they moved closer and closer to Roulet.  Roulet was a small city, little more than a town, but it sported two large quays sturdy enough and with a deep enough draw in the harbor to accomodate ships the size of the Star of Jerod.  Roulet was well known as a seedy place, a place where known pirates would dock for repairs, carousing, or to fence off the booty taken on the high seas.  The city's rulers were notorious for being for sale, and the bribes from the pirate clans allowed them to sail in and out of the narrow harbor, defended by fiercely armed coastal fortresses on either side of the very narrow inlet that opened the tiny bay to the sea.  Those fortresses had actual cannon in them, for Shac was the only kingdom to whom the Wikuni would sell their smoke powder.  The cannons kept the lawful ships of other nations out of the harbor, protecting the pirates to whom the little town owed its livelihood.  That was reason enough for most honest ship captains to stay well away from it, but the Star of Jerod needed supplies badly enough to risk docking in the place.
	"I wonder how something like that manages to stay alive," Dar was musing to Keritanima as they approached the narrow inlet and its twin fortresses.
	"Simple logic, if you think about it, Dar," the Wikuni princess replied calmly.  "By allowing the pirates to dock here, it keeps them out of more respectable cities."
	"But why don't they just come over here and do something about it?  Or why doesn't the king of Shac do something?"
	"King Louis is a very weak king," Keritanima sniffed.  "He rules in title only.  In reality, it's the local Marquis that have control of Shac.  It's a very fragmented kingdom.  The Shacan custom of not spilling the blood of a countrymen keeps the kingdom from degenerating into something like the Free Duchies."  She plucked at her plain cream-colored dress absently.  "Louis doesn't do anything about it because he can't.  Marquis Phillipe of Roulet makes a pretty penny off the bribes paid to him by the pirates, so it's very doubtful he'd stop if Louis demanded it."
	"Then why don't the Wikuni do something about it?"
	She snorted.  "Because no Sennadite ship can catch one of our Merchantmen," she said derisively.  "Why should our navy protect the ships of our competitors?"
	"That's a pretty heartless way of looking at it, Kerri."
	"There's no room for petty compassion in politics, Dar," she said in a ruthless tone.  "You can't get rid of the pirates.  For every pirate you sink, another will take its place.  And let's not even talk about the commissioned freebooters."
	"What's a freebooter?"
	"A freebooter is a pirate that works for a certain kingdom," she replied.  "His job is to attack the ships of rival kingdoms, and leave the ships of his own kingdom alone.  It disrupts trade and supplies to rivals."
	"Oceangoing sabatoge."
	"Something like that," Keritanima agreed.  "You can't even begin to imagine what goes on out of sight of land, Dar."
	"Do the Wikuni use freebooters?"
	"No," she replied.  "At least not right now.  There used to be Wikuni freebooters, but after Rauthym broke up and the Zakkite armada was defeated, there's been no need for them."
	"Then explain Sheba the Pirate."
	Keritanima coughed awkwardly.  "Sheba is not a sanctioned freebooter, Dar," she said defensively.  "There's just a certain formality involved that prevents Wikuni ships from chasing her down.  Since she uses a Wikuni clipper, that means that just about nobody else can chase her down either."
	"What formality would that be?" Dar asked.
	"She's the daughter of a very, very high-ranking noble patriarch," she replied.  "If anyone sank Sheba, they'd pay for it ten times over when they got home.  I can't stand her, myself.  She's an arrogant bitch, flaunting herself when she's home and all but daring anyone to do something about her."
	"So, your people know she's a pirate."
	"Of course they do, but as far as many in Wikuna are concerned, so long as Sheba doesn't attack Wikuni ships, then why bother?"
	"Well, that's certainly hypocritical."
	"Of course it is, Dar," she laughed.  "It's called politics.  Nobody ever said politics were logical, or even sensible."
	"Ridiculous," Tarrin snorted.  "Sometimes I think that we'd all be better off if we hanged everyone with a title."
	"So you're talking to us now?" Keritanima asked him archly.
	"I told you that you wouldn't understand," he told her bluntly.  "I just needed some time to think things over."
	"That's all you've been doing for the last two months, brother," Keritanima snapped at him.  "I've almost forgotten you.  And what I see in front of me now isn't the same person I knew two months ago."
	"You're right," he said flatly, stepping past her.  "I'm not."
	"That was stupid, Kerri," Dar whispered in a savage hiss, but Tarrin's sensitive ears picked it up as he walked away.
	"Sometimes you have to smack Tarrin to get him going in the right direction, Dar," she whispered back.  "Trust me."
	"I'll let you do that," Dar said quickly.
	Crossing his arms, he stood near the mast, a little angry with his sister, but that quickly faded.  No matter who he was or how she acted, Keritanima was his sister, and he loved her.  He could forgive her for her words, because she was important to him.  But she didn't have to know that just now.  Better to let her stew for a bit.  That seemed a just compensation for that little remark.
	"You're off to a good start this morning," Allia told him in Selani, touching him lightly on the shoulder as she came up from behind.  "How's your stomach?"
	"It's getting better," he replied.  "The scratches stopped bleeding last night.  Dolanna says they'll heal, just not fast like any other injury would."
	"Keritanima's right, you know," she said softly.  "You aren't the same as you were."
	"Don't start with me, sister," he warned.
	"I'm not starting anything with you, brother," she said defensively.  "There was a time, not too long ago, when we would talk for hours and hours, about anything.  We kept no secrets from each other.  And now you won't speak to me anymore about the things that matter to you.  You've closed yourself to me, Tarrin.  To me!  I'm your sister!  If you can't speak to me, who can you talk to?"  She stepped in front of him and took his paw between her slender, four-fingered hands.  "I don't care how you think you feel, my brother, or how you think we'll feel about you.  I will love you, no matter who you are or what you do."
	Tarrin closed his eyes and bowed his head.  "I don't know if I can, sister," he said quietly.  "I don't even understand half of it myself."
	"Well, talking about it may help," she replied.
	"Maybe.  But I'm not quite ready to talk about it yet, deshaida.  Maybe later, but not now.  Not yet."
	"I'm not very happy to hear that, but I'll give you that time," she said calmly.  "I don't like seeing my brother upset."
	"Well, I appreciate the confidence."
	"It has nothing to do with confidence," she sniffed, leaning against him.  "It has to do with family."
	"Have I told you lately that I love you?" he said with a rueful chuckle.
	"No, as a matter of fact, you haven't," she said in an imperious tone.
	"Well, I love you, sister."
	"And I love you, my brother.  Now stop this sillyness and let's get something to eat."
	"What sillyness?"
	"Standing there looking like you're about to tear the mast out of the deck," she replied.
	"I did not."
	"Don't make me call in witnesses," she said with a light grin, her blue eyes twinkling.
	"I'll just make them conveniently forget," he teased.
	"Brother, when it comes to a choice between making you angry or making me angry, which do you think they'll choose?"
	Tarrin gave her a slight smile.  "They'd probably jump overboard."
	"I guess that would be a choice," she acceded after thinking a moment.  She said it with a completely serious voice.  "Not one I'd take, however."
	"I think not," he said, following her below decks.

	Because of the situation, when the ship docked at the wharf closest to the inlet, Tarrin, Keritanima, and Allia found themselves confined below decks with Azakar, Binter, and Sisska, while Dolanna and the others went ashore.  Tarrin chafed at the treatment.  He didn't want to be trapped in a small cabin with very large people.  But after Dolanna calmly explained that the six of them were highly recognizable, they all had to agree that keeping them hidden was only wise.  Roulet was heavily populated by Wikuni, and by then they had to be looking for Keritanima.  And that meant that they probably had descriptions of those members of the Princess' party that stood out the most.  Dolanna, Faalken, Dar, and Miranda were rather nondescript, at least in the manner of being easily picked out of a crowd, so the chore of buying supplies for the group fell upon them.
	Tarrin stood by a porthole, looking out into the city.  It was alot like Den Gauche, but not as large.  It was built along a very shallow, gentle rise coming up from the waterline, but the buildings of Roulet were dirty, unkempt, and somewhat ramshackle.  That had to be a reflection of the type of people that populated its streets.  They all tended to be as shady as the buildings around them.  Much like Den Gauche, the city was dominated by a large stone fortress at the top of the rise, looking out over the inlet, but it was shadowed by the two hills flanking the bottleneck entrance of the small bay which held the harbor, those hills topped by those two huge stone fortresses.  Roulet would be a nightmare for any admiral to invade.  Tarrin could see that now that he got a good look at the inlet and harbor.
	"How long did Dolanna say they would be?" Azakar asked calmly as he came up beside Tarrin.
	"She said as fast as possible," he replied absently.  "This doesn't look like the kind of place where respectable people would want to linger."
	"I don't like the idea of them being out there alone," Azakar said.
	"Faalken can more than take care of both Dolanna and Dar, and neither of them are really defenseless, Zak," he assured the huge, young Knight.  "Miranda can take care of herself if it comes to that, but I don't think she'd wander away from the others.  Not in a place like this."
	"I should be there to watch over her," Sisska growled in her very unfeminine, bass voice.  "She is alone."
	"Not quite," Keritanima said calmly.  "I specifically ordered her to stay with Dolanna."
	"And you expect her to obey you?" Sisska snorted.
	Keritanima flashed the Vendari female a hot look, but said nothing.
	There was a moment of tense silence, as Keritanima looked at Tarrin and started to say something, but fell silent.  Tarrin knew that Keritanima wasn't exactly sure if he was speaking to her.  "I don't think Miranda would be crazy enough to go out alone among them," Tarrin told Sisska.  "This isn't Kerri's father's court."
	"My father's court was ten times more dangerous than any pack of rabble-rousing pirates," Keritanima said archly.
	"True, but at least there, being attacked openly in a city street wasn't a possibility."
	"So you say,"she grunted in reply.  "Why do you think I had Sisska escorting Miranda around?"
	Tarrin looked at Sisska, who only nodded.  "Well, you shouldn't worry too much anyway," he said.  "If anyone touches Miranda, Sisska will have to get in line to get a piece of him."  He flexed his claws in a very unwholesome manner.  "I get the first shot."
	"Think twice," Sisska challenged.  "Miranda is my child, Tarrin.  Avenging her is my responsibility."
	"I think we dwell on impossibilities," Allia said.  "Dolanna will not allow Miranda to wander, and she certainly will not put them in a position where they must fight."
	"True," Keritanima had to admit.  "I don't see why we're standing around talking about who we're going to fight."
	"You're surrounded by bloodthirsty warriors, Kerri," Azakar said with a wink.  "We're just talking shop, that's all."
	"Oh, get off of yourself, Zak," she said with a snort.
	The space across from the ship filled with a large black ship, sleek and deadly looking, its sides bristling with those little wooden doors that concealed cannons.  The ship was some distance from the dock itself, but men on the dock already had ropes in hand, reeling the ship in to a resting place along the quay.  The ship's deck and rigging was populated with a very wide assortment of beast-faced Wikuni.  They moved with a quiet, precise grace that demonstrated the vaunted Wikuni attachment to ships and the seas, working in a seemingly unheard harmony that made the ship slide perfectly up to the side of the dock.  Standing on the steering deck was a tall female, a panther Wikuni, her black fur covering a very lithe form.  Her face was very striking, even from the distance Tarrin saw her, a human-set face with a cat's triangular nose, a hybrid mouth, and cat ears poking out of a mass of hair the same inky black as her fur.  Much like Tarrin, she had a long tail, heavier than his, that swished behind her absently as she moved away from the steering wheel.  Wide, expressive amber eyes broke up the dark features of her furred face, twin yellow orbs that seemed to draw attention to them.  She was dressed in a blue coat and white shirt, and a pair of white pants tucked into a pair of shined black leather boots.
	"I think that has to be Sheba," Tarrin said, remembering the description Keritanima gave of the infamous pirate.
	"Sheba the Pirate?  Here?" Keritanima said suddenly, jumping up from her chair and rushing over to the porthole.  Tarrin gave ground to her and let her look out, and he heard her gasp.  "That is Sheba," she said.  "What is she doing here?"
	"Who knows?" Tarrin said.  "I don't think we want to find out, though."
	"Amen," Keritanima agreed.  "I think that Kern will want to get out of here as quickly as possible."
	"Why is that?" Azakar asked.
	"Zak, the Star of Jerod is rather well known among pirates as the one ship they can never catch," Keritanima said calmly.  "Even Sheba has never caught Kern on the open sea.  She's sure to recognize the ship, and she may feel like a rematch."  She looked back towards the Mahuut.  "Kern took a big risk putting in here, Zak.  Sheba won't be the only pirate that may try to follow us out.  We may be leading a procession."
	"From what I heard, we didn't have much of a choice," he replied.
	"That's why we were on half rations," she replied.  "When whatever happened at Den Gauche happened, it kept us from getting the