"Is it true that you fed a party of Dragans to a rock-eating squorm? It's no more than they deserved; their bloodline has degenerated ridiculously in the last few years." Charlemagne shuddered artistically. "We Jaguars, however, practice the old ways to keep ourselves strong."

"It appears to have worked admirably, " Dylan said politely. I had coached him on the civil mode briefly on the trip over.

"Yes, I'd say it did. Ah, here we are." Charlemagne waved a hand at the banquet laid out for us on tables along the wall. "Help yourself to whatever you wish; I don't want it said that I gave you only a leftover buttered bun."

For the sake of politeness, and staying out of trouble, I responded as if I took his statement only at face value, and in the civil mode. "I would never say that of you."

He laughed and turned aside as the door opened. What appeared to be a small regiment of women entered, as if in formation, with Messallina in the lead.

The matriarch of Pride Jaguar went directly to Dylan to greet him. She drew him aside as soon as he had filled his plate, and even chose a few sweets for him, a mark of great favor. "I've been reviewing your bloodline, and I must tell you that your family's genetic contribution to the pride has been strong. We are proud of the descendants of David Geronimo. I, myself, am descended from that line through Linnaea, his great-granddaughter."

"I would not have presumed to comment, if you hadn't brought it up, but you bear a striking resemblance to my aunt Claudia," Dylan replied. He caught my eye when she looked away, but I shook my head. I was not about to rescue him from what he so richly deserved for having claimed kinship with a genealogically attentive matriarch.

"Really?" Messallina looked immensely pleased. "You know, it's been said that I look like Brunhilde, Linnaea's mother. Would you care to view some of our historical family pictures ..."

"So." Charlemagne stood next to me again, sipping wine from a cup. "Would you be willing to place a bet on how long it will be before your captain is taken away by one or more of my cousins? There appears to be enough of him to go around." He tilted his head toward a group of women who stood a few feet away from Dylan, who appeared to be sizing him up. "My bet's on Portia to be the first."

"No bet at all." I finished the tasty bit of something on bread and picked up another. "What have you heard from elsewhere across the galaxy?"

"Rumors only, but it seemed a good idea to do this now." He scanned the room. "I believe my youngest sisters would like to speak with you as well. You've met Boudicca, of course. Ygraine, Morgan, this is Tyr Anasazi."

Ygraine and Morgan were twins, possibly identical, with the same interesting red-and-gold hair as Boudicca. They looked a few years younger, but were by no means children. One can tell these things by scent if nothing else, and like the pears in Trance's garden they smelled ripe for picking.

"I will speak with him first," Boudicca said quietly. She led me to an adjoining room, where she gestured for me to sit down on a long couch, next to a table that held a pitcher and cups.

"I'm told you prefer your speech blunt, though I believe I saw otherwise on your ship," she said. She sat next to me, within the zone of friendship but outside that of intimacy. "Shall I be brief? I know war is coming. I know we may not survive." She lowered her head, and when she raised it again I saw tears in her eyes. "I have not yet taken a husband, only lovers, and I want children."

"You have lost someone, haven't you?" I asked her. I knew the look in her eyes; I had seen it in my own mirror, often enough, the first few years after my family was slaughtered.

Boudicca nodded. "Too many, to the Dragans, to the Magog. Once I had six brothers and eight sisters; now I have two of each, that's all." Her eyes were hazel, with gold in the center, and they almost glowed. "I think you would give me children that would help to rebuild the pride after the war. And I think any child that we created would be very beautiful."

"What of the formalities?" I had to ask; such naked honesty as hers required equal honor from me. "I cannot join Sabra-Jaguar Pride. I cannot live with you as husband and father, or help you bring up children until this war against the Magog is over and my own future is settled. And I have other obligations, to a shieldbrother." I thought of Harper's face on the bridge as we left, as he carefully put aside his feelings to smile at me.

"I'm aware of all this. As my brother may have told you, we follow the older ways; we bring good genetic material into the pride consciously, rather than only marrying among ourselves." She laid her hand on mine and traced a pattern on the back with a fingertip, the shape of a flower known for its receptiveness. "Also, I think my brother wants to ensure that his family will have a bit greater protection against the Magog."

Of course. It made abundant sense.

"We have about four hours," I told her. "Where would you like to begin?"

Her hand slid up my arm and across my chest to curve her fingers in my hair as she pulled me to her for a kiss.

"Well, sleepyhead," Beka greeted me on my first shift back on Andromeda more than two days later. "They must have put you and Dylan through quite a lot of hospitality."

"The Jaguars are known for their generosity," I told her. "You'd be surprised."

"I guess I would. Dylan's still a bit wobbly too, though I don't think I've seen him bumping into walls." She finished the drill she was preparing and pressed the controls to reset them. "You two look like you've been on a hell of a bender."

"Let's just say the exigencies of diplomacy can, at times, be all-encompassing."

"I know what that means," Harper piped up. He crawled out from under an open panel in the back. "You partied hearty and now you know it." His face looked carefully neutral.

"Well, all I can tell you is it was a good thing Dylan called to let me know everything was well, because my finger was getting a little itchy on that button." Beka frowned. "How was I to know you were going to be wined and dined until you couldn't walk straight?"

I shrugged mildly. "We usually only share that sort of formal hospitality with our own people. This was a great honor for Dylan."

"And for you?"

"Hey, war is hell, or so they tell me. Personally, I think hell is hell and war is war and you shouldn't get the damned things mixed up, you know?" Harper picked up his tools, intent on his work. "Beka, try that again. It should be working better. Rommie?"

The ship's voice spoke. "I don't know how to tell you this, Harper, but it itches."

"You're not supposed to know what an itch is, let alone ask me to scratch it. No, I take that back. Let me rephrase." He dived back under the panel, out of sight.

I did not have to look at my arm to feel the new tattoo. The Jaguars had, indeed, held to the older ways, and employed tattoos rather than armbands that could be lost or broken. It could only be seen under ultraviolet light, but that made it no less real. I wore the double helix again. This time, however, I had not married only Boudicca but her two younger sisters, and had tried my best to get them all with child; pregnancy is something our women can discern almost immediately. My feelings about this were mixed, at best, but I would not have undone it; I knew my bloodline would continue, and my children would bear the genetic stamp of my Kodiak ancestry into the future, whatever that might be.

I had also, in a brief but apparently arranged encounter on the second day, spent pleasurable time with both Charlemagne and Paris, whom Charlemagne favored as a successor to leadership and whom he wanted to have the highest degree of protection against the Magog. Paris was, as Charlemagne had promised, well educated and a treasure in bed; he had served Charlemagne with his mouth as I filled him, and I would long remember the view of Charlemagne's sculptured muscles moving as he leaned forward to kiss me hard over Paris's back.

When I returned to the ship, I reported immediately to the med deck, where Trance pronounced me in fine shape, except for exhaustion. I'd told her to be sure to check on Dylan, and she assured me that he was in the next room waiting for her, but had fallen asleep. Her smile went triangular and wickedly humorous.

Dylan came on deck, and I smiled.

"Glad to be back to work, Tyr?"

"I found it an interesting interlude."

"It was that, indeed." Dylan yawned. "You must tell me more about Nietzschian customs when you have time; I think I'm going to need to know these things."

In the lift, later, I asked him, "How many?"

"Three the first day, four the second, I think."

"Messallina must think very highly of you. You do realize that this is unprecedented since the time of Witchhead."

"I gathered that. And I'm aware of the irony involved."

I brushed against his arm and he winced slightly.

"You married them? All of them?" I checked the swollen section of his arm; it was at least twice as long as mine, with all seven repetitions of the double helix. I shook my head. "Dylan, Dylan, when will you ever learn?"

"Let's just say it sounded good at the time. Besides, you got married, too."

"I only married the three sisters, though. I did not marry the five cousins or the matriarch's favorite great-granddaughter."

"You're kidding."

"Do I look as if I were kidding?"

"You never do."

"I'll tell Beka to take it easy on you tonight," I told him as the lift doors opened and he got out.

"Thanks ... what?"

I nodded to him, smiled and went to the next floor.

Harper was busy.

Not only that, but he was busy in Workshop Five, which was locked against anyone but himself. I found that out by testing the lock -- it didn't matter how -- with Beka's and Trance's codes and coming up dry.

Andromeda materialized next to me. "I thought you'd learned by now that some things aren't for you."

"For someone who's intent on invading other's privacy, you have an interesting view of secrets." I moved on down the hall.

"Secrets are what you make of them. Oh, by the way, nice tattoo." She shimmered into nothingness.

I had almost become resigned to sleeping alone again -- the empty bed felt like a vast country -- when Harper showed up at my door carrying a bottle of wine and two glasses.

"What are we drinking to?"

"Oh, I don't know. My health? Your return? Dylan walking bow-legged for the past two days?"

"Oh?" I counted hours; we'd been back from the Jaguars for four days. "Let me guess: Beka?"

"Yep. She cornered him in his quarters and told him that if he was going to provide his services to the entire Nietzschian fleet he should start with a little generosity at home first." He smirked. "I could hear them from two floors away"

"Well, it's about time. They've been dancing around each other far too long."

Harper was opening the wine. He kept his eyes on the bottle as he poured. "Won't that make a problem for him, being married to the Jaguars now?"

"No more than for me."

"Yeah." He handed me a glass. "I was wondering about that, myself." He leaned back against the wall, his arms crossed casually, the wine glass in one hand.

I took a deep drink; the wine tasted cool in my throat, slightly acidic. "By our laws I cannot ally myself with a woman from any other pride, although I may, at my whim, take lovers or concubines when I am not in the presence of my wives."

"Wives. Hoo-ooo. You do look a little ragged around the edges. How many? Are they pretty? Do you think they'd like a pet? I'm housebroken. I can prove it." Was he joking? I had to be more tired than I realized; I couldn't tell.

"Three; Charlemagne's sisters. They're beautiful." I handed him a holo they'd given me, the sisters shown posing as if they were the classical Three Graces from an ancient art work. "Trust me, you'd never survive them."

"Oh, but I'd die happy, I know I would." Harper handed the holo back. "So. Does that include shieldbrothers, or should I just sit by the side of the road and watch you ride off into the multimatrimonial sunset?"

"I'm here, aren't I?" I sat on the bed, stretched out and sipped the wine. "I have not left the Andromeda."

"There's a war on. Of course you'd be here."

"True." I watched him, seeking his real feelings under the layers of protective emotion. "At some point I will bring my wives here, or I will go there, or I might bring back Kodiak Pride if I can find a home for it. Probably not his ship, though; I think Charlemagne would prefer that I start another pride over here, if only to lower the risk of temptation."

I had been thinking aloud; I should not have said that. Harper turned his back to me and stared at the bookshelf.

"How's Dylan going to feel about you bringing three wives aboard?"

I shrugged. "They can keep his wives company. He has -- was it two or three of them? No, I think it was seven." At Harper's turn and gasp, I added, "It's that High Guard sense of honor -- he felt he had to marry them."

"You mean he didn't have to and he did anyway?" Harper slapped his hand against his head, as if to knock his brains loose. "What a guy. What a guy. Same deal as you, though, right?" His eyes went round. "Dylan can't exactly claim Beka as a shieldbrother, can he?"

"Is Beka the type to settle down?"

"No, but she can be possessive. I remember the time she caught me and Trance and this blackjack dealer in the back room -- "

I set my wine aside and put a hand on his arm, which trembled under my touch. "Are you going to spend the whole night talking?"

"I ... thought that's what you wanted."

"What I want with you requires no words at all." I took his wine glass and set it next to mine. "Unless it is something you do not want?"

"I'm not sure that what I want matters at all," Harper said, his tone almost as bitter as his words.

I let my hand drop from his arm. It felt as though someone had cast a tight net around my heart, making it impossible for it to beat without pain. As calmly as I could, as quietly as I could, I asked, "What do you want?"

"You know, I'm not even sure." Harper sat on the edge of the bed, leaning on his arms, but stared across the room at the blank wall. "I mean, I know it's your business, what you do with the other Nietzschians, and you have to do what will benefit you most ..."

I lay back a little, giving him space, trying not to watch him so hard that it would keep him from speaking. My lungs twinged, as they had when the water rose aboard the Maru when I lay strapped to the metal cot while he wore the only working survival suit and breathing apparatus. When I closed my eyes, however briefly, I saw the water rising around me again in the cold darkness. I forced my eyes open, concentrating on his voice.

"And I respect that. I understand that. You have to survive; you're the last Kodiak. You have to have wives and children. I understand that. I know that." His voice broke off.

"And?" I said, after a long silence.

"And all of this matters, and it doesn't matter, and I just can't sort it out." His face turned toward me now, and I saw how reddened his eyes had become, though I had heard no crying. He was still trying to be rational, to follow logic regardless of its effect. I wanted to take him in my arms but could not. I waited to hear him out.

"So much has happened. I wanted you to talk to me about what was happening," he whispered. "I wanted you to tell me you were going over there to marry Charlemagne's sisters. I would've sent you off with a party. Hell, I would've given you the best party I know how to do. You deserve it. But I didn't know. I thought you were over there getting hacked into little pieces, until Dylan called back to tell Beka things were good and she shouldn't blow up the Jaguar ship." He picked up a glass, drained the wine, and set it down again.

"I am sorry for that," I said, as steadily as I could. "I could not contact you from there, but I should have spoken beforehand. To be honest, I did not know what would result from my going there, or from Dylan accompanying me. But I should have talked to you and told you about our customs."

"Customs. Oh, right. Like it's normal to get laid a dozen times or more before a battle. I wish."

"It was an honor for them to ask us. We would have violated the contract that Dylan and Charlemagne had made if we had not gone, and we would have done so again had we not accepted every form of hospitality that was offered." I willed the rising waters away, though they seemed to persist just beyond the edge of my vision. "Had I not slept with Charlemagne's three sisters, and every other female there who wanted me, I would have been killed on the spot."

"Would you?" He turned to look at me, his face still sober, still uncharacteristically quiet. "Did you even think of me while you were there, or is that another question I shouldn't ask? We never said we were exclusive, and I don't care about that. That's not what this is about. But you didn't talk to me. You left me out, when I've been trying so hard to be there for you."

I dared to reach a hand out to touch his hand, and he allowed it. "I thought of you," I said. "I thought of how you must have felt to see me leave without a chance to talk. I thought of how you might feel when you found out I had become a husband and father without speaking to you about it. I thought of how you would feel when you learned that I had not spent my time only with the women of the Jaguar Pride. And I thought that, when we returned, I would be able to indulge myself in talking with you, because no one on that ship was able to tell me stories or make me laugh as you always do."

"Why didn't you talk to me when you got back? I know, you were exhausted, yadda yadda. But it's been two days since you went back on duty." His voice sounded hard. "I had to find out you were married from Trance. At least she was nice about it." He picked up the empty glass and toyed with it.

"I tried to find you," I said earnestly. "I went to Workshop Five, looking for you."

"I saw your face when you left. I didn't think you were coming back. Do you have any idea what it's been like, waiting to find out if you were alive or not?" He pushed himself away from the wall and stalked across the room and back. "And now? You're married. Dylan's married. Beka's got him but that's her problem. What are we, you and I?"

I bowed my head before his voice. "We are whatever you want us to be. I want us still to be shieldbrothers, still to be ... lovers ... but I will not hold you against your will."

"Lovers. Is that what we are." Harper shook his head. "I'm sorry. I'm not doing as well as I expected. I should go." He started to pull his hand away.

"Please."

"What?"

"Please stay."

"Why?" The word burst from him. "Why should I? I was ready to celebrate being well again, and then I was terrified that I'd lost you forever and I'd have to go attack the Jaguars and get killed." His fist clenched at his side, and his fingers tightened on the stem of the glass. He set it aside, and it clattered a little against the table. "And when you get back I have to find out from Trance that you've gotten married to three Nietzschian babes in some political scheme. You didn't think enough of me to tell me yourself."

I was no longer concerned about propriety, or about privacy, though I'd asked Andromeda to consider my quarters as off limits to all surveillance but the most limited life-detection. I could not stand to see him tear himself apart like this, and know it was my fault.

The words clogged my throat, as if my heart had moved there and would not let them past. "I spent two days among people I cannot trust, spreading myself as widely as possible because it was the right thing to do politically. I did not have a moment to myself when I did not have to remember where I was, and who I was, and think about who might be around the next corner. I cannot trust my wives; they do not know me. I cannot trust any of those who shared my body there; they may be allies but they are not ... friends."

"And I thought you liked it." His voice was quieter, less strained, but still distant.

I shook my head, waved a hand, tried to break the wall that stopped my words. "Only a fool would have denied them. And they are beautiful; I won't say otherwise. They are beautiful and intelligent and clever and wise. I lay with women until I could do no more, and slept, and when I woke there were more women to feed me and attend my comfort until I was able to serve them again, and again, and again. And there was Charlemagne, and his favorite."

"And Dylan was somewhere else, doing the same thing." The clouds were clearing from his eyes.

"Should I lie and tell you it was not enjoyable? Should I tell you how it felt to have woman after woman, each of them desperate for a child in case I might not survive the war? Or to be asked by Charlemagne to attend personally to his successor?" I wrenched myself away from the memory of that long pale back before me, the narrow hips working, the muscles enclosing me, the sounds we made as I fucked Paris and Paris sucked Charlemagne. "I won't lie about that. Nietzschians were made to find pleasure in sexual union, regardless of the circumstances. We were genetically engineered so that pain becomes a stimulus to further pleasure -- and I violate every custom of my people in telling you that." My voice shook. "It does no good to beat a Nietzschian, as my owner on Kotyra learned; it only makes us harder."

The wall in my throat crumpled; I turned away lest I ruin myself entirely by giving way to the emotions that racked me. But his hands found their way into my hair and pulled me close, and he held my face against his belly as the sobs broke me.

He said nothing more. His arms wrapped around my shoulders, and I held him as if he were my last hope of sanity. Perhaps he was. How strange my life had become, that living with my own kind had brought me to a point where I could only find ease in the arms of a man who had nothing in common with me except the will to survive.

I started to speak again, but his fingers on my lips stopped me. "Enough." He pushed me back against the bed and I went, pulling him with me, and suddenly it was not enough to feel his weight on me. I wanted the touch of his skin. I yearned for it the way the plants in Trance's garden yearned for the light to sustain them.

His hands reached out to strip me, and I pulled his clothes from him. When we joined, his kiss opened me, as if my heart were connected to my mouth, and I rolled him over and went down on him so quickly he could not stop me, needing him, needing to taste him in my throat and know he was there, know it was him and no one else. He yielded to me at first, but pushed me back as soon as he could and worked his way down my body, licking and kissing, rubbing muscles stiff with emotion and warming himself on me. I curled around him, reaching, nibbling, until I found my target, and he whimpered and writhed with pleasure as my tongue parted him, circled, teased, pushed, teased again. When his fingers entered me I moaned aloud -- please -- yes -- please -- and gave myself over to him as I could not give myself in all that time on the Jaguar ship.

And he took me. He shoved my thighs apart and opened me, as I braced myself against the wall, and he pushed my back down so that the angle was better for him, and he took me over. He felt solid in me, so hard, so -- right -- and he filled me and rode me steadily, rock solid, without brutality but without mercy, striking the gland with each stroke so that I whimpered and cried and shook as he moved, on and on. I had already been hard; this made me titanium steel, and wet with need, and he reached around my ribs to slide his hand over and around me and grip tight, his hand moving in counterpoint to the rhythm of his hips, the slap of his belly against my back. I felt his crescendo take him as he speeded up, pounding me, opening me beyond anywhere I'd been with any lover I'd ever taken or been taken by, and my mind went blank as my body convulsed under him, around him, as the bed came up to meet me and fire washed over my skin and through every muscle and bone.

I felt my lungs move. One of my braids brushed the end of my nose; it tickled a little. I could not move a muscle to flick it away. Harper lay on me, filling me still, covering me with his body like a blanket. All that told me he was alive was the constant small pulse of his cock within me, still moving a little, still hard.

My eyebrow rose of its own accord as I turned my head. His face lay against my shoulder as he watched me.

"I'm not done yet. You ready for round two? Two for you, one for me." His voice sounded husky in my ear. "I told you that I'd have no mercy on your ass."

I knew I would feel it later on, as the leather trousers rubbed against me. I didn't care.

"I deserve none," I whispered. "All that I am is yours."

This time he moved more slowly, steadily but without speed, so the sensations washed over me, but I knew I was not drowning alone. He leaned against my back, skin on skin, little movements inside nudging my gland, sending electric ripples through me, charges that began to accumulate slowly. The longer he went, the slower he moved, so that toward the end I could feel every micron of him as he moved, every tremor -- I would have sworn I felt every corpuscle in his blood as it flowed in him, in me. The edge came slowly, steadily, and this time he came with me as we collapsed together.

"You talk to me," he said. Although I could barely hear him, I knew it wasn't a request and in spite of the lack of honorifics was spoken in the most formal mode possible. "You talk to me about what's going on with us. I don't want to get that mad again. I felt so left out. I wanted to beat down the door, but you weren't here. I would've put my hand through a wall at one point if Trance hadn't come along and stopped me." He sighed. "I don't like to feel like that. It makes me mad, and I know I can't take you in a fight."

"Seamus Zelazny Harper, if ever I give you cause for that anger again, and you want to beat me, I will let you." I whispered. I doubted he ever would. I could not imagine him willingly flicking a lash, but a year earlier I would not have imagined him creating the weapon that destroyed a thousand Nietzschian ships at Witchhead. It was a good thing there were no gods; I would have had to credit them with far too much of a sense of humor.

"Ah, you'd just get off on it."

"It's not the most pleasant experience." The last wall I could feel inside myself started to crack.. It started to crumble. "It takes a while for the pain to transmute, and release brings no ease."

"I'll keep it in mind. You notice I'm not granting you the same right, not because I don't have the same opportunities as you but because you'd find it too easy."

Did he really think it would be an easy thing for me to strike him? I had threatened it in the past, when I was angry, and each time the unease on his face had stopped me. The last time I'd seen that look of vulnerability had been when he tried to thank me for making sure he had the breathing apparatus aboard the damaged Maru, and I had brushed aside his thanks roughly; the physical memory of my fear as the waters rose around me and of knowing I would die alone then and there was too great for me to allow myself to accept anyone's gratitude for it.

"I would not find it easy at all," I murmured. "Now, I could kill you if I had to, but I'd give you a painless death."

"That's all right, though. I can respect that, and appreciate it." He chuckled once, a wordless sound that held sarcasm as well as affection. "I don't even really care about the marriage thing, you know. It's the not talking that hurt."

I rolled over to face him, our bodies still touching all the way down. "I thought you knew about battle mating, from where you've been before."

"Are you kidding? I never even saw Nietzschian women except at trading stations, where they ignored me, or the time when Charlemagne's pissed-off duchess Elssbett was here." His lips brushed mine. "I guess they're not all like that, are they."

"Many are, but not all." I recalled my time with Boudicca and her sisters. "Boudicca, I think, was different. She knew what she wanted, and what she could offer me, and she gave as much as she could. If I had said no she would not have taken it personally. Ygraine and Morgan were younger; they would not have taken enough lovers yet to have achieved the necessary emotional distance."

"So you always have to keep that distance? Sheesh."

I could not help the sigh that escaped from me. "No. Had Kodiak Pride survived, had I married within it or within one of the affiliated clans within other prides, it would be different." I did not speak of trust; naming the matter was unnecessary. "As it is ..."

His hands, which had held me so roughly, smoothed me in long sweeps from shoulders to knees. "It is what it is. And we are what we are."

"Whatever we are." Was I crying? My face felt wet, slightly chilled in the cool air of the room. I could not remember starting to weep.

"Whatever we make ourselves. Whatever we want to be." He brushed the tears away softly.

"You sound like a Nietzschian."

"Yeah. Surprising, isn't it?"

I laid my head on his shoulder. "I am so sorry, Seamus."

"But you're here. That counts."

I knew he was still in pain that I could not assuage, despite his best effort to make me sore. It made me wish he had beaten me, selfish as the thought was; with the exhaustion I'd endured, my body would have taken longer to transmute physical punishment, and it would have made me feel that I was paying in some way for having hurt him so badly. Undoubtedly, we would hurt one another again, without trying; I hoped for his sake it would not be soon. Neither of us could see the future well enough for gambling to become certainty.

I could not disavow my marriage or my wives; to do so would be un-Nietzschian. I could not deny the place that Harper had found in my life or my growing need for him to stay with me, in that place, as if we had our own small haven that none could harm. How foolish it had been of me, to think that nothing we could do would ever hurt each other.

The next morning when I showed up in the galley, Trance took one look at me and sent me to med deck. Beka seconded the move and told Dylan, through Andromeda, that I did not look well.

"I'm fine," I said, as civilly as possible. "Let me just do my work." In truth, I felt a little stiff and sore, but nothing more.

"I might have missed something the other day," Trance said. "Please, Tyr. We need you healthy."

"I'm fine."

"It will only take five minutes," she insisted, her hand on my arm.

I tried to shake her off, but Dylan arrived and planted himself in front of me. He looked very little better than I did.

"Go to med deck, Tyr," he said. "This shouldn't be a big deal."

"Right. You need to be there more than I do." I flicked my eyes from him to Beka and back, and watched them lift their chins defensively in unison. That certainly made the situation crystalline.

"He's right," Beka said unexpectedly, as she scanned Dylan with the laser gaze she usually reserved for malfeasant shopkeepers. "We've got a few hours. Go."

"Okay, okay." Dylan plastered a simulated grin on his face and got out of my way. "Beka, let me know if anything happens. We're not meeting with the Enochian delegation until tomorrow, right?"

"Yes, at Denali Station. You've got twenty-four, no, twenty-eight standard hours to get back into perfect condition for negotiations."

As if by accident, Dylan's eyes met mine and we both groaned softly.

"Now, now." Trance chivvied us into med deck, sorted us into adjoining beds and started her scans. It seemed to take her much longer than usual. She frowned and tried again.

"Tyr." Dylan was leaning up on one elbow. "Just as a thought, was there anything in particular that we were supposed to do at the end of that little diplomatic session to help, um, recover?"

"You think I'd know? I've lived outside my people's culture for half of my life, and when I was within it I was hardly old enough for that level of diplomacy."

"Well, it seems to me that we might have been missing something." He noticed Trance's frown. "What are you finding?"

She tapped the scanner with a mauve fingertip, as if the motion would change the reading. "You both seem to be suffering from an extreme shortage in trace minerals, and your electrolyte balance is wildly off." Her eyes opened wide as she talked; I knew she wasn't that much of an innocent, but perhaps the look would fool Dylan. "Perhaps your recent activities have been more of a strain on your systems than you expected. I can synthesize a booster for you but it'll take a few minutes."

"Do it, please," I asked her. "I'm not fond of feeling like a mewling child."

"Oh, Tyr, you're not mewling. You've just toned down your roar." Annoying purple girl. She went off to work on the booster and I lay back down, trying to remember whether there were any ceremonial foods missing from Charlemagne's banquet.

I had almost drifted off when she put the sprayer against my neck. Almost immediately I felt as if I'd drunk a liter of kaffe, straight. My eyes flew open. "Trance, could you identify which plants might supply those substances to us in our food? I'm curious to know what they're found in."

She nodded as she treated Dylan. "I can look it up."

"You think this is something we could have avoided by munching down more before we left Bolivar's ship?' Dylan asked.

"It's possible. Certainly, our failure to do so will probably earn us interesting reputations among the Jaguars for virility and stamina." I pushed myself up to a sitting position and turned toward him. "However, it would be wise to know what to eat next time to maintain those reputations. After all, you have seven wives to provide for now."

"Treaty wives," he corrected me. Behind him, Trance raised an eyebrow. " Seven treaty wives. I'm not required to live there all the time or give up the Andromeda, am I?"

"No, not at all. You are required to share yourself equitably with all of them when you and they are in residence, though." I snorted mildly. "There's a reason I only married the Bolivar sisters."

"Trance? You think you could figure out that food thing really soon?"

"Sure thing, Dylan. Do you want me to post something in the galley to remind you what to eat?"

"Um, no, thanks. Just let me know and tell Tyr, and we'll work something out." I swung my legs down and stood, feeling immensely better than when I'd come in. "Does this mean you're nominating me ship's chef, or is this something I'm supposed to volunteer for? I warn you, I'm not prepared to take on another job without an increase in salary."

"I'll take that under advisement," Dylan said. He stood, stretched, and started back toward the bridge.

Trance stood nearby, watching him leave. "I'm glad to know it wasn't just Beka doing that to him. I know she's been, well, horny lately, but even she wouldn't wear someone out that quickly."

"Well, he is more than 300 years old," I reminded her. "You know what they say about age and recovery time."

"I know what they say about age and experience," she countered, "which leaves you second- best."

"In your dreams, little goddess."

"Oh, Tyr, what an un-Nietzschian thing to say." Her eyes snapped open, then half-closed warily.

"What?" I drew back, annoyed. "It's a joke. Doesn't anyone besides Harper think I have a sense of humor?"

"Of course you do," she soothed, instantly herself again. If I hadn't seen that suspicious look, I might have thought it imaginary.
 

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