The car skidded to a halt, and the door flew open.

Boodins Earncy jumped out with a practiced haste, and dashed for the abandoned, blown-out building. He didn’t go inside- he paced a bit, sniffing, and his ears flew up in startlement, and then he was dashing back to the car again, slipping in the debris and gravel and sprawling on his face, getting up and resuming his headlong sprint back to the Estrai sports car.

The door slammed behind him, and the wheels clawed for traction, a weird whirring chirp as traction control gave just a hint of wheelspin.

The sound of servo-modulated tire screech and the whoosh of the vehicle’s headlong flight were lost in the distance long before the dust Boodins kicked up had settled.

Inside the car, Siertes gave grudging approval. “That was pretty quick, puppy, you’re taking it more seriously…”

Boodins was panting, but wouldn’t wait for a proper breath. “It’ser! Itwas! Shewasthere!”

“Take it easy, Boodins!” said Dene. “You’re kidding. Elistary stopped at that place? Really?”

“Really! ‘s her!”

“That’s seriously out of character.” said Siertes darkly. “She should be stopping at the nicest refueling places. If she’s stopping to piss in abandoned shitholes there’s something badly wrong.”

“How are we for time?” said Dene, staring fixedly at the road as the car flung itself forward.

“Yes, they’re still back there. No, they’re not catching up or anything.”

The gang of Runge that were admiring the car had been left far behind, but Voustret’s sports car was such a prize that they continued to patiently give chase. Dene and Boodins could no longer see them in the distance, but Siertes had no difficulty picking them out, anytime the path of the high-speed conduit rose over a gentle hill and allowed a really long view behind.

“How much time will we have?” said Dene.

“A good fifteen minutes, maybe.”

“Why do you care if something’s wrong for Elistary? You said there was something badly wrong.”

“Yeah. I don’t like the sound of that.” said Boodins. “I’m still hoping she has some kind of explanation for all this.”

“Explanation for gathering a huge amount of contraband poison?”

“If you put it like that,” said Boodins, “…yes. Explanation for it.”

“There must be an explanation but I don’t think you’re going to like it any better than we will…”

“To answer your question,” said Siertes, “she can rot for all I care, but when somebody goes against expectation, it’s usually bad news. I mean, badly wrong for us.”

“Other than chasing a bitch with a truckload of poison while being chased by a gang who’s gonna kill us?”

“Steady, crazy wolfess. They haven’t got us yet.”

“Okay… I have to say it.” said Boodins. “I don’t like you guys talking that way. She is still a princess! Can you, I don’t know, respect my feelings a little bit? When me and Rai started out, I thought I was rescuing her!”

“Respect your feelings?” inquired Siertes.

“I don’t know where you get off calling her names- if she really has done anything wrong, we have the Fine Courts at home! There are ways of handling this. What’s making you so… mean? I was gonna say venomous,” said Boodins, “but you’d probably take that as a compliment…”

Siertes didn’t blink, but she didn’t answer at first.

“Seriously,” said Boodins, “aren’t you sorry?”

“If you weren’t Scruff class, I might be offended.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” snorted Boodins.

“Simple- of all Resten, you guys are by far the most accepting of my people. You’re not really freaking out. I can tell you to go sniff at a building and you aren’t offended just at the idea that I’m giving you orders. You sure aren’t giving me credit for wisdom, but every road points two ways- I’m not giving you that either, and we’ll make do. I think possibly you just don’t know.”

“Know what?”

“I have no reason to think well of Elistary. I’m a Tompar. It’s nice of you to behave as if I’m almost a person, but your Shopkeeper middle-class friends very likely wouldn’t even speak to me, and your Fine royalty have killed my people in legions.”

Boodins was speechless. His mouth opened and shut, his eyes bugged out, and finally he managed a “Nuh-UH!”

“I don’t mean directly. The Estrai defend us from Xarnax attack, and the fighting goes all over the place. Every time, every single time Estrai ask Resten for aid or use of their facilities- refueling, armament, to intercept fleeing Xarnax units or blockade them when they’re cutting through Resten space- nothing.”

“We’re very lucky they’re not making war on us too!”

“Why should they, when they can get whatever they want without firing a shot?”

“They shoot at us!”

“Ah yes, the emissary. Your people heard that Xarnax had confronted a Nerre on Ause. He looked at the drone, and recited a Nerre poem, one of their haiku things that doesn’t rhyme, that five-seven-eleven form, and the drone flew off without harming him.”

“Yeah, everybody heard about that. It was on the news, along with the poem.” said Dene.

“And your guy decides in the middle of a Xarnax raid to try that. He goes out, confronts the Xarnax drone, and recites a limerick. Zap!”

Boodins looked unhappy. “Then you admit they fight us.”

“They HATE us. Everybody else just gets played with. Except Vorsi, of course.”

“Why does that make it okay for you to be mean about Elistary?” whined Boodins.

Siertes considered this. “I guess it’s not strictly necessary. I’m just telling you- your people don’t like us either. You have the luxury of kissing up to your princess and hoping she’ll smile upon you. She isn’t going to be smiling on me no matter what I do. Is she involved in politics? She might have voted to deny aid to Tompar and Estrai herself.”

“I don’t think she is involved with politics. I don’t think she had the voice for it, from what I heard.”

Dene blinked. “The voice? What do you mean?”

“You know, voting. We put up a sound meter, and it’s ‘yes yes yes!’ ‘no no no!’ ‘YES YES YES!’ ‘NO NO NO!’ to see who wins. I’ve never heard that Elistary had the voice for that. I think her family said she was frustrated that she couldn’t do it properly…”

“Maybe she’s going to poison the lot of them, so she can bark the loudest at last.” suggested Siertes.

“That’s not funny!”

“Well, she’s apparently going crazy, because she’s skipping nice stops and using only abandoned places. Did she piss at the last one, or take a dump?”

Boodins looked dismayed, but answered. “Uh… the first one.”

“But she didn’t stop at the one before that- which had people to clean it.”

“Maybe she didn’t want to talk to anybody.” muttered Boodins.

“Maybe she didn’t want anybody looking in her truck- or whatever she’s driving.” said Dene.

“Drove, you mean. That guy at Dinsam said he had a tracer, and the shipment was already in the mountains. Puppy is smelling traces from last night, maybe.”

“You’re right.” said Dene. “I hope we’re in time.”

“Time for what?” said Boodins.

“I just have this feeling that something bad’s happening.” said Dene. “I admit we don’t know what it is, yet, but can I at least hope we won’t be late to try and stop it?”

The car hurtled on, Dene keeping it stable moment by moment. She’d chosen to pull back slightly from its top speed, explaining that she didn’t want to take any chances of burning out the electrics.

“I hope we’re in time, too,” said Siertes, “because I have that same feeling.”

The car hurtled on…

Back in Verss, Rai gradually and reluctantly woke, strapped down in a hospital bed. Surgery had happened. He had not been present for it- the doctors had quickly decided the wounded Nerre would have to be anesthetized to be worked on. To Rai’s chagrin, they had shot him with a tranquilizer dart, for he’d got a leg free and was menacing anyone who approached, brandishing bared razored claws.

They had shaved bits of him, all over, everywhere they found a bullet to go after, or a hole to sew up. Rai could feel it, cool air insulting his flesh, and kept his eyes squeezed shut, avoiding that insult and the equally intolerable assault of the newstapes. Public spaces in Runge cities often had these- running flashing advertisements for the damn knot expanders, interspersed with news stories to try and win back deservedly lost attention. Hospital beds were ideal targets- the companies paid a premium to see their media shown to an audience that could not get up and move away.

The word ‘Dinsam’ emerged from the newstape’s auxiliary speaker.

Rai’s eyes opened. Dinsam? More later on Dinsam?

Voustrets Talanstre Laimontre was sitting in a chair by his bedsite. Rai’s ears flattened.

“Firstly…”

Rai hissed, and tested his bonds, which held.

Voustrets didn’t flinch. “Firstly, I must apologize. Vri-something-they-said…”

“What? What? Now, you mock me?”

“I asked the ladies at the Cathouse to tell me suitable words to say. I can’t remember them now. There are more important things…”

“That is your opinion.” hissed Rai, his ears flat.

“Your friends’ safety?”

Rai’s ears came up a bit. Eventually, he said, “I’m listening.”

“What Elistary has done is terrible. She has accumulated vast sums of money through her whorehouse, she has channeled the money towards illegal armaments, and she has twisted the Verss police force, particularly the raid action squads, to her own ends. Anzende and I have been trying to determine the extent of the damage.”

“This is inarguable,” said Rai, “yet does not affect me. Carry on doing so, ‘aons, and leave.”

“Not until I have your help.”

“Leave!” yowled Rai. “These indignities, this bondage, it shames me!”

“It’s protecting me.” pointed out Voustrets.

“It is all that is protecting you!’

“Please, listen! We have been trying to determine the damage, and we’ve gone on the assumption that Elistary means to sell her barrels of poison on the black market. But there are no buyers- I have certain sources of information. Nobody is lining up a weapons purchase of that magnitude. No police force on Verss, or on Restred, have turned up anything. Elistary’s poison hoard disappeared from Dinsam Industrial Fabrication early this morning and… never appeared again…”

“And, because of you, the Resten boy who is in my charge has gone off searching for Elistary, along with my friend Dene Tieschtet and the Tompar Mued.”

“True,” said Voustrets dismissively, “but the important thing is this: we believed Elistary was taking the poison to some sort of black market transaction, for profit. But now we must ask- to whom is she bringing it? I have… um.”

Rai was staring fixedly at the newstape. It was still speaking, but the message wasn’t knot expanders any more.

“…at Dinsam Industrial Fabrication, a new twist on the tragic drug raid that has produced consternation in city police forces. After the company’s tragic destruction through an informant’s tip that proved mistaken, neighbors of the facility believed they had seen the worst. We interviewed Gert Hanly in an earlier edition…”

“…not that I would question the judgement of the police,” came the interviewee voice, “so we’ve just been crying a lot, and deciding if it’s safer to stay in and lock the doors, or go around as normally while keeping our hands in view at all times…”

The newstape continued. “But Gert and the other Dinsam neighbors were shocked even more just thirteen minutes ago, when a Xarnax drone boldly entered the city and appeared to inspect what was left of the Dinsam facility. Two passersby were killed by laser blast, one at the site and one near the East Gate of the city, as the drone entered. All other bystanders reportedly were able to take cover in blast shelters around the city. Reft Beisling, Verss City Defense…”

An authoritative Runge voice cut in. “Remember, Xarnax drones do not make an identifiable smell, but there’s a telltale sound to warn you! Hear the high-pitched crack, watch your back! Xarnax energy weapons destroy the air they’re fired through, but the pulses are of almost no duration, so the sound they make is like a loud ‘tick’ noise, not a gunshot. If you hear that noise, someone has already been shot by a Xarnax drone. Don’t you be next!”

The announcer returned. “And until recently, that was true- but before fleeing the scene, the Xarnax drone was heard firing many times, rapidly. Once it had left, onlookers returned to the scene to see a strange pattern etched onto the Dinsam building…”

“Ours did that.” said Rai, shocked.

“Did you say, yours?” said Voustrets.

“Yes. When we went to the Ungovernment base, and returned with the two children, we had encountered a Xarnax drone. It didn’t shoot us, but it fired at a wall, like that, and it left.”

“You didn’t tell me this!”

“We did return with Hallem and Aine. Siertes, too, for that matter. I thought that was all that mattered.”

Voustrets looked seriously worried, for the first time that Rai had ever seen. “This changes everything.”

“Does it?”

“What if I told you that it was a terrible mistake on my part, to allow your charge, Boodins- or for that matter any of them, even Siertes- especially Siertes- to go in search of Elistary?”

“Of course it was.” said Rai. “It might be dangerous.”

“Oh, but it is. Oh dear…”

“After all, who knows what is out there. We ran into a Xarnax drone, and that cannot be typical.”

Voustrets held up a paw commandingly. “No, you don’t understand. What you saw- they don’t do that. It’s a new pattern. We thought Elistary was directing the police to clean up operations she had done with. She’s done that- but look at the pattern. Do you now see something extra?”

“But nobody can communicate with Xarnax!” said Rai.

“Boodins, Dene, and Siertes are trying to intercept Elistary. Would you like to guess who- or what- they’ll find her with?”

Rai’s ears were back again. “How is this possible?”

Voustrets was pacing. “I have to pursue them. Somehow I must intercept them, tell them to abandon their attempt…”

“Release me, ‘aons!”

The Estrai detective gave Rai a look. “I hardly think that is wise. Even though you are gravely injured, I suspect I would come to harm momentarily.”

Rai’s ears went back. “It would be tempting.”

“It’s a temptation you won’t be troubled with. Lie there and heal.”

Rai didn’t reply. Instead, one arm strained against the straps that confined him. There was a creaking sound, and, gradually, a soft noise of slowly fraying, ripping fabric…

Voustrets’ eyes bulged. He dashed to an intercom, pressing the call button and crying “Security! The Nerre patient is breaking loose! He may wreak havoc among those who have shaved parts of him, send orderlies with tranquilizer dar… d… um…”

Rai had released his right arm, and with the razored claws of his right hand, made short work of the straps binding his left arm and his legs. He rolled into a sitting position, came off the bed towards Voustrets, but made no move to attack. Instead, he bowed.

“You will make amends at some later time, ‘aons. I beg you, allow me to go with you and rescue my charge and my friends from the danger.”

“You amaze me.” said Voustrets. “How is it you can stand?”

Rai’s ears were laid back in pain. “There is discomfort. I can still fight better than you. I must accompany.”

Voustrets’ eyes gleamed with helpless admiration. No Estrai could easily resist heroic actions, and Rai’s sense of duty played right into the Estrai’s sense of the romantic. Voustrets decided, quickly. “You shall. We’ll figure out what to do when we get there.”

The corridor outside was suddenly host to running Runge feet.

“Oh, crap- I’ve just told them to tranquilize you!”

Orderlies rushed in, burly Runge with tranquilizer guns- two with a big net. Rairate had made quite an impression checking in. “Stand aside!”

Voustrets had done the opposite. He interposed his body, crying, “Never!”

“Mister Laimontre, seriously, stand aside!”

“Indeed not! I need this man urgently for a mission I am still devising!”

“Yeah,” said the orderly, “but we’ve got orders from the cops that he’s a witness and not to leave the facility.”

“I change your orders, thusly!” cried Voustrets, signaling to Rai behind him.

“What-ly? Listen, buddy…”

“Excuse me?” came a dry little voice from behind the orderlies. “We’re here to see Rairate.”

They stepped aside, and Faisand, with Hallem on one paw and Aine on the other, padded demurely through. She stopped, looking at Voustrets and the torn straps on the bed, and inquired, “What on earth is the matter here?”

“Ma’am, this isn’t the time…” said an orderly.

“Why are you shielding him?” asked Faisand. “They are doctors, they aren’t going to hurt him.”

“Tranquilizer darts!” explained Voustrets.

“You know,” said one of the orderlies with the net, “you can just hit both of them with darts and sort it out later…”

“Oh, really?” said Faisand tartly.

“Ma’am… Ma’am!”

Faisand stepped forward, and seized the hem of her silky, smoke-colored dress. “Hallem, cover her eyes.”

“Whose, Aine’s?

“Yes. I’m sure it’s just a formality, but I’ll have her maintain the fiction of innocence, thank you.”

“She bites.” protested Hallem.

“She would. Very well…”

Faisand twirled, and in that motion, whipped the dress up in a billowing arc. The motion swept air up into it, as if it were like a parachute, and all that could be seen was a swishing tail, a paw as it let go the hem of the garment. The dress gradually settled beside Faisand in a fluttering heap of expensive fabric, and she began to prowl towards one of the orderlies, who stared, his dart gun forgotten for the moment.

The others stared as well. Faisand was very thin, her curves starved by age, but somehow her poise and the way she moved suggested the famed courtesan she’d once been. Her hips tilted and swayed as if her spine was fluid, her breasts beckoned the passing touch through the shifts of her torso, cunning dancelike moves of her shoulders, it seemed as though her dainty nipples were standing and stiffening, and to the sensitive noses of the Runge orderlies wafted the famous scent of feline arousal, the strange alien note, so heady and compelling in its deep unfamiliarity.

They froze as Faisand approached the leader, and stared as this vision of erotic mastery and confidence reached out a steady paw and purred a suggestion.

“You- all of you- could learn something today, just as I will. Darlings. Surely your jobs don’t offer enough… reward?”

Her paws drifted with seductive, lingering grace towards their goals. One, caressing her nipples, stroking down her lean belly, coming to rest against her exotic Nerre pussy as her tail swished and gave an extended shiver of pleasure. The other, gently and firmly unbuttoning the lead orderly’s pants.

He swallowed. “What… things?”

Faisand’s paw whisked up to his muzzle, as if to say ‘shhh’. It was a sudden yet utterly graceful movement, and the captivation of it was echoed in the feline’s wide, gleaming eyes, her slightly opened mouth- the picture of a Nerre alight with possibly sensual mischief.

“First- I’ve still got it.” she said, and her eyes danced.

“S… second?”

“Second- look behind you.”

The orderlies whirled. Voustrets and Rai were gone.

“This wasn’t the place, darlings.” purred Faisand, and, reaching up, kissed the lead orderly on the nose. “But come and see me sometime, because I really owe you one- and I love you- for giving me a last curtain call.”

The orderlies looked at each other, apparently calculating the odds of successfully catching the already-fled Estrai and Nerre patient. They looked at Faisand, who still glowed with pleasure. She gave them a little curtsy, blew a kiss, began gathering up her abandoned dress. They looked at each other again, and began to filter out. The lead orderly took up the rear, and as he left, he lingered a moment, and favored Faisand with a wink and a grin, before returning to his duties.

Faisand took a deep, shuddering breath, and let it out in a sigh of bliss. “You had no business watching that, Aine dear, but you’ll understand one day. My, my. Now, let’s get you and H…”

“…WHERE is your brother, girl?”

“That would be ‘third’.” said Aine, in cute, childish tones. “It’s still ‘look behind you’, but for you, not him.”

Faisand had already rushed into the hallway, looking frantically this way and that.

Aine stood in the empty room, wagging gently, and spoke softly.

“And they never, ever learn.”