"One has survived!" Enesh exclaimed as he removed the camera from the female's uterus. The miscarriage of the second fetus had also expelled the small remote camera they had left in her. It was surely now trampled in the fields alone with the fetal tissue.

"How does it look?" Besta asked. He leaned over Enesh's shoulder to see the still images as the latter pulled them up on the monitor.

Enesh shook his head. "It's difficult to say. What can we base it on? We've never done this with this species before."

Besta moved to another monitor across the room. "What about the other one? The one she lost. What do we have from it before it was expelled?"

Enesh crossed over to join him and pulled up the archive. He panned back through the images from the day before, then zoomed in on the most promising view of the expelled fetus. Even without knowing what was normal for the species, he could see this one was definitely abnormal. Its head was distorted. There were no eyes. Its feet and arms were twisted and bent. The abnormality could be why it hadn't survived. The camera couldn't see into its heart or other vital organs. There could have been problems with the lungs or heart or even the brain.

She had heard--and listened to--enough. One had survived. Which meant she was still pregnant and having understood that, Hoshi had found it hard to stay in her state of denial. She finally shared her fears. Malcolm understood them. While they could have used his semen to impregnate her, they might also have used their own in the hopes of making some kind of hybrid. She had even glimpsed an image from the far side of the lab. A mutation. A monster, in her mind. Was it the one that had survived?

Malcolm had tried to reassure her, reminding her of--though he didn't even want to remember it--the semen they'd collected from him.

"Even if it was a normal baby, I didn't get to choose to be pregnant,' she argued. "Besides, what life would a child have here? It would be treated like you in a lab or like me in a field. Or it would be on exhibit in some form of secret zoo. It would be better for us all if I miscarried. There's no life for any of us here."

She was right. Malcolm couldn't come up with any scenario that would be good for a baby on this planet. Unfortunately, Hoshi had a lot of fertile years ahead of her, so Radagast and his pal were sure to keep trying. Was it inevitable?

Work as hard as you can, then, Malcolm told her. Wear your body out. Make it hard for the fetus to survive.

"I don't know any sure-fire way to miscarry."

Neither do I, he admitted. We'll just have to do what we can. Overwork yourself, try not to eat right, sleep on your stomach. Fall down a lot.

Hoshi was still glum. "If they even let me go back to the fields."

We can hope. Keep crying. He even managed a mental smile for her. It worked last time.

"Turn is nearly upon us and we don't even know its name!" Gaezhur argued. He felt more confident to do so since Ussa would soon be Head Councilman. The Winged presently in that position knew that, too, and allowed more latitude to the military in the Shirkatisan issues, so he might do as well with the alien.

The Head Councilman held up a hand to forestall Burha's objections. "What would you have in mind?"

"Let us loosen its tongue," Gaezhur responded. "Do some tests on its endurance to pressure, how easy its bones break, only without sedating him first."

"He might die from the stress!" Burha blurted out. "And then what answers would you have? Besides, even if he does talk, you have no basis for understanding anything he says!"

Gaezhur fumed. "We'd have better luck in that, I should think," he shot back, "if he spoke more than just two words!"

"Enough!" the Head Councilman shouted. "There'll be no more yelling in the chamber or I'll have you both removed."

Gaezhur dipped his haed. "Yes, sir."

"My apologies," Burha offered.

"Good. I think the colonel has a good point. Dr. Kenu has ceased even submitting reports for lack of anything new to add. He does not have enough to go on. The alien needs to talk."

Gaezhur bobbed his head with satisfaction.

"However," the Head Councilman went on, "we can't allow you to torture the alien to death. He's the only one we have thanks to a spy who infiltrated your ranks, Colonel. We have drugs that can make one more willing to answer questions. Perhaps we should try those."

"We have no way of knowing they'd have the desired effect on the alien," Burha pointed out.

"So it's a valid area of research that can serve both our needs." He turned to address the other members of the council. "Do you concur?"

Ussa and the Raptor representatives stood and bowed. "We do." The Wingeds and the Monitors followed with the same.

"Then it is decided," the Head Councilman stated. "You have your orders. Make him talk."

"You should be excited!" Kahrae told him. "You'll finally get him to talk!"

"Or kill him with the first dose!" Baezhu realized he was perhaps becoming a bit too transparent with his friend. He needed to keep his reasons scientific.

Kahrae shook his head and popped in another rodent. "You guys won't let that happen," he said after he had swallowed. "Besides, isn't it strange he hasn't said much yet? I mean if you were trapped by an alien civilization for nine months, could you keep silent for that long?"

Baezhu bobbed his head, wondering which side of this Kahrae was really on. "Exactly," he said. "He either has a reason or he can't speak."

"But he said 'water,' and he said the female's name."

Baezhu had forgotten he'd told Kahrae about those.

Kahrae didn't give him a chance to respond. "You need to ask yourself if his reasons for not talking are for his good and match up with our good."

Malcolm had realized something had changed for the worse when a very large, toothy orc walked in through the door, followed by Saruman, Sméagol, and a few other usual orcs.

Hoshi?

"I'm here, Malcolm. What's wrong?"

There's a long-armed T-Rex in my room.

The T-Rex had a determined look on his face, but then, with that reptilian face, he wouldn't have a very flexible face. He might always look like that. He tried to remember when he'd first seen ones like him, there in the desert, but it was so long ago. He turned on the visual display control on his mental console and cranked up Audio II so Hoshi could hear.

Malcolm sat up as the group came closer to his bed. He sucked in a quick breath with the pain that shot through his groin. It had gotten better in the weeks--Had it been weeks yet?--since the surgery but he was still quite tender.

Saruman spoke to Sméagol, who hesitated before stepping to Malcolm's side. "Sheresada." he barely whispered before he pulled out a syringe from his pocket.

Malcolm tried to move away but he really had nowhere to go. Whatever they were going to do was going to happen. There were five of them between him and the door--and billions beyond the door.

"He said he is sorry," Hoshi told him as the needle sunk into his neck.

Sméagol eased him back onto the bed as the drug took effect, and his body become sluggish and heavy. Malcolm didn't resist. He felt dizzy and scared. They were going to cut him open again.

"Did you eat today?" Hoshi asked.

What? He couldn't think clearly as to why that would be important. Yes.

Sméagol looked back to Saruman again but Saruman just nodded. Sméagol turned back to him. "Bay-zhoo," he said, slowly and distinctly, as he touched his own chest. He pointed to Saruman. "Bish-tay." Then to the T-Rex. "Zhen-ah." Then to the other orcs. "Geeben, Kenoo." Finally, he tounched Malcolm's chest and waited.

Malcolm knew what they wanted. My name.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

Dizzy, heavy, like I'm swimming. I don't like swimming, Hoshi. His heart pounded hard under his rib cage.

"Frodo. Call me Frodo, Sam. They've drugged you. You just might slip."

Some kind of truth drug?

"Maybe. Kenoo and Geeben are new guys. I feel like I've seen Zhenah before."

Geeben has been around since Radagast left, Malcolm told her. I think Zhen-ah is from the desert.

"Okay, good. So he's one of the army guys. But what about Kenoo? Why's he in the room?"

Sméagol tried again. "Bay-zhoo." He touched Malcolm's chest. Malcolm turned his head away. It was worse now. The wall was only a foot or so away, but it was fuzzy . . . and moving. His chest hurt from the pounding and he was getting cold. On the inside. Or that's how it felt.

"Something's wrong!" Baezhu said, beckoning Dr. Bishtae over. He checked the alien's pulse and it as fast--very fast. The alien was turning gray and his eyes had rolled back into his head.

Bishtae nodded and together they pushed the bed back toward the by-pass machine. Geeben had left at once and now returned with previously harvested blood so they could flush his drug-saturated blood from his system. "This should not have been rushed," he said over his shoulder to Zhenah.

"Will it die?" the major calmly asked.

"Possibly!" Bishtae shot back. "We should have started with a small dose and stepped it up until it was effective. We have no basis for knowledge of his tolerance!" And, as if to prove his point, the alien began seizing there on the bed.

Baezhu covered the alien's torso with his body to try and keep him still enough for Dr. Bishtae to insert the tubes. Dr. Geeben tried to hold his head still, and Kenu even stepped up to hold down the alien's flailing legs.

Baezhu could feel the alien's heart beat wildly in his chest. Dr. Bishtae was right. He could have an infarction if this went on.

But, as the machine took over pumping in the harvested blood and pumping out--and filtering--the drugged blood, the seizures turned to tremors, and the alien's heartrate normalized its rhythm, even as it retained much of its speed.

"He's at forty-five percent," Dr. Geeben stated. Baezhu stood back up and noticed now that the alien's eyes were still open but glassy.

"Is it stable?" Zhenah asked, again in his calm, unconcerned tone.

"His heartrate is still too fast. He only has one heart," Bishtae argued. "We can't go ruining it."

Zhenah simply raised a hand as if to say, "Carry on," and stayed standing in the same spot. Baezhu realized they weren't going to call this off. They were only lowering the amount of drug cocktail in the alien's system.

Hoshi almost got sick herself until Malcolm's vision in her mind blanked out. She tried to act like she was paying attention to the hay she and the other females were laying over the now-harvested fields. The air was much crisper, and they hadn't yet given her anything more substantial to wear. She had begun to hope exposure could lead to miscarriage. But at the moment, she was very worried about Malcolm. They had drugged him. That was obvious. But how could they regulate his reaction to the drugs? How could they even anticipate what those particular chemicals would do to his system? He could be dying!

But suddenly, the visual feed returned. It was gone and then, as if she'd blinked to clear her vision, it was just back. It was fuzzy but steadier. She heard voices, too, just not Malcolm's. Was he even thinking?

The T-Rex, Zhen-ah, was closer now, looming in front of Malcolm's face. "My name," he said, slowly drawing out each word, "is Zhen-ah. Your name is. . . ." He left a pause.

"My name," Malcolm slurred, and Hoshi nearly gasped. Had he spoken? Wait. It was in English. And Zhen-ah didn't react. It was only a thought.

Sam! Hoshi told him urgently. Your name is Sam.

"He wants to know my name," Malcolm told her, as if he hadn't heard. He almost sounded drunk, but sad drunk, in a way.

Your name is Sam. She didn't figure he was up for much in the way of reasoning. He might talk or he might not. But she hoped that by keeping that simple sentence in front of him, he'd say what she told him to say if he did talk. Just Sam.

"Samwise Gamgee," he corrected. And by the way Zhen-ah pulled back and the others murmured, he hadn't just thought it. He'd said it out loud.