Marcan leaned back against the wall that he could not see and stared into the pitch-black nothingness. He held his arms around his knees and stayed still. He had tried to stay calm and empty his mind of all worry and concern, but on regular basis the ominous mood broke through his defences and he was left unsettled and afraid of his situation.

Soon after their ship had been pulled inside the strange warship into the dark landing bay, the Wolf Mk I had been forcefully boarded and he had felt hands yanking him about and onto the floor to be restrained. From Sheila's angry shouts it had seemed that she had suffered a similar fate. Then he had been carried in darkness out of his ship and along a long corridor into a small round cell and left there. He could not be sure, since his wrist computer had been taken away from him, but the time he had spent alone in the small room had felt like hours.

At first he had tried to explore the room blindly and find the door and something that he could use to force it open, but he had found neither the door nor anything else of use. He knew that at the wall opposite to him was a seat that did not smell very nice and he had guessed that it was something that he was supposed to use to relieve himself. Thus far he had not been able to use the facility, but he feared that if his imprisonment lasted much longer, he would have to.

What worried him more, however, than the pending necessity to get familiar with his cell, was Sheila and her current whereabouts. Marcan could only presume that she had suffered similar treatment as he had and was presently in some other cell located nearby. That was what he hoped for. He dared not to think of any other possibilities.

Still, he could not keep them out of his mind. He and Sheila had been hunting down the group that called themselves Sentinels, thinking that it was just another fringe ecoteur group. If they had had any idea what they were dealing with, they would never have come to investigate Vera Industries just by themselves.

But there had been no way of knowing that they were dealing with more than met the eye; the Mamba Mk IIs that they had thus far come up against had clearly been made by humans and in the human space. Aside from the troubling fact that they had been equipped with the rare cloaking devices, they had not hinted of anything as disastrous as the vast ship that they had come up against once they had left the factory ship. After the initial shock of their capture, when he had had time to think about it in the darkness, he had realised that the ellipsoidal ship with the bulbous weapons turrets could not have been made by humans: it was too different from any earlier models and ship designs to not to be alien.

But Thargoids were the only alien race that humans had met thus far, and the insectoid race used ships that resembled flying saucers, not stretched balls with deformations. Besides, it had been several decades since the last confirmed Thargoid sighting had been reported and it was all but certain that humans would never see them again.

On the other hand, Marcan realised, if there had been one alien race to be confronted in the universe, there had to be others as well. Despite the fact that all the aliens that humans had found so far in the systems that they had colonised had been primitive forms at their best, it was only a question of time when another space-going species surfaced.

And, apparently, the time had finally come. The alien ship design of his captors told Marcan as much. But there were so many questions that he had no hope of answering that he felt more than frustrated. Where had the aliens come from? Why were they working with the Sentinels? And what kind of connection was there between them and Vera Industries? He shook his head and rested it against the cool metal wall.

A few moments later he finally gave up and walked to the sanitation seat that he had found earlier. Since he could not see it, he could only hope that it was what he thought it was and that it would bear enough similarity to the ones that he had come accustomed to. He did not like the idea of any mishaps with the piece of equipment.

After a period of time that felt like three hours to Marcan, the door finally cracked open and let in bluish light that seemed very bright to his eyes that had got accustomed to the darkness. He stood up from the floor and blinked towards the door, trying to see who had come to visit him. But he could only see a shadow that slipped in through the door and stepped aside on the left side of the opening, standing erect while someone else entered right after him.

"Who are you?" Marcan asked, still trying to get accustomed to the light. But even though his eyes gradually adapted to the blue light, he still could not see anything since his visitor kept the open door behind his or her back.

His question went unanswered while the mysterious visitor stood at the door and studied him in silence. Marcan could see that the person in front of him was most likely not an alien, since the dark shape resembled that of a human, but that was all that he could say about the silent form.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Marcan asked again, feeling an air of dread rising inside him. If they had just come in to kill him, after having found out what they wanted from Sheila...

The dark figure in front of him emitted a sound that might accompany a sneer. "I think you know who we are and what we want is to stop you," the figure said.

"Stop me...," Marcan repeated, looking at the shadow carefully. He still could not believe that they would have had him waiting around for this long to just kill him in the end.

"Yes, Major Rayger, to stop you. When we met at the Tiessar system we asked you to leave us alone. It appears that you did not do that since you are now here, asking questions about us again outside your borders. It seems that we have to send a message to your superiors in order to make them stop harassing us," the dark figure said. Then, from outside the room Marcan heard shuffling noises and soon three more men entered the small cell. In the bluish darkness, he could not see their faces clearly, but he saw enough to see that they were all humans. He saw it better not to fight back when two of the men took a hold of his arms and half dragged him out of the cell into the narrow corridor outside.

As one of the men led the way and the rest walked behind them, Marcan tried to see as much of his surroundings as he could. It seemed that there were three other small cells like the one he had been in along the hallway and then there was a guardroom at the end of the corridor. He tried to take a glance behind himself in order to catch a glimpse of the man with whom he had spoken but one of the men dragging him yanked his arm so that he involuntarily groaned in pain and concentrated on trying to walk in step with the violent guards.

He was taken through the guardroom and into a wider corridor, but they did not follow it for long. The man leading the way opened a door on the same side of the corridor as the prison had been and Marcan was taken through. When the dim bluish lights were turned on he saw two more doors, one on the each side of the back wall. The front room was filled with computer terminals and structures by the doors that were probably meant as guard positions and cave cover both to the door and to the two doors on the other side of the room. Apparently, Marcan figured with a wry smile, escaping prisoners were a serious problem aboard the ship. But then again, maybe they were not, he corrected himself when he saw the stun guns and forceglue gunnery units that the guards in the room were equipped with.

He was taken through the left one of the two doors at the back of the front room. Once through the door his eyes were glued to a three metres high structure, consisting of a large upright metal circle standing on a low pedestal in the middle of the room. There was also one computer terminal in front of that piece of equipment and a couple of plain chairs beside it. Even before the guards started dragging him towards the metal circle, Marcan had guessed that the chairs were the last things in the room that he would be interacting with.

"What is this thing?" he asked in alarm when the men started attaching him onto the metal circle. There were separate restrains for his hands and feet on the inner edges of the metal ring with which he was being tied into a letter X posture.

"You will soon find out, major," the voice of the man who had spoken with him earlier, said.

Marcan looked up at the man and saw that he wore a hood over his head that hid his face from the view. He could not figure out why the man still insisted on hiding his face from him unless it was on the chance that they were not going to kill him here and they did not want him be able to identify him later.

He was unable to resist being tied up into the circular contrivance and once the guards considered their work done, they stepped away from him and hopped off from the pedestal and removed themselves from the room, leaving their prisoner alone with the hooded man.

"Well, now what?" Marcan asked with a tired sneer. The time he had been forced to spend in the dark cell had drained much of his strength and his worry about Sheila did nothing to elevate his mood. "You going to torture me with electric shocks, or what?"

The hooded man walked over to the computer terminal in front of the circular metal contraption and looked at the numerous buttons. "I wouldn't use quite that word," the man said slowly and pushed one of the buttons offhandedly.

Marcan could not shrug off that push of a button as easily as the man who had done it. Immediately the metal circle rose up from the pedestal, picking him up in the air with it until he and the metal circle hovered in the midpoint between the floor and the ceiling. Then, the man pushed another button. Thus far, Marcan had been able to find support by standing on the inner edge of the circle, but now the bands around his arms and legs tightened as the metal circle started turning around slowly, tilting him backwards until he was upside down in the air, looking away from the hooded man.

Somehow not being able to see his torturer made it that much more unpleasant for him. As long as he had been able to see when the hooded man pushed the buttons on the computer terminal, he had been able to prepare for anything that happened soon after. But now he felt as helpless as he truly was. Then the circle started rolling again, but sideways like a wheel, and the room started twisting and turning around in Marcan's eyes faster and faster, until he could not make out any details and started feeling dizzy in his head as blood rushed into his extremities. He had no idea when he had started rolling in other directions as well, finding himself in impossible angles and sometimes seeing the blurry figure of the hooded man rushing by.

It did not take him long to vomit.

Faintly, he could hear the hooded man cursing and suddenly the wheel started slowing down. If he had been able to think, he might have smiled in hopes that the torture was over so quickly. But that smile would have been premature.

The first electric shock jerked him around in his restraints until he almost passed out again. The second one was much worse, sending bright spots into his eyes and burning his lower abdomen.

He could not feel or see anything by the time the torture ended. And later he would have no recollection of anyone coming to him and introducing something into his system with an injection needle. He had not idea of the hallucinogenic spreading in his veins. All he could think of was the pain and the impeding darkness that he wanted to embrace as quickly as possible.

Finally, it came.

Faces, faces and places that he had seen somewhere but could not remember when and where. He tried to concentrate but it was to no avail. Green and blue planets, planets covered with thick clouds, great cities by the sea and smaller ones in valleys between high mountains, small but deadly fights between fighter class ships, people in uniforms to whom he spoke. Several faces of men and women, talking to him, passed by as he tried to shout back at them to ask who they were and what they wanted of him.

Darkness. Utter darkness between the moments of confusion and threat. He did not know who he was or where he was, he knew just that he was. The darkness swallowed him, took away his identity, took away his memories. He tried to reach after them, to take a hold of them but they receded into the endless darkness until he could no longer see them. Until he forgot that he had ever had them in the first place.

Then the faces and places came back again. To tease him, to tell him that he should know them, to haunt him. He tried to curl up and be as small as he could so that they would not find him, but they came and they came, screaming at him. He cried and wished that the darkness would come quickly this time, to save him from the haunting faces whom he should have known, and the images of the places that he knew he had visited but had no idea when or where, or even what they were.

Then the darkness came again, giving him his safety but stripping him of everything else. His identity, his memories. The next time that the faces came back there were fewer of them, and there were fewer places. Not nearly as many images to haunt and torture him.

"Ignite your lateral thrusters!" screamed the face of someone he knew he had known sometime, whom he had respected but also feared and hated.

"Are you all right, Corporal Rayger?" the squadron leader, Sergeant Troy, asked.

He looked around and saw that he was standing in the sergeant's office, in front of the said sergeant's table. He would have liked to have a second to wonder how he had ended up there, but with the question having been asked he did not have that chance. "Yes, Sergeant," he answered instead.

"Then tell me about today's mission, corporal," the older man ordered.

Suddenly the images and memories of that mission appeared in his mind and he answered, "Yes, sir. Our mission was to escort the civilian transport The Eve down to the second planet. The flight was going as planned until Shadow 4 lost the control of his fighter and started spinning towards the transport..."

"Why did you betray the Bubble Ark colonies?" Sergeant Troy screamed at his face. He was suddenly standing up in front of him, leaning towards him as he sat on a hard wooden chair. Troy seemed older now and his hair was getting grey.

He looked up at his sergeant with his eyes wide with fear and stupefaction. "I... I," he stumbled.

"You traitorous scum!" the sergeant screamed with his face red. "You should never have been allowed to leave the colonies in the first place!"

"But..." he floundered. "I didn't betray you..."

"Liar!" Troy shouted. "We know that you told the military about them. Just admit it!"

Then the face was gone and he was again in the darkness. It ate away all his memories about what he had just seen and sent him reeling back towards another horde or familiar but nameless faces. Furry faces with muzzles.

"Private Rasche reporting to duty, sir!" the young woman with short cropped blond hair proclaimed, standing on the other side of his desk.

"At ease, private," he said, confused at the feelings that the unfamiliar woman seemed to awaken in him. "So, you come from the Eta Cassiopeia?" he added, looking at the datapad that lay on his desk.

"Yes, sir. Do you love me?" the woman said, the tone of her voice changing suddenly.

Stupefied, he answered, "Yes, Sheila, I love you."

Then she was gone as well and he was in the darkness again, deprived of his memories and sense of time.

Groaning, he opened his eyes. Then he groaned again and closed them to avoid the bright bluish lights that felt like they would burn his eyes out. He shook his head carefully, but to his surprise the movement did not send daggers of pain through his head. Nor did it make him throw up. He stood still for a moment and tried opening his eyes again.

He was hanging face downward from a large metal circle onto which his hands and feet had been manacled. The metal ring was floating about a metre above the floor below. He turned his head to look around and saw that he was all alone. The computer terminal was unoccupied.

He groaned and tried flexing his muscles. The last he could remember were the electric shocks and the random swivelling of the metal wheel. He wondered whether the torment and suffering was now over, or if they were going to send in someone else to finish him off for good.

He had no idea how long he had been hanging from the manacles, but he was sure that it had been a long time. His muscles and bones were hurting like they had never before and as he moved his head around he felt a short growth of beard brushing against his shirt. Even if the first was probably the result of his torture, the second was a sure sign of time having passed.

He looked around again, trying to figure out how to get out of the dilemma. There was nothing he could think of doing to the manacles to open them up. As far as he could see, they needed to be opened from the computer terminal. Undoubtedly they would open only if the metal circle was again standing on the pedestal and there was no way he could get it down from where he was hanging.

He opened his mouth and tried to shout for help, but at first no sound came out. His throat felt very dry. He tried again, and this time a small noise came out. At the third try he could even pronounce a word. "Help," he cried out feebly.

Immediately, the manacles opened and he fell headfirst onto the pedestal below.

For a moment he stayed still, uncertain of whether he had been able to stay conscious. Then, taking his time, he climbed up from the pedestal and stepped down onto the floor. His feet felt weak under him and he was certain that there was no muscle or tendon in his body that did not cry out in protest as he walked towards the closed door.

His hand was already on the small lit pad by the door, trying to find a way to open it up when he remembered the guards and their weapons that he had seen when he had first been brought into the chamber. He was in no condition to fight anyone and would thus have no chance against the guards even if he managed to figure out a way to open the door.

Frustrated, he stepped back from the pad and looked around again. The room was as clean as he remembered seeing it when he came in. Apparently, someone had cleaned up the signs of the vomit he remembered having belched during the early stages of the torture.

Again he shook his head, trying to remember what had been done to him, but all he could recollect were hazy memories of the spinning wheel and electric shocks. He did not remember having been interrogated, although he was sure that at some point something like that had necessarily happened. Torture like that would have been useless otherwise.

He spent a moment stretching his muscles, trying to get the pain to ease, but he was only partly successful. He knew that if some of his muscles or tendons had ruptured, stretching them too much would only make matters worse.

Eventually, he walked back to the door and examined the small touch pad on the wall beside it more carefully. While he had been stretching, his head had had time to clear up and he was once more able to concentrate on the things at hand. The first thing he had to do was to get out of the torture chamber, and only after the door was open he was going to start worrying about the guards behind it.

The touch pad did not remind any of the ones he had seen during his life. The symbols did not belong to any language he knew and it was unclear to him what he should be doing with it. He pressed his finger slightly onto some of the symbols and they lit up with reddish haze that dissipated in a few seconds. His conduct did not result in any audio response that he could have heard, either.

He pushed at the symbols at random, trying to figure out some logic in their use, but it was clearly hopeless. Frustrated, he turned away from the touch pad and looked around at his surroundings again. The only pieces of equipment in the room were the metallic wheel that still hovered in the middle of the room and the computer terminal in front of it. Otherwise, the room was devastatingly plain in its design. The ventilation grills were positioned near to the ceiling at the back of the room, almost four and a half metres from the ground. Despite Marcan's height of over two metres, he had no hope of reaching the grills even with his best jump. And in his weak condition, he had no hope of making his own personal record in high jumping.

With the lack of anything else to do, he walked to the computer terminal to see if it was as alien in its design as the door. Judging from the alien technology of the hovering wheel, he was not expecting much and when he reached the terminal he saw that he had been right. Although the terminal's holoscreen was lit up and the computer was obviously on, the symbols on it were as alien as those of the touch pad by the door.

Marcan moved his finger close to one of the floating symbols. To his surprise the floating wheel in front of the terminal started turning slowly. It spun around for a while, its initial speed dissipating quickly. Marcan touched the same symbol again, this time keeping his finger at it, and saw that the wheel started spinning around faster and faster. And when he released the symbol, the wheel started slowing down. He touched another symbol and the wheel started turning diagonally until it was again standing upright, as it had been when he had first been raised up with it.

Frowning, he tested the rest of the symbols one by one. The third and fourth ones moved the wheel up and down in the air. It went as far up that it touched the ceiling. The next few symbols moved the wheel into the other directions, back and forth, left and right. Suddenly interested, he tried to move the wheel as far towards the back wall and the ventilation grills as it went. It moved promisingly for almost two metres, but as soon as it reached the edge of the pedestal under it, it stopped.

He touched another one of the symbols again, turning the wheel out of its upright attitude and flat on its back. He smiled weakly as he realised that the top part of the wheel reached outside the perimeter determined by the pedestal. Making one more adjustment to bring the wheel into a levitating position about one and a half metres above the floor level, he left the terminal and walked to the pedestal.

Marcan eyed the distance between the furthest edge of the wheel and the back wall with the ventilation grills. It was still a far reach for him to make it in his condition, but he decided that it would be better to try than to do nothing.

Taking a couple of long breaths, he took a hold of the hovering wheel and climbed to stand on its rim. It was a precarious footing, as the width of the rim was only about ten centimetres, but he managed to keep his balance. He walked towards the edge of the rim that was closest to the back wall and looked at the ventilation grill, trying to gauge its distance. The grill was now almost at his eye-level, only a half a metre above, and a little over two metres away.

At once he knew that he was not going to make it if he had to jump from a standstill position. He looked at the narrow rim on which he stood and hopped a little on it to see if it gave away under sudden weight shifts. The wheel moved only slightly under his weight, not nearly enough for him to use its back bounce to help him in his jump.

Frowning, he looked at the ventilation grill again. It seemed light enough for him to rip off if only he could get to it. And he realised that a flying jump was the only thing that would do it for him. He looked at the wheel that he was standing on again and considered his chances. If he was not absolutely certain and in control of his balance, he might easily miss his step and possibly trip himself.

Of course, falling from the height of one and a half metres when one was prepared for it should not be dangerous as such, but there was the rim of the wheel and the edge of the pedestal below that posed a danger if his head or spine happened to come into violent contact with them.

He weighed his choices once more, but there really was none. His tormentors were bound to be coming back at some point, even if they had forgot about him for a while, and he did not want to be there when they came. He looked at the ventilation grill again and then bit his tongue as he tried to stay balanced on the narrow rim as he walked along it away from the back wall. It was another question whether he would be able to keep his balance as he tried to run along the rim and jump for the grill, but he did not want to think about it too much. It was best to just clear his mind and let go off all the worries of things that could go wrong.

Since the circular rim of the hovering wheel was nothing like a straight track to run, his running steps were more like haphazard leaps from one part of the rim to the other. Still, he managed to build enough momentum to dare to try the jump for the back wall and the ventilation grill. He bit his teeth together and put as much strength and willpower into his jump as he could and fixed his eyes on the grill.

Marcan's body slammed hard against the wall and his fingers searched for a hold of the grill desperately as he felt that he was slipping towards the floor. In the blink of an eye that he had time, he managed to get some kind of a hold of the grill with his left hand. After a moment he strengthened that grip with his other hand and then he was hanging from the grill with his face against the cool wall. The pain in his shoulders was almost unbearable.

He did not remain motionless for long for he knew that the sharp edges of the grill would soon begin to cut through the flesh of his fingers. He secured his hold and started pulling the grill away from the wall. He did not see any screws on the grill's edges that would have held it in place, but it did not seem to be just hanging around there either. He pulled more strongly and suddenly the grill came off with a loud pop.

As the grill came off, Marcan fell backwards towards the floor. There was nothing he could do to soften the impending landing but reach his hands backwards and hope for the best. When the slam came he groaned in pain again and lay still for a while to figure out if he had broken any bones.

The next jump was less successful as he tripped on the rim of the wheel and dropped flat down onto the floor, but the third jump got him where he wanted: hanging from the now open ventilation duct. Straining his sore muscles, Marcan managed to lift his weight into the ventilation duct. The grill was on the floor below the hole and he had no chance of picking it up, so he had to leave the hole open; a telltale sign of the escape route he had taken.

He had no idea which way he should take or what he was going to do with his newly found freedom. He had to stop to think about it for a moment. Then he remembered that there had been another door leading from the guardroom. Suspecting that it might have led into another interrogation chamber, Marcan started following the ventilation duct into that direction. It was a frail hope, but if Sheila had been tortured so close to him, he had to try to save her as well.

He found the grill leading into the other chamber, but that room was empty. There were just enough light for him to see various devices, the purpose of which he had no chance of deciphering. Remembering the cells in the cellblock where he had been detained before the torture, he turned around and started crawling into that direction. The way had not been long when the guards had taken him from the cell block to the interrogation chambers, but it felt much longer when one was crawling along tight ventilation ducts where there was no light whatsoever to give him a sense of how far he had travelled.

After one turn left and another to right he finally felt another ventilation grill on the side of the duct. This one, however, did not allow any light into the duct, which indicated that the room on the other side was dark. Marcan held still and pressed his ear against the grill to listen. He hoped to hear someone moving in the room, or breathing to indicate that someone was in there, but heard nothing. Deciding that the room, which he hoped to be one of the cells, must be vacant, he crawled onwards towards the next grill. Only a few metres ahead he found one and stopped to listen again.

This time he heard definite breathing from the room, and low mumbling of someone speaking to him or herself. The voice was too low for him to identify the voice as Sheila's, but it was definitely a female voice. He thought about what he was going to do for a few seconds, but decided that he really had no other choice than to try finding out for sure. He pressed his face against the grill and called out softly, "Sheila?"

The mumbling in the room stopped and for a while everything was silent. Then an uncertain but familiar voice called back at him, "Marcan?"

"Yes, it's me," he replied. "Can you move?"

"Yes, I can. Where are you?" Sheila asked.

"Behind a ventilation grill. It must be near to the ceiling, away from the door. Head towards my voice," Marcan said slowly, hearing Sheila move around in the dark room.

He heard her stumble against the sanitation equipment and curse softly. Then he heard her voice close by. "I cannot find it," she said.

"Stand on the toilet and reach up," Marcan said, taking a hold of the grill himself. He pushed at the metal and heard it creaking in protest. Then, with a loud pop, it gave away. He pushed himself forwards and reached his hands down towards the sound of Sheila's breathing. Their hands found each other and he pulled her up into the ventilation duct with himself.

For a moment he merely lay there, breathing heavily and holding hands with Sheila. Then he squeezed her hands and said, "Sheila, are you alright? Did they do something to you?"

"I'm okay. They just let me sit around in the dark, probably trying to break me that way," Sheila answered. Her voice was tired but alert. "How about you?"

Marcan frowned in the darkness, "They tried to rip off my arms and legs, but other than that I'm in good enough shape to escape from this place."

"Where are we going?" Sheila asked.

"Further along this ventilation duct until we get somewhere where we can get out safely and start searching for the flight deck," Marcan answered. "You'll have to lead the way since I cannot get past you in here."

After the surprisingly easy rescue, they travelled along the ventilation ducts as silently as they could until they came to a ventilation grill that seemed to give into a vacant corridor. Marcan popped the grill out of place and led the way down onto the floor. While Sheila climbed down - the grill was closer to the floor than the ones in the cells had been - Marcan looked around and tried to make an educated guess about which way they should head if they wanted to get to the flight deck. But the ship was of an alien design and he had no idea of how the people who had constructed it might want to design the interiors of a big starship.

After Sheila had climbed down, Marcan pushed the grill back on place as well as he could, trying to hide the fact that it had ever been removed from a casual observer. Then they started walking along the corridor, listening carefully to hear in time if someone should appear. There was no way for them to know which way to walk, but they both seemed to have come to the conclusion that it was better to keep moving than stop and wonder until they were found. In case they bumped into someone, their only chance would be to defeat that someone as quickly as possible and start running before the possible ship security troops came to investigate.

Suddenly, a peculiar sort of sound filled the corridors. It was a low rumble with a whining quality that seemed to be teetering on the edge of their hearing range. It continued on for a while until it dissipated.

Marcan looked around uncertainly, trying to figure out what it had been.

Sheila looked at him seriously, "I think our escape has been noticed. We'd better hurry."

Marcan frowned, wondering what good would hurrying up do when they did not know the direction to hurry towards. Still, they started running along the long, winding corridor; not as careful about not making noises as they had been a moment earlier.

After a few seconds of running, Marcan started to wonder. If the noise had been an alarm, it had caused far less activity in their surroundings than it should have. The corridor remained as empty as it had been and there was no indication that anyone was after them. It was as if they were running along the corridors of a completely empty ship.

Then the corridor ended and gave way to a large round hall. The far end of the hall professed large double doors, so large, in fact, that would admit a small starship through and the space between those doors and them was littered with Mamba Mk IIs and other ships, some of them quite alien in their design. They had arrived to the flight deck, and there was a welcoming committee expecting them, standing in front of the rows of spaceships.

There was no way for Marcan and Sheila to avoid being seen. As soon as they had reached the end of the corridor, the five people had turned towards them and kept staring at them silently for a few moments. Four of the people were wearing nondescript grey jumpsuits with helmets that covered their heads and were equipped with faceplates that hid the faces. The jumpsuits reminded Marcan of the similar figure he had chased through the destroyed city at Tiessar 2, all the way down to the short height of about 170 centimetres.

The fifth figure was the man who had tortured Marcan earlier and he was still wearing the dark hooded robe, but with the hood thrown back. His long, but thin curly black hair and scant eyebrows contrasted with the otherwise sickly pale skin texture and thin-lipped mouth, and the wet, pale brown eyes suggested that he was, indeed, quite sick.

None of the five carried anything that Marcan recognised to be a weapon, but he knew better than to underestimate their ability to stop him and Sheila. The unknown technology that they had used to cut the power from their ship before abducting them was a warning enough to him that their other weaponry might likewise be quite alien in appearance and function.

Marcan and Sheila eyed their captors warily, waiting for them to make the first move and wondering why they had waited until now to stop their escape. It was the man who had tortured Marcan, who spoke first.

"Commanders Rayger and Rasche," he said. His voice was stronger than his weak appearance would have indicated. "I see that our subliminal suggestions were successful in guiding you to the flight deck."

Marcan frowned. "What do you mean by that?" he asked angrily.

The pale man smiled, his thin lips whitening with the strain. "You don't think that you could have found back here so easily if we hadn't helped you?"

"What do you want with us then?" Sheila asked angrily, her lips drawn into a sneer. It was clear that she was angry for the prospect of them being returned to their cells.

"We want you to leave. We found out what we wanted and you can continue your journey," the man said, his brown eyes fixed on them.

Marcan looked at the man quietly for a moment, trying to figure out what the deal was here. He had no idea what had been forced out of him in the torture chamber; it could be that all the secrets that he had held close to his heart had not been revealed. If they had been, the Dioscuri Syndicate would not be happy. Neither would Victor Shelanko, the man who had escaped the death from Professor Bardoff's Argo II, like it that the new life that he had build for himself might now be out in the open. And least of all, would all the people living with Emic Troy in the bubble ark colonies like it if perfect strangers now knew about their existence, even if they could not find them. He realised that the many secrets that he had carried for different people could now be compromised.

"What did you want to find out?" he asked, knowing that he would not be able to trust the man, whatever the answer might be. Unless he was going to kill all of the strangers aboard this strange spacecraft, there was no way he could stop his secrets from being spread around.

"And who are your disguised pals here?" Sheila added before the pale man could open his mouth to answer.

The dark-haired man gave them both a short look, hesitation clearly visible on his face. "We found out enough that we can let you go. And my friends here want to remain anonymous for the time being," he said slowly at last.

"Does that include the origins of this alien spacecraft?" Marcan asked, observing the man's reaction, but this time there was no hesitation in his answer.

"Yes, I'm afraid it does. And now: your ship is back that way," the man said and pointed past the couple of first lines of Mambas.

Marcan and Sheila looked where he was pointing and saw that their ship was only barely visible from between all the Mambas. But even from that small sighting of hull metal, the Wolf Mk I was clearly identifiable. "What are we going to do?" Sheila asked softly, looking at him.

He shrugged and answered, keeping his voice as low as she had even though he was sure that the four people in front of them could still hear his words. "If they are willing to let us go, we'd better do so before they change their mind."

"But if they have put in a tracking device of some sort?" Sheila hesitated.

"That doesn't matter. We aren't heading anywhere secret and we can have the ship checked out at the nearest spaceport," Marcan said and glanced that the pale man and his jumpsuited friends. They were all looking towards them expectantly, clearly wanting to get rid of them as quickly as possible. Or, rather, that was what he imagined the body language of the jumpsuited and helmeted people to stand for, whoever they were.

He frowned at the five people and made his decision. He took a hold of Sheila's hand and with steady pace they walked towards their spacecraft. He kept his eyes on the five strangers for as long as it took for them to reach the Wolf and saw that they were keeping their eyes back on him equally steadily, as if expecting something. He had no idea what it could be, but he feared the worst.

Still, letting them walk all the way to their craft would have been the strangest start for any sinister plot that he could think of. So, he decided that if the strange people were actually eager to get rid of them, then their unrelenting gazes meant that they were merely making sure that they really left.

He gave their retinue one last look and shook his head in exasperation. He had too little to go on to figure out what was happening, so he should just let it go and concentrate what he was going to do next.

He looked at his ship and walked up the entrance ramp ahead of Sheila. If there was any kind of booby trap waiting for them inside, he did not want Sheila to get hurt or killed by it. He walked slowly and studied the ship's airlock as he progressed. Both of the doors into the airlock were open since the ship was not open to hard vacuum, and it guaranteed that at least the air inside the ship had not been poisoned. Of course, there was no certainly about the ventilation and air recycling systems and he promised to check them out before he closed either of the hatches.

Sheila noticed his carefulness and asked, "You realised that they could have done something to the ship?"

Marcan nodded, "I doubt it, but it's better to make sure before we launch."

Sheila grunted in agreement. "Why do you think they are letting us go this easily?" she asked.

He shrugged, "I don't know. Perhaps they found out everything that they wanted to when they interrogated me, or perhaps they really are aliens and do not want to be seen, no matter what the situation is. I have no idea of the reason; perhaps it is both of them."

"Anyway, we are just happy to get away," Sheila said flatly and climbed the last metres of the lowered entrance ramp into the Wolf Mk I behind him. They saw that the interiors of the ship were almost the way they had left them. There were some signs of their struggle against the strangers on the bridge floor, but that was about it. None of their equipment seemed to have been touched, although Marcan was sure that at least their computer had been accessed.

Also, all the equipment seemed to be in fully functioning order and there was no sign of the mysterious power loss that had crippled their ship and allowed them to be captured. After he had cursorily examined the air ventilation and recycling systems, Marcan sat on the pilot's seat and pushed the buttons that closed both the inner and outer hatches of the airlock, effectively sealing the ship up. As Sheila wandered around the ship, examining everything from their belongings to the datapads as carefully as they could without proper tools and good time, he started the ship's engine up, and waited for it to come fully online so that they could leave. The start-up procedure with all the pre-flight checks took him twenty minutes but when Sheila came back to the bridge and sat down on the co-pilot's seat, he was finally ready and ignited the manoeuvring thrusters, lifting the ship up from its landing pad.

"Did you see anything back there?" he asked as he took the ship slowly closer to the hangar doors. As they got nearer, the doors were already sliding open to let them through into the airlock. Marcan was happy to see at least some familiar technology in the alien ship; he had been half afraid that there would be nothing but some mysterious force field between them and the void of space, as if in some fantastical science fiction story.

Sheila frowned. "They had gone through our belongings and there are signs everywhere that someone has studied this ship carefully, but I saw nothing that they could have left behind. If there is a tracking device or some other pleasant surprise in here, it is probably hidden pretty well."

Marcan shook his head and smiled thinly. "Unfortunately, there are a lot of places in here to hide something like that. We don't even know what it's supposed to look like, given their strange technology. Did you check the cargo section as well?" he asked.

Sheila hesitated before she answered, "Yes, I did... What do you suppose all this strange tech means?"

They hovered still in the airlock as the doors behind them slid closed. After only a few seconds of its closing, the doors in front of them started moving and they could see the darkness of the empty space ahead. Marcan took the time to look at Sheila and study her expression before he answered. Her sharp nose was twitching nervously and her eyes were wide open, almost showing white all around the pupils.

"Either the Alliance or the Empire has kept some of their technological advances alarmingly well hidden or, more probably, the guys back there in their jumpsuits and helmets were some kind of aliens," he said seriously.

He saw Sheila shivering with the thought and he almost did the same himself. For all of their fast colonisation process, the humanity had never bumped into any other intelligent aliens than the Thargoids. Of course, the scientist had always said that it was only a matter of time before it happened, but as centuries had passed and no one had been seen and even the Thargoids had been defeated, it had become a general feeling that they were all alone in the universe, or at least in their region of the galactic spiral.

"But what did they want from us?" Sheila asked.

Marcan took their small ship through the mouth of the alien ship and wondered at the same question. "I don't know. They are in league with the Sentinels, that much is certain. Perhaps they wanted to know how much we know about them."

Sheila frowned again, "But why do that and let us go? We know or suspect a lot more of them now than we did before they hijacked us. It makes no sense to let us go!"

"True," Marcan began. Then he looked at the scanner as they increased their distance from the bulbous ship and gasped. The blip that should have marked the position of the alien ship was nowhere to be seen. It should have been no more than a kilometre behind them, but there was nothing. Before he had time to think of taking a look at the back view in the monitors, he saw another thing that he had not been prepared for.

"What is it, Marc?" Sheila asked and followed his line of sight to what had caught his attention.

Marcan did not say anything. He just stared at the five white blips that occupied the portion of the scanner that was falling behind them. There were five very big ships there.

Sheila was the first one of them to recuperate enough to call up the back view into the main display. She studied the image for a moment and zoomed the view in towards one of the objects.

"Asteroids," she said then, clearly relieved.

But Marcan saw that the large objects were too perfectly spherical to be mere asteroids. And there were clear signs that these particular asteroids carried propulsion systems as well.

"No," he said slowly. "They are bubble arks."

Sheila frowned, "Bubble arks? But..." She stopped suddenly and turned to look at him, her eyes even wider than they had been only a moment before.

Marcan nodded grimly. He knew exactly what five bubble arks, travelling together in the deep space, meant. He turned to the communications computer and made an attempt to establish a connection with the bubble arks by transmitting a wide arc broadcast that covered all the arks.

"This is Commander Marcan Rayger calling. I'd like to contact Emic Troy, if that is possible. Thank you." He tried to keep his voice as calm, edging on bored, as he could. His pride demanded that he not show his surprise to those people who had gone through all this just to unnerve and surprise him. He knew that it did not matter, and would probably not fool anyone listening in, but he was getting tired of all the games that everyone seemed to be playing with him. First, the Federal Military had played with him, denied him his promotion and transferred him into the FMI just to use him as a tool. Then, Mr. Jones had tried to kill him to get rid of him just because he knew where the package that he had delivered was from. Then Castor had played him for a fool, tricking him into finding his counterpart and them almost getting him killed aboard the base ship of the Dioscuri Syndicate. Now, it seemed that Emic Troy and the people in the bubble colonies had not forgotten him either. By the time the answer to his call came through, Marcan was already gritting his teeth with the thoughts of having been used like that by almost everyone he knew.

"This is the flight control of the Bubble SV-453. Please direct your ship to us and dock as soon as you can," a voice answered.

Marcan and Sheila looked at each other and they both shrugged their shoulders almost at the same time. "Confirmed, flight control. We are coming in," Marcan said, his tone of voice barely civil.

"Are you sure about this?" Sheila asked.

Marcan growled, "I am. I want to get to the bottom of this and if I'm not happy with the answers they give us, I'll start shooting at everyone."

He felt Sheila's hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him down with a gentle squeeze. The reddest haze of rage dissipated from his thoughts, but he was still quite mad at all that had happened to him. He looked at Sheila briefly and then turned his attention back to the manual manoeuvres that he had to make to get the Wolf Mk I into the entry vector.

"It's just that...," he began, biting his cheek, "...everything that I have done thus far has ended with a nasty surprise. I'm getting tired of it. For once, I'd like to be on top of the situation."

"You mean what happened with Castor and now this?" Sheila asked gently.

Marcan nodded, "Yes, but also the deal with the military. They are still trying to use me as a tool in their plots. It seems that they consider me nothing more than a loose cannon that they can throw at anything to see what happens. They do not care whether I live or die.

"Also, many of my problems have to do with the secrets that I seem to be keeping for everyone. On the mission on which you and I were chasing Emic Troy and his companions and found them from these bubble ark colonies I thought that I had found something beautiful that I should protect from the military. Back then I knew that I had to quit the army because of that secret that I had to keep from them. But they did not let me go and I have had to deal with that secret and the conflicts of interest that it brings to me."

He looked at Sheila and gave a frustrated smile, "You know, when we were chasing the Sentinels in the Tiessar system, I began to suspect that the cloaked ships had something to do with Vera Industries. But because I knew that Alana Vera is connected with these bubble arks, I could not say anything to anyone. Again, I had to lie and leave the mission."

There was a glint of surprise in Sheila's eyes at the revelation, but she did not comment on it. She merely looked at him and returned his wry smile. "You know what they say about serving multiple masters?" she asked, but did not gibe him time to answer. "It can never work. In the end, you have to choose who you are willing to serve and trust."

Marcan grunted. "But I have no one I can trust but you!" he exclaimed. "Everyone else has delivered me at least one underhanded blow. The military did not trust me. Certain Mr Jones tried to kill me after my delivery. Castor pretended to be my friend and then betrayed me. And now Emic Troy and these bubble ark colonies are somehow connected to those Sentinels who captured us and tortured me."

Sheila shook her head at his words, and when he had finished, she said, "Don't jump into conclusions about Troy yet. Let's see what they have to say for themselves."

He frowned, "Well, let's see about that."

The entrance into the hangar of the bubble that they were docking into rotated only three hundred metres in front of the nose of their small eighty tonne craft. In comparison to the bubble ark that was almost five kilometres in diameter, the small trader ship was but a minuscule speck of space dust. And the airlock into which they were heading appeared as a tiny hole on the side of that sphere. But still the airlock entry door was big enough to house a Boa Freighter if necessary. Thus, as the Wolf Mk I closed in and entered the airlock, it was as if being swallowed by an entire world.

Once they were through the airlock and lift procedure, they found themselves in one of the six-ship hangars that they had visited the last time they had been in one of the bubble arks. It had been about three years since that visit, but still Marcan could remember the taste of victory that had been in his mouth when he had seen the modified Wolf Mk II two-man trader sitting on one of the landing pads. At the time, his anger for Emic Troy for his betrayal had been intense, and not easily forgotten even when the true motivations behind the theft of the ship had been revealed. At the time, Sheila had been just barely able to calm him down.

As he guided his ship to rest on one of the landing pads - they had not been told which one to take, so he took one of the free ones at random - Marcan wondered whether Sheila would be able to hold him back this time, or if there were going to be some violence before he got the answers he wanted.

"Do you think we need to take weapons?" Sheila asked nervously as she looked at the view screen, flipping through various camera angles.

Marcan frowned, "I will take mine, of course. I'm not going to be tortured again."

By the time he had shut the engines down and was opening the outer airlock with Sheila, someone from the flight control was hastily walking in their direction. Apparently, there had not been time to arrange a welcoming committee this time. Marcan studied the woman as she approached. She was only about twenty-five years old and quite short; must have been 170 centimetres, at most. Her hair was dirty blond, with a reddish tint. For all appearances, including the hasty, embarrassed look in her eyes and the brown suit, she seemed to be just a typical representative of the flight control personnel.

She still was well outside the range to pick up whatever Marcan and Sheila said to each other and Marcan took the full advantage of that, not even trying to hide his contempt at the poor attempt to make their visit seem unexpected and innocent. "This is a trick," he said mockingly. "They certainly had a plenty of time to prepare for our visit."

Sheila shrugged, "Unless they expected us to jump into hyperspace the very second we got out of that alien ship."

Marcan sneered, "I don't think so. I didn't check, but I'm quite sure that they were blocking our hyperspace jump engine the very minute we left the ship. That alien craft was still out there, with the cloaking shield activated."

"You didn't wonder why they would use their cloaking shield if they are friendly with the bubble ark colonies here?" Sheila asked, looking at him pointedly.

The thought stopped Marcan for a second, but he was just going to point out that the cloaking shield could have been activated just to make sure that they did not get any video evidence of the alien design before they escaped when he noticed that the flight control officer had reached them.

"Commander Rayger," the young woman said, smiling tightly. "Welcome aboard Bubble Ark SV-453. I'm Delia Shamio. If you'll let me, I'll escort you to the elevator that will take you down to meet with our governor."

"That is Governor Angela Melvoin, I believe?" Sheila asked, her eyes fast on the short girl.

The girl's surprise was not only visible in a momentary widening of her eyes, the kind of surprise that could have been acted, but it made her visible jump. "I... I...," she stuttered. "How did you know?"

Marcan looked at Sheila, wanting to know her answer as well. He had not recognised the registration number of the bubble ark and had had no idea whether this was the same bubble ark that they had docked into on their previous visit. But the flight control officer's reaction had now revealed that Sheila, at least, had recognised the bubble and it was, indeed, the same bubble in which they had met Angela Melvoin and Emic Troy. To Marcan, it also made another fact clear: even if the girl who had been sent to meet them had been surprised by their visit and knowledge of the governor, someone else had known enough of them to ask them to dock into this particular bubble ark.

Sheila waved her hand in an inadvertent manner. "We've been here before," she said. "Will we be meeting with Emic Troy as well?"

Despite her surprise, the girl recovered quickly, "I believe Colonel Troy is not present at this time." She turned at her heels and started walking towards the far end of the hangar where double doors were already open to let them into the corridor that would eventually lead them to the elevators.

Angela Melvoin, the governor of the five bubble arks travelling in deep space, looked almost the same as she had when Marcan and Sheila had last seen her three years earlier. A middle-aged woman with reddish-brown hair with exceptionally wrinkled face for her age. She sat on an expensive looking swivelling chair behind a desk that was, for all visual evidence, made of real wood instead of one of the many substitutes and plastics that were painted to seem like wood. She looked at the both of them as they entered her office and, surprisingly enough, smiled happily.

She stood up and walked to stand in front of her desk as Marcan and Sheila walked to her from the door, giving each other wondering glances. "Welcome, Rayger and Rasche," Ms Melvoin said and offered her hand. "I'm happy that you decided to return, even if a few years later than you promised."

Marcan frowned in surprise and suspicion. He had not expected the governor herself to fake ignorance of the way they had arrived to the bubble arks. Even if the flight control officer had been ignorant of their identity, it was not possible for the governor of that same ship.

"It's not as if we had a choice in it, as you well know," he said, his anger not evident in his voice. "Your alien partners took care of that."

Governor Melvoin frowned slightly, but then her face cleared. "Now I understand why we did not see your hyperspace entry cloud," she exclaimed. "The flight control reported to me that your ship had appeared as is from nowhere and it was a mystery to us how you had managed that."

"Are you trying to say that you did not know of our arrival?" Sheila asked, her expression making it clear that she would not believe it if the governor claimed so.

"No," Ms Melvoin said. "Sit down and let me explain. My husband spotted you at the Vera Industries' construction ship and told the people there to stall you while he arranged for someone to meet you." She rounded back behind her desk and prepared them drinks. Even though she now spoke with her back turned to them, Marcan spotted the slight tenseness in her shoulders as she continued, "One of our associates was in the neighbourhood and agreed to bring you here to discuss the situation into which you have got involved in. They were supposed to bring you here aboard their ship and dock with one of the other bubble arks, but apparently they decided otherwise. At first, when we detected your ship out there, we presumed that we had somehow missed your entry cloud and that you had jumped out here on your own, but now I realise that they let you out to dock on your own."

"So they tortured me on your orders?" Marcan sneered angrily. "I thought that we were on better terms than that after all the time I have kept your involvement in the theft of that Wolf Mk II a secret!"

Ms Melvoin dropped the glass that she had been holding under a drink dispenser and it emptied itself onto the carpeted floor. The middle-aged woman did not seem to notice it, however. She turned around to stare at Marcan, "Tortured? What do you mean?"

Marcan stood up from the chair that he had captured only a moment earlier and pointed his finger at the older woman. "Yes, tortured!" he roared, "They strapped me into some device and tortured me until I passed out. I have no idea how long they spent at it, since I passed out, but I suspect that they did not stop even then."

Ms Melvoin stared at him and listened to his tirade silently. When he had finished, she leaned backwards against the table behind her, almost toppling over one of the glasses that she had already managed to fill with milky reddish substance. "Emic - my husband, that is - told me nothing about any torture," she said shortly.

Sheila had raised her hand to take a hold of Marcan's right forearm and keep him from attacking the governor, but now she looked at the woman seriously, "Governor, I think that you mean the so-called Sentinels when you speak of your associates. Who are they and why would they have tortured Marcan against Emic Troy's orders?"

Governor Melvoin looked at her and hesitated, "I don't think that I should tell either of you anything more before I have talked to these associates and asked them about this myself. If you don't mind, I'll order someone to escort you to some vacant quarters where you can clean up and eat something before we meet again."

Marcan stepped forward, "You cannot get rid of me that easily. I want answers and I want them now."

Sheila tightened her grip of his forearm and stood up as well.

"I'm sorry, but I will not give you anything more at this time," the governor said and pushed a button on the table next to the drink dispenser.

The door to her office opened and two young men in dark suits entered. "Governor?" one of them asked.

"Please have some quarters prepared for our guests and escort them there," the governor said to the men. Then she turned to look at Sheila and Marcan, who still wore an angry expression on his face. "Do you require separate rooms?" she asked.

"No," Sheila answered hastily before Marcan was able to growl anything, "a single room will be fine."

Although Marcan felt like fighting back and driving his point down the governor's throat, he conceded when Sheila squeezed her arm and pulled him towards the door. For good measure, he threw one last angry look at the middle-aged woman before they left the office.

Since a room had to be prepared for them, their escorts could not leave them there immediately. Instead, they took them to one of the elevators, took them five stories further down into the underground living habitats that were in use in this particular bubble. There, they were shown the apartment that would be prepared for them and then taken to nearby recreational facilities to spend the hour that they would have to wait.

Along the way and in the recreational facilities Marcan learned that the living quarter of the ship were mostly empty; during their earlier visit the governor had implied that there were only about eight thousand people living in each of the five bubbles when they could easily have housed many times that. He suspected that, along their way out of the space occupied by humans, the bubble arks had gathered more people from many systems, but still it seemed that there had not been quite as many people willing to leave the civilisation as could have been expected. Or else, Governor Melvoin chose carefully the kind of people she accepted into her bubble arks.

Marcan and Sheila did not change comments about their meeting with the governor until they were sure that their two escorts were outside hearing range. They had chosen to spend the hour in one of the local restaurants, eager to taste something else than ship rations for a change. After Marcan had placed an order for spicy vegetable pasta and Sheila had settled on thewbread and darsk sauce, a dish especially popular in the Imperial systems, but sometimes also available elsewhere, he said, "Well, what do you think? Should I start shooting now?"

Sheila shook her head as she was looking around the restaurant, "I'm not sure. The governor seemed genuinely surprised at what you told her. I'd wait to hear what she has to say after she has contacted those associates of hers."

Marcan snorted angrily. "I'm willing to guess that she gave us a flat down here just to make sure that she had the time to concoct a believable story to tell us," he said, gripping the tabletop as he looked at the surroundings himself. The restaurant was quite plain, but tastefully dimly lit at that. There were some archaic candles on the tables here and there, but they were unlit. There weren't many other customers either; just two couples dining in private booths and a couple of others who seemed by their clothing to be from one office or the other.

"As I said, I don't know," Sheila said slowly, "but I think that her surprise was real. And the things she told us about Emic Troy seemed to imply that he did not accompany us into the alien craft but got here directly in his own ship to bring the news."

Marcan turned to look at her and said, "I told you once before, but I'll tell you again: Troy was always full of surprises. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he, following his Imperial upbringing, was ready to use torture to get what he wanted. It doesn't matter whether he was onboard or not; he could have told them to find out what we knew and to use whatever means necessary to do that."

Sheila looked into his eyes for a moment and he felt a twinge of guilt for being so pigheaded. He took a deep breath and tried to clear his head and find out how he truly felt about the situation. It was clear that the governor had been glad to see them and surprised to hear about the details of their arrival. Her manner had spoken of honesty.

That thought caused another twinge in Marcan's thoughts. He had always been able to rely on his impressions of other people, all the way to downright trusting them. There had been only a few bad experiences here and there, the worst of them being his past with Emic Troy and his hidden identity as an Imperial agent. But when he had last met Troy, the older man had appeared honestly sorry about what he had had to do and it seemed that he had found a worthy cause to serve when he had joined the bubble ark colonies. Therefore, although it had been hard for Marcan to understand it at the time, he now realised that his first impression of Troy as an honest man held true, at least to some extent.

But, as it had been back when he had betrayed his assault fighter squadron, Emic Troy was also now serving some other master than Marcan. It could be that his worry for the safety of the bubble ark colonies had made him decide to do something that he would not have done otherwise. Marcan grimaced at the thought. If it was like that, it would be up to him to decide whether he would be willing to understand the reasons behind such decision or if he was going to hold it against the old man and the bubble ark colonies.

A high pitched scream interrupted his thoughts and he turned to see what had caused the awful noise. A young mother, perhaps only twenty-three or so old, had entered the restaurant with her young daughter. A daughter, who apparently detested the fact that there were no toys to play with in there and her mother was trying to keep her quiet. The mother's plight forced a slight smile on his lips.

"What is it, Marc?" Sheila asked, looking at him curiously.

He shrugged, "Oh, nothing. I just realised that the visit to my parent's home on Mars was some of the best time I have had in a while, even if it was quite short. Maybe - and I mean just maybe - I should start considering what it would mean to settle down somewhere and live a normal life."

Sheila smiled slightly, "Normal life? Depends on what you mean by that, I guess."

Marcan raised his eyebrows and looked at the tabletop. "Well, perhaps if I and Petr manage to build up a couple of good trade routes and find some people to work for us, I could settle somewhere on some planet."

Sheila chuckled lightly, "Living planetside? It wouldn't fit you, believe me. You need your daily dose of empty space and hum of the engines to be alive."

Marcan frowned and mused, "Perhaps I need that, but I wouldn't mind some relaxed daily routines, something that would stay, in my life for a change."

It was Sheila's turn to frown. "Like what?"

Marcan glanced at the young mother and her daughter again. "Well, perhaps a wife and a family. Someone to share my life with."

Sheila's eyes widened. She looked into his eyes for a while and he met that gaze calmly. Then, sipping some water from the glasses that had just been brought to them, she said, "You have anyone particular in mind who would bear those children for you?"

Marcan took a sip from his own glass to hide his surprise at his feelings. He had not felt so sure about it before, had never dared to feel it at all, but he knew now that, somehow, he had found certainty about his feelings towards Sheila. It was an alarming sureness since it made him so calm. He was not scared of it, he just knew that Sheila was the woman he would like to spend the rest of his life with. The only problem was that Sheila might not feel the same about him. He considered their past discussions about their different aims in their lives and careers

He saw that Sheila was eyeing him suspiciously and he cleared his throat, trying to buy some time before he would have to answer her question. But he wound up not having to build up that answer when a young man brought their meals to them. Marcan pretended to find their plates more interesting than they really were and conveniently forgot Sheila's last question by the time the waiter left them alone again. Sheila either sensed his mood or forgot about that question herself and they both dig into their hot meals, Marcan loading the pasta into his mouth and Sheila dipping her three-layered thewbread into a small cup of yellowish darsk sauce before eating it.

They had already finished their meal when a young man in a white dress walked in through one of the kitchen doors and came to their table and told them that their apartment was ready for them. They thanked the boy for the message and paid their bill, using one of Marcan's money cards, before leaving the restaurant.

When their escorts had shown the way to the apartment to them, Marcan and Sheila had not had time to look inside. They had just memorised the location and the security code required to enter the room. Now, as they entered the apartment, they saw, for the first time, in what kind of conditions the people travelling on the bubble arks actually lived.

Since both of them had got used to the living conditions in starships and space stations of varying quality, they had not expected much in the way of comfort in the bubble arks either. But they had been wrong in that assumption. As they looked around the apartment that consisted of three rooms, including not only a fully equipped kitchen but also a real water shower, Marcan could not but admire it all aloud.

Sheila smiled at his exclamations. "Yes, it's quite nice. I just wonder who paid for all this."

Marcan frowned. He had not thought of that yet. "We might want to ask the governor about that," he said slowly. "I guess they have to charge quite a hefty payment from the people who want to join this colony."

Sheila shrugged. "That would explain why there aren't that many people around here," she said.

"But that cannot be all of it. Certainly they need mechanics and technicians and other personnel here and I'm quite certain that there aren't many such workers around who could pay astronomical entrance fees," Marcan mused.

"Well, perhaps this is the best they've got. They could be just trying to impress us with all this luxury."

"I suppose you're right," Marcan said. Then he added with a wicked grin, "But as long as we are here, we could take advantage of the bed back there."

"You won't be touching that bed before you have taken a good long shower. You haven't washed yourself after that predicament of ours and I don't even want to know what all the smells that you emit really come from," Sheila said.

Marcan frowned, looking at his clothes. It was only now that he remembered the torture, the sweat and the vomit. It was also only now that he realised how bad he smelled. He could not but wonder how they had been let into the restaurant, let alone into the governor's office. "I guess you're right," he gasped and hurried towards the bathroom, hoping that one of the machines that he had seen there was meant for laundry.

It was almost two hours after they had left the governor's office, when they were finally called back. Marcan would have liked to have a little more time to be able to try the bed in their apartment, but conceded that it was more important to find out what Ms Melvoin had found out about her associates. He was also eager to hear whether her story about the reasons behind his torture were sufficient enough to keep his hands away from his pistol.

When they entered the office, they found that Governor Melvoin was no longer alone. She sat behind her desk, but there was another figure there, sitting on the left, whom Marcan recognised only too well. He was the sickly looking fellow from the alien ship. Before he could decide whether to draw his pistol immediately and shoot the black-haired man or to attack him physically, the governor spoke.

"Commanders Rayger and Rasche, may I introduce Eremiah Spinardi. He came here to explain the part of the Sentinels in your questioning," Angela Melvoin said.

Marcan gasped, "Questioning? Is that what you call torture these days?"

The pale man stood up from his chair. It was clearly strenuous for him to do so. "I'm sorry, Commander Rayger, but we were forced to use our best means to find out whether you had betrayed these bubble ark colonies and to find out how much you and the Federation knew about the Sentinels," he said.

"Forced to?" Sheila said slowly. "What do you mean you were forced to do that? Did Emic Troy tell you to do so?"

The pale man looked around him hesitantly and blinked a couple of times. Then he sat down again and looked at her straight in the eye. "No," he said. "Emic Troy did not tell us to do it quite in that manner. However, he voiced his concern over the matter and we saw it necessary to find our if what he feared was true."

"You have to understand," Governor Melvoin inserted, "that when you did not come back to us after your first visit, we thought that you might have betrayed us to the military, after all. When the Federal Military did not send anyone else after us, our fears lessened, but they did not go away. We know that there is growing concern out there in the Federal and Imperial politics about these bubble arks and the people who escape the civilisation to join us and we have to be very careful when we contact the outside world. Alana Vera has been our strongest link thus far, as she both raises funds for us and sends us the most recent news with out couriers. Since you knew her name, as well as the fact that Troy was here, we thought that the Federation might just have been collecting evidence against us before the major attack."

"But we haven't told anybody," Marcan exclaimed. "I didn't even reveal the military my suspicions about the origins of the Sentinel's fighters as that would have endangered the link between you and Alana Vera."

The pale man, Eremiah Spinardi, nodded gravely. "We know now that you can be trusted. But we have given our reasons for what we did. Now we need to know whether you'll be willing to accept our apology and compensation or if you will now want to leave us for good."

Sheila walked over to one of the free chairs and sat down. "We accept your reasons," she said, "but you must know by now, after interrogating Marcan like you did, that we had a reason to come after you like we did. Our interest in contacting the Vera Industries was to find out if they had something to do with the Sentinels that we had met in the Tiessar system and to find out what they wanted. The fact that you are in possession of the rare cloaking devices, makes you a potential enemy to the Federation."

Spinardi looked at her for a few seconds before he said, "We want nothing more than to protect the original life forms in the system of Tiessar and elsewhere. I'm sure that you can appreciate it, since you both come from the Federation."

"But why do you want to do this so badly?" Marcan asked as he stepped closer to the governor's desk as well. He remained standing, wanting to be ready to act if it still turned out to be necessary. He still felt that the torture had been an unnecessarily cruel way of questioning and was not ready to forgive it so easily as Spinardi seemed to want.

Mr Spinardi blinked again, squeezing his eyes shut for a few seconds before opening them again. He seemed to hesitate again, as if he had to really search for the words, before he answered, "You may have guessed this already from the way our capital ship looked like, but we humans are not alone in this. A few years ago we made contact with another sentient species, actually only a few remaining ones of them, who, in fear of persecution, stopped us from leaving their system to tell the rest of the humanity about their existence. Over time, we learned that they were a group of refugees from their own part of space who had escaped persecution there. And at the same time, they learned about our dirty history and were even more determined to stay away from humans. We were the only ones they were willing to deal with, and then only because we were the only ones who knew about them.

"About a year ago we made contact with these bubble ark colonies, quite by an accident, and gained access to their resources. Thus far we had only had that one starship, but now we were able to buy more of them. At the same time we got access to the newspapers and realised the problems that there were in protecting alien ecosystems from human effect. We all, meaning the humans who had lived with our companions and our companions themselves, came up with our own plan to protect these ecosystems. That is what the Sentinels are all about."

Marcan considered Spinardi's explanation for a while, trying to fit it in with what he already knew. It was clear that Spinardi was trying to hide as much as he could about his alien buddies, but otherwise his story made at least partial sense. His method, of course, was much too violent for his taste. "But why did you have to kill everyone in the Tiessar system?" he asked.

Eremiah shook his head and said, "We did not want to do that. I believe that you were explained to at the time that we had tried to get them away from there in a more peaceful manner, but they refused to listen. Even after our first attack they did not seem to heed our message and continued to rape the local garden world. At last, we had to act and make that whole system off limits to all humans."

"But you destroyed also a Federal Military starship and killed some of our soldiers. You have to understand that the Federation wants someone's head on a plate for that," Sheila said after a moment of deep thought.

Spinardi grimaced, "Yes, that was a bad mistake. We had wanted to keep the great powers out of this. But," he said, turning his gaze to Marcan, "in our interrogation we found out that the thing that your superiors consider to be more important than the lives of their soldiers is the fact that we have these so-called cloaking devices?"

Marcan frowned, not even trying to hide his anger at the careless way the sickly man flaunted with the knowledge he had of Marcan's inner thoughts. It was, indeed, his view that the military was more concerned about the cloaking devices than a few easily replaceable lives, but it was his own cynical way of putting it and he would not have necessarily voiced it if he had been asked about his opinion.

But now he had to stand behind his thoughts. "Yes," he said. "You do understand that neither the Federation nor the Empire will allow a situation in which someone else besides the superpowers have access to these devices? I take it that they come from your mysterious alien friends who know how to produce them?"

Spinardi coughed in a manner that told of great pain. The governor hurried to her drink dispenser and brought a glass of water to him. The pale man drank the water gratefully. Then he placed the glass on the table and looked at Sheila and Marcan again. Marcan noticed to his surprise that he was a little annoyed by the fact that Spinardi seemed to look at Sheila much more than he did the other people in the room, including him.

"Yes, the cloaking devices come from our companions. But you have to understand that without those devices we would not have the power to keep people out of the systems that we want to protect, so we cannot let go of them. What's more, our companions have lost the technology and knowledge to produce more of them, so we only have a few dozen left after you shot down a couple of our ships in the Tiessar system," Spinardi said.

"That will not satisfy the Federal Military," Sheila said.

Spinardi grimaced again, "We understand that, but it is all I can say. We will not give those devices up to the military and we can only promise that we will do our best to make sure that no one else will ever get their hands on them. Also, we will never use them against the Federation, it that makes you more comfortable."

Governor Melvoin nodded solemnly and looked at Marcan. "Commander Marcan, the last time you two visited us, you voiced your willingness to join us. That tells me that you two are not too concerned over the needs of the Federation, when it really comes down to it. Also, the fact that you have kept our location in space a secret for this long tells me that you'd not be willing to divulge that piece of information to your superiors now. Therefore, what we need to come up with here, is some kind of a settlement between you two and us that would guarantee that you will tell as little as possible to your superiors and possibly join our cause here."

Marcan listened to the governor's speech silently and tried to keep his surprise and annoyance away from his face. It was another thing to have bad feelings about one's government privately, than to have them told at one's face as boldly as governor Melvoin was doing. He certainly had no feelings lost for the Federation and he knew that Sheila had remained in the military only because she had wanted to see how far she could go.

But Melvoin's willingness to negotiate, and apparently bribe them, did not hide the other side of the coin that was tossed at them. Marcan was quite sure that if they did not reach an agreement, he and Sheila would not be let back to join the civilisation untouched. The question was whether they were just going to be brainwashed and made to forget all that they had learned or outright killed on the spot.

While he considered the nuances of what the governor had said, Sheila had already come up with something to say. "If I understand you correctly, governor, you are willing to bribe us to keep quiet?"

The governor shook her head and the wrinkles on her face deepened. "No, that's not what I wanted to say. I just wanted to remind you that you were once willing to join us and if that is still true, we should proceed accordingly."

"What would this joining entail?" Sheila asked. She was eyeing the governor carefully.

"The same that we asked from you the last time you were here. Emic needs someone else with military training to help him in the teaching of our fighter pilots and you both would fit that job very well. We do not ask you to work against your ethics or previous home, the Federation, since that is not what we want to be doing in the first place. We are just looking for a way to attain a true democracy somewhere outside the rest of the humanity. The voyage in front of us will be long, and may actually never end, but once we are out of human space, we can start looking for a new home," Governor Melvoin lectured.

"Somewhere where we could all live side by side in peace," Eremiah Spinardi added, clearly referring to his alien friends.

Marcan cleared his throat, "I'm not saying that I'm willing to forgive you your torture just like this, but I have to state here that I have a beginning trading company to take care of out there and I cannot move to live here just like that."

Angela Melvoin shrugged, "There are of course other ways in which you could help us. For example by carrying cargo for us or by donating some of your income to our cause."

"And what would it be worth to us?" Marcan asked.

Angela smiled, "You'd be working to make possible the dream that everyone onboard these arks shares and making sure that you have a place in here, amongst us whenever you chose to finally come to join us."

Sheila frowned as she looked back and forth between Marcan and the governor and held up her hand to stop their conversation. "Hold it, both of you. I want to know what you want from us right now. You said that you'd like us to keep back what we know from the Federation, but what else?"

Spinardi coughed again and sipped some of his water and said, "You can tell them that you were kidnapped by the Sentinels and told that we are not going to give up the cloaking devices. You can also assure to them that the devices will not be used against any federation citizen in the future and that they will never fall into pirates' or some other party's hands. They must understand that the Sentinels only intend to protect alien life forms from human influence. You should leave out the detail of our connection with the bubble ark colonies, you were only shown that in order to make you listen to us and hopefully believe what we want to say to you."

"Also," the governor added, "you should continue to keep the location of these bubble arks a secret, and probably your connection with us as well, if you don't want to draw their hostility to you as well."

"And for this we would gain our freedom and the possibility to join you if we were to want that?" Marcan asked.

The governor nodded. "That, and some cargo transport deals if you happen to be interested in such. By the way, does this trading company of yours mean that you are finally about to quit the military like you intended three years ago?"

Marcan grimaced. He knew that by telling her the truth, he would dig the ground from under his own hesitation to join the colonies, but he wanted them to know the truth. "I quit the military back then already. They have just called me back in service on a couple of occasions. They know the strings they need to draw to do that."

"You mean they are forcing you to work for them?" Ms Melvoin asked, her expression full of genuine surprise.

Marcan nodded, "Kind of. I think I represent to them a possibility for complete deniability in case I stumble onto something more than they are politically able to handle."

"Then you must be glad to be given this chance to escape their influence completely?" Melvoin asked.

Marcan frowned. He had known that his revelation would have this effect. He was not sure how it would affect his chances of bringing back the topic of his maltreatment onboard the alien starship. "They do pay quite nicely, however," he said finally.

"So do we, Commander Rayger," the governor said to him gravely. "And I assure you that you will be properly compensated for what happened to you earlier."

Marcan frowned again, wondering if his expression had revealed his thoughts to the governor or if she had just made a good guess.

"I also have sympathy for your cause, even if I'm still working for the Federal Military," Sheila inserted. "And I'm sure that we can come to a convenient agreement that will allow us all to follow our own consciences and causes. Still, I think we have discussed this enough for one day and Marc and I need some time to think this over. If you'll excuse us, we'd like to retire into the apartment that you offered us."

Governor Melvoin stood up from her chair almost immediately and offered her hand in goodbye. "Yes, of course. We'll discuss this again tomorrow morning at ten, if that's okay with you?"

"Certainly," Marcan said and stood up as well, taking the hand and shaking it politely. He was quite confused about all that had been said around the table and was glad that Sheila had observed the need for a break. Sheila said her goodbyes as well, but only she offered them to Eremiah Spinardi as well. Marcan did not even look into the man's direction.

Once they were back in their own apartment, Marcan threw away his shoes and galloped into the bedroom to lie down for a moment. The bed was very comfortable and he stretched on it completely, taking full advantage of its luxurious width. Sheila visited the bathroom, giving him almost enough time to fall asleep before she came to join him. Pushing him aside, she got onto the bed as well and for a moment they rested without saying a word, both of them mulling over the meeting in their own fashion.

At last, Marcan turned to his side with a pillow under his head and looked at Sheila. He saw from her expression that she was as troubled by the turn of events as he was. "What do you think, Sheila? Will you be able to lie to your superiors?"

She looked at him and frowned, "Did you notice that these people gave me no real reason to do so? They seemed to be mostly after you, the way I saw it."

Marcan smiled weakly. He had noticed it, of course. Sheila's last comment before she had requested them time to think had said as much and showed him how annoyed she really was for it. "I think it was because I went and revealed my weak spot to them. Also, I think Troy may have something to do with it," he said at last.

Sheila twisted her narrow lips and sighed. "Perhaps. I just wish I had as clear a reason to support these people as you do. I wasn't betrayed or used by the military, as far as I know. I still have a place in there as well. I have never enjoyed anything as much as I do my work at the FMI. As I see it, I have nothing to gain by lying to my superiors and everything to lose."

Marcan looked at her silently for a moment, trying to figure out a way to say what he really wanted to say. Her sharp nose that always twitched when she was nervous or exited, her alert dark blue eyes and beautiful smile almost made his heart ache for desire. There was only one thing holding him back. "Sheila," he said softly. "Would you consider me to be a sufficient reason to do so?"

Her eyes narrowed slightly as she turned them towards him. "You really want to stay here, with these people who tortured you?"

Marcan looked at her, fully aware of the fact that she had not answered his question. "It was actually the Sentinels who tortured me, and they promised some compensation for it. Besides, I think I would like it more to go back to my trading business to at least start it up. Hauling cargo for these people, as they offered, might prove profitable enough."

"I guess so," she said slowly. "But you would have to tell Petr and the rest of your crew and workers about this deal."

Marcan shrugged, "Not necessarily. I could haul cargo with the Wolf or buy a bigger two-man ship." His words had the desired effect as she turned back to look at him. There was a softness in her eyes that he had grown to recognise as some sort of need or desire. He smiled to her and said, "You did not answer my question. I might need a co-pilot for that bigger ship of mine, if it comes down to that."

Sheila smiled and the softness in her gaze remained. But she did not answer his question the way he might have liked. "I don't know," she said. "I have to think about this a bit longer."

Despite the ambiguous answer he was able to keep the smile on his lips. "Take all the time you need. There's no reason to rush this thing. Let's talk about this in the morning."

With that, he leaned towards her and kissed the lips that enticed him so.