The tubes were gone. The restraints were not. Malcolm Reed practiced stoicism, ignoring the aches in his muscles, the cramps in his arms, the threatened numbness in the tips of his fingers. He willed his pulse steady, though every once in awhile it got the better of him and raced. If the tubes were gone, it meant he was healing. And once he healed, they would find another reason to study him.

They were talking to him again. Using simple drawings on a flipchart they left in the room. He'd been careless. They knew he had listened when the little one had told him about Hoshi. And they knew he understood the few names he'd heard when used with the symbol of the planet: Zheiren, Buftanis.

It was hard sometimes, not listening, not understanding. There was nothing else to do. No books, no movies, no companion. Just his own thoughts and their rudimentary attempts to communicate. He now knew they called their planet Sharu, and that Zheiren and Buftanis were the two largest countries. He also knew the scientists' names, though he preferred to keep thinking of them as the various members of the dark forces of Middle Earth.

As much as he hated and feared them, though, he didn't think they were truly evil. They always made sure he had ample pain meds after the "procedures" they put him through, and they went out of their way to try and teach him to communicate. They didn't torture him to do so. They were scientists and he was a subject of study. They probably weren't even aware that he was conscious during the procedures. They were still villains to him, orcs and Uruks and a bad wizard or two, but none of them deserved to be called Sauron or Morgoth.

And that's what kept him to his plan of not communicating. These guys, the winged ones, were not Morgoth or Sauron, but he'd seen likelier suspects. The raptor-like ones. The military they had seen in the desert. He probably wasn't just a curious subject of study to them.

If he could talk to the scientists, he could tell them that he'd been awake, and they just might try to fix it so that if they did more, he wouldn't be. But then he'd risk something worse at the hands of the military.

"Her cycle is incredibly fast!" Dr. Besta exclaimed. "I know you told me it was around twenty-eight days, but seeing it makes it more concrete."

"Of course, we knew some small animals can reproduce at something near that rate," Enesh said, agreeing, "but a large primate and a sentient one at that?!" He studied the picture on the monitor. The lining of the uterus had thickened, and they had sent the camera up one fallopian tube, hoping to see the maturation and release of one or more eggs. One had successfully released. That hadn't surprised Enesh, as multiple eggs would mean potentially multiple births should the eggs have been fertilized, and at her rate, it would mean a population explosion in one year. Of course, the gestation period would have something to say about that. His own species remained in an egg for three months. How much shorter would one of these aliens remain in the womb? Would it emerge live or still encased in an egg? Would it be helpless when birthed, or quickly able to join its alien society? They would soon have some of those answers.

"Has your man been doing well with the samples?" he asked Besta, who was studying a report.

"Difani has been doing quite well. Each night, as she sleeps, he initiates the voltage to stun her and takes two samples before it wears off. He's done very well for someone with only minutes of medical training."

"And what have those samples shown us?" Enesh peeked over Besta's shoulder at the report.

"Hormones. Some are similar to reproductive hormones in the larger primates here. I'm sure we'll be able to synthesize them. We'll need more than one egg each cycle if we hope to be successful. For now, we need to get her out of there. I think she'll start bleeding very soon, and that will make the females hard to control. They could harm her."

"She might actually enjoy the respite," Enesh added. He wasn't entirely happy with working her with the other females, but it had returned some life to her and kept her too exhausted to focus on her predicament.

Hoshi worked alongside Pipa, turning the soil. She still hadn't found a chance to try and talk to her, or even decided what she would say if she did. None of the females talked, except to give Hoshi terse directions or bark just as terse orders. The latter came from Lada, who, it would appear, was the lead female of Hoshi's particular slave group. So no talking during work. It was too much chaos in the morning, and she was separated at lunch. At night, she was too exhausted and cold to care. There was a terrible monotony to life now that she could barely think on any intelligent level. She only wanted to be clean and to rest.

Today it was even worse. She had started cramping and knew what was coming. How could she handle it out here? Would they even get her gauze or rags? How could she keep them in place during such labor as she was forced to do?

In desperation, she had checked her thighs as discreetly as she could manage while she crouched down to eat her lunch. Nothing yet, but it was coming. Surely, Radagast knew. They were prompt with the gauze before. They must have counted the days. She had lost count between unconsciousness, drugs, and exhausting slavery.

Finally, the sky turned a deeper blue and then a dark purple. A cold breeze brushed at her simple, dirty shift. She got goose bumps. Several of the younger females dropped their tools and flexed their fingers. Pipa, though, kept working as if she hadn't noticed. The horn sounded and she stopped. The day was over.

She trudged toward the rear of the kinani, the young ones. Lada and a group of adults were close behind. Hoshi, as always, tried to ignore her. Lada always sneered when they made eye contact.

The door to the shower room was about twenty yards ahead, and Hoshi caught a glimpse of bright white as females passed through the heavy plastic curtain covering the entrance. Someone growled behind her and she was shoved forward. She fell and spun around. Another female bent toward her, beak snapping. She sniffed the air and try to reach between Hoshi's legs.

Three others pushed their way to her. She caught a glimpse of Lada trying to hold them off. Hoshi was too busy pushing away her molester's arms. And it brought her far too close to the female's long, sharp beak. The young ones chattered behind her but stood back.

All but Pipa. "No hurt. No taydee!" she shouted, helping Hoshi push her attacker away. Lada kept most of the others back, but two had darted their way past her, sniffing the air.

Suddenly, three guards rushed in, clubs swinging. The females growled and did not back off until a few blows knocked them back. Strong arms grabbed under her tired ones, and Hoshi was lifted from the ground and dragged past the stunned juveniles and angry adults. All of them sniffing as she passed. Even Pipa. Lada growled at her but held the others back. She looked feral. Like an animal.

"She needs washing," a vaguely familiar voice said as she was pulled through the curtains.

"Everyone back!" the guard shouted. "Back to the wall. Now!"

The females already under the water cried out angrily but did as he said. Then Hoshi was dumped under the cold torrent. The water turned brown beneath her and then there was one drop of red. It had started.

Baezhu watched the male alien, really wishing he had something else to call him. That was only about convenience though. There were more pressing issues. Like bedsores and muscle atrophy. Dr. Bishtae agreed but it was decided that suicide was a greater risk. Until they could be sure the alien would not try to harm himself, he had to be restrained. Dr. Geeben even argued that atrophy would work in their favor, making him too weak to fight. And then they could control how much strength he was allowed to regain.

Dr. Bishtae argued back. "His immune system will also weaken, putting him in more danger during future surgeries." Still, he had been overruled. The alien would be carefully monitored for now. If he proved docile enough, the restraints could be removed and a controlled exercise regimen instituted.

The alien didn't even pull against the restraints anymore. He just stared at whatever his position let him see, or slept. He was done trying to harm himself. Baezhu knew it. And he felt it must be a miserable existence for someone who used to travel among the stars.

The male was supposed to be a subject. Something they could study like the other animals in the lab. But even though he didn't talk or even try to communicate, it was apparent he was more than a dumb primate existing on instinct and lacking self-awareness. The others had personality, too. They spoke, in their own ways: crying out when they were in pain, growling when angry or intimidated. They could also sulk when unhappy, but it was easier to overlook with them. They weren't intelligent in the way that people were. The alien though, chose not to communicate, chose death over further misery (for awhile at least), chose when to be docile and when to fight. Chose logically. He came from another planet. In a ship. He wore clothing with writing and closures on it. He was far more than an animal.

And he was still treated like one.

"Stop recording, Baezhu," Dr. Bishtae said, quietly. "There's no point now. But leave the camera on so we can still keep an eye on him."

Hoshi was conflicted. She didn't bother trying to sort through her feelings. Nothing would change. She was wherever they wanted her to be, and she endured whatever they wanted her to endure. Her feelings about it were not taken into consideration.

She was clean and warm, back in the small room near the laboratory. She had been given the folded gauze she was used to and an extra meal: dinner. She had slept on a mattress on the floor and been allowed to sleep right through to morning. When the door opened, she was given food, water, and more gauze. And then she was left alone.

She might have been relieved. Maybe she was in small ways: the soft mattress, the long sleep, more food, more dignity, and the respite from exhausting physical labor. And no poking claws and snapping beaks below crazed eyes.

There was something wrong with the females. The adults anyway. Something that scared her. The threat of punishment and death had kept them docile toward her until last night, until just before her period started. They sensed it and went crazy. She half hoped the scientists wouldn't send her back.

But she more than half feared staying where she was. The guards there wanted to work her. The scientists here wanted to study her. She had waking nightmares about how that would go, despite her rather uneventful treatment before being sent to the fields.

The week went by just as uneventfully, though she continued to worry each time the door opened. The scientists regularly entered, feeding her, replacing new gauze for the used, until the bleeding stopped. On the seventh day, the guards came for her and marched her back to the barracks--for want of a better word--and straight out to the fields. They passed her off to Gothmog, who took her to where Pipa and the other juveniles were dropping seeds behind a plow pulled by an adult female. The adult eyed Hoshi and growled but kept to her work. Pipa showed Hoshi what to do.

She was working again, as a slave, and she realized at the end of the very long day, that she had missed her chance to enjoy her respite. She hadn't slept well then, and, as exhausted as she was, she couldn't sleep now, surrounded by dozens of potentially dangerous females. They watched her, sniffed her, but hung back when Gothmog or one of the other guards approached.

A few hours after the heat lamps came on, she felt a brief shock at the back of her neck. Her body melted into the floor, tired muscles relaxing and pain receding. She saw her shoulder turn but never felt it. Her head was still turned to Pipa, sleeping next to her. She could barely make out the presence of someone beside her, hands pushing something into her abdomen. The hands finished and she was rolled back to her side. She thought she saw Gothmog walking back to the front of the room.

Dr. Kaife wasn't a bad sort as far as Wingeds went, Zhenah had decided. He had a decidedly military bent despite his scientific nature. Of course, it was Wingeds like Kaife who developed weapons and defense systems, so it wasn't much of a surprise. Zhenah had never worked with one closely, but he had always liked them better than the biologists, geologists, and geneticists he saw on a regular basis. Kaife had been assigned by the Council to study the technology Zhenah had found in the desert.

Still, Kaife was a scientist and that meant that things were going slowly. Presently, the thing was in pieces. Kaife was turning one piece over in one hand while carefully drawing it with his other. There was a similar stack of drawings on the credenza on the other side of the room. Each piece was drawn independently; the device as a whole had been rendered in various stages of dismantlement.

"This is the power source," Kaife said, holding up the piece. "It's not alkaline, not nickel, no battery like we've ever seen. Where did this come from?"

"Need to know, Doctor," Zhenah reminded him. "Can you determine what it is?"

"Not without destroying it, I'm afraid."

While Zhenah knew there would be scientific advantage to that, it would negate certain tactical ones. "We need to know what it is and what it is used for more than what it is made of."

"I may need to know more about its origins to determine what it is used for, Major, but I'll see what we can learn without that information for now. I can tell you some of what it is." He laid that piece down and moved to the credenza. He flipped on the computer screen there and pulled up a program. A three-dimensional computer model of the device rotated slowly on the screen. "It's electronic. And it's very small as I'm sure you're aware. Sand had infiltrated it, so I am going to venture it was found in the desert or on a beach. Since youths cannot generally be found wandering the Rihansu, it's not likely it belonged to a youth. Many of its components are unknown to us, alien, if you will."

Zhenah smirked. He did like how this one thought. "I'm not authorized to tell you, Doctor. Let's just say you're on the right track. And let's just remind you of the need for secrecy here. Nothing about this device is to leave Kennisatae."

"Not a problem," Kaife said, looking up. "Can I confer with others in this facility?"

"Not at this time," Zhenah replied. "You report to myself or Colonel Gaezhur. We'll forward your reports to the Council. They will decide what more you need to know for your research. For now, put it back together and see if you can determine what kind of electronic device it is."

"Yes, sir," Kaife said. "But I will need to be careful. It could be dangerous. This part here looks like some sort of transmitter. Activating it could, for example, detonate an explosive device, and yet, it may be the only way to find out."

Zhenah thought about that. He remembered the crash site and the near lack of debris on the blackened sand there. "There was an explosion," he admitted. "Perhaps, if it is a detonator, it has already done its job. Proceed carefully, Doctor, but proceed."

Dr. Geeben's eyes were wide as he observed, Dr. Bishtae noticed. It was one thing to study the alien externally but quite another to peel away the epidermis and gaze into pure anatomy. On the other hand, primate abdomens didn't differ all that much. The posterior musculature on exhibit during the previous surgery was far more distinct.

"The liver, of course, is up here," Burha pointed out for Geeben's benefit. "Stomach, and spleen."

"If only we could dissect the organs, weigh them for comparison," Geeben sighed.

"Unfortunately, we don't have a spare," Bishtae reminded him. "We can measure though. The intestines alone should take some time."

"There does seem to be quite a lot," Geeben agreed.

"Are you ready, Baezhu?" Bishtae asked his assistant.

Baezhu had his clipboard in his hand. "Of course, Doctor."

"Good. Let's begin." He lifted a section of intestines, digging until he found the very base of the stomach. Geeben held the measuring tape as Bishtae straightened the first part of the coils and moved down to the next.

Eventually, they had measured a full twenty risan, which looked rather impossible, piled beside the abdominal cavity as they were now. Baezhu dutifully recorded the measurement as Geeben took a photograph of the cavity and the remaining organs there.

"Gallbladder," he recognized, "stomach and liver, as you said. But what is this?" he pointed to small finger-like object just below the ascending colon. "I've never seen that on a primate. What function would it have?"

"We may never know," Bishtae admitted, "but we can try to find out. Scalpel?"

Each organ they felt they could safely repair was opened to compare its structures with known primate samples. Dr. Geeben was essential. His knowledge of primate anatomy helped to make the decisions about which incisions could be life-threatening and which would not. The kidneys were delicate but primates and others had been known to survive the loss of one. It could be risked. They'd found no obvious need for the finger-like organ, but while the subject was a primate, he was also completely foreign. They sealed it back up and left it where it was.

The surgery took well over four hours. Bishtae noted, and pointed out to his colleagues, the relative looseness of the abdominal muscles as they closed. The male had been particularly fit when he'd arrived. He was getting weaker.

The procedure finished, Dr. Bishtae supervised as Baezhu injected the coma-inducing cocktail into the male's intravenous tube while Dr. Burha switched him onto the cardio-respiratory bypass equipment from the surgical set. The male would sleep peacefully for a week or more to give his organs a chance to heal and the pain time to diminish. The procedures were invasive, but Bishtae insisted the pain involved be kept to a minimum, especially as the subject was sentient.

"How is he?" Burha asked as he set the last switch on the machine.

Bishtae checked the monitor. "Perfect. Heart rate and respiration normal. He's sleeping soundly. And I'm ready to call it a day myself."

"I'll finish the preliminary reports, Doctor," Baezhu offered. He was a good assistant with a touch of brilliance for a Lesser Winged. Bishtae liked that he broke that particular mold. He trusted Baezhu's competence.

"Thank you, Baezhu," he said. "I think I'll just catch up on the progress our traitor had with the female before leaving. He's in your hands, Doctor." The last was said to Burha, as he gestured to the male, lying still and pale on the oversized mattress. "Keep him well."

Hoshi tried to stay awake at night, to see what Gothmog's pal was doing to her. While the work now wasn't hard--laying seeds and pushing dirt over them--the hours were long. By the time she got back to the barracks, she was exhausted. She'd feign sleep only to fall into the familiar nightmares.

The next morning, she was woken early and put back to work, hauling long, heavy hoses out to rows of the fields. It took five days to lay them all and she ached all over from the effort. Each night she tried in vain to see what the night guy was up to, but each time she could barely move, let alone keep her eyes open.

Her sore muscles screamed at her in the mornings, but there was always something to do. Pipa was a veteran at her young age. She kept up with the adults, knowing what task the juveniles had to do. And she was patient with the smaller ones, like Hoshi. When she spoke, it was in broken sentences, devoid of grammar. Simple nouns, barely-conjugated verbs, hardly a modifier, and no articles at all. On the one hand, Pipa seemed smart, but when she spoke, Hoshi thought differently. The males spoke in full sentences, with good syntax and proper grammar. Why hadn't Pipa learned from them? Why didn't any of the females Hoshi had heard speak better? And why had they turned so vicious when she started bleeding? It hadn't affected the juveniles or the males.

Still, she was too tired, too sore, and just too beat to think it through but in snatches of idle wondering here and there, usually while eating her lunch. Lunch was the highlight of her dismal existence.

"Don't know why we're watching," Kahrae's partner at guard duty spoke, surprising Kahrae so much that he nearly fell over backwards.

"We're protecting the research silo," Kahrae said, pretending he wasn't surprised at all. Of course, he couldn't say what kind of research they were protecting at the silo.

"From whom?" Obek asked.

Or that. "Buftanis--"

"Buftanis has a deal," Obek interrupted. "We're working with them on some project. They're mollified."

Kahrae got a little impatient at that. And a little worried that his new partner knew as much as his previous one had. "Well, there are other countries that might not be 'mollified.' There could be satellites looking down on us right now."

"At what? A big building in the middle of a desert?"

The guy had not said two words since assuming his post and now he just wouldn't stop with the questions. "We're watching," Kahrae said, stressing the important words, "because we are ordered to watch."

Obek was neither bothered or surprised. "By whom?" he continued.

"The colonel."

"And who orders him?"

Kahrae could see this progression and decided to cut it short. "Ultimately, the Council."

"Right."

And with that, the verbosity stopped. Kahrae wondered if he'd been assigned an insane soldier for a guard partner. He waited a good fifteen minutes for Obek to speak again but it never happened.

Finally, he just couldn't take the silence. "What about the Council?"

"Why you asking?"

"You brought it up!" Kahrae couldn't believe he'd forgotten.

"You looking for someone else to denounce?"

"I didn't denounce anyone! Though I would have if I'd known what the spy was or what the traitor was doing."

"Rightly so," Obek agreed. Apparently just to confuse Kahrae. "Treason is treason. Talking isn't."

More silence ensued. If he wasn't standing guard, Kahrae would have thrown down his gun and stared at his partner in complete frustration. "So you don't like the Council?" he finally asked. "It'll change after Turn. Raptors will be in charge."

"And that's better? It's not the Council, it's the idea of the Council that I don't like. The Council tells us what to be, what to do, where to be, who to hate, and even who gets to mate."

"You'd rather have chaos like Buftanis?" Kahrae asked, genuinely curious now that Obek was opening up.

"You ever read the Great Book?" Obek asked, back to questions again.

"Of course," Kahrae answer. "We studied it in school."

"Yeah, but did you read it?"

Didn't I just say I had? Kahrae thought. "Yes."

"Did it say anything about a Council?"

"No."

"How about a superior minority deciding what's best for the majority?"

"Yeah, in the old despotisms--"

"No! In what it sets forth: the Great Plan," Obek insisted. In all this, he never took his eyes off the horizon he was watching.

"Of course not," Kahrae replied, wondering why Obek was bringing up school lessons. "The Great Plan replaced all that. The majority would rule themselves in a classless society where each is to contribute according to his ability and to receive according to his need."

"Well quoted," Obek complimented. "So what's the Council?"

It was nighttime when Malcolm managed to pull himself out from under the crushing blackness of unconsciousness. A bittersweet parting, he mused groggily, as it was in the blackness that nothing hurt and nothing mattered. But there was still life out from under it, and Hoshi was alive so he had to be, too.

The heat lamps were on, which is how he was able to tell it was night. He was shackled again and strapped down. They weren't taking any chances. Honestly, he hurt too much to try anything if he had even wanted to commit suicide. His whole torso felt like someone had wrenched everything out and put it back. Which is, of course, probably what happened, what he'd felt for what seemed like hours. His stomach roiled with the memory, and he didn't have the strength to hold anything back.

The orcs ran in. Suddenly everything tilted and a pan was put in front of Malcolm's face.

"Bash anet sonag?" the smaller one asked as he used a cloth to wipe the vomit from Malcolm's face and took the pillow from behind his head.

Malcolm tried to spit out the awful taste and nearly choked out the word "water" before he caught himself. Everything was getting darker, heavier.

"Kanisha," the larger one said. He was holding a bottle of sorts. He forced Malcolm's mouth open and squirted water into it. Malcolm gratefully cooperated and swished out his mouth before spitting again. He couldn't manage anything else. The blackness was returning. Just before it engulfed him completely, he felt the bed tilt back into place.

"His stomach is in his abdomen, Hinath," Dr. Burha stated.

"But he's on pain meds," Hinath argued. "And he hadn't moved. What brought it on?"

"Who's to say if he won't?" the doctor replied as he unwrapped the bandages covering the sutures. "His temperature is normal. I can't detect any evidence of infection. We'll take a blood sample anyway, just to be sure."

"Yes, Doctor," Hinath said. He pulled a lever on the cardio-respiratory machine and extracted a vial of the alien's blood from the opening beneath it. "I'll take it to the lab."

"I'll meet you there," Burha said as he watched the alien sleep again. "I so wish to ask you where you come from," he told the male after Hinath had left the room. "If only you would try to communicate."

Hoshi woke up slowly. She stretched her aching muscles and noticed the heat lamps were off and the room was filled with light from the windows. It was late. She stayed perfectly still for a moment, listening. Were there guards yelling? She couldn't hear anything but snoring. She looked over to Pipa who was just opening her eyes.

Pipa must have seen something in her face, because she explained in a whisper. "Sifami."

Hoshi looked around and saw everyone else near them was still asleep then scooted closer to the juvenile. "Sifami?" she whispered back, taking a chance. She provided no grammar, no other word than the one Pipa had used. Only inflection. Would Pipa understand? Would she tell Gothmog or his cronies?

"Sifami is no work," Pipa replied, offering what might have been a smile.

A holiday, Hoshi realized. She smiled back. "No work."

"You name Froh-doh?" Pipa asked.

Hoshi nodded, but Pipa didn't seem to understand that. Why should she? "Yes," she said. "Frodo Baggins."

"Baggins easy," Pipa concluded. "You speak!"

Hoshi realized she'd made a mistake, but maybe she could trust Pipa. She had no choice but to try now. "Please don't tell," she said in Buftanisian. "Our secret?"

Pipa's eyes went wide. "Secret," she said with conviction. "You different."

"I'm not from here," Hoshi replied. "I'm from far away."

Pipa seemed to accept that. "Where you go?"

"Go?"

"Take you. You go. You back."

Oh, that. "They took me to study," Hoshi told her.

"You smell different. No now. Before."

Smell different? Yes, she supposed she did. The adults had been very interested in sniffing her. "Why did the adults attack me?"

"You smell different."

As if that explained it. Hoshi was curious and now that the dam was broken, she couldn't help herself. She just hoped Pipa would keep their secret. "Pipa, did you ever go to school?"

Pipa expressed her amusement with something like a laugh. "Pipa female."

"Yes, you are." Hoshi gave up that line of questioning for now. She wondered just how she could test anyone's basic intelligence in this circumstance. "Pipa, what is taydee?"

Pipa shook her head. "You not taydee."

"I'm not?" Hoshi asked, confused.

Pipa opened and closed her mouth a few times and Hoshi understood. Eat. No eating. Gothmog had told the females they couldn't hurt her or eat her. "No, I'm not eating," she agreed. Others were stirring now. Hoshi looked Pipa in the eyes. "Secret?"

"Secret," Pipa replied. "Eat soon."