Various women had served the agent—and all reported the same thing. They would be positioned on hands and knees facing the head of the bed. Amocar would enter the cubicle, approach the prostitute from behind, and drop his trousers. Then, already aroused, he would enter them. Vaginally in some cases—but anally in most.

  Occasionally Amocar would lean forward to fondle the woman’s breasts, but more often than not the agent was content to knead their buttocks and grunt obscenities.

  Most of the prostitutes were happy to follow instructions, but a few simply forgot or sought to pleasure themselves. Deviations of that sort were always met with anger, a slap on the ass, and an admonition to “knock it off.”

  Flo had a theory about that, about Amocar’s need for control, but knew it didn’t matter. Not so long as the creep behaved himself and paid his bill.

  So that’s where Amocar was, just emerging from a session at the G-Spot, when a clutch of five heavily armed Kan dropped off a neighboring roof. The agent saw them, tried to get out of the way, but was quickly hemmed in. The noncom in charge, an individual named Dor-Oll, spoke via translator. “Lord Hak-Bin will speak with you now… Come with us.”

  There were people all around. Some stared openly while others pretended not to see. Would word of the encounter get back to HQ? Yes, of course it would. Amocar pitched his voice low. “Hit me. Do it now.”

  By the standards of his kind Dor-Oll looked surprised. “Strike you? Whatever for?”

  “So the other slaves will believe that you forced me to come,” Amocar growled. “Now hit me.”

  Dor-Oll couldn’t grin, not really, yet Amocar would have sworn that the Sauron’s lips curved upward at the corners. The back-graspered blow came with unexpected speed. The clublike extremity slammed into the side of the security agent’s head and sent him reeling. Amocar stumbled, nearly fell, and barely managed to maintain his footing. He brought a hand up to the side of his face. It came away red with blood. He thought about the .9mm stuck in the waistband of his pants but knew better than to reach for it. “You bastard.”

  There was no way to know exactly how the words were translated, but there was no mistaking the warrior’s reaction. The second blow struck the opposite side of Amocar’s face, knocked him off his feet, and dumped him to the ground.

  Now, as the security agent picked himself up, there was little doubt as to what Manning would hear. The bugs stopped Amocar, shoved him around, and took him into custody. One entire side of his face was swollen, and he had a black eye. That being the case, and with no desire to suffer further, the agent allowed his head to hang while they marched him away.

  One brave soul yelled, “God bless you!” but other than that Amocar’s journey from the brothel to the nearest observation tower went unremarked.

  There was one bystander who watched the byplay with little or no sympathy whatsoever. A woman who, except for her unusual stature, looked like hundreds even thousands of female slaves. She wore a dirty gray scarf over her head, a much-washed dress, and carried a bundle of firewood. She offered it to everyone who passed, hoping that none of them would accept. Her name was Jill Ji-Hoon, ex–F.B.I. Agent Jill Ji-Hoon, and Amocar was her hobby. Besides the fact that the bastard was a misogynist, he was dirty. Not dirt dirty, which he certainly was, but on the take. All she had to do was prove it. Now, as the pathetic piece of crap urged the Saurons to hit him, Ji-Hoon knew she was onto something. Something good. The Kan led Amocar away and she followed.

  One of the Taggers had scored the observation tower during the night, and a slave had been assigned to cover the graffiti. The woman liked the assignment and was determined to make it last. The paintbrush made a slapping sound as it hit the concrete.

  The entryway, which was curved to match the tower’s wall, opened as the party approached. The Kan paused long enough to allow a Fon-mounted Ra ‘Na technician to exit and gestured for Amocar to enter. The human felt rather than saw the door close behind him. Meanwhile, unable to follow Amocar inside, Ji-Hoon found a place on the opposite side of the street. Assuming Amocar was dirty, he’d be back.

  Amocar had never been inside one of the alien structures before and immediately noticed that the interior light level was lower than he would have preferred. The warriors morphed from tan to gray as they shuffled onto the semicircular platform. A buzzer buzzed, the platform seemed to leap up the shaft, and Amocar felt his knees buckle. It seemed as if the Kan had been waiting for that because they made sounds that might have been equivalent to laughter.

  The shaft was little more than a vertiginous blur as the lift carried them upward. The human had barely recovered from the sudden acceleration when the platform coasted to a stop. Amocar knew without being told that he had arrived within the bulbous structure at the top of the tower.

  Fear trickled into the pit of the security agent’s stomach as he thought about the impending meeting. Not because he’d done anything wrong, but because Hak-Bin was a crazy bastard, and there was no way to know what the geek might do.

  Still, the meeting was at his suggestion, and that should count for something. Especially given the fact that he was ready to feed the bug some heavy-duty shit. The warriors escorted the human along one of the spokelike corridors that connected the tower’s core with the outside observation platform.

  Amocar’s escort, now reduced to only two warriors, ordered him to make a sharp right hand turn. He did so, stepped through an open door, and found himself in a long triangular room. The Kan stayed out in the hallway.

  What looked like a Barcalounger occupied the center of the space. A woman of Asian decent stood next to it. She was attractive in a clean-scrubbed sort of way, and Amocar visualized her naked. Her voice was flat and neutral. “Have you been here before? No? Then do as I say. Sit in the chair. Good… Now, wait while I place the hood over your head, and slip your hands into the gauntlets.”

  Amocar recognized the setup as some sort of virtualreality (VR) rig similar to those in many people’s homes. Judging from the cables that snaked back and forth across the floor, the fur balls had found a way to hook the human equipment in with their own. Amocar backed into the chair and sat down. “So, baby, how would you like to sit on my face?”

  “About as much as I would like to ram a red-hot poker through my right eye,” the woman replied calmly. “Now shut up or I’ll wire this backward. The feedback would fry your brain.”

  Amocar didn’t know if such a thing was possible but didn’t care to find out. Hak-Bin wasn’t planning to meet with him in person, that much was obvious, so the link would be critical. No point in getting his ass in a wringer over a piece of tail.

  It took less than a minute for the woman to connect Amocar, check her work, and back out of the room. Amocar lifted the hood, took a quick peek, and discovered he was alone. The agent was about to point out that nothing was happening when darkness rolled over him. The experience was unlike anything the security agent had ever experienced before.

  First came a horrible fall into nothingness, like death, or what death might be. Then, just as Amocar thought he was about to throw up, something snapped. Now he was somewhere else. Or someone was somewhere else, since he felt a distinct sense of displacement, and the sensory feedback was wrong. Things looked different, smelled different, and felt different. His body was weightless. His vision, which seemed to consist of two slightly overlapping views of the same scene, made him dizzy.

  There were lights, two of them, which floated like suns in the blackness of space. Hovering below them, and bathed in blue-green luminescence, floated a badly misshapen mass. Whatever it was spoke, and it was only then, when Amocar heard the voice that he recognized it as belonging to Hak-Bin. “So, human, you wanted to speak with me. Here I am. You look good as a Fon.”

  Amocar looked down and realized that the virtual him had been rendered as a functionary and knew why everything felt so strange. The aliens had used the modified VR system to momentarily transform him into a bug! He struggled to sound coherent. “Thank you, excellency.”

  The dark mass waved something that might have been a pincer. “Enough of what you would call ‘small talk.’ Make your report.”

  Amocar swallowed, didn’t like the way it felt, and launched into a carefully rehearsed account of the sawmill summit. He listed each of the participants, summarized the meeting’s contents, and covered the ad hoc election. Franklin had betrayed his race… and the master race as well.

  Hak-Bin listened with a steadily growing sense of anger. His first thought was to round the slaves up, put all of them to death, and complete the citadels without their help.

  But as emotionally satisfying as that might be, he knew better than actually to do it. First, because the Fon would never be able to complete the structures in time; second, because any humans who managed to survive would pose a threat to the nymphs; and, third, because something of that sort would signal weakness.

  No, brute force was out of the question. What then? The answers, because a number of possibilities presented themselves, were delightfully subtle. They also played into and were consistent with certain plans already in motion. Careful to conceal the extent of his concern from the human spy, Hak-Bin adopted a conspiratorial tone. “This is valuable intelligence. You were correct to bring it to my attention. A female will be delivered to the usual location. Do with her as you will.

  “In the meantime, be advised that certain disruptions will occur. A significant number of slaves will be moved from the area where you are located to work on projects nearby. Franklin, and retainers such as yourself, will stay.

  “For reasons of no concern to you, the need for individuals such as Franklin will be greatly reduced. Because of that, not to mention the extent of his treachery, you may go ahead and kill him.”

  Amocar, his mind very much on the woman, licked chitinous lips. They were hard and dry. “No problem, excellency. I’ll wait till he goes to sleep, slit his throat, and slip out the back.”

  “No,” Hak-Bin replied emphatically, you won t. Such a death could be concealed. Others might continue to act in Franklin’s name for weeks or even months to come. He must die in public, where hundreds if not thousands can see. Word will spread, and the slaves will do as they are told. Meanwhile, with no one to hold the various factions together, the resistance will fall apart.”

  “Of course,” Amocar agreed lamely, “that’s what I meant.”

  “Good,” the Sauron replied. “In the meantime there are other matters to attend to. Start by killing the one called Clan Leader Storm. That should intimidate her peers and cause them to reconsider their flirtation with the so-called resistance movement.”

  Amocar felt ice water flow into the Fon-body’s veins. Locating the eco-nut, and getting close enough to kill her, would be a lot more difficult than offing Franklin. He couldn’t say that, however, not to a bug, and specially not to this bug. “Yes, eminence, I will do my best. And the other leaders?”

  “The others will remain untouched,” Hak-Bin replied, “for the moment. Later, after you deal with Franklin, the situation may change. The only thing worse than having resistance leaders is not knowing who they are. Do you understand?”

  Amocar didn’t have the foggiest idea what the chit was talking about, but nodded anyway. “Yes, excellency.”

  “I’m gratified to hear it,” Hak-Bin finished. “You have your orders—now carry them out.”

  Amocar was about to produce another, “Yes, your eminence,” when the connection was severed, his stomach lurched, and he found himself back in his own body. The attendant appeared and disconnected the snakelike black leads. “And a good time was had by all?”

  “It couldn’t have been better,” Amocar lied. “Was it good for you?”

  “Not really,” the woman replied, “not while you’re alive.”

  Amocar stood, and was about to backhand the woman across the mouth, when a Kan shuffled into the room. She smiled defiantly. “Yes? Was there something else?”

  The security agent made a face and followed the warrior outside. The Kan delivered Amocar to ground level and turned him loose.

  Still hiding in plain sight, but without the bundle of firewood she had been forced to sell fifteen minutes earlier, Jill Ji-Hoon watched her fellow agent emerge from the tower, blink in the bright sunlight, and hurry away. The fact that Amocar had left under his own power, without so much as a Kan escort, spoke volumes. The question was not if he had been spying for the Saurons, but for how long? From the beginning most likely—which meant the bugs knew about the resistance and its plans. Well, there was nothing Ji-Hoon could do about that, but she could sure as hell let them know about Amocar.

  Her mind made up, the tall rangy woman left her spot opposite the tower, faded into the crowd, and seemed to disappear.

  HELL HILL

  Ever since the day on which Sool had come to the Sauron warrior’s aid, even going so far as to protect him from the human crowd, things had been just a little bit easier. Not much… but a little.

  Evidence of the high esteem in which the Saurons held the doctor could be seen not only in the red ear tag that freed her from digging ditches, but in the fact that none of the patients outside her clinic had been rousted since that day and none had been shot at from the observation towers. In fact, a wary sort of friendship had developed between Sool and the Kan who ruled that particular sector of Hell Hill. His name was Nee-Pal, and when Dixie told Sool that the officer was waiting outside, the doctor interrupted an examination to go out and speak with him.

  The ever-present queue had migrated as far from Nee-Pal as possible. They watched as the doctor emerged from the clinic, spotted the Sauron, and went to meet him. The alien turned as the Sool approached. “Slave Sool.”

  Though not exactly collegial—the greeting was polite. Sool inclined her head. “File Leader Nee-Pal.”

  The bug was all business—and the translation sounded flat. “Be advised that approximately seventy-five percent of the slaves working on this temple will be marched to new locations tomorrow morning. You can remain or go. The choice is yours.”

  The Sauron waved a pincer toward the clinic. “If you decide to go, there is a need to pack your equipment. That is all.” So saying, the chit turned, took a forty-foot jump, and was gone.

  Moments later, back in the clinic, Dixie reacted to the news. “So, what are we going to do?”

  “We?”

  “Do you need me?”

  “Yes, desperately.”

  Dixie grinned. “That’s what I thought. So, ‘we.’”

  Sool gave the nurse a hug. “Thanks, Dixie, you’re the best. We go where our patients go… That’s the way I see it. Better start packing. I’ll put the word out. Perhaps some of our ex-patients will lend us a hand.”

  The nurse nodded. “How ‘bout friends? There’s no way to know who’s going and who’s staying.”

  Sool raised an eyebrow. “Is that your way of telling me to throw myself at Jack Manning’s feet?”

  Dixie laughed. “In a word, ‘yes.’”

  Sool sighed. “I screwed up, I admit that, but what’s the point? He has Franklin to take care of—and I have my patients.”

  Dixie decided to let the matter drop. Perhaps later, after she had time to think about it, Sool would reconsider. In the meantime there was packing to do. Lots of it. The women went to work.

  HELL HILL

  Even though he was a slave, and working under what he considered to be primitive conditions, Manning still had paperwork to do. That’s why he was all too happy to put the current duty roster aside and welcome Jill Ji-Hoon into his shabby work space. He pointed across the messy desk. “Kick those boots out of the way, dump yesterday’s lunch into the trash can, and turn that bucket upside down. It makes a passable stool.”

  The ex–FBI agent eyed the container in question, knew her knees would stick up in front of her face, and shook her head. “I’ll stand if it’s all the same to you, sir.”

  “Suit yourself,” Manning replied, leaning back in the government surplus chair, “but forget the ‘sir’ stuff. What’s on your mind?”

  “It’s Amocar, sir. I have reason to suspect that he’s working for the bugs.”

  In spite of the fact that Manning had little to no use for Amocar and would have been delighted to get rid of the slimy slob, alarm bells began to ring. Did Ji-Hoon have the goods on Amocar? The real goods? Or was this about the endless shit details El Segundo liked to pass her way? Something the security chief had monitored but didn’t want to mess with unless he absolutely had to. If she had something solid, then good, Amocar would go down. But, unit cohesion was important, very important, and there was no room for vendettas. Manning leaned forward and the chair squeaked. His eyes narrowed. “That’s a serious charge, Agent Ji-Hoon—a very serious charge. If you have proof, let’s hear it. If not, then get back to work.”

  Ji-Hoon swallowed and stood a little taller. “I followed Agent Amocar to a place called the G-Spot. As he left a group of Kan arrived and escorted him away.”

  “Escorted?” Manning inquired softly, “As in ‘let’s go have a beer?’ Or escorted as in ‘come with us or we’ll blow your head off?’”

  The ex–FBI agent shrugged. “The interaction was friendly at first. Then, realizing the need for a cover story, Amocar instructed the Kan to hit him. They complied.”

  “Yeah,” Manning replied, “I guess they did. I saw the poor bastard about twenty minutes ago and sent him to see Dr. Sool.”

  Ji-Hoon felt her stomach sink. Trust the little weasel to see Manning first! This was an uphill battle, that much was obvious, but all she could do was see it through. “They got a bit carried away—but the fact remains: He asked for it.”

  Manning looked her in the eye. “You were close enough to hear that?”

  “Well, no,” Ji-Hoon answered reluctantly, “but I could read his lips and see his gestures. Amocar told the bugs to hit him.”