Grandma Julia raised her needler into the air.

  Maddox stopped speaking, waiting.

  Julia stood. Would she aim and fire the needler at him? “Your expertise did nothing for Legion Culain,” she said, her augmented voice easily carrying throughout the stadium.

  Maddox bowed his head. “I wasn’t with the legion long enough. I could have shown them how to defeat you otherwise. It would have been easy.”

  “You’re too arrogant for a slave,” Julia said.

  “I’m good at war.” Maddox swept a hand to indicate the slain dreadfangs. “I’m good at this kind of war and space war. It’s one of the reasons Leviathan fears me.”

  “The cybers fear you?” Julia mocked.

  Maddox made a formal bow, sweeping an arm low. “I’m at your service, Grandma Julia. I can help you expand your power, and…I can help you extend your life expectancy.”

  The five-hundred-year-old woman stared at him. “You’re a fool to make such empty promises,” she said in a hoarse voice.

  “I would be a fool if I was wrong, but I’m not wrong. This little stunt here today should help you see that.”

  “So, you slew three dreadfangs. I could have done better in a moment.” Julia indicated her needler.

  “I don’t dispute that,” Maddox said. “I am merely offering my services as a mercenary. I’m the best at what I do. I can fight in any manner. I suspect that you in the Highlands lack experts at space combat. That is my specialty. With those of Leviathan fast approaching, you may have need of such specialty.”

  “You say this because you fear the arena.”

  “Fighting in the arena is a waste of my skills, Grandma Julia. You are in charge here. I don’t dispute that. I think those of Leviathan might.”

  “I’ll simply trade you to them for an advantage,” Julia said.

  “That is your prerogative, of course. You rule here. I doubt that will buy you long-term survival from Leviathan. They sense weakness on Gath, not needing telepaths to do that. I can help you strengthen your defenses and make sure Leviathan weighs the pros and cons for a long time to come before they dare to try to steal your honey.”

  “You said they came for you.”

  “Is that the only reason?”

  Another of the Old Ones spoke quietly to Grandma Julia.

  Maddox kept his feelings and thoughts blank. He was gambling. He had done this openly for a reason: that other Old Ones could hear him and reflect on the dangers of the approaching assault vessels. Those others were surely not on the verge of death like Grandma Julia.

  “The fight is over,” Julia said. “Guards, take the captain to the waiting cell.” She stared at Maddox. “We will speak of this in private.”

  -42-

  Maddox showered, stretched but refused to let his mind relax. He used the Way of the Pilgrim as a shield. He wondered now if eating Gath honey did more than grant longevity. Maybe it opened channels in certain people’s minds, creating the conditions needed for sensitives and telepaths.

  Was that the real secret to the Highlanders’ ability to stave off most legion assaults? Could they predict or read in the tribune minds the attack paths? Did they have telepaths read centurions’ thoughts on the ground?

  In any case, Maddox protected his thoughts. The attendants hadn’t allowed Dravek in the waiting room, and that was probably a plus. The clone would ask too many questions.

  After showering, Maddox ate sandwiches and drank plenty of water. He found new clothes, softer and better made than his training garments.

  Then, he waited. While doing so, he fell asleep.

  “Captain Maddox,” a woman said softly.

  Maddox sat up, blinking.

  The beautiful woman wore little, was red-haired, curvaceous and smiled seductively. “I’m here to please you,” she said.

  Maddox shook his head. “Thank you, but no.”

  There was a moment of obvious disappointment on her face. “Oh. Would you like someone else?”

  “No. I’m married.”

  She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “I have a wife at home. Surely, you understand the concept of husband and wife.”

  “I do. But your wife is far away, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  The woman smiled and ran her hands suggestively down her lovely thighs. “I am here, not far. Enjoy me while you are able.”

  “That isn’t possible, as I took vows when I got married.”

  “What sort of vows?”

  “For one, to remain faithful to my wife until death do us part.”

  “Faithful…you mean you don’t sample the fruit from other trees?”

  “No.”

  She peered at him. “That is sad. You must be starving for attention and love. Surely, your wife will never know if you indulge far from home. Besides, have you considered the possibility you might never return home.”

  “I have.”

  “Then…?” she said, making ready to slip off her skimpy attire.

  Maddox shook his head. “Don’t do that. I hold to my vows. I love my wife.”

  “You don’t find me attractive?”

  “You’re lovely.”

  “Then why not enjoy me?”

  Maddox inhaled through his nostrils, looking away as if bored. The woman was beautiful, and Meta was far away, and he might never return home as the woman suggested. Yet, he’d taken a vow before God. God would know what he did, if nothing else. Besides, this was one of those tests of life and character. Did he wish to enjoy Meta to the fullest? He did indeed. Then he needed to remain faithful and enjoy the wife of his youth. This was his chosen path. He would remain on it despite the temptation in this room.

  “Captain Maddox,” the woman said, softly touching his shoulder.

  Maddox reacted fast, grabbing the wrist and twisting, turning the woman away from him.

  “Do you like it rough?” she said. “I’m more than willing.”

  Maddox pushed her away, so she stumbled. “Go. I’m done with you. Tell Grandma Julia I’m ready to talk.”

  The woman stared at Maddox. “You really mean it?”

  Maddox said nothing, no longer looking at her.

  The woman shook her head, clearly perplexed. “You’re a strange man, Captain.”

  “It’s been said.”

  She opened her mouth to say more, but perhaps she saw something in Maddox that stopped her. With a sniff of distain, the woman turned and walked out, slamming the door behind her.

  Twenty minutes later, guards escorted Maddox through underground tunnels. The guards changed several times. The first carried hand catapults. The second set had pistols. The last group carried machine pistols, walking with Maddox up a ramp to a waiting armored car outside.

  A rear door opened, and Gallant Ophir leaned into view from within. “Join me, Captain.”

  Maddox slid into the back seat with Ophir. One of the guards outside slammed the door shut. At a word from Ophir, the car slid forward.

  Once past the stadium parking lot they traveled on a road with long brick buildings and flowering ferns and fronds along the sides. An occasional, twenty-pound bee buzzed overhead.

  Maddox wondered what had happened to Dravek, but he knew better than to ask. That would show interest in Dravek’s fate. Doing that might complicate matters and certainly put Dravek’s life in danger.

  “Where are we headed?”

  Ignoring Maddox’s question, Ophir said, “That was well played.”

  Maddox frowned. “You mean in the arena?”

  “That, too,” Ophir said. “No, I mean Julia’s whore. You surprised Grandma. I believe it persuaded her to talk with you.”

  “She already said that in the arena.”

  “That was for the crowd’s benefit and the other Old Ones.”

  “They won’t be at the meeting?”

  “Do you think that’s where we’re going?”

  “I don’t know,” Maddox said.

  “…No,” Ophir said. “The other Old Ones won’t be there.”

  The car took several turns, so they left the settlement and drove through hilly territory with slave gangs hacking at the ground with mattocks. Guards with electric whips watched them while dreadfangs prowled the working perimeter.

  “Is there a reason you personally picked me up?” Maddox asked.

  Ophir grinned at him. “Getting nervous, are we?”

  Maddox said nothing to that.

  Ophir crossed his legs and examined his red-painted fingernails. “Can you truly help Grandma extend her life?”

  “There’s a chance.”

  Ophir grinned but in a strained manner. “How would you achieve this miracle?”

  Maddox had a feeling Ophir didn’t like the possibility. Was he slated to inherit Grandma’s position when she died? Did Ophir thus want Grandma out of the way sooner instead of later? Was the man eager to wield real power?

  “Were those just words then?” Ophir asked.

  Was there the hint of hope in the man’s voice? Maddox couldn’t tell and his intuitive sense wasn’t helping. He peered at the divide that separated them from the driver. “Is Mara on the other side trying to read my mind?”

  Ophir frowned. “Getting cute with me is a good way to find yourself bleeding to death in a ditch. Grandma is the head of our clan. I’m her deadly right hand, the enforcer. If I think you’re a danger to us, I’ll kill you. Are we clear on that?”

  “Perfectly,” Maddox said.

  “Now answer the question. How could you possibly extend Grandma’s life?”

  “Leviathan possesses longevity treatments. It’s possibly those will work on regular humans.”

  Ophir stared at him, taking his time to think it through. “I’ve never heard that.”

  “That may be. Have you traveled extensively then in Leviathan territory?”

  “Didn’t I warn you about being cute?”

  “It was an honest question, Gallant.”

  Ophir touched one of his ruby rings. “You must know I’ve never left Gath.”

  “I suspected as much.” Maddox shrugged. “I, on the other hand, have spent far too much time in a Leviathan laboratory. I learned much more about them there then I wanted to know.”

  “And you found out about the longevity treatments then?”

  “That’s right,” Maddox said.

  “The clone, Dravek, will attest to this?”

  “That’s doubtful.”

  “Because you’re lying?” asked Ophir.

  That was true, but Maddox did his best to remain calm and disinterested, as if the question was too droll to bother with an answer.

  Ophir leaned forward and knocked on the black-tinted window dividing the back from the front of the car.

  The panel slid down to reveal a hollow-eyed Mara sitting on the passenger side. She looked beat up, not with fists but with—

  Then it hit Maddox. She must have felt one of the dreadfangs’ deaths when he’d slain the beast. It had affected her physically or taken a psychic toll, as she must have been controlling its mind when it died.

  “Is he lying about the longevity treatments?” Ophir asked.

  Mara stared at Maddox.

  He felt a tickle in his mind but no more than that.

  “I can’t tell,” she said.

  “Are you lying about better longevity treatments?” Ophir asked practically in Maddox’s face.

  “No,” Maddox said. “I’m telling you the truth. I wouldn’t dare do less.”

  Ophir studied him closely and finally turned to Mara. “Don’t you have a premonition one way or the other?”

  “He refused Grandma’s courtesan—the man’s a rock of morality.” Mara shook her head. “He must be telling the truth. He’s one of those stubborn honest fools.”

  “Not a fool,” Ophir said. “But he is stubborn. Very well,” he directed his voice at the driver. “Take us to the Stenholm Tower.”

  -43-

  The tower was a graceful and daunting edifice, looking too fragile to stand so high. Maddox rode up in an elevator with Ophir and Mara. There was no guard, unless Ophir was supposed to be his guard. They had exited the armored car in a grand parking area filled with military vehicles and milling soldiers.

  That meant something portentous, Maddox was sure.

  When the elevator stopped, Ophir had to remove his ruby rings, handing them to a severely dressed woman with a shaved head. She had iron bracelets with wires extending from them to steel caps on her fingertips.

  Soon, Ophir led the way down a curving corridor. The endlessly long window on the outer curve showed the countryside from a four-hundred-foot vantage. The stadium was in the distance along with the brick building settlement and boundless fields and groves. The carpet softened their footfalls until they reached large ornate wooden doors.

  Several severely dressed women with shaved heads and the same steel bracelets and fingertip caps waited as guards. Without acknowledging any of them, the women opened the doors.

  Ophir led the way into a large, packed chamber. An old, withered man wearing a black robe was hunched over what seemed like an imposing judge’s bench at the front of the chamber. Closer to them and behind a wooden barrier in rows of padded seats sat many Old Ones and their juniors like Ophir.

  Maddox found two of the severely dressed women at his side.

  “You’ll stay with them,” Ophir said.

  Maddox nodded, stopping.

  Ophir and Mara left him and worked down a row until they sat down beside an impatient Grandma Julia.

  The two bald women escorted Maddox past the wooden barrier, leaving the seated Old Ones and their attendants behind. The two women marched him before the imposing bench and the gnarled man seated up there looking down at him. He had a long nose and hate-filled eyes burning with something extra.

  A murmur had begun as Maddox approached the bench. That stilled as the wizened old man scanned the assembled throng.

  The old man cleared his throat. He looked like a living corpse with pallid, badly wrinkled facial skin. The splotches on his bald head made an ugly spectacle. The eyes, however, were terrifying and far too knowing.

  “You are Captain Maddox,” the old man said in a raspy though loud voice. He must have speech amplification.

  “I am, sir.”

  The old man shook his head. “I am not sir. I am the Shofet, the Judge of the Highlands. You may refer to me as Shofet Zadoury. I am the authority in this chamber. I have been granted license to make a degree by those you see behind you.”

  Maddox turned and bowed respectfully before the assembled. This was better than he’d expected from his performance in the arena. He must have guessed right about their lust for extended life beyond what the honey gave them.

  There was an old German proverb: eating builds appetite. Might that prove true to those granted extended life wanting even more? That was the human cry after all, “More, I want more.”

  “I’m not going to do the speaking in favor of this proposal,” Shofet Zadoury said crossly. “I will do the ruling, though. Grandma Julia, if you please.”

  From her place in the padded rows, the old dame struggled to her feet. Ophir reached out to help her. She slapped his hands away. He retracted them immediately.

  Struggling, Julia worked through the row and hobbled with a gnarled walking stick, moving past the wooden barrier. One of the severe women put a wooden chair with armrests on a dais. Then the two severe women helped Grandma Julia onto the dais and into the chair. The last one handed her a disc of a throat mike, which Julia pasted to her wrinkled throat.

  “Can everyone hear me?” Julia asked.

  “Fine, fine,” Zadoury said. “Now, get on with it. I have an orgy to watch and I’m getting randy just sitting here.”

  A ripple of polite laughter rose from the assembled.

  “Captain Maddox,” Julia said. “You spoke in the arena about your expertise. Would you tell the assembled what that is?”

  Maddox repeated what he’d told Julia in the arena about his multiple combat experiences and abilities.

  “Wait a minute,” Zadoury said. “This ruffian thinks he can defeat the Leviathan assault vessels heading to Gath?”

  “I can indeed, Shofet,” Maddox said.

  “How can you perform this military miracle?” Zadoury asked.

  “First, I must dig out the ancient weapon hidden in the desert. I mean in a Gath mid-world desert.”

  A loud murmur began from the assembled.

  “Silence if you please.” When the murmuring ceased, Zadoury regarded Maddox. “Do you realize that none of us is rash enough to send an expedition into the mid-world desert? We’re the Honey Men. Fools and aggrandizers come to us, and we take from them. That has been our way ever since we found the bees.”

  “That strikes me as understandable,” Maddox said. “You have what everyone wants—”

  “Enough of this,” Zadoury said, his enhanced voice drowning out Maddox. “You’re an outlander. You’re not here to judge our ways as good or bad. You’re a slave, no less, a gladiator. You will refrain from such comments. Grandma Julia, what is the reason for this nonsense? The man is a fraud. Digging up a mid-world desert weapon indeed.”

  Julia turned in her armchair and stared up at the Shofet. “It’s more than that. He knows how to increase our longevity.”

  Stunned silence greeted her words. Some of the silent in the assembled seemed worried and upset by the possibility. Those were the younger Old Ones and the juniors like Ophir.

  Maddox had an immediate suspicion as to why. The oldest wanted to keep on living, naturally. The younger ones wanted the oldest ones to die so they could climb and gain more authority. He’d just dropped a bombshell into the long-lived Honey Men society. This was even better than he’d hoped.

  “Outlander,” Zadoury said.

  Maddox faced the Shofet.

  “Is all this true about extended lifespans?”

  “It is,” Maddox said.

  “Then let us get to the point,” Zadoury said in a suddenly hoarse voice. “Tell us how you can increase our already legendary existences.”

  “I’d like to, Shofet, but I dislike being a slave and a gladiator. It makes everything harder to recall, if you catch my drift?”