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satisfaction—and then a hint of feral and necessary rage. In its concealed compartment, her fury received its first taste of the food it craved. When she’d betrayed Angus—when she’d enabled Nick’s people to plant Station supplies aboard Angus’ ship by disabling the blip which would have warned him Bright Beauty ’s holds were unlocked—she hadn’t felt any rage. She’d been too caught up in the risk of what she did: the danger of Angus’ response, and her helplessness against it.
    But now she felt that anger. One of her compartments cracked open, and a passion hotter than the zone implant’s enforced yearning leaked out.
    It guided her hand as she reached under the mattress and switched off the control.
    The transition was hideous. She was going to have to learn how to manage transitions, or else the shock of them would ruin her. They hadn’t been this bad when Angus held the control. Whatever he’d imposed on her, she’d always been eager for it to end, frantic to regain some sense of herself. But now the functions of the zone implant were hers to choose. That made a profound difference.
    Earlier, waiting for Nick, she’d tried to prepare herself for the flood of weariness which poured through her when the implant was switched off. To some extent, she was ready for that. But she wasn’t prepared for the grief she felt now, for the keen pain of resuming her ordinary mortality. She’d lost something precious and vital by ending her abandonment.
    However, the transition was swift. Or else it was more complex than she realized. Faced with the knowledge that she was only human after all, she started to crybiting her lip for silence, so that she wouldn’t wake Nick. But then, almost immediately, her rage came back to her. And it was followed by her revulsion. If she was only human, then Nick Succorso was only another version of Angus Thermopyle: male; therefore ultimately interested in sex only as a masque of rape and degradation.
    Now she had to bite her lip hard to keep herself from crying out or flinching; to master the electric jolt of her reaction against what Nick had just done to her. She had to think, and think quickly—
    Not Angus. Not like Angus. Even if Nick was essentially the same, he was effectively different. His passions were less naked than Angus’: he was caught up in the masque. No, more than that: he liked the illusion that his personal virility and magnetism were capable of making her respond so utterly.
    And if he remained caught up in the masque, if she could keep him there—if he liked the illusion enough—
    He would be blinded to the truth.
    Without realizing it, she’d stopped biting her lip. Her need for that small hurt was over: her need to fling herself away from Nick was receding. He looked vulnerable now, asleep, and that had never been true of Angus. Despite the long, clean line of his muscles, despite his unmistakable grace and strength, he looked like he could be killed before he woke up. That eased her revulsion.
    Now, perhaps, she could have rested. Most of the immediate intensity of transition had declined: the weariness remained. The external reality of her body, as opposed to the internal reality of the zone implant, was that Nick had used her extravagantly. She was acutely sore in some places, and there was a price to be paid for all those endorphins. Sleep would be good for her, if she could sleep without dreaming about Angus. If she could sleep without waking up back aboard Bright Beauty.
    But she didn’t trust sleep. Nick had said, That’s not good enough. She had that threat hanging over her. You can tell us all the rest later.
    She had more getting ready to do.
    Of course, the “getting ready” she needed most involved further experimentation with the zone implant control. That was too dangerous, however. If Nick caught her at it, she was finished. She left the zone implant control where it was.
    Instead she tried to guess what “tell us all the rest”