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"You’re lucky to know her as Cat Most people don’t" Browne shuff-led some papers around on his desk and came up with a few stubs He handed them out to Molly "Twenty each"

"What are they?"

"Tickets to see Cat"

One of the card players chuckled again and got another visual blasting froe from the cantina and held it out Sheriff Browne looked at the two coins

"Just one ticket?"

"Just one," Molly said

Her heartbeat quickened as she took the stub

She was getting close, she could feel it

10

Cole startled awake as if fros jerk-ed reflexively but wouldn’t ing the world into focus, fearing ht What he found proved worse

He was strapped to an inclined platfors tied down a meter apart, the thick ropes looped around his ankles and through holes in the solid steel He glanced up at his hands, which were si down on the out in pain, jolts of electricity lancing from his chest to every new bruise across his body

"Good luck with that," someone said

Cole turned to his side He had to lean his head forward to look around his own ars tied up a few led sheet of steel halfway between flat and vertical He also noticed several eed around a gated drain in the center of the floor

"Couldn’t tell if you were breathing or not," Riggs said "Was gonna be pissed if you’d already died on , but it could’ve been a probleht he could hear the crunching of snow reverberating up through the metal contraption and into his skull He assuer craft Above, a ceiling of dark plastic allowed a wan glow of light to filter into the rooered

"How long have I been out?" he asked

"No clue," Riggs said "Longer than I was, obviously"

"Yeah," said Cole He tried to push up with his restrained ankles to take some of the pressure off his ribs, but every ood, does it?"

Cole looked over and saw a ss’s face He decided to roll with the jab, stunned that Riggs could actually take pleasure in Cole’s condition as if he had nothing to fear himself

"What do you think they ith us?" Cole asked, changing the subject and also trying to res that they were on the sa it’s nothing good, but at least they seem to want us alive Maybe ransoh to kill a Navy pilot, which ot no clue where you juht be in hyperspace But then, he couldn’t shake the doubt, the feeling that it had been an auditory hallucination He couldn’t even rehtsuit, looking for the bulge of the red band in his breast pocket, but he was unable to tell if it was there or not

"You didn’t double-check your juht now, right?" Riggs groaned "Flankin’ useless"

Cole clenched his jaw to hold back the retort for in his throat He twisted his ar to force his thuh the knotted rope

"Well, at least they’re Hue the subject "I think so, anyway They were speaking English around me"

"I can do you one better They speak Late-Millennial English"

"Do what? How can you tell that?"

"Junior Acaderunted; it sounded as if he were attee himself more comfortably, or pull himself free "I had to memorize that accent for a recital" He said the last in a strange voice, one that nearly matched what Cole had heard from the men

"That doesn’t make any sense," Cole said

"What? Me in poetry class? Or that you either discovered time travel or jumped us to a frozen rock full of Late-Millennial poets?"

"They don’t hit like poets," said Cole

"Yeah, you’re right, but they don’t have to be poets, just from the same era"

"Twenty-first century?"

"Late Or early twenty second Jeez, lish and history?"

"Yeah, I was more interested in Planetary Astronomy Listen, I don’t think we’re on a planet What would you say if I told you ere in--?"

A click of ht cut him off Cole shut his eyes and turned his head to the side as hinges squealed, and a door across the roo the s his eyes He blinked rapidly and tried to focus on the shape shuffling toward him Several men wrapped in fur had joined them in the cramped space Two of theles off and dangling around their necks One had the fur over his face pulled down, exposing a snarl

The third les off and pushed his arh the strap to secure them around his elbow His face was co snow Reaching up, thea tan face with a leathery coht, blonde hair

A ainst a rich tan and the dark creases in his skin The man looked like a surfer--like someone who had spent his entire life on the beach Cole had a hard tiarb for an endless winter

"What do you ith us?" Riggs asked

The man turned to hi loyalty, of course" His smile broadened His voice arotten accent It harkened back to a tilish was spoken by a athered the rich pronunciations that would coe It reminded Cole of soal as a kid