Allies Read Free Page B

looking into
her mother's drugged eyes. "As much as I can."
    Katy smiled. "You'll have expenses," she
said. "Don't send all your money to me."
    Miri bit her lip. "Will you come? Liz
says–"
    Katy shook her head. "I won't pass the
physical at the port," she said, and coughed. She turned her head
aside and used a rag to wipe her mouth.
    She turned back with a smile, and reached
out her thin hand to rest it on Miri's arm. "You, my daughter.
You're about to begin the adventure of your life. Be bold, which I
know you are. Be as honest as you can. Trust Angela. If you find
love, embrace it."
    The cough again, hard this time. Miri caught
her shoulders and held her until it was done. Katy used the rag,
and pushed it down beside her on the chair, but not before Miri saw
it was dyed crimson.
    Katy turned back with another smile, wider
this time, and held out arms out. Miri bent and hugged her, feeling
the bones. Her mother's lips brushed her cheek, and her voice
whispered, "Go now."
    And so she left, out the door and down the
hall and into the street where Liz Lizardi was waiting, and the
adventure of her life begun.
     
     
     

 
     
    PRODIGAL SON
     
    Miri , Val Con thought wryly as he moved silently down the pre-dawn
hallway, is not going to like
this .
    He paused outside the door to the suite he
shared with his lifemate, took a breath, and put his palm firmly
against the plate.
    The door slid aside, and he stepped into
their private parlor, pausing just over the threshold.
    Across the room the curtains had been drawn
back from the wide window, admitting Surebleak's uncertain dawn.
The rocking chair placed at an angle to the window moved quietly,
back and forth, back and forth, its occupant silhouetted against
the light.
    "What ain't I gonna like?" she asked,
apparently plucking the thought out of his head. Val Con shivered.
The link they shared as lifemates made each aware of the other's
emotions and general state of mind, and there had been instances of
one of them suddenly acquiring a skill or a language which had
previously belonged only to the other. This wholesale snatching of
thoughts from his mind, though–that was new, and in one direction
only. It seemed that Miri could read his mind perfectly well, while
hers was as closed to him in detail as ever it had been. He
wondered, not for the first time, if this was in some way linked to
her pregnancy . . .
    "Things looked kinda dicey there for a
while," she went on. "From what I could tell."
    "It was not without its moments," he
allowed, moving toward the window. "Even the presence of Scout
Commander ter'Meulen was insufficient to turn all to farce."
    "If Clonak was half as stupid as he acts,
something with lotsa teeth would've had him for lunch a long time
ago."
    "True," he murmured from the side of her
chair. He reached down and slipped his fingers through the wealth
of her unbound hair. "But you discount the joy of the
masquerade."
    "No I don't. I just wonder why he
bothers."
    "I believe we must diagnose an excess of
energy."
    She snorted. Next to her, he smiled into the
dawn, then sighed.
    "Wanna tell me about it?"
    "In fact," he said, dropping lightly to the
rug beside her and leaning his head against her thigh; "I do."
    "Ready when you are." He felt her hand
stroke his hair and sighed in contentment made more poignant by the
knowledge that it was to be all too brief.
    "The highly condensed version," he murmured,
"is that one of the teams the Scouts sent to gather the severed
blossoms of the Department of Interior . . ." She choked a laugh,
and he paused, his eyes on the meager garden below them.
    "That's gotta be Clonak," she said.
    "Indeed, Commander ter'Meulen was pleased to
style it thus," he said. "Allow it, with the understanding that the
actual business was not nearly so poetical."
    He felt her hair move as she shook her head.
"'Course it wasn't."
    "Yes, well." Her robe was fleece, soft and
warm under his cheek. "This team of Scouts obtained news of a
situation