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swallow; he was shivering with cold, his teeth clattering so hard he had to clamp his jaw

tight to keep from biting his tongue. When he opened his eyes, he found Bridget bent

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over him, covering his naked chest with a blanket.

"You have a fever," she told him, feeling his forehead. "Sometimes the synthetic neurotransmitter does that." A wet cloth seemed to materialize out of nowhere and she ran it over his flushed face. "That's a good sign, though."

"W...why?" he managed to ask.

"It means you're flushing the drug out of your system more quickly." She wrinkled her nose. "But it does give off a rather rancid odor as you sweat."

He could smell that `rather rancid odor' of which she spoke and thought it had to be the

vilest stench he had ever encountered. He fairly reeked of it and with his senses

heightened from the drugs they were forcing into him, he was acutely ashamed of the

way he smelled. Not even a Serenian tugmyte smelled as gods-be-damned bad as the

aroma clinging to his body.

"They will bring you some food," she said.

Food was the last thing he either wanted or needed. What he wanted was a bath. What

he needed was to be set free. What he was going to get was more pain and torment.

Bridget turned to leave but he stopped her with a near-shout of anxiety.

"Don't go!" he called out. "Don't leave me again, Bridget!"

"I can't stay, but I'll be back with them when they come for you at thirteen hundred

hours."

And they had been on time.

Fangs...water...noose...fire....falling.

Sweet merciful Alel, why wouldn't she come for him?

THE SUPPER had been watery, tasteless broth, weak tea, and a gelatin without

noticeable flavor: some Terran concoction that wiggled when he poked at it.

The syn-neu had made him twitch and grunt all night, his third without either sleep or

the triso to which he was acutely addicted. When they came for him the next morning, he

was utterly exhausted, too weak to move on his own and too keyed-up to even react to

what was happening to him.

Until the nightmare began again.

On the third day, he had frozen to death on a frigid tundra where no other living soul

had ever walked or drawn breath. She had tried to help him; he had actually touched her

precious hand before sinking down into the snow, falling beneath the ice as his

extremities turned black with frostbite, then fell off, one by one. He had finally lain there, welcoming the cold, whispering her name, knowing they would not let her help him.

Knowing that, yearning for her as he did, he allowed the cold to have him for it had put

out the fire that had claimed him earlier.

On the fourth day, he had been crushed beneath layers of blocks tumbling down on him

from an exploding building. She had knelt over him, frantically trying to roll the rocks

away, calling his name, wanting him as no woman ever had. But then someone had jerked

her away, taken her from him even as he screamed out her name and he had gone down,

his body buried beneath smoking rubble.

On the fifth day, he had been poisoned. His belly had cramped so badly he thought it

would implode. She had come to him, held his head at he tried to vomit the poison from

his body.

"Hold on, beloved," she had cried, tears falling from her eyes. "I will find a cure."

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Not even the water that later came rushing down his lungs and into his belly could

wash away the poison as it spread through his system, taking his life, but it had swept her

away from him, her terrified eyes beseeching him to help her this time.

On the sixth day, he had become lost in a vast, arid wasteland where water and food

were only faint memories. He was searching for her, trying to find her, needing to hold

her as he had never been allowed to do. Scorpions and vipers struck at him and stung his

flesh, sank their fangs into his body as he stumbled through the sand. He fell, gasping for

air in the horrific heat, his tongue swollen, his eyes burning. She called to him from on

top of one of the burning dunes and he struggled to get up, to go to her, but the hunger

pangs and the great desire for water ended his existence before he could tell her what he

had come millions of miles through space to say.

On the seventh day, disease had riddled his body, growing inside him, festering, eating

away at his innards, spreading to every organ and every hidden niche within him. She had

sat at his bedside, caring for him, stroking his forehead and calling him her beloved. The

stench of his own rotting was so terrible, not even the fire could burn it away; the waters

wash it away; or the ice cold of the frozen tundra freeze it. But the stench had brought the

wild bloodbeasts to him faster, to feast on his decaying flesh.

On the eighth day, he had been electrocuted, his body convulsing as wave after wave

of electric current passed through him. She had been sitting in the gallery, watching them

strap him to the chair and she had been crying. Her eyes pleaded with him for forgiveness

for being a part of this and he yearned to tell her....

On the ninth day, he had been paralyzed then utterly destroyed with nerve gas. He had

alternated between choking and gasping, his lungs burning from the inside out. She had

not come to him and somehow he understood that his tormentors had saved her life for

some vile purpose of their own. He woke screaming: "why?"

On the tenth day, he suffocated beneath tons of sand as he dropped through an arid

desert floor. As the earth swallowed him up, he had screamed for her, but the sand had

flowed down his mouth, killing him.

She never came.

On the eleventh day, as he met his death in the black, airless voice of space, he saw her

passing by through the porthole of a giant white ship. He reached out to her, then

screamed in frustration as a faceless male enfolded her in his arms and pulled her from

the porthole.

"Bridget!"
he screamed, his body pulled farther and farther into the vacuum of space.

When he awoke, there was precious little left of the proud man who had been brought

into the Behavioral Modification Unit.

"CAPTAIN?" she asked as the orderlies unstrapped him. "How are you feeling, Sir?"

He looked groggily at her, barely recognizing her, but when he did, his voice was lost,

so terribly sad. "Why did you go with him?"

"Sir?" Bridget questioned, her brows drawing together. "Go with whom, Captain?"

The day before, he had screamed and screamed and screamed until they had had to gag

him. He could not remember why he had felt the need to scream. Not that it had helped. It

had only strained his throat. It hurt him to speak, so he stopped trying.

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Bridget put her hand on his shoulder. "Do you know who I am, Sir?"

He nodded, wishing she would never take her hand away. It was the only comfort he

had in this hellish world in which he was trapped. He turned his face so that his cheek

nestled her hand like a puppy seeking attention.

"Only two more days left, Captain," one of the orderlies remarked as they lifted him gently and placed him on the gurney. "That isn't so long."

Bridget removed her hand from his face and was surprised to see acute longing filling

his eyes as he gazed up at her. The helplessness, the pleading on his face had been

growing each day. He was beginning to depend on her for every scrap of humanity that

came his way and while that was exactly what they wanted; what they had hoped would

happen; it sickened her and made her feel unclean.

Dorrie waved her hand under her nose as the orderlies placed Cree on the treatment

table. "God Almighty, he stinks worse today than he did yesterday!"

Bridget looked down as Cree whimpered and they were all astonished to see his eyes

well with tears. A single tear eased from the corner of his right eye and fell down his

cheek.

"He's crying!" Dorrie gasped. "My God, the Iceman is actually crying!"

"Shut up!" Bridget snapped. She shoved the other woman out of the way. Before she

could say something to Cree, to apologize for the thoughtless remark, Dr. Dean was at the

table, being informed of what had happened. The Director nodded as though that were a

great accomplishment for the Reaper.

"Are you ready, Captain?" Dr. Dean asked, laying a hand on his bare shoulder.

Cree half-giggled at her question. What choice did he have? He was too weak to do

anything except lay there. There had been a time, several days back, when he had begun

to fight them. He had lashed out at the orderlies—blackening one's eye—and it had taken

eight Security guards to drag him to the treatment room; and all of the women, as well, to

lash him to the gods-be-damned table. Three days of that routine had taught him it was

useless to resist. Now, he couldn't have fought them if his life depended on it.

Dorrie moved to the table to check on the EKG band across his chest. He looked at her

and tried to smile, although she had never smiled at him. Barely looked at him, in fact.

Her hands were not gentle as Bridget's and she didn't smell as nicely as Bridget smelled.

Dorrie had an antiseptic smell that bothered him, but he needed comfort so badly at that

moment that he greeted her. "Good morning, Dorrie," he said softly.

Dorrie glanced at him with surprise. She took in the look on his face that hinted of a

man on the brink of madness. "Good morning," she mumbled.

"Let's get started, ladies," Dr. Dean said.

Bridget found Cree craning his neck to look up at her. She caught a fleeting look of

pleading and made a mental note to increase the sedative she had been secretly slipping

him in the syn-neu at night.

"Listen to me," she had told him on the evening of his fifth day. "I switched syringes and this one contains a mild sleep-inducer."

"They will know," he had protested, lowering his voice as she had. "Bridget, you can't.

They'll..."

"You need to sleep," she'd stated, cutting him off. "Make a fist."

"I can't let you..." he'd tried to say, but she had leaned down and shushed him with her fingertips.

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"You don't have a say in the matter," she'd insisted. "You need to sleep!"

He had been grateful. She had seen it in his eyes and she had wondered if he had ever

shown anyone gratitude in his entire life. She doubted that he had ever said thank you,

and if he had, actually meant it. She wasn't surprised when he didn't say it then.

"Bridie? Are you ready?"

"Yes." Bridget bent down to put the wedge between Cree's lips. She watched his eyes close in anticipation of what was to come.

NOOSE...FIRE...Disease...Poison...Space...Rocks...Cold...Water...Electricity...Desert...

Falling block...Suffocating sand...Fangs...Gas...
Drewe!

Bridget heard the moan of heart-rending agony trying to push free of the mouth she

held clamped together. It was a sound of mortal pain, of complete betrayal, of awful

agony being endured. She looked at the other women and saw tears in Dr. Dean's eyes,

something she didn't think she would ever see during reinforcement sessions.

"What he is experiencing now is the ultimate vulnerability," the woman in the gallery reported. "Since his first intense conditioning at age seven, he has been taught that there is an unbreakable bond among the warrior caste: a code by which the Elite must live.

Never in the history of these warriors has a Reaper been betrayed. He is finding that

premise to be somewhat erroneous."

Drewe was stabbing him. Over and over again, his dagger biting deep into Cree's

belly: ripping, tearing, slicing into the very essence of him.

"I am death, Cree!" Drewe told him. "I am your death!"

"Betrayal by those you consider to be your allies, those to whom you have entrusted

your life, is one of the worst agonies imaginable for a warrior. To have that person attack

and attempt to kill you, is a defeat so unexpected and shocking as to make you question

your own competence, your own ability to perceive the correctness of things," the woman

behind the siliplex stated.

"Flatline!" Dorrie shouted, snatching up a syringe and slapping it into Dr. Dean's hand.

"Die, traitor!" Drewe bellowed and his dagger pierced the very heart inside Kamerone
Cree's dying body.

Bridget's hand tensed on Cree's chin. He was sweating profusely and the stench had

become overpowering. She watched the others working on him, trying to jump-start his

heart as he was lifted and slammed repeatedly down upon the treatment table. "Hang in

there, Captain," she whispered in his ear. "Hang in there!"

"Stay with me, beloved!" She whispered to him. "Stay with me!"

"I don't have a pulse!" Tina shouted.

Bridget looked up, saw all the observers in the gallery standing, their hands pressed