My face was bleeding, and the two of us were struggling in a clinch. The first hog was on his knees now, then he rolled over on his back. His face was turning blue.

  “McGill!” a familiar voice shouted. “McGill? Damn you, man!”

  It was Winslade’s voice.

  My eyes slid for a fraction of a second over the shoulder of the hog who was giving me a good fight. There, in the outer office, stood Galina’s office boy-toy and Winslade. The secretary looked horrified, and he was calling for backup.

  It was Winslade who caught my attention, however.

  I was in a blood-rage, but sometimes I can still be reached, even in such a primal state. Fortunately for everyone, I managed to hear Winslade, and to comprehend what he was saying.

  “They’re not here to arrest you, you mad ape! There here to arrest Turov!”

  I froze. The hog I was wrestling with backed off, putting his hand to his chest and gasping for air. I hoped he didn’t have a heart attack. He didn’t deserve that.

  The other guy—well, his tongue was protruding and blue. He was pretty much dead and gone.

  -4-

  I found myself standing half-nude in Turov’s office, with a crowd staring at me in shock. Now that my initial anger at having been attacked in the middle of… shall we say… an indiscretion with Galina was gone, I wasn’t sure what to do.

  “You might want to cover yourself,” Winslade suggested to me in a sneering tone.

  “Oh… yeah.” I reached down and pulled up my pants. Behind me, Galina was already dressed. Smart clothes were wonderful at moments like this. Straps were knitting themselves into place and cinching up tight all over her body.

  She pushed past me and the hog I’d been wrestling with, who was trying to revive his partner. I could have told him that was hopeless—but I didn’t like delivering bad news.

  Turov strode into her outer office. Her hands were on her hips. “What is this intrusion, Centurion Winslade?”

  “I’m sorry, Tribune,” he said primly. “My hand was forced. I can’t condone this kind of harassment.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about, you rodent?”

  “Here’s the evidence, sir. I did my duty and reported it. Nothing else.”

  On his tapper, a vid was playing. It was only a few minutes old. First, we watched Galina demote me. Moments later, I was approached and practically commanded to have sex with her.

  “I’m afraid this sort of sexual aggression is frowned upon these days,” Winslade said, clucking his tongue.

  Turov’s hands formed into claws. Her nails were blood red, and I could tell you from personal experience they were pretty sharp.

  She swung her head around wildly, looking at high corners. “You put a buzzer in here? You spied on your superior officer?”

  “I merely tapped into the security grid. These offices are recorded periodically—you know that, don’t you, sir?”

  Her eyes swung to meet his, and there was a mutual moment of hatred exchanged. “I had those things turned off months ago.”

  Winslade shrugged. “Perhaps there was some kind of error in the processing of that request. I’ll reprimand the technical department for the oversight.”

  The second-banana hog had finished reporting his partner’s state, and he’d regained some of his composure. More hog MPs had arrived in the meantime, trotting through the door and surrounding me. They pointed guns in my direction, so I surrendered and let them handcuff me.

  “You’re both under arrest,” the second-banana hog told Galina and I. “Come with me, please.”

  “Sorry about your buddy,” I told him. “You surprised me, that’s all. It’s a Varus thing.”

  The hog set his jaw in anger for a second, but then he nodded. “We should have identified ourselves before busting in. But Centurion Winslade here insisted—”

  Winslade cleared his throat loudly. “Veteran, don’t you think you ought to explain all that to a military court, not to the defendants? Hmm?”

  “Right… Okay, let’s move out.”

  We were marched out of Galina’s office like a pair of felons—which I supposed we were, technically speaking.

  The tribune was spitting mad, but she was quiet. That was a bad sign. If she’d been throwing a fit, I would have felt better. She was at her most dangerous when she was quietly plotting.

  Glancing back, I saw her working her tapper. Her hands were cuffed, but she was doing it anyway, behind her back. That was a nice trick. She was a pro.

  Before we made it into the elevator to go down to the brig, the lead hog stopped the march and gazed down at his tapper, frowning.

  “What’s wrong, sir?” asked one of his minions.

  “We’ve got new orders… we’re supposed to go back and arrest Centurion Winslade, too.”

  They looked at one another in confusion. Then the lead hog, an adjunct with a beer-gut, turned suspicious eyes on his prisoners.

  “How did you two pull that off?” he asked.

  I shrugged and looked as dumb as hog’s fat. That worked, and his eyes slid right off me.

  “Tribune?” he asked Galina. “Is this some kind of trick? You’re not getting out of my custody.”

  “That thought would never occur to me, Adjunct. Who sent these new orders to you?”

  “Imperator Deech, looks like.”

  “Well then, it’s up to you to decide whether they’re legitimate or not. Perhaps you’ll be joining us in the brig within the hour.”

  The hogs didn’t like that idea. They were rule-followers, through and through. Not like Legion Varus people—sort of the opposite, really.

  It occurred to me as I watched Galina’s magic work on their minds that she really did belong with us in Varus. She was just too much of a loose cannon to be Hegemony brass. No wonder they’d voted to kick her out.

  “All right,” the adjunct said at last. “Squad, about-face! We’re not splitting up. We’ve got six men, we can arrest one more crazy Varus legionnaire today.”

  When we arrived back at Galina’s office, we found Winslade with his boots up on her desk, swiping at her private tablets. He jumped to his feet in alarm.

  “Centurion,” the lead hog said, “you’re coming with us.”

  “You can’t be serious,” he said. “Did our tribune talk you into this? You do know that by regulations she can’t order you around while she’s under official—”

  “No sir,” the adjunct said. “The orders come from Imperator Deech.”

  This confounded Winslade. After another thirty seconds of squawking, they had him in cuffs. All three of us were marched to the brig and placed in separate cells.

  The door to my cell opened about an hour later, and I snorted awake.

  “McGill…?”

  I climbed to my feet and saluted. My visitor was none other than Imperator Deech.

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “Sleeping? It’s ten am.”

  “Well… I haven’t quite adjusted to military mornings yet. Besides, this brig is like a second home to me.”

  “I see.”

  “Uh… am I in trouble, sir?”

  “Always…” she said. “But before we get to your violent outburst, let’s discuss the first string of crimes that preceded it on this fine morning.”

  “I’m not following you, sir.”

  She looked down at her tapper and shook her head in bemusement. “Let me see if I can summarize. As I understand it, your rank was removed at approximately seven a.m. Shortly after that, you were pressured for intimate contact by your superior officer.”

  “Uh… sort of. But it wasn’t quite the way it sounds.”

  “How do you mean?”

  I squirmed a little. “Is there any way I could talk to Drusus about this?”

  “No. He’s gone back to Geneva.”

  “So… that makes you the head hog around here, doesn’t it?”

  Her eyes were glittering and black for a moment. I figured she didn’t like being called a hog, but that wasn’t unusual. Most of them hated it.

  “Right…” I said in the face of her silence. “Well sir, Galina—I mean, Tribune Turov, did demote me. But she didn’t threaten me or offer to restore my rank in return for any kind of favor.”

  Deech frowned fractionally then tilted her head. “Then why did she do it?”

  “Well, uh, sometimes a young lady gets certain impure ideas, you see, sir. Can happen to anyone.”

  “No, fool. I mean why did she demote you?”

  I shrugged.

  “She didn’t pressure you? She didn’t threaten you? She didn’t demand anything you didn’t want to give?”

  “She might have…” I admitted. “I don’t really recall. She says things all the time, but unless we’re deployed in the field, I rarely listen to them.”

  Deech nodded again and pursed her lips tightly. “Do you have anger issues with women, McGill?”

  I looked startled. “Uh… no sir! I like women just fine. Ask anyone.”

  Deech heaved a sigh, and she stood up rapidly. “Fine. Just fine. I get it. You aren’t going to help me. Either Turov’s threats are so frightening you can’t move against her, or she’s managed to buy you off somehow. Keep in mind, Adjunct, that a patron outside your cliquish legion could be a nice thing to have. You’re throwing that opportunity away.”

  It was my turn to look confused. She seemed to be suggesting I should help rat out Turov to further my own career.

  She might be right, of course. Galina had lots of enemies, and only a few well-placed friends. Signing on with Deech’s faction might just be the wisest course—but I’d rarely taken the smart man’s path in life.

  Deech began to walk out, but I called her back.

  “Imperator, what about Winslade? What was he arrested for?”

  “Apparently, he hacked into the interoffice security system.”

  “Oh…” I said, figuring that was probably true. “Am I free to go?”

  She nodded. “Yes. I’m releasing all of you. Not as an act of mercy, mind you, but of practicality. Your legion is due to deploy within weeks. There’s no time for the prison sentences you all richly deserve. But McGill?”

  “Yes sir?”

  “Try not to kill anyone else until you reach your new target world, all right?”

  “Sure thing, sir. I’ll do my best.”

  Sighing, she left. A pair of disgruntled hogs released me, glaring as they did so. I figured they were sore about me offing one of their buddies. I understood that, so I didn’t tease them or anything.

  Soon, Winslade and I were standing outside the brig, eyeing one another with suspicion.

  “You didn’t turn on her, did you?” Winslade asked.

  “I told the truth, that’s all.”

  Winslade winced. “Now? After all these years? Whatever possessed you to turn into a boy scout at this late date?”

  “You set this up, didn’t you? It’s your fault that hog died, and we’re all in the shit with the brass. All because you couldn’t stand a demotion.”

  Winslade looked up at me with hooded eyes. “We could have gotten our ranks back if you’d just played along.”

  “Listen, before you include me in any of your future schemes, you’d better check with me first.”

  “Fine,” he said, spitting the word.

  His tapper beeped, and he looked at it. New orders had just come in—mine beeped a moment later.

  We both looked at them and then at each other in dismay.

  “Both of us?” Winslade asked. “Working the booth together?”

  I laughed. “It’ll be just like the old days! We’re going to have a good time!”

  Winslade wasn’t laughing. We’d been ordered to report to the Mustering Hall in Newark for recruitment duty.

  For most Legion Varus people, that assignment was a vacation. You got to sit in a chair and talk dumb kids into signing up. But for Winslade especially, this felt like a real slap in the face.

  “She’s back in her office already,” he lamented. “Handing down shit-work from on-high. If you’d only claimed harassment—”

  “Well, I didn’t,” I told him. “See you tomorrow, bright and early. Listen, the good news is we’ve only got a few weeks of this to serve out before we’re shipped off to God-knows-where.”

  “Weeks…” he echoed, and I could tell his dreams of glory and vengeance were evaporating.

  I had to hand it to Turov, she was the slipperiest of the slippery. That woman made snakes seem rough to the touch.

  She’d gotten herself out of the brig pronto—probably the moment Deech had figured out she couldn’t get me to file charges.

  Still smiling and giving my head little shakes of bemusement, I headed for the ground floor. It was midday, and I was already late for any bar and grill I could find.

  -5-

  After a hearty lunch, I went back to my rented hotel room. I really was sleepy, and my grand plan for the afternoon included a lengthy nap.

  I was just stretching out on the couch when I felt something pressing into my back. Grunting and probing, I found the brown paper package Evelyn had given me the night before. I’d forgotten all about it.

  Opening the package carefully, just in case it was a bomb with a trigger-wire, I stared in bafflement for a moment.

  It was a book. An old book, made out of paper. To me, that was like holding a scroll from ancient Egypt in my hands.

  I read the cover out loud: “The Eaters of Lotus.”

  Suddenly, I was struck by a memory. Claver had been seeking this book years ago. We’d found it, at more or less the same time, in the library in Central.

  Before that, a Cephalopod commando in a teleport suit had sought the same book. After Central had been badly damaged in the war, everyone had assumed the book was gone forever. Frankly, after all these long years, I’d forgotten about it.

  But here it was, in my hands again.

  With a jolt, I recalled what Evelyn had said: don’t open it with any cameras around—not even your tapper.

  Clumsily, I covered the title back up again with the ripped up paper. Then I found a bag, and I stuck it deep inside.

  Who could I take this to? There were only a few trustworthy people I knew of who might be smart enough to explain its significance. Taking the bag, I headed out into the streets and began a long walk south.

  For about two kilometers around Central—which was a big area, because the building by itself was more than a kilometer wide at the base—the city was pretty safe and orderly. Hogs patrolled the streets, and people with money and jobs hustled this way and that in every direction.

  But further out, where the residential areas began, things changed. Oh, if you stuck to the nicest neighborhoods with auto gun-turrets and face-recognition systems on the gates, you didn’t have a problem. But if you strayed all the way out into the tenement housing districts, it could get a little rough.

  The worst neighborhood of all was the Old City. In this region the buildings were made of worn out bricks, and the streets were narrow and dark. The area wasn’t without charm, as there were some good bars down there, but mostly there were lots of aliens—and a few very friendly women.

  People called it the gray zone. I’m not sure why—probably because it was where the rules were blurred. Some of the aliens who lived here from off-world had their own ideas about cultural conduct. One being’s tradition was another’s crime, as they say—but not down here. The laws were lax, and most of the aliens liked it that way.

  Not all of them were happy residents, however. Some lived here just because they couldn’t get housing permits anywhere else. It was unfair, but that’s how it was.

  Today, I wanted to talk to someone special who lived down here. Smuggling the book in my bag like it was a million credits worth of contraband, I walked up a half dozen flights of stairs before I arrived at a painted door made of actual wood fiber.

  When I tapped on her apartment door the first time, Floramel didn’t answer. I decided to wait in the hallway, suspecting she must still be at work.

  Sure enough, after a few hours she showed up.

  “McGill?” Floramel asked in surprise.

  “That’s me.”

  She froze in the hallway, and she looked a little scared. That made me feel bad. Our past was checkered at best. We’d seen a lot of events together, some good and some bad.

  Floramel was a near-human. She was tall, with a long slim neck and a runway-model’s body. Her face was distinctive, exotic. It was her brain she was best known for, however. She’d run the alien research labs on Rogue World, back in the day, before the Mogwa fleet had bombed it out of existence.

  “Am I under arrest again?” she asked finally.

  “No, no, nothing like that. I’m just here to visit.”

  “Oh… I see,” she said, touching her tapper to her door and watching it slide open. “I’m sorry, James. I’m not sexually active at this time.”

  “Can I come in anyway?” I asked. “I ship out soon.”

  She thought about it for a moment. “All right.”

  She stepped inside, and I moved to follow her—but I didn’t make it.

  A thick, scaly arm shot across the doorway in front of me. It was attached to a saurian—one of those raptor types.

  Now, you have to understand that I’ve fought to the death with this kind of alien on many occasions. My first death, in point of fact, involved a swarm of these guys tearing my guts out with their wide snouts full of teeth that looked like yellowy nails.

  As a result, my hands came up and grabbed the arm. I figured this lizard was trying to perform a home-invasion.

  Then the dino went for me with his other clawed fist, and it was on.

  “Stop!” Floramel shouted. “Both of you! What are you doing? There’s no cause for violence!”

  We both froze and looked at her.

  The translator around the dino’s neck flickered as he grunted and hissed.

  “This being is an invader,” the saurian said. “I’ve watched him for hours, standing in this hallway. He stalks you. You are his prey.”