“With you, of course,” he said. “We have shared both cup and flask.”

  “Of course,” Felix said, and wished she knew enough of lizardine culture to understand the significance of what he said.

  “Sleep,” Mika said, after they had cleared the dishes. “I will explain what you have done in the morning.”

  “In the morning, we have to return to Headquarters,” Felix said. “I hope I’ve found the sword by then.”

  “So do I,” Mika said, and there was a dangerous gravity to his voice that Felix was too tired to pursue.

  They slept, sharing the bed, but nothing more.

  * * *

  “Tell me what you know about nanites.” Mika woke Felix with an order.

  “They’re little bits of gadgetry used in medicine and other things.”

  “We use them in war,” Mika said.

  Felix froze, and rolled onto her back. Beside her, Mika mirrored her action. They both gasped at the same time. What Felix saw above them drove all thoughts of nanite war out of her head.

  “You told me you hid it in the office,” Mika said.

  Felix didn’t know how to reply. Last she had recalled, she had been in the office with the door closed and locked, before the flashback hit. No way did she recall coming in here and fixing the elder’s sword to the ceiling above her bed. Where did that idea come from? she wondered, And why can I see it now, when I couldn’t see it before?

  “Blend for me,” she said, turning to Mika.

  “Please, Mika,” she added, when he remained where he was, just as visible.

  “Please what?” he asked.

  “Please, blend for me. I have to check something.”

  “But I have. I am.”

  “It took all night. He never said it would take all night,” Felix murmured.

  She swung her feet over the side of the bed and stood up, twitching her tail for balance.

  “Uh, Felix.”

  But she was gone, hurrying into the en suite and slamming the door behind her. When she was alone, Felix sank to the tiled floor and rested her head between her knees. The elder’s words echoed in her mind.

  The change is permanent.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  And nanites…

  Mercy brings obligation … I will give you the means to save yours.

  Felix reached behind herself, felt where the tail merged with her spine, and realized she was naked. The lizardine absorbed their clothes, when they needed skin to air. Felix wondered if it worked in reverse, found herself dressed in what she’d gone to sleep in, reached back and felt no tail. What in Hell had they done to her? What in Hell had that lizardine bastard done?

  “Felix?” The en suite door cracked open. “I’m sorry, Captain, but we have no more time.”

  Felix raised her head, pushed slowly to her feet. Mika’s face looked as compassionate as she’d ever seen it. He held out his hand.

  “The Elders have contacted your Command.”

  “Is this why you needed the sword?”

  Mika nodded.

  “You can shift between blend-sight and normal,” he said.

  “Are you in blend, now?”

  “No.” He shimmered, went transparent and ghosted out of sight.

  Felix focused on seeing him in blend and made him come back into view. She also shrieked and dived for the sidearm she kept on her bedside table—or she would have, if Mika hadn’t wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her to his side. She was naked again, and the tail had reappeared.

  “We have company,” she gasped.

  “I know. My Ssesket”—‘those whose lives are intertwined with mine’—“You need to change back. Stop trying to see them; they will be there.”

  “Is this going to happen every time?”

  He glanced down.

  “No. You’ll get the hang of it,” he said. “For now, just focus on being human. Your Command requires it, and the Elders don’t need any more ammunition than they have.”

  “What do you mean by ammunition?”

  “The Elders found a way to stop the war. And they will be asking compensation for humanity’s aggression. They will also see you as their property, due to their interference in your creation. I am sorry, but that will be something else requiring negotiation. For now, we must focus on the nature of our peace. Unfortunately, under intergalactic law, your race will be paying for a very long time.”

  Felix shrugged. It was no more than they deserved. They had thought the lizardine primitive and undeveloped, their mineral-rich world easy prey. The first blend-suited attack-squad, armed with flechettes, stunners and force nets, had come as a surprise.

  “Is there much room for negotiation?”

  “The sword.” Mika lifted his hand to show he still held it. “Is there anything left in the flask?”

  There was, and the sword snapped into normal view when Mika had smeared it with the remnants of the draught. Felix was glad they hadn’t drunk it all. Not even the lizardine elders would have been able to see it hidden by blend.

  “I’ll call a cab,” Felix said.

  “Please forgive me, Captain, but I have already summoned your assistant and he will fetch us by car. It is safer that way.”

  “And quicker,” Felix managed, once she’d overcome her surprise. “How did Carlisle take the news?”

  “He said he was wondering when I’d show myself and offered to eviscerate me nine ways to sunrise should you be harmed. That I have compromised you to such a degree is of some concern to him.”

  The same level of concern was not apparent in Mika’s expression.

  “I will have to retire when the negotiations are done,” Felix said. “I would like to keep Carlisle, if he’ll stay.”

  Mika looked at her. “We will see.”

  * * *

  “Ma’am.” Carlisle greeted her with a look of reproach and raised eyebrows, then, “They took the tea set to the labs.”

  “Thank you, Carlisle.”

  They said nothing else on the journey into Headquarters, although Carlisle caught her eye as he drove carefully through the crowd of reporters gathering outside their building. He avoided the throng by taking them into the private parking beneath Headquarters and up to reception via the lift. Somehow, security had managed to corral the journalists beyond the front doors.

  “Good to see you, Ma’am,” one called, then registered who she was with as the cameras began to flash.

  Felix glanced up at Mika, and saw why—he had shifted into ceremonial dress, and patterned his scales with the colors of authority. A sudden presence at her back, had the cameras flashing double-time, and Felix guessed Mika’s escort had chosen to show themselves. She noted the apparent absence of lizardine weaponry, then glanced across at the security officers and raised a hand.

  “Stand down, officers,” she said. “Councilor Mikalesket’k’Tvor is here by invitation.”

  Or he would be, just as soon as she introduced him to Command.

  The guards hesitated, and Felix could not blame them. Her first sight of eight-foot tall lizardine warriors in full battle armor had been enough to make her pause, too.