t until I can,
please."

* * * * *

Chorvak was waiting when Joste left the surgery. "The tiny
dark-skinned female is dead, Group-Leader," he reported, "but the bigger
pale one's injuries were less serious than the physicians originally
thought; she is alive and regaining consciousness. They will allow you
to speak to her as long as you keep it brief and do not excite her."

"Thank you, Chorvak. I will be careful."

The hospital was small, so it didn't take long for the two to get to
the room assigned to the human woman. Joste went in alone, took a seat
by her bed. "Ka'naya Marine, may I with you speak?"

"Uh?" She looked at him, clearly still groggy and trying to focus.
"Wha' 'bout?"

Joste puzzled over that momentarily, then he figured out the slurred
words. "About Major Horst Marguerre, ka'naya. When I was him
questioning, he something said that did not English seem, a code of
some sort, I think. Then he cried out, and like a youngling wept. Can
you me tell, what to him happened?"

She seemed to rouse at Marguerre's name. "Something not English? But
he doesn't know any other language--" Then her eyes widened, and she
looked sick. "Blood . . . is it his?"

Joste's silence answered her. Tears leaked out of her eyes and she
swore tiredly. "Damn you, you bastard Shark. What'd you do to break
him?"

"Ask me that not, ka'naya. The answer would only you distress, and he
is help now getting. But I must know, when he those strange words
said, what he by them meant. What they to him did."

"Maybe I'd rather not know, at that." She scowled. "What'll you do to
him if I tell you?"

"If it what I fear is, I will my Ka'ruchaya--you have not the term,
female parent to the clan--ask, him to adopt. N'chark will for him
care."

"Clan mother. But he's human--why would you do that?"

"He something to himself did, that him into the likeness of a youngling
turned. If that likeness a true one is, then he must a youngling's
safety and guidance given be." He paused for a moment. "And it my
opinion is, that what he did was from honor done."

"It was. I'm not sure I believe you, but telling you what happened
can't make it any worse for him. Okay, you're right. The words
themselves're meaningless, they were only triggers for anti-interrogation
conditioning, a total mind-wipe. Didn't bother anything
else, like intelligence, just memory. It's a new technique, but a lot
of