Radhya worked with total concentration until Aninya tapped on her door with a supper tray.

“I’m sorry to disturb you milady, but it’s after eight and I thought you might be hungry.”

Max and Will entered behind her. Radhya raised her head from the screen abstractedly.

“Let me just run this simulation, and I think I’ve got it.”

She tapped a few spots on the smart screen then pushed back from the desk. She stretched until her spine popped. Will was standing behind her chair observing her work.

“Where’s Padr?” she asked.

“He ate with the slaves tonight milady,” replied Aninya. “Although that D’Bara, can’t stand that girl, she was sick and didn’t come for supper. Last I saw Padr; he was playing with Kung.”

“I guess he is avoiding me. Okay, just put the tray anywhere Aninya and thank you.”

Radhya opened her tray, rewarded by the savory smells of gourmet fare. She wrinkled her nose but ate few bites.

“Join in don’t be shy,” she told Max and Will.

“Don’t you like your food?” asked Max.

“Not really. I prefer soup or salad, perhaps a little fruit. I don’t care for all this overcooked spiced stuff.”

“Can I have what you don’t want?” asked Max eagerly.

“Certainly,” said Radhya pushing the remains of her tray over, then snatching the fruit off with a grin, “except this.”

“Radhya,” asked Will, “how do you do those recombines so fast? I would think it would take weeks, if not months to run enough variations to get what you want. I don’t know as much as you do about genetics, but I do have the basics. What you do seems impossible at that speed. I noticed it before when you were designing plants for Padr.”

“To tell you honestly Will, I don’t know. When it comes to genetic code, I am an idiot savant or something. I was very smart in school. I earned my Ph.D. in genetics at fourteen and started working for the university then. I had a lot of trouble. Three worlds were destroyed, using my research. The Melians, that’s our name, we couldn’t whistle their real name, were wiped out.”

“On the second world were these horrid snakelike things. They burrowed up your anus or down your throat while you were sleeping and laid their eggs. The eggs hatched in about twenty-eight hours and the larvae ate their way out. These things had already wiped out most of the animal life larger than an insect, but there were these fuzzy little people who lived high in the trees where the snakes couldn’t go. They were sentient, but just barely. And ever so cute, huge violet eyes and pink noses. I was supposed to be working on a way to destroy the snakes and save the little furry people, but I destroyed them all. That planet had very valuable mineral resources. I was fifteen.”

“When I was sixteen, they brought me here. It was the most beautiful planet, with the perfect climate; I had ever been on. However, I was locked into the habitat. A sort of wasp or insect was attacking the Ocean Chandrans’ children. It carried many diseases, and they were losing about fifty percent of their children to it. I was to remove the disease vector. This time I changed both the virus and the vector. There could have been absolutely no contamination unless it was deliberate. I didn’t want another world like the Melians. Yet every bit of animal life on dry land was wiped out. They knew that they were exterminating these people, but they wanted the planet. I made sure the planet was not available to them.”

“That was the last of my work for the university. Grandpa set up a small lab for me beside his, and I began working for myself. Then Grandpa died, poison. I had so many patents of my own that my older brother who is in the same field was embarrassed. So my parents threw me out to fend for myself. I have been working ever since to put things right. I had the three worlds as a settlement from the courts. The Melians have been recreated on their world, in secret. They make paper, glass and the finest silk you’ve ever seen, but if certain aristocrats find out they live there instead of the slaves that are supposed to be working for me, then they will find another way to wipe them out. That’s called Radhya’s world now.”

“My Kirbyson’s world, the snake world, was so full of metals I had an idea to make trees that deposit gold, silver, copper, and platinum, whatever in the leaves. Collect the leaves in the fall, and you’re rich. Sparky sponsored me, and I gave him trees for his metal-rich planet. He had a congenital defect that had proved impossible to correct surgically. Therefore, I made a cure for him. I made him whole, and he gave me half his world. Pleasant is where the Chandrans lived, Mountain Chandrans, Plains Chandrans, and the Ocean Chandrans. On the plains and in the mountains they were very warlike. Totally evil. They would kill any stranger approaching their villages. They ate their own children when the population went too high. They were so nasty I didn’t even mind that they were wiped out. Nevertheless, the Ocean Chandrans were another matter. Anyway, that is my entire life’s story. I’m tired of sitting, and I have something I want you to see. If you‘re done eating come with me.”

Radhya rose and left the room. She tiptoed to the first floor, Max and Will followed her. She entered the den.

The den was square and dark with five comfortable chairs around the walls. The walls were panelled in carved rosewood, flowers twining up and down their lengths. There was an old-fashioned wood burning fireplace against the back wall.

Rada watched them walk past from her hiding place behind the kitchen door, sneaking behind them. She opened the den door a tiny crack and watched.

Radhya went to the right back corner and twisted the stamens of a carved moonflower. A split appeared in the paneling. Grasping it, she pulled it open. She stepped into the dark with Max and Will following. Rada watched them disappear and eased across the den floor behind them. As soon as the panel closed a light came on, not too bright, but enough. On the left was a lift, on the right an arsenal. At the rear was another door.

“The lift will take you up to my rooms or down to the subbasement, below the slave quarters and storage,” Radhya spoke softly. “Can both of you use a tazer?”

“Of course,” they answered in unison.

“Grab a weapon and let’s go,” she said as she snapped one to her belt.

She led the way through a tunnel, perhaps wide enough and high enough for a horse. It twisted and turned through the grey stone of the mountain for a half a klick. Bulbs came on ahead and turned off as they traveled, like moving in a bubble of light. The passage came to an abrupt end at a blank wall of rock.

Radhya stopped, touching a flat, grey, metal plate on the left. With a rumble, a small section of the barrier slid aside. Radhya, Max and Will scrambled out of the way.

“This way,” Radhya said with an absolute sureness. She plunged ahead into the fog.

Fifteen minutes behind them came Rada following the signal device she carried in her hand. Radhya and her guards traveled swiftly through the fog unaware that they were being tracked.

“It’s about five klicks, but we have to watch for wild animals,” she told them. “Keep your tazers ready.”

Weapon in hand, Radhya stopped under a large pine tree. The fog and darkness made vision useless. She sniffed the air.

“Do you smell it?” she asked.

The men scented the air. On the tang of brine in the breeze was a musty odor, like old, dirty laundry. Max and Will nodded. Radhya stood still, her back to the tree. The fog swirled in patterns and shapes more frightening than any real foe. The smell grew stronger. The shifting curtain parted to release a nightmare.

The size of a small horse, it was brindled in colors of fog and mist. A long coarse mane ran from behind its pointed ears to the base of its tail. The large black twitching nose ended a pointed fanged face and above intense eyes glowed yellow. Other pairs of eyes were intermittently visible in the shifting mist.

“Shurra,” cried Radhya with relief. “It’s okay. Max, Will, this is Shurra’s pack. I raised her from a pup, and she thinks I’m her mother.”

The gigantic animal sank to its belly and crawled forward, pulling back its lips to reveal teeth as long as butcher knives. A thin pink tongue was licking in and out.

Radhya greeted Shurra in wolf manner, allowing her to lick her chin, then shaking Shurra roughly by the mane. The wolf rolled over, and Radhya rubbed her belly for five minutes.

“Away,” she gestured, and the pack vanished.

Max looked in awe at the smiling Radhya.

“We were lucky,” she said. “That’s the only pack that I can influence, because I was Shurra’s mother. She is the mother of the rest.”

“How many other packs?” asked Will.

“Four at least, possibly even five by now.”

As they moved from the tree, a commotion ahead caught their interest. The sounds of growling and snarling floated on the breeze. Radhya veered from their path giving the clearing ahead a wide berth.

“Another pack feeding on a kill,” she whispered.

They continued even more swiftly as the trail began to go downhill, steep in places and rocky. Slowing they had to pick their way carefully, weaving around the rocky outcropping that scattered unseen across the body of the hill.

As they circled a large boulder, the hunting scream of a dire wolf played a dirge above them. A huge grey animal hurtled from the top of the rock. Radhya, Max and Will jammed themselves against the stone face, the nightmare creature landed in front of them. It whirled swiftly and slunk to its belly in a hunting crouch, paw lift, pause, step, very slow.

“Tazer the snout. It will leave and take its companion with it,” whispered Radhya indicating the trail ahead where another giant wolf was crouched.

The dire wolf sprang in a sudden bound. Three tazers hit it at once, right in the face. It couldn’t stop its forward momentum, and it crushed them into the rock. They continued hitting it with their tazers and the enormous beast scrambled to its paws, tucked its tail between its legs and tore up the trail whining like a scolded pup. Its companion glanced nervously at the prey, and then followed at a gallop.

“Is everyone okay?” asked Will.

“I am, bruises aside,” said Max.

Radhya said, “I think I sprained my wrist.”

Will wrapped his Lady’s injury in gauze from his kit. The stronger winds here blew the fog back, so the night became clearer as they continued down the trail. Without further incident, they reached a beach of sand as smooth and white as sugar. The ocean, still hidden by billows and curtains of fog, made its presence known by sound alone. They walked easily for a while then Radhya stopped. She closed her eyes and stood there as the men looked uncertainly at each other.

Out of the ocean, fog materialized three extra large human shapes. They looked human, yet not. The proportions were wrong, too long in the torso, and the legs had much less calf than human legs. The arms, as well, were not human shaped, with the upper arms being longer and the lower arms shorter than in comparison to humans. Instinctively the hair raised on the back of the men’s necks.

“Max, Will, meet the Ocean Chandrans.”

One shape moved towards each human. Coming close, they enfolded the human in a hug. Overpoweringly tall at two and a half meters each, their bellies were smooth and rubbery, like dolphin skin, and their backs covered with short, dense fur. Max’s was golden, Radhya’s was brown, and Will’s was black. Each Chandran had two enormous eyes in the human fashion, sea green and calm, quiet and deep.

Then they heard the alien’s thoughts, low and rumbling, somehow, like waves lapping beneath a boat.

“Radhya, our friend and recreator, how may we serve you?”

Radhya answered aloud, “I want you to know my friends, Max and Will. There is another who could not come.”

“Yes, your Padr. Your seliflacn are welcome among us.”

“I don’t understand your term.”

“We see the mutual shadows of bonds growing among you. A bonded group is selifla. You are not that far yet, so you are seliflacn.”

Radhya glanced about, confused by the thoughts for a moment.

“I have a problem” she began. Then she proceeded to tell them all that had happened with Lord Barone.

“I must warn you,” she finished, “they will try to eradicate you if they get rid of me. You must be ready to hide. Never reveal yourself to humans.”

“We will bring your thoughts to the mother. We will all conference. Return in seven moon risings. We will tell you our thoughts then.”

“Thank you,” replied Radhya.

The big aliens released them, and the humans retreated along the shoreline. Max and Will glanced at each other behind Radhya’s back.

“That was somewhat terrifying,” ventured Max.

“I was rather intimidated by that hug,” said Will.

“They have no vocal cords, and they can’t communicate telepathically with us without touching. The Chandrans are the most morally ethical of any creature I have ever met. Any advice they give will show us the way to do the right thing. They have a racial memory that goes back to the beginning.”

A sudden scream tore stopped her explanation. Radhya halted, oriented herself and began to run up the steep hillside. The men followed. The scream came again, and it went on and on shredding human will. Radhya plunged on, removing her tazer from her belt. Finally, it ended in a rattling gurgle.

Rounding the boulder where their fight with the dire wolves occurred, the trio came upon the same two animals pulling and snapping at a body, a human female body. Radhya flicked on her tazer as the two men came up to flank her. The wolves snapped their heads around to glare at them. The female wolf growled low in her throat. Radhya hit her with a half charge in her left eye. The wolf whipped away and leapt the corpse. The male followed, slinking on his belly. Radhya kicked over the woman.

“Rada,” she snapped in disgust. “Let the wolves have her. It is at least honorable to feed something when you die. Will, take a holo for me would you?”

Silently Will did as she asked. They retreated further up the trail. The brush crashed and shook as the wolves circled back to feed on their kill, and the sound of growling and bones crunching follow them a good way up the trail. Staggering, Max made it to one side of the trail where he threw up repeatedly until he was empty. Groaning he sat on the trail with his head in his hands.

“She wanted him to sleep with her last night,” Will explained.

Radhya was instantly alert asking, “Did she touch him anywhere?”

“Oh yes, several anywhere’s in fact,” replied Will.

“Get him to the med lab and scan him for transmitters the moment we get in. I should have checked the body better. I might have found a receiver.”

Will answered seriously, “Yes, milady.”

They retraced their way in silence and entered the tunnel from a large boulder. Twisting and turning their way back through the mountain, they trotted steadily in their bubble of light. On reaching the entry, the trio racked their weapons, and Radhya pointed to the lift.

In seconds, they were deposited in Radhya’s bedroom. As they stepped from behind an ornate plaster screen, a child’s fantasy of a garden intrigued the men who stared around curiously, craning their necks to see it all. Flowers and animals, birds and butterflies were everywhere. It was difficult to tell what furniture was and what was ornament. The bed was a living creature designed to hold and comfort the sleeper, its coverlet a flap of fur. The floor was fuzzy grass. Radhya led the way around another screen at the opposite end of the room, and they exited into a familiar hallway.

At the med lab, a quick scan revealed two transmitters, one in Max’s neck, and one in his rear. Will gave him a local freezing and removed the one in his neck with a scalpel. It had burrowed deep.

Max was cursing beneath his breath. “I thought she was only coming on to me. I didn’t realize I was having nanos planted. How could I be such a fool? I even have that stupid super deluxe training. I should know better.”

“Max,” cut in Radhya sharply, “there is no way you could know. I told you to expect seduction, not trickery. Besides, Barone knew what he was going to do. I never suspected him of being stupid. He certainly wouldn’t give you any hint of how to protect yourself or me from his schemes. I have been so involved with this D’Bara/Petra thing that I haven’t been focused on the whole picture. Anyway now you can educate Will and Padr on the feelings of a nano plant.”

“Feels like being pinched hard,” Max replied. “But I never felt anything after that.”

“You wouldn’t,” Will said holding up the first one. It was the size of a fruit fly. “It releases an analgesic as it burrows. Only breaking the skin hurts.”

Will poured the instant healing compound on Max’s neck and started to remove the second. Radhya put the tiny machine in a test tube. The second joined it in a minute.

“What to do?” she mused.

Finally, she placed the tube in the rear of the freezer in lab two. Will was just wiping the blood drop from Max’s buttocks as she returned.

“Go to bed,” she told Will. “Max you can have guard duty. Tomorrow we cure Amlina.”