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Toemeka woke with a jerk, still feeling the terror of her dream, and struggled to free herself from the skirt of her dress that was twisted around her body.

She shoved her tangled hair away from her face and placed her hand on her throbbing forehead, wondering where she was and if it was morning. The previous night¹s events were blurred from the point she'd eaten the koro. She vaguely remembered a man shooting Cadmus and forcing her into his spacecraft.

The room was dark except for the light coming from control buttons on a bisensory memory bank terminal that covered the whole side of one wall. Through a small porthole she could see distance stars and planets in the blackness of space. It appeared she was in a small space station.

She sat up and drew in a sharp breath. The man who had abducted her was asleep in a berth across from hers. Her heart began to hammer and she wondered why he'd abducted her. He wasn't a Talon soldier or he wouldn't have shot Cadmus. He could be a slave dealer or worse.

While keeping a wary eye on him, she pushed off the blankets and got off the berth. She felt lightheaded and nauseous, and was forced to lean against the berth for support. Looking around for some type of weapon, she spotted the man's jacket hanging from a hook near his berth. She moved cautiously forward and searched the pockets of the jacket. They were empty but underneath the jacket hung a gun holster with a laser gun in it.

She pulled out the gun. The man leapt out of his berth and she swung around to face him. His stance reminded her of a huka panther ready to spring. He was much larger than he'd looked sleeping on the berth, over a head taller than herself, and he was strongly built. He was wearing nothing but a loose fitting pair of silk sleeping pants. His expression and stance radiated self-confidence as if he didn't see her or the laser gun as a threat.

"Stay where you are." She kept the gun pointed at him.

He studied her with piercing eyes that seemed to search deeply into her being. He studied her with piercing eyes that seemed to search deeply into her being. "I see you're not any friendlier this morning than you were last night."

"Who are you?"

"I'm Michio Kimes; a friend of the Kameets."

"Why did you attack me last night and kill Commander Rochambeau?"

"I didn't kill him. My laser was set on stun."

"Why should I believe you?"

"You haven't much choice if you want to return to Jaipur."

"I don't need you to take me back to Jaipur. I can fly your spacecraft."

"That wouldn't be very cordial after I rescued you from Rochambeau. He was taking you to a Talon interrogation center and I'm sure you wouldn't have found his methods of extracting information pleasant."

"He was taking me to his home, not to an interrogation center."

"His home? And you actually believed him. Besides his home wouldn't have been much better for different reasons-- unless, of course, you welcome his advances."

"I wasn't with him by choice. He forced me to go with him."

"Which is where I come into the picture. A Kameet saw you forced into the speedrider and contacted me to rescue you."

"I don¹t buy your story. If you were rescuing me you wouldn't have brought me here."

"Why were you with Rochambeau?"

"I ran into him at the Shomard Pleasure Den."

Michio's eyebrows shot up and he looked genuinely surprised. "What were you doing at the den? It's hardly the kind of place respectable women go to, especially alone."

She waved the laser gun at him. "Shut up. I'm the one asking the questions." The pounding in her head was growing worse.

Michio's face darkened and his eyes narrowed. "Look you just about blew the whole mission by getting drugged and taken in for questioning. You'd better have some good explanations for what happened."

"You seem to have conveniently forgotten I'm the one holding the gun and let me assure you I know how to use it and won't hesitate to blow you head off if I have to."

"It's a little hard to forget with you waving it in front of my face, but I'm not going to hold it against you. I'm allowing for the fact you're scared."

"I'm not scared!"

"Well you should be. You just narrowly escaped being tortured to death or having a mind extractor used on you."

"What's a mind extractor?"

"It¹s a machine that extracts information from your brain and puts it onto a memory bank. The problem is that it leaves you without any remembrance of your past, both long and short term memory is gone; or worse yet the process can leave you a vegetable."

"Commander Rochambeau wouldn't risk destroying my mind. "

"Why not?"

"Because I'm developing something he wants. Now enough questions, take me back to Jaipur immediately!" She was angry that he had put her on the defensive and that he had the nerve to keep questioning her. "That's my intention. Right after I get dressed. As you can see I'm not dressed for space travel."

"Get dressed then!" she snapped, feeling vulnerable despite the gun in her hand.

"Glad to." He took a step forward, reaching for his clothes on the hook in back of her.

"Stay back! I'll hand them to you."

"Good Lord, I've had enough of this! It's too early to be awake after being up half the night. Put the gun away before one of us gets hurt. I brought you here because Talon fighters were chasing us. We made a space jump to escape them and you lost consciousness. I thought it best to bring you here until you recovered and we figured out what to do with you now that your covers blown."

"You're really with the Kameets."

"Yes, would I risk my life attacking one of Lord Falcon's commanders if I wasn't?"

"No, I suppose not." She stood there indecisively not knowing if she should trust him.

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