Conquerors' Pride

There was a brief silence from behind him. "It's hard to explain," Qui

"I did gamer links a few times when I was in college," Aric said, turning to look at him. "That was an inductive type, of course, not an implant."

"It's not the implant itself," Qui

"Sounds a little frightening."

"No." Qui

"And it was a reality that too many of my teammates didn't want to leave."

Aric looked at him, a shiver ru

"I mean like a total withdrawal from reality," Qui

His lip twitched. "Some of those never came back. Not even when the Mindlinks were forcibly taken away from them. They never came back."

Aric gazed at his face. At the lines of tension in his jaw... "You feel it too, don't you?" he said.

Qui

Aric grimaced. "I'm sorry. Sorry, too, for dragging you into this in the first place."

Qui

Aric shrugged. "It's not exactly the same situation."

24

Pheylan frowned. It was an odd sort of sound, now that he was concentrating on it. An aircar? No, more likely a spacecraft. One whose engines made an unusual sort of twittering drone.... And suddenly every muscle in Pheylan's body went rigid, his throat tightening as he strained to hear. Half-afraid he was imagining it... but there was no mistake. The sound was unique and unmistakable.

A Mrach ship.

With an effort Pheylan forced his muscles to relax, the hammering of his pulse abruptly loud in his ears. This was it. His best chance—maybe his only chance—of getting out of here. His training at the academy had included a unit on Mrach ships, instrumentation and flight technique both. If he could get to it, he would be out of here.

If he could get to it.

He lay there another minute, ru

Taking a deep breath, he propped himself up on one elbow. "Hey," he called plaintively, pointing to one of the techs as they all turned to look at him. "You. Go get Thrr-gilag. I don't feel well. I think I'm going to be sick."

The tech turned back to his console and began speaking quietly into the intercom. Pheylan stayed where he was, rubbing his stomach and making all the faces he'd learned to use on his mother when he wanted to stay home from school and his symptoms were only marginal. The Zhirrzh had learned a lot about humans from him, but there were one or two things that might still surprise them. And if it surprised them enough...

Half-hidden behind its console, the prep-room door swung open and Thrr-gilag stepped through. "Good day, Cavv-ana," he said. "You not well?"

"Not at all," Pheylan said, screwing up his face in agony. He had no idea whether or not Thrr-gilag could even read human body language, but this was no time to go half throttle. "Fact is, I'm bloody sick. You've got to let me get out into the sunlight right away."

"It only three days," Thrr-gilag reminded him, moving up to the glass wall and peering at him. "You without sun seven days before."

"I wasn't coming down sick with something then," Pheylan said.

"Why sunlight help?"

"Because it will," Pheylan said, suppressing a grimace. Clearly, Thrr-gilag wasn't going to give in for the performance alone. He was going to have to go all the way with this. "I know this sickness. It's common among humans—" He broke off, letting his face go stricken as he kicked off his blanket and swung his legs over the side of the bed. "Oh, God—here it comes."

He stood up, throwing a hand up the glass wall to steady himself. His other hand went to his mouth; and under cover of the motion he stuck his finger into his throat.

And vomited at the wall directly in front of Thrr-gilag.

The Zhirrzh jumped nearly a meter backward in a single leap, barking something startled sounding. The four techs scrambled into motion, two of them heading toward Pheylan's cell door, the others ru

"Like I said, I'm sick," Pheylan said, weaving his way to the shower on trembling legs and starting to have some belated second thoughts about this. He'd expected the cramps that were twisting through his stomach muscles, but he hadn't counted on this sudden weakness that had hit his legs. If he wasn't ready to act when the time came, this wasn't going to work at all.

Still, he had a few minutes before it came to that. Turning on the shower full blast, he stepped halfway into the stall, shoving his face into the stream and spitting mouthful after mouthful of water onto the shower floor. "What this for?" he could hear Thrr-gilag shouting over the noise. "Cavv-ana? What this for?"

"I'm rinsing my mouth," Pheylan said, shutting off the water and stepping wearily out to lean against the side of the stall. Good; his legs were starting to settle down again. "These stomach juices are full of acid. Very bad for my skin and mouth. The vapors aren't good for my lungs, either. You've got to let me out of here."