When they had finally finished, Malcolm watched the floor tiles as he was wheeled away. He didn't know what they had done. He felt nothing inside his head. The pain was a ring around his head where the incision was made and sewn back up. It started at the top of his head, just above his hairline, ran over his ears and met again low on the back of his head.

They didn't return him to where he had been before or to the larger room he had shared with Hoshi. It looked somewhat familiar though, from his sideways view. They deposited him on his side on a larger slat of a bed. He could just make out a door at the end of the room.

When he could finally move, he clumsily felt his neck for the hated tubes. But there weren't any. The catheter had been removed, too. He wasn't sure whether to feel grateful or disgusted that they had finally managed to anesthetize one part of his body successfully. Why hadn't they managed that the other times?

Very gingerly, he reached up to touch his head. He felt bandages. He tried to sit up but his head felt very heavy. He had to close his eyes against a wave a nausea that swirled about his stomach. He finally managed to push himself up to a nearly vertical position reclining against a wall.

He opened his eyes and realized why the room looked familiar. He had spent his first month or so in one just like it. The only difference was the large life-support machine in the back corner. That only served to confirm his suspicions that they weren't done with him yet.

He so wanted to be done. Done with it all. But he thought of Hoshi in Buftanis. Were they doing the same things to her? He would probably never know.

Hoshi, he thought, sort of reaching out to her in his mind, I don't know what they're doing where you are, but I'm glad you're not here.

Hoshi was confused. They hadn't returned her to the fields. Her period had ended days ago. She wasn't complaining about having those days off working, but she really didn't think they were just letting her have the time off. They had to have a reason and Hoshi didn't like the thought.

She had just finished her lunch when she decided she had gone insane.

"Hoshi, I don't know what they're doing where you are, but I'm glad you're not here."

It was Malcolm's voice, as clear as if he was standing beside her. She spun around, looking for him. Had they brought him here? No, not from what he said. How could he say it?

I've finally gone crazy, she thought.

"Hoshi?" She heard it again. "I'm the crazy one." Hoshi rubbed her ears. It was definitely Malcolm's voice, British accent and all. It wasn't possible. "I'm the one whose head got cut into. And now I'm thinking to someone on the other side of the world."

It wasn't in her ears. The voice was in her head. Malcolm's voice. Thinking inside her head.

Lieutenant? she thought back. Maybe it was crazy, but she liked the idea of company even if it was fictitious.

"Definitely looney."

Maybe we both are because I hear you, she replied. Do you hear me?

"Of course, that's why I'm insane. You're on the other side of this planet, you know. And I'm not actually talking."

Well, I hear you and I'm not actually talking either. So maybe we're both crazy, but at least we can be crazy together. She waited for an answer and then began to fear her sanity had returned.

"How did you find out about pineapple?"

Hoshi sighed and tried to keep the smile from forming on her lips. She had missed him. And figment or not, she wanted to keep him. Then she thought about his question. How did she find out about pineapple? It's a fruit? she thought back confused.

"No, it's a test. I need to ask you something I don't quite know the answer to. If I did, I could just answer it myself and prove I'm crazy. You found out for my birthday. but I don't know how."

Phlox, she answered quickly. He let me see what you were allergic to and told me how you built up your tolerance to bromelin. It's in pineapple.

Well, I didn't know that, Malcolm thought. But I suppose I could make it up.

"You could," Hoshi's voice responded. "But I could also tell you that I spoke with your sister, your old roommate, and your two spinster aunts. And the captain spoke with your parents. And none of them knew about pineapple."

Malcolm's head was spinning. Or the room was. He still felt sick and heavy but this was intriguing. He lay back down before thinking to her again. If you're Hoshi and not my own imagination, tell me about Buftanis.

"Buftanis?" She sounded surprised. "Is that where I am? Radagast is here, too. How did you know its name?"

They told me. It's all I got. You, Buftanis. Me, Zheiren. The planet is Sharu. My head hurts.

Hoshi's voice grew concerned now. "What did they do, Malcolm?

My head. They did something to my head. I don't want to think about it. The lights hurt. The mattress hurt.

"I--"

It sounded so much like her that he wanted to believe it really was her. He could almost see the horror on her face as she processed what little he'd said with her own memories. Don't think about it. What about you?

"That part is better," she said. "They do something now and again, but I don't know what and I can't feel anything."

Small blessings, he thought back. He was getting tired again.

"In between, I work in the fields with the other females."

Females? That was new. So they do exist!

"They're different, Malcolm. And they're slaves." She paused then added, "We are slaves."

The door opened and Sméagol came in. He had a small bowl with him, and he helped Malcolm sit up enough to drink the juice that was in it. I almost wish I could understand what he says, he thought to Hoshi.

"Who?"

Sméagol. I think he might actually feel bad for me. But then, I am loopy enough to think you can really hear my thoughts.

"Which one is Sméagol? And I don't think I'm loopy and I hear yours. I don't really need to know if it's possible or not, but I want to hear you when you're not loopy. I've missed you."

So have I, he thought back. But I'd rather you be a slave than go through what I am here. He was really dizzy now. Sméagol helped him back down. He prattled on as he checked Malcolm's bandages, his pulse, etc. Malcolm didn't really care now. He wanted to talk to Hoshi. He was afraid, though, that he'd slip up and think out loud. I have to sleep now, Hoshi.

He sounded so tired. Hoshi marveled at how much the voice in her head sounded so much like him. Okay, Malcolm. Try again when you wake up.

Maybe it was possible. They had done something to his head. That meant they had done something to his brain. She knew them well enough to know they had cut his head open. Why else would they? They would have wanted to study his brain. And if human's regularly use so little of their brains' power, it just might be that the orcs tripped some sort of switch. Or she was insane. "Small blessings," he had said. Well, that was the more pleasant way to look at it. Imagined or not, she had talked with Malcolm again and she didn't feel so alone any longer.

The heat lamps came on and she wondered what time it was in Zheiren.

"Dr. Bishtae is still writing so much about it," Baezhu told his friend. "We've never seen a brain that complex in a mammal, let alone a primate."

"Keep it general this time," Kahrae groaned. "I want to keep my breakfast today." The intimate details of the look and feel of an alien's brain hadn't sat well with his stomach the day before.

Baezhu laughed. "You eat brains every time you eat a rodent or a fish, Kahrae. We eat whole prey animals. That's a lot more than just meat."

"I know but I don't contemplate how everything looks and feels. I just chew it and swallow." There was a big difference between holding a brain or heart in your hands and just eating either still encased in the prey animal one was eating."

"Fine," Baezhu laughed. "In general, he has good eyesight and hearing. We can tell by how much area is devoted to processing that information. In fact, all his senses are more like ours than any primates on our world. And it would seem he has a great capacity for memory and information processing."

"So his brain says he's sentient," Kahrae concluded. "Didn't you already know that?" Baezhu was certainly in the right place. He could be excited about multiple tests saying the same thing. Kahrae had patience for Baezhu but knew he'd never have enough patience to do what his friend did.

Baezhu corrected him. "Alone, it would be enough to say he's self-aware. But it certainly backs up that hypothesis when we take into account his behavior and other evidence. Like clothes. What non-sentient animal wears clothing? With words or symbols?"

Kahrae gave him the point. "You mean things like how he refuses to communicate."

"Exactly. You have to be fairly self-aware to choose to be obstinate, I think. So, you see, it's the clues we gather that makes the clearer picture of reality."

Malcolm sat up, trying to shake off some of the grogginess that still threatened to engulf him. They were keeping him fairly well drugged up this time. But he didn't want to be drugged no matter how much his head hurt. He wanted to see if what had happened was real.

Hoshi? he thought.

"Malcolm?" Incredible. But then, he was still being drugged. Could that produce the same hallucination twice? "How are you?"

Groggy, he told her. Drugs. Could be all this is.

"Not from my end. They don't drug me. They shock me. Something at the back of my neck. They do it and I drop. I can't move at all. Or feel anything, at least."

She sounded sad. Isn't that better?

"Yes, but I'm still awake. I can hear them. I'm not sure I like what they're doing."

What are they doing?

"I don't know for sure. I've got no context for some of their words. I just have a bad feeling about it."

Everything about this is a bad feeling, he said. Except you. Even if you are an hallucination.

"They haven't put me back in the fields. They're not done with me yet."

Is that where you work? He wanted to take her mind off what the scientists were doing. Still, slavery wasn't fun either. Tell me about the females.

"We work in the fields. I don't know what we're growing yet. I think I know why they don't try to communicate with me, Malcolm. They don't communicate with their females either. They aren't as sophisticated. They don't talk much and when they do, it's rudimentary. Simple words or phrases. They do manual labor, repetitive physical work. They don't seem to understand why they do anything."

How do you know all that?

She hesitated before answering. "I've spoken to one. I'm trying to test her, little by little."

Hoshi--

"She hasn't told anyone. It's our secret. I trust her. She's the closest thing I have to a friend here."

Malcolm sighed. He couldn't exactly order her anymore. Chain of command was ridiculous at this point, even if he wasn't hallucinating, which was still a possibility. Just be careful, Hoshi. If they ever realize you can understand, they will try to communicate with you. They'll force you to communicate back.

"She's the only one," Hoshi repeated. "She's a juvenile. Her name is Pipa. She's one of the Winged ones. All the females in my group are. I think I've seen others but, frankly, I've been too tired to bother looking."

I suppose there'd have to be other ones, he thought to her.

She didn't reply right away. He thought he heard a door unlocking and looked toward his. But he couldn't see anyone in the window there. "Someone's coming," Hoshi said. "Back to work, I hope. Ah!"

Malcolm sat up. What?! Hoshi!

"Malcolm? I can't move. They're going to do something."

What do they do, Hoshi? He almost didn't want to know.

"They carry me to a little lab with a bed and equipment."

He shook at the thought. He didn't want that for her. Still, he asked, Scalpels?

"I can't see any. Just machines with cords or tubes and monitor screens."

He relaxed. No cutting then. That doesn't sound so bad, he tried to console her a bit.

"I can see stirrups on the bed!"

Stirrups? It took a moment for the idea to form. Stirrups held the legs open. Were they molesting her? Was it even physically possible? But then they had done so to him in the pursuit of science. So what would they be doing to her?

He refused to contemplate that further. Can you close your eyes?

"Radagast covered them." She sounded so scared.

Don't think about it, Hoshi. Don't think about it at all. Tell me a story instead.

"I can't!" She was crying. "You tell me one."

Well--uh--like what? He couldn't believe he was stammering even in his own head.

"Peanut butter," she said.

Excuse me? Where had that come from?

"You put it on pancakes. Phlox said it."

Ah, he imagined it. Maple syrup flowing over the melting peanut butter. I put it on waffles and French toast, too, he replied.

"Why?"

Why not? Have you ever tried it? You'd never want any of those without it again.

She laughed and Malcolm found he was smiling. He stopped.

But he decided then and there that he'd tell her stories whenever she needed it. When I was about six, we went on holiday to visit my great-grandmother. I remember sitting in her kitchen at the table. She made pancakes and my mother put peanut butter on them then poured maple syrup over the top. I tried it and it was delicious. I've had them that way ever since.

"What else did you do?"

Well, I don't remember much else. I was six. I think we went to a ship. Great-Granddad had served on it, but it was a museum by then. It was the Essex. But that might have been a different year.

"Tell me anyway."

Malcolm lay back down and forced his memory back to the old ship. And he found it wasn't frightening at all, even though it rocked and swayed with the waves. It was familiar, comfortable. It was big, he told her. Metal, imposing, I suppose. I remember it was hard to step through the hatches, so my father had to lift me up. There were berthings with rack after rack for sleeping and lockers for every rack.

We went to the wardroom and the bridge. I remember Father helping me to turn the big wheel. He picked me up and I could see the big guns out the window. We saw the galley with the big ovens and sinks and the mess deck where the sailors would eat. We went to the engine rooms and Father let me press a button so we could hear a recording of the engines. They were so loud I covered my ears.

It was so different from Father's ship. It was quiet and still with only small groups of people, most not in uniform. But it felt like an adventure was just waiting to start.

"They're done," Hoshi said. "I'm back in my cell. Thank you."

Are you alright?

"I could almost see it, Malcolm. The ship."

That was good. Whatever they had done, he had distracted her from it.

"Malcolm," she said, her imagined voice full of weight. "I've missed you."

Malcolm took that in. It felt so good, so solemn, so like love. But then he was the only other human on this planet, so he didn't want to read too much into it. I missed you, as well, he told her, trying to match the gravity of her statement without implying he had taken any meaning from it but the explicit one. I was lost here all alone.

"Do we keep hoping?" she asked. "After all this time?"

In Enterprise? I don't see we have much choice. They won't let us go. I've tried. We can't escape. So hope is just about all we have left.

"And each other. I can hope now that I hear you again."

Maybe I am just crazy, he said, but I'm going to believe that I'm talking to you anyway. I don't feel so alone anymore.

"So shall I tell you about Buftanis?"

Malcolm listened to all she had to say, marveling at how much she had managed to learn while slaving in the fields. He was especially curious about the females and wondered where they were kept in Zheiren. He completely ignored Sméagol when he entered and ate his food without thinking. The light went off, the heat lamps came on and he was still catching up on the last few months. He fell asleep that night feeling happy. And that was an incredible change.

"Six viable eggs!" Besta exclaimed. "We have a good place to start then!"

"I'm still amazed by mammals," Enesh replied, looking at the small dish that held the eggs. "Something so tiny can grow to their adult size."

Besta laughed. "Well, we start out that small, too, Enesh. Just at a different stage in our development. For us, 'egg' comes together later." He put one egg back under the microscope. "But to a geneticist, the eggs of mammals are not so tiny." He moved so Enesh could look through the lens. "One half of the blueprint for life as one of their species."

Enesh stood up after looking. "How long until you're ready to implant the first embryo?"

Besta ducked his head briefly. "Can't be sure. We'll have to monitor its growth. We'll need at least a decent blastocyst. But first, I have to prepare it."

Enesh watched Besta's pain-staking work. This was still a very new science. There were bound to be many failures, but at least the female's frequent cycles meant frequent opportunities to try again.

Besta prepared each of the six eggs and set them in the incubator. "It could be only a day or two," he said.

"How many do we implant?" Enesh asked, wondering if the female's womb could even manage multiples.

"By nature, she produces one egg per cycle, so that is our best route, I think. And if it takes, the fetus will not have to compete for resources."

Enesh thought of something else. "If it takes, should we return her to work with the other females?" The females attacked her when they sensed her cycle. How would they react to a pregnant alien?

Besta contemplated that for a few minutes. "We could start the hormones early."

"What hormones?" Enesh knew that some of the females would be given birth control when Turn came, but that was months away.

"They're more productive if they're not distracted by sexual competition," Besta explained. "We put hormones in their food to keep them in a non-sexual state. They don't fight each other or distract their guards. They just keep working. After harvest, we decide which group will stay that way and which will be moved to quarantine."

"And those regain their fertility," Enesh finished. It sounded like a good option. And it might work to keep the alien occupied and reasonably healthy, unlike the male, whose muscles he'd learned were beginning to atrophy.

"We usually start in the early autumn." Besta went to the computer. "I'll have to get this approved but I think our exceptional specimen will buy us some time with Director Goti."

Major Zhenah entered Kaife's lab with the latter's report in his hands. "If I understood this," he said, holding it up, "you've made progress."

Kaife bobbed his head in answer. "Limited progress but progress none the less."

"It received a signal then?" Zhenah set the report down on the table by the little alien device.

"Three, in fact," Kaife responded. "One just barely, and the other two fairly easily. Basic radio had the strongest reception, in certain frequencies."

Zhenah didn't get it. Not one, but three signals received by a device not of this world, a device whose technology was far advanced from theirs, and this was limited progress? So he asked, "How exactly is that limited?"

Kaife responded quickly. "None of them comprise its basic form of transmission. I had to tune them in, so to speak. Set in its default mode--the one it was found in, nothing touches it. In a sense, you could say the thing is 'backward' compatible. It can pick up various more primitive wavelengths. But it natively uses something else entirely."

Zhenah sighed. "Something alien?"

Kaife chuckled at that. "Exactly. So now I'd like to see what it does natively transmit in."

Zhenah wasn't so sure. What if someone were listening? But that brought him back to his earlier questioning. He decided to confide in this Raptorish Winged scientist. "Dr. Kaife, I have not told you much about the origins of this device, but if I tell you more, perhaps you can help me with what may be an important dilemma."

Kaife leaned on his chair. "I'd be glad to help anyway I can."

"Only as a sounding-board, I'm afraid." Zhenah paced away a few steps. "I still can't tell you much. The device was found after an unknown craft crashed in Rihansu. No wreckage larger than a coin was found at this site. Two beings were found later. This device was buried where the two were found."

Kaife stood up in shock. "Beings? I-- I know you said this was alien but I didn't go so far as to think of actual beings. What are they like?"

Zhenah held up a hand. "I am sorry, I'm telling you more than I should already. They are like that device, in a sense. The only sense you're likely to get clearance for. My dilemma begins like this: The beings walked away from the wreckage and yet the wreckage was completely obliterated."

Kaife sat down again, but his eyes were wide with interest. "So they destroyed the wreckage after surviving the crash."

Zhenah bobbed his head. "They walked away with very little. They had clothes, a blanket of sorts, food packets and water."

"Essentials to survive in the desert," Kaife commented.

Zhenah bobbed again. "And they had this. And yet they buried this in the sand so we wouldn't find it. Why did they save it and then why did they bury it?"

Kaife thought a moment and then started thinking aloud. "It's a communication device, so they must have expected to communicate with someone."

"Someone here?"

"Not likely," Kaife said, "though I'll need to run more tests to know for certain."

"Then someone else . . . somewhere else?"

Kaife was silent as he pondered that. Zhenah waited. Finally, Kaife gave his thought. "Rescue, I'd think. I wouldn't think they'd planned to crash here."

"Then why bury it? They couldn't call for help without it?"

"Would you have let them if they'd kept it?"

Zhenah took that point. "No, probably not. We'd take it for study."

"So they didn't want you to study it," Kaife concluded. "Because then we might learn something we wouldn't have learned on our own, at least not for some time. Like some form of technological contamination. If we can reverse engineer this device, we will have a tactical advantage over Buftanis. Maybe that changes the balance of power for all Sharu. And maybe they don't want their outside influence to decide such things."

That was a new idea. And it fit with some other things in Bishtae and Kenu's reports. But so did some other, more nefarious theories, like these two being forward scouts of an eventual invasion. They'd hidden the device to keep their advantage out of Zheiren or Buftanisian hands. It wasn't perfect, but at least Kaife had given him another option to consider.

"If you're hypothesis is right, and you use this to transmit, will their rescue come?" he asked Kaife.

Kaife shrugged. "I don't think so. They had some opportunity to use this before they were found, yes? No one came then. I've had it for some time now and apparently no one has come still. So I would hypothesize that no one out there is listening."

"But are the Buftanisians? They told us where to find it."

Kaife smirked. "I think I know a way to find out."

They came back for her in a few days, and Malcolm had managed to find another pleasant memory from his earlier childhood to tell her. A Christmas memory. Mother had taken Madeline one way in the toy department of the store while Father had taken him another. Each was supposed to pick out a gift for the other. Malcolm had spotted the perfect toy. So perfect, in fact, that he had wanted it for himself. It made him so sad to think she would have one and he wouldn't. So he'd asked if Father thought his sister would ever let him play with it. A week or two later, Christmas came. Madeline and he opened their presents from each other while sitting on the floor with the gifts between them. He just knew she'd be so excited by what he'd found. And he hoped she let him play with it. He was sure the one he got from her could never be as good, simply because the one he'd chosen was the best ever.

She was terribly excited when she opened it. Her expression of joy and surprise felt good to Malcolm. He opened his present and sent the same expression back to her. Madeline had picked the same toy for him! They were both so happy that they reached over the toys and torn paper to hug. It was quite possibly, he told her, the best Christmas ever!

"That's not how I imagined you as a boy," she said.

Oh? He felt a bit excited that she'd even tried to imagine his childhood. But he also knew this could lead to darker memories that he was not so sure he wanted to share.

"I imagined you more like . . . well, you, only smaller."

And what does that mean?

She was quiet for a minute and he worried about what she might say. "Quieter," she finally began. "Professional--which is silly because you had to be a kid at some point. I imagined you shy and reserved."

That would come, he thought, but not to her. He waited a few seconds to see if she'd heard anyway. She didn't say anything. Me, he confirmed, to her this time, only smaller.

"Yeah, but I know it couldn't be like that. I've seen that kid you remember in you sometimes. Usually with Trip."

Malcolm felt a wave of sadness at the name. He was my best friend, He couldn't shake Trip's angry face from his waking dream.

"Is," she corrected. "We're still hoping, remember?"

He didn't want to tell her about those dreams he'd been having about Enterprise. Yeah, he said. It's hard sometimes.

Enesh watched anxiously as the results started coming in. The television scrolled the numbers by and it was close. It was hard to think he could be so excited and scared by an election. A year ago, he'd have never even dreamed it. It was a chaotic, unstable way of governing, or so the Council said. And perhaps, to some degree it was, but Enesh found he really liked having a part in it.

Just that morning he had cast his first ballot. Then he and Besta had delivered the embryo to the female's womb. Another camera went in as well. The shipment of hormone had arrived that afternoon also, which meant the female would be returned to the workforce in less than a week. They'd know by then if the embryo took.

By dinner time, the polls had closed on the east coast. The result began to trickle in little by little then faster and faster. They were coming close now to the breaking point.

"It's a tight one," Besta commented. "Very close. Either candidate just needs five of the last seven districts to win."

"I've studied it in detail these last few weeks," Enesh told him, bobbing his head. "It's complicated enough that it took that long. Our votes decide who our district would elect. Then the candidate with the majority of the districts wins the whole thing."

Besta bobbed his head in return. "Yes, not a direct election, but a compromise." On the monitor, another district went to the conservative candidate. "Damn."

"It's not over yet, right? Our candidate still has a chance." Enesh had been getting worried, but he looked to Besta, who had been here longer, for confidence.

"Yes, but now there are only six, and he has to win five of them. And they're all in the southwest. That area leans conservative."

To confirm his statement, another district went for the conservative candidate. The next surprised even the commentators and went for the liberal. But Enesh knew now that his chosen candidate would have to win every one of the last four. He found it hard to even breathe.

"Kalinai district has reported in," the commentator stated. "We can know call the election for Farest Gudai and the Conservative Party."

The breath seeped out of Enesh's chest. Besta fell back onto his chair. "That's it then," he said in a near monotone. "We lost."

"What will happen to the country?"

Besta shrugged. "Usually not much. There are checks and balances which keep things pretty stable from election to election, but a President can have a big influence. And President-Elect Gudai will bring a strong one to the right, toward a tough stance with Zheiren. We could be closer to war."