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"I was not ogling you," she snapped, casting her attention to his naked chest for he was scratching the thick pelt of hair over his breastbone.

"You were ogling me," he stated. "Just as you are ogling me now. Keep your eyes off me, woman. I am taken."

Bridget grinned. "I know you are." She reached out and touched the Reaper insignia

tattooed on his left pectoral. The insignia stood out sharply against the tan of his bare

flesh and she found herself drawn to it as she always was. "Did this hurt when they did

it?"

He glanced down at the stylized crimson scythe and shrugged. "Aye, but it was part of

the Initiation into the Warrior Caste and was an honor to endure."

She traced it with her fingertip. "The thought of you suffering for any reason hurts

me." She stopped for he had reached up to take her hand. She smiled as he brought her

fingertips to his lips and kissed them.

"Perhaps you were right," he said releasing her hand. He got to his feet.

"Right about what?" She watched him jump up until he had caught the lowest hanging

branch of the oak tree. The powerful muscles of his arms and chest contracted and

released as he settled his hands comfortably around the tree's limb. Swinging his legs up

and back several times—going higher each time—he did a back flip from the branch,

landing lithely on his feet.

"Show off," she sniffed. "What was I right about?"

He strolled back to her, dusting away the loose bark from his callused palms. "About

there being slavery in the Empire."

A jagged line of lightning veered across the northern sky and he noticed it, turning to

stare in that direction. "How long has the sky been darkening?" he asked.

"For awhile now. Why?"

He bent over, scooped up his uniform shirt, and dragged it over his shoulders.

"We resent it, you know," she told him as she watched him button his shirt.

"Resent what?" he asked, his eyes still on the occasional lightning.

"Being brought here and enslaved to you men," she said. "Many of us are trying to find ways to stop the Retrievals."

"Us?" he queried, tucking the shirt into his leather uniform pants. He put his hands on his hips. "You mean the Resistance is trying to find ways to stop the Retrievals?" He did not want to entertain the notion—such as the one Lares Taborn had put into his mind—

that his woman could belong to the infamous group that was intent on driving him crazy

and destroying the world as he knew it.

"You say the word `Resistance' like it's evil. They are only trying to help their own."

"They play a deadly game." He cast another worried look toward the lightning in the distance.

"In what way?"

"In many ways, Bridget," he said with exasperation. "They think they can overturn a system of government that has been established for thousands of years. Under the

Empire, not only Rysalia, but also its neighbors, have flourished. After the Disruption, the

Tribes were scattered all over the galaxy." He swept his arm toward the forest. "There was no organized effort to get food, provide shelter, to defend themselves. There were no

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towns, no law; crime was rampant; murder and thievery, a way of life. Until a few men of

clear purpose banded together and formed the Tribunal."

She shook her head. "I know Rysalian history, Kam. The Brotherhood re-organized the

Tribunal from before the Disruption. Brotherhood by its own definition excludes women,

now, doesn't it?"

"Women have to be protected," he explained. "They are weaker than men; unable to defend themselves from harm and invading marauders."

"Saying that to a woman of Celtic ancestry will get you a swift kick in the family

jewels, Reaper. The Celts had women warriors far more savage than their men were. And

American Indian braves turned over their captives to the women of the tribe because the

women were better at torture. Even during the Afghanistan war, the tribesmen let their

women have Russian prisoners to torment."

"I know how well women can torture a man, Bridget," he said quietly. "I have

experienced it first hand."

Bridget looked away. "That is not what I meant."

"The Brotherhood brought law and order to the tribes, Bridget. At least give them

credit for that. They made provisions for their womenfolk, too, and established schools

for the children. Civilization was re-born from the ashes of the Disruption."

"So they've only done good in your world?"

He shook his head. "No, it hasn't always been good, but you should know what

absolute power left unchecked can do. Your world learned that during your Gulf War."

"I won't argue that with you." She came to her knees before him. "Kamerone, your world is much worse than mine has ever been. Even in 1968 when it looked as though the

entire planet would explode! Here, at the same time, Jarl was designing that insidious

little retrovirus so that those few men of clear purpose could rule their little corner of the universe. Not improve it, mind you, or bring civilization to it, but to dominate it. Isn't that what they are called: The Brotherhood of the Domination? Is that not government run

amok, Kam? Government left unchecked?"

"Aye, I see your point."

"And when the women of your world became sterile, when your scientists threw up

their hands and said they guessed they'd made a terrible mistake, where were the next

generation of Rysalian warmongers going to come from? Not Chale. Not Ionary. Not

Serenia or Chrystallus or Virago or Diabolusia. Nor from Necroman or Oceania." She

shook her head. "That damned virus made sure of that!"

"I know, but—"

"So you came to
my
little corner of the universe: a place you had no goddamned right to be!" she said bitterly. "You stole from
my
world. You took from
my
world and you brought
our
women here against their will. You bought and sold them and used them like breeding sows. You kidnapped our brightest, prettiest scientists and physicians, regardless

of whether or not that woman had a husband, a family she left behind to always wonder

what terrible fate had befallen her. You took
our
best to re-populate
your
world and those you could not breed or who had no skills, you used as domestic help or as common

trollops for your lower caste warriors!"

"All that is true," he agreed, "but that is the way life is here. I have no more say in how things are done here than you do."

"What happens when a half-Terran, half-Rysalian female is created? It is vacuumed out

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of its mother's womb and tossed in the incinerator because some faceless male bureaucrat

deemed it useless!"

"That is enough," he said, uneasy with her argument. It sounded too much like

Resistance babble. "I don't want to hear anymore about this."

"Can't you understand how terrible a thing it is to be used like that, Kam?" she asked quietly. "How terrified I felt when I looked up and saw that cybot leaning over me. How

degraded and humiliated I felt when I was paraded naked before a committee of Breeders

who decided the Empire would best be served if I was handed over to the Ministry of

Behavioral Modification instead of going to the pens?"

"I said that's enough, Bridget." He turned to stare at the lightning that had crept closer as they spoke. A dark scowl formed on his face. "There is a storm coming."

"You'd better believe there is," Bridget agreed. "The Resistance—"

"I mean weather-wise," he snapped.

"What if I should conceive, Kamerone?" The quiet question gained his full attention.

"Have you thought of that?"

He looked at her for a moment then turned away. "You must not allow that to happen."

"That's easier said than done. I am fertile. Tests were done when Kon—"

His head jerked around and his hand came up to keep her from finishing her sentence.

"Don't you
dare
," he warned, his eyes flashing,

Bridget bit her lip, watching him as he turned back to the study the increasing flashes

of lightning on the horizon.

"You know that I love you," she said softly.

"I know."

"Don't you want me to have your child?"

"You can't."

"Why not?"

He sighed deeply, put his hands on her shoulders and shook her gently. "Because I am

a Reaper, Bridget. My seed is tainted; virulent with the spores of a parasite that makes

others of my kind. Every child conceived of my sperm is infected with it. Any egg

carrying female DNA is automatically devoured by the parasite." He searched her eyes.

"Do you want your child to be born a monster like his father?"

"You are not a monster."

"I am the closest thing to it on my world or yours." He looked over his shoulder as the wind kicked up and blew his hair across his eyes. "The winds have shifted and we have to go. Rysalian windstorms can be deadly." He reached for the mini Vid-Com on his utility

jacket. "Cree to engineering."

There was only a crackle of static.

"Cree to engineering. Two to transport to FSK-14."

Once more the crackle of static was the only sound from the Vid-Com.

"We've waited too long." He looked about them and looked for the dense darkness

beyond the trees he had discovered earlier. "There is a cave beyond the oaks. We'll shelter there until the storm passes."

"I don't like storms," Bridget said soberly as they began their trek toward the cave.

"Thunder and lightning terrify me."

"You'd better learn to like them because we've got a serious one on the way."

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FIRE SNAPPED in the dried twigs he had found. Outside, the wind howled fiercely

against the cave's entrance. Murderous cracks of lightning and the ominous reverberation

of thunder shook the cave walls and rumbled beneath their feet as Cree and Bridget sat

huddled around the meager light of the small fire.

"How long do you think it will last?"

Cree was watching the last flickering afterglow from a lightning hit close by. His gaze

was uneasy, worried, and he shrugged his answer without speaking.

Bridget pulled his utility jacket closer around her shoulders. "Will we have to spend

another night here?"

She saw him shudder. "I pray to the gods we do not. One night was enough."

"Do you really do that?"

The Reaper turned his attention from the cave's entrance to her. "Do what?"

"Pray?"

He grunted and looked away again. "It is just an expression. If any gods exist, they

exist only in your little corner of the Universe." He shuddered again.

"Are you cold?"

"Not at all," he stressed. "If anything, I am too warm." He swung his head around and fixed her with a demanding look. "Move away from me."

"You don't want me to sit next to you?" she asked, hurt.

"No, I do not." He fanned her way. "Go on; move."

Bridget pursed her lips tightly, but did as he ordered. Ever since they had entered the

cave the afternoon before, he had been getting more and more sharp with her; less and

less civil. He had lain down beside her the first night, holding her in his arms, but she

knew he had not slept; had not closed his eyes. When she had awakened that morning—

aching from a night on the hard ground and hungry—he had been watching her.

As he was watching her now, his eyes haunted and his mouth tight.

"If I didn't know any better," she said, "I'd think you didn't even want me in the cave with you."

"I wish to every deity in the megaverse that you were nowhere near me right now!" he hissed as he came to his feet.

His harsh words shocked Bridget. What had she done to anger him?

"I have
never
taken leave," he was mumbling to himself. "There was a
reason
I had never taken leave." He paced the small area in front of the fire, repeatedly running his hands through his dark curls. "I never s
hould
have taken leave!"

"Then why did you?" she asked in a defensive voice.

"Because I wanted to please you!" His voice turned waspish. "I wanted to give you the sunshine. I wanted to give you the flowers and the grass and the trees and the gods-be-damned butterflies!"

Bridget blinked. "And now you regret bringing me here?"

"Aye, I regret it!" he thundered.

"Why?"

"Why?" he repeated with a snarl. "Why?! Not only am I AWOL now and will more

than likely pay for that with another session with your beloved Be-Mod 9 Unit, and I am

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damn, damn, damn!"

"What is wrong with you, Cree?" she asked, getting to her feet.

A brittle laugh escaped Kamerone Cree. "Wrong?" he questioned, snorting with

apparent disgust. "Everything is wrong, woman!"

She watched him wrap his arms around himself as though he were in terrible pain. He

was sweating profusely, his face slick with perspiration. Even as she watched, he put up

an arm to wipe away the sweat. He shuddered violently, then groaned deep in his throat.