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feelings toward his operation designs, but he was also experienced enough not to simply ignore the recommendations of a good consultant. With more and more routine operations being handled by semisentient computerized systems, the only ones that still required human surgeons were those that were as much art as they were science. Writing required editors; sculpture required texturers; surgery required design consultants. Or so the theory went.

"All right, then," Billingsgate said at last. "We cut the markinine by ten percent and shift the gamma-site neurobinder three millimeters right-lateral. Is that it?"

"That's it." Melinda closed down the plate. "Is everything else ready?"

"Just about. We just have to-"

He broke off as the door slid open and a nurse stepped in. "I'm sorry, Dr. Cavanagh, but this just came for you," she said, holding out a card. "It's marked urgent."

"Thank you," Melinda said, taking it and pulling out her own plate.

"Make it fast," Billingsgate said.

"I will," Melinda promised, frowning at the scrambled symbols. She'd expected it to be a job assignment or something equally official; but this was in one of her father's private codes. Keying for decoding, she watched as the lines reformed themselves....

And felt her heart seize up. "No," she whispered.

Halfway to the door, Billingsgate turned back around. "What is it?"

Wordlessly, she swiveled the plate around to face him. He stooped to read it. "Oh, my God," he murmured. "Who's Pheylan?"

"My brother," Melinda told him, her voice sounding distant in her ears. She'd had a chance to see Pheylan three weeks ago, when they'd both been on Nadezhda. But she'd been too busy....

Billingsgate was saying something. "I'm sorry," she said, forcing herself to focus on him. "What did you say?"

"I said you don't need to stay," he repeated. "The team can handle things without you. Get yourself a flight over to the spaceport and get out of here."

She looked back at the plate, the words dissolving into blurs before her. "No," she said, wiping at her eyes. "I'm the design consultant. I'm supposed to see the operation through."

"That's a recommendation," Billingsgate said. "Not a requirement."

"It's my requirement," Melinda said, standing up. Her mind was starting to function again, spreading out the possibilities and necessities in her usual surgically neat lines. "Give me a minute to get in touch with the CavTronics plant in Kai Ho and I'll be right there."

"All right," Billingsgate said, not sounding convinced. "If you're sure."

"I'm sure," she told him. "I can't bring Pheylan back. Maybe I can help prevent someone else from dying."

She didn't realize until the words were out of her mouth how easily they could be interpreted as a slight on Billingsgate's surgical skills. But the older man didn't even seem to notice. "All right," he said again. "Nurse, tell the team to get suited up. We'll be starting as soon as Dr. Cavanagh is ready."

4

The blue light flared through the honeycomb's viewports, jolting Pheylan out of a troubled sleep. The light faded, flared again, faded again, flared again, faded again-

"All right!" he shouted, slapping the pod wall. "Enough, already!"

The light flared one last time and went out. Pheylan swore under his breath, wincing at the rancid taste in his mouth as he checked his chrono. He felt as if he'd just barely closed his eyes, but he'd actually been asleep for four hours. That made it twenty-two hours since the alien ship had come up behind his pod and swallowed it like a big fish snaring its lunch. Roughly sixty-six light-years, assuming the aliens hadn't discovered a stardrive that ran on a different theory from the Commonwealth's. A long way from home.

The blue light flashed again, twice this time. Reflexively, Pheylan reached for the shutter control, stopped with another curse as his sleep-fogged mind remembered that none of the pod's equipment was functional. They'd done that to him early on, scuffling furtively