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not.”
    “Does guirt mean the children?” Aingeal asked.
    “Aye,” Cynyr said. “It translates as the hatched.”
    “Obviously the children were not inside Her body,” Lord Naois said. “Like the ghorets, they were brought here as embryos and have now come to full term.”
    “Then they are just infants,” Aingeal said, worry creasing her beautiful face.
    “How old would you say the children you saw were, Jaborn?” Arawn asked.
    “I know little of children but I believed them to be around nine years of age,”
    Jaborn replied.
    “How can that be if they have just been born?” Aingeal asked.
    “Because Reaper children mature at a much faster rate than human children,” Glyn Kullen said. “Think ten years to your human one, Aingeal.”
    “At least ten years,” Owen agreed.
    “Think on this,” Lord Naois said. “We don’t know how long the Ceannus camp has been in Calizonia. We haven’t had any reason to send a Reaper to that territory for a long time.”
    “And while we were just discovering them in the mountains above Haines City and discovering a way to catch them if they tried to land another ship on Terra, that camp in the southwest could have been there for quite some time,” Lord Kheelan added. “If that is the case, they have had plenty of time to plan their attack on us.”
    “So what do we do?” Bevyn asked.
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    “We must get the guirt back for Her or She will wreak havoc the likes of which this world has never known,” Lord Dunham told them. “The Burning War will have seemed like a child’s game compared to what She could do here.”
    “And if they’ve unleashed more ghorets?” Cynyr asked quietly.
    “Ghorets mate like rabbits and their gestation period is far shorter than most reptiles,” Lord Naois said.
    “How short is short?” Iden asked, fear making his amber eyes gleam.
    “Half of a Terran reptile’s,” Lord Dunham reported. “A month at most.”
    “The land between here and Calizonia could be teeming with them in a few months’ time,” Glyn whispered.
    Aingeal listened to the men arguing amongst themselves about the likelihood of the venomous creatures slithering their way across the territories and how long it would take them to kill the humans in their path. She held up her hand to quiet them. “Don’t snakes hunt sensing the warmth of its prey?” she asked.
    “Aye, but what does that have to—?” Lord Kheelan snapped.
    “Don’t snakes have heat in their bodies too?” she interrupted him.
    “Every living creature has heat,” Lord Naois said. “No matter how cold-blooded the beast.”
    “And you can track that heat, can’t you?”
    The High Lord glared at her. “Wench, what are you trying to ask?”
    “Can your flying ships detect heat?” she demanded.
    “Of course they can. What—?”
    “If the ghorets are writhing their way from Calizonia this way, would your flying ship be able to detect them?” She put her hands on her hips. “There are a lot of unpopulated miles between Calizonia and Nemcone. Could the flying ships pick up the movement of the ghorets along the desert sand?”
    Cynyr stared at his lady, his face filled with pride. “And wouldn’t those ships be able to fire some kind of weapon to incinerate those slithering beasties?” he asked, grinning at Aingeal.
    “Fire laser pulses that would burn those bastards to a crisp?” Arawn joined in. Lord Kheelan’s mouth dropped open. Once more Aingeal Cree had backed him up against the proverbial wall and—just as she had the first time—she allowed him no quarter. Naois and Dunham were looking at him. The Reapers were watching, waiting, breaths held. He had no choice but to answer her, to acknowledge her question and once again, the High Lord gave ground to the slip of a woman facing him.
    “Can you do it, milord?” she queried.
    “Aye, wench,” the High Lord said quietly, his voice husky. “We can do all that and more.”
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    Charlotte Boyett-Compo
    “Then