The Devil You Know

"I still don't like it." Mallory sank, exhausted, into the overstuffed recliner Tanya had stashed in a spare corner of the lab. She'd spent the last hour getting her twins, Angel and Jaden, into bed, and they'd been particularly intent on resisting. "Why does Wildwing insist on sending Duke to these crime scenes alone?"

Tanya, bent over the coffeepot, only chuckled. "Duke works best alone-you ought to know that by now. He can get in and out without being seen, and tell us if it's something to worry about-after all, you know how Klegghorn is. If we all showed up he'd have us down at the station, swearing we had something to do with it. Besides"-she straightened up, steaming mugs in hand-"Duke likes a good robbery, especially if jewels are involved. Nothing wrong with letting a man live vicariously-"

She stopped in mid-sentence, because the door had slid open and Duke himself was walking in. His head was down and he was quite pale, and both women could tell by looking at him that something was wrong.

Mallory was the first to voice it. "Duke? Duke, sweetheart, what's wrong? Did Klegghorn-?"

He shook his head. "Gone when I got there." But he looked at her and smiled, a tiny wan smile. "Not without leaving evidence behind, of course."

The gray drake took something small from his pocket and tossed it to Tanya. She caught it and stared at it: a misshapen lump of lead, now hardly recognizable as a bullet.

"Dug it out of the wall," Duke said. "You're gonna have a hell of a time matching that up to anything-may be some blood on it or something-but you might have more luck with this."

From his other pocket he withdrew his fist, and opened his hand over the table-and out slipped a single feather, the rich dark brown of chocolate, glossy in the light.

"What in the world..." Tanya began, and Mallory could only stare.

"I don't know," Duke told her. "It's not Falcone's-it's too dark, and the break-in wasn't his style. He never did know how to pick a lock decently without using his blade. But whoever knocked over the Crown Jewel-they knew what they were doing." He sighed. "Looks like Dragaunus has found another Puckworlder to do his dirty work for him."

They looked at him for a moment; then Tanya said, "I think I'd better get the others," and scurried to her feet.

"You do that. I'm going out for some air."

Duke's voice was unnaturally harsh, making even Tanya pause. He seemed to have gone paler, and Mallory could see that he was trembling faintly. "Duke...."

She reached out to him, and he backed away. "Mal... Luisa Gonzalez, the woman that owned that jewelry store, was murdered. There wasn't anything taken...she was just dead. I didn't see the body, but she had to be. Blood all over the carpet. And when I saw those-" His voice cracked as he gestured to the feather. "I don't want to think about it. I don't like what it tells me. Get the others if you want-I'm going out."

He walked out in his customary swirl of maroon, and Tanya started to follow him. "Duke! Duke, wait! What did you-"

Mallory caught at her arm. "Let him go, Tan. Please."

"But Mal, if he'd help us-"

The redhead shook her head vehemently. "No, Tanya. Let him go. You know-you know how Duke feels about...about killing. He's upset." Her own hands were shaking. "Of course he'll help us. We've just got to let him calm down first."

But an uneasy feeling was growing in the back of her mind, making her doubt her own words.

A few stray leaves, floated on the wind, had gathered on the roof of the Pond, and Duke kicked them savagely aside.

I lied to her! he fumed. Damn you! You made me lie to her again....

He'd lied to both of them, actually; to Mallory and Tanya.

Because he'd said he didn't know who murdered Luisa Gonzalez; and he did know.

The bullet and the blood had only been an indication that there was murder done. It had been the feather that pointed him toward an identity: the feather, and something else he had found.

He pulled it from his pocket, and it gleamed in the moonlight-an armor-plated rifle round, not fired, just left there...and marked very plainly, on the base, with the ID number of a decades-defunct Puckworld Army sniper squad.

Duke flattened his palm. A few fibers of silky chocolate-colored down still clung to the bullet, but the faint breeze stirred them, brushed them away. Only the bullet itself remained unmoved.

The gray drake stared at the shining metal for a moment, then sighed and closed his fingers over it.

"Why?" he whispered. His eyes stung with building tears, tears that fell unexpectedly, biting their way down his face like acid.

"Why?" Duke repeated, and this time the whisper was a small sob. "Why here? Why now? And of all people...why you?"

For Selwyn Craine, coming awake was a struggle. It felt as if he were drowning, were trying to swim to the surface from a great depth; he could even feel the water in his lungs.

But then the corvin broke into consciousness and coughed, and found that the water in his lungs was actually blood; and then he remembered where he was.

Coughing brought up great gouts of crimson, as well as a dull ache in his chest that soon soared to a white-hot agony, and he knew that some of his ribs were broken. He tried to sit up, but found the strength of it quite beyond him; so he had to content himself with turning his head to one side and letting the blood drain from his mouth.

The hemorrhage left him light-headed, but he knew he had to stay awake. Craine forced himself to concentrate, to try and see past his pain, but he was aware of no more than a hard hostile surface beneath him. He scrabbled in it convulsively, and his fingers turned up small sharp-edged stones and loose, gritty earth: gravel.

The corvin closed his eyes. It would be so easy to sleep. Already pain was blurring the edges of his consciousness. So easy.

But in the next moment he heard footsteps, and his colorless eyes snapped open.

"Duke." He hadn't the breath to even whisper, let alone make a sound that would carry; but the single word, spoken, was an odd comfort. "Duke...find me. Help me...."

"Mallory's right," Wildwing said when the team had gathered. "With all that Duke's been through, of course it's going to bother him when there's a murder. He'll come back around when he's got it out of his system. In the meantime-" He turned to Tanya. "What have you learned from analyzing that feather?"

The blonde raked a hand through her thick hair. "Only two things, but one of them's important. First, it's a feather from a corvin-a male corvin." She drew a deep breath. "And secondly...he's not from Puckworld. He's Santiran."

At first Tanya's pronouncement only drew blank stares; then Nosedive and Mallory both blurted, "He's what?"

"Santiran! God, am I the only one of you who didn't go to comprehensive? Weren't you taught the names of the planets? Santira's in the same system as Puckworld, don't tell me you didn't-" Tanya stopped abruptly, looking a bit surprised at her own outburst. "No, of course you didn't. Let me explain.

"We don't know why life evolved on Santira so similarly to life on Puckworld," she said. "The major theory is one of common ancestry, but that's far-fetched. The major ethnicities on Santira are different, and so are the language and the culture. We just know that they are similar. Avian-based bipeds."

Wildwing looked puzzled. "So Santira's native life forms are similar to Puckworld's, is that what you're saying? How similar?"

Tanya cleared her throat. "The genetic codes are similar enough that a Puckworlder and a Santiran could have perfectly normal children together-well, more or less normal. Santirans don't age at the same rate we do, not as quickly; so a Santiran who's, say, fifty, would have the same metabolic rate as a Puckworlder who's about thirty-five." Seeing from her comrades' glazed expressions that they'd ceased listening, she cleared her throat again, hiding a grin as Nosedive jumped. "But that's not the real issue."

She sighed. "About five hundred years before Drake DuCaine's time, Puckworld and Santira went to war. We're not sure what it was about-something economic, I think. It went on for the better part of a century before they realized that neither side was winning. So they signed a cease-fire agreement...then they severed their diplomatic ties and levied economic sanctions against each other, and the sanctions still stand. Diplomatic relations haven't been resumed. For fifteen hundred years each has denied that the other exists." Tanya smiled thinly. "That hasn't stopped Puckworlders from going to Santira, though, or vice-versa. I went with my father when I was a teenager-it was some sort of University project, and when the government wouldn't okay it, they decided to do it anyway. Economically, and militarily, they've stayed pretty much at our level."

"This is fascinating," Dive said dryly, "but I don't see what it has to do with our problem."

Tanya shrugged. "All I know is that there probably are a few Santirans on Puckworld-there's nothing to stop them from living there. But they couldn't hold office or work in certain professions, because of the laws, so a Santiran on Puckworld would probably work really hard to hide his origin. And since the corvin ethnic pattern exists on both planets, that wouldn't be so hard to do. "

"Just falsify the right documents," Mallory said; and there was a tone in her voice that made Wildwing take notice.

He frowned. "You think Duke's connected with this somehow."

All eyes went to the redhead, and she squirmed. "I know Duke-in every sense of the word-and I've got a bad feeling. The way he walked out-I know the murder bothers him, Wing, but it's not just the murder. He knows something."

She hugged herself as if the room had gone cold. "Something he doesn't want to tell us."

Duke prowled. It made him nervous, returning to the scene of a crime, even if the crime was one he hadn't committed.

Especially then.

He didn't know what had driven him back to the Crown Jewel, other than a gut feeling that something more was there, something the police had overlooked.

He'd taken a pair of tweezers and a few plastic bags, and he'd plucked some of the bloodied fibers from the carpet. Duke knew perfectly well that the sample probably wouldn't be helpful, but it still seemed the right thing to do.

In a corner behind the counter, though, he found a little more useful evidence. Here the carpet gave way to parquet flooring-but the floor was scuffed and scarred, as if someone had struggled. Painted plaster had flaked from one wall and lay on the floor.

Duke scowled and squatted, tugged his flashlight from his belt and played its beam along the floor. His stomach churned when he turned up a few strands of blue-black hair-but then, half-hidden by the sand-colored carpet, he found a thin piece of twine, its fibers matted with dried blood and small dark feather remnants, and his breath left him altogether.

Had someone else died here? Someone like....

He took a bit of everything, then tucked his samples away and stood up.

It was child's play to get into the storage room, even though his search there told him nothing. Under other circumstances the prospect of plunder would have tempted him sorely; but tonight he just wasn't interested.

Speculatively Duke eyed the door that led into the alley behind the building. I'm here, he decided wearily, might as well have a look.

The alley was silent and shadowed, gravel crunching under the gray drake's feet with every careful step. At first glance everything here was as untouched as the storage room had been; a faint sigh startled Duke, but he dismissed the noise as wind....

Until a hand clamped on his ankle.

Duke screamed and swore, trying to jerk away. His flashlight hit the ground, the bulb shattering. "Hey, hey, what the hell-"

The iron grip didn't slacken. "Duke...."

Duke froze. "You," he whispered. "You. You're alive-"

He flicked his com on. "Wildwing, you there?"

"Duke!" The younger man's voice came through in a burst of static. "What's up?"

"Look, I'm behind the Crown Jewel and-" Duke looked down and swallowed. "You guys get down here, fast. We got a problem."

"He's going to be all right, isn't he?"

Tanya sighed in response to Duke's question. "Yeah. Yeah, he'll be fine. He wasn't really beaten, just roughed up kind of badly. Enough to give him four broken ribs. And the bleeding-I scoped his lungs, I thought there might be a puncture; but as far as I can tell, he just inhaled some grit. Anyway, I got everything cleaned out and medicated, gave him a shot of morphine and a dextrose drip." She smiled thinly. "This pal of yours is gonna be out for a few hours."

"Speaking of this pal of yours," Mallory added quietly, "maybe now you can explain to us just how you come to know a corvin from Santira."

"Figured that out, did you?" Duke smiled wanly, pulled a chair away from the kitchen table and turned it around and draped himself over it; and for a long moment he was silent.

"His name's Craine. Selwyn Craine. I've known him-oh, God, for years. I met him after I left the Assassin's Ring, when I was living on the streets, hoping I could hide from my old man. You all know that story." He sighed. "So I'm in the subway tunnels one night, just wandering around. Ain't too many people around to speak of, and I haven't eaten in two days, so when I see this guy who don't look like he's doing too bad, you know-"

"You decided to pick his pocket," Grin guessed.

Duke nodded, stifling the laugh that the memory prompted. "Yeah. It was a mistake, of course, because I wasn't very good at it just then, but I tried. And Sel caught me."

He paused to rake a hand through his white-streaked hair. "God, I was scared to death. I knew I didn't have a chance in hell if he took me to the cops, not if they figured out who I really was. But he surprised me-took me to one of those all-night diners, got me fed, started pumping me for information. Wanted to know who I was and what I was doing in that part of town, because he'd never seen me before. I didn't know what to make of it-I thought nobody paid attention to street kids."

"Credit your Mr. Craine for being unusually observant," Mallory said wryly. "What happened?"

"He asked me if I had a place to stay, and said he was looking for a business partner," Duke told her. "Sel always did have the idea that a professional relationship needed to be mutually beneficial. He wanted to be a bounty hunter-"

"Bounty hunting's illegal on Puckworld," Tanya objected.

"I know," Duke replied. "But on Santira it's not, and you can get a lot of money, hunting down escaped criminals and whatnot. But it's hard to get into the business-people want proof that you're capable of making it in a hostile environment." He paused, and then said reflectively, "Apparently, on Santira, Puckworld's still considered hostile."

"What's this got to do with you?" Wildwing asked.

"Everything," was the gray drake's response. "It was Selwyn's idea that I get into the Brotherhood of the Blade in the first place. See, he wanted into the Army, and to do that he had to have proof of citizenship, which he couldn't get because he's Santiran. So the deal was, he'd make a good enough thief of me that the Brotherhood would take me, and I'd find someone there that could do him up a set of citizenship papers-no easy task, unless I'm mistaken."

"So that's how you became a thief," Mallory said; and she sounded oddly triumphant. "How long did it take?"

"Let's see," Duke mused, "I was just sixteen when I left the Ring, and not quite eighteen when I officially joined the Blade, so...about a year and a half, I think. I lived with Selwyn-he had an apartment in the Crosswater district." He grinned. "Not exactly the finest surroundings in the world, but it was a roof over my head, and regular meals, and a good place to hide from the cops, and I was grateful for it.

"Anyway, the deal worked. I got my own living arrangements when I hooked up with the Blade-they like to keep you close, especially when you're young. But I got in with them, and after a few months Sel got his papers and got in the Army."

"And you didn't see him again," Tanya guessed.

"Not regularly, no," Duke admitted. "Me being a criminal"-this with a sly look at Mallory-"and him being a soldier, it wouldn't have been too smart. But for a good few years, sometimes when he got a weekend leave he'd come and see how I was doing." His expression had become strangely winsome. "Selwyn's a good few years older than me, eight or ten maybe. I think he sort of felt responsible for me, or felt that he owed me something for helping him out-though really, he did more for me than I ever did for him."

Mallory scowled at her lover. "So what happened? Something obviously went wrong, if he's ended up here."

Duke regarded her coolly for a moment before answering. "It's a funny thing. No matter how well you falsify a set of papers, sooner or later somebody's gonna catch on. And the military did. Sel was arrested, and...." He hesitated. "They found out he was Santiran. I think they tortured him, but he's never talked about it." He turned to Mallory, who was about to voice protest. "And the reason you've never heard about it, sweetheart, is that they agreed not to court-martial him if he'd, ah, quietly make himself scarce...and he did."

"And you didn't see him again," Tanya repeated, "until now."

Duke shook his head. "No. And I don't have the faintest idea in hell why he's here."

"Don't worry," Wildwing said. "I'm sure he'll be glad to tell us."

Mallory awoke to a sudden rush of light, and the sensation of Duke sliding out of bed. Fuzzily she sat up, blinking; he was talking to a silhouetted figure standing in the doorway, surrounded by the light that poured in from the corridor. The conversation was in low indistinct whispers, and it took Mal a minute to realize that Duke was talking to Tanya.

At last she heard him say, "Yeah, you do that," and then he turned to the closet, as the door slid shut.

She pushed the covers away, hoping the disturbance hadn't roused the twins. "Duke? Duke, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, sweetheart." She could hear the scrape of hangers on the rod; he was dressing in the dark, a talent she had never mastered. "Tanya wants me to go to the infirmary and sit with Selwyn a few hours. She's just unhooked his IV, she says he could start waking up in an hour or two."

He paused to pull a shirt on. "She said he'd probably be kind of disoriented, you know, kind of freaky, when the stuff starts wearing off-she doped him up but good."

"Oh." Mallory was still too drowsy herself to really follow this. "What's this got to do with you?"

"Well"-Duke yawned-"Tanya thinks it might help keep him calm, if the first person he sees is someone he knows. Besides, she's been up with him all night, she's beat. I told her to go to bed-she can barely stand up straight."

He tucked his shirt into his jeans, bent over the bed and kissed her. "You go on back to sleep, sweetheart. You need me, you know where I am."

It was five in the morning when Tanya came round with coffee. "Anything yet?"

"No, nothing to speak of." Duke watched the thin dark figure in the bed closely, the slow rise and fall of the taped chest. "Oh, he's been awake a few times, but not more than a few minutes at a time. He wanted something to drink, and I didn't know if it was safe yet or not, so I got him some chipped ice." He raised his eyebrows cautiously.

Tanya nodded. "Yeah, Duke, that's fine. It should be."

"Good. That was around...oh, two, I guess. Sel woke up again, about three, needed to p-" He caught himself, smiled at her crookedly. "-To go to the bathroom, so I helped him up, got that taken care of."

"Everything all right?" she asked; but Duke's look was sharp and curious, so she amended, "I mean, there wasn't anything abnormal, was there, he wasn't-"

She stopped; she was bright red. Duke, sounding oddly relieved, was obviously trying not to grin at her embarrassment. "If you mean, was he pissing blood, sweetheart, the answer's no. You know I'd have come got you-though to be honest, as bruised up as he is, I'm surprised..." He shook his head. "You got a pair of scissors?"

The change of subject was abrupt, and Tanya was unprepared. "Huh?"

"A pair of scissors. I want to snip the tags out of his clothes," Duke said. "I just thought, you know, maybe later Mal and I could go out and pick up a few things...he certainly can't go around in what he came in with, not the way he's bled all over everything."

"Oh. No, I guess not." Tanya hadn't thought of this. A vague disquiet was stirring in the recesses of her mind. "Were you really friends with this guy, Duke, or do you have something against him?"

"What?" It was Duke's turn to be surprised, at first; then he realized what she'd said, and he dropped into the guarded tone she knew so well.

"Friends? Well...it's been years since I've seen him last, nine or ten. I guess you could say I got as close to Sel as I could get to anybody, considerin'." He paused, though not before Tanya noticed, as she always had, that his accent thickened when he said anything that hinted at his dark past. "But he knows about...things, and..." The gray drake broke off, drew a deep breath. "To tell you the truth, Tanya, I've never been able to confide in a person without wondering how much I could trust them, afterwards."

Tanya was about to reply to this, but Duke's sigh cut her short.

"I'll be glad when he wakes up right. I want to know who did this to him."

"Saurians," Selwyn Craine said.

It had taken him the better part of three days to recover from his ordeal and from Tanya's drugs, but the corvin looked almost comfortable now, despite his obvious bewilderment at his surroundings. Mallory had objected when Duke insisted on shopping for his friend at the local Army surplus store; but she had to admit that the slightly worn fatigues-augmented, naturally, by a pair of scuffed combat boots, and by one of Duke's black shirts, loose enough to cover Craine's bandaged chest-suited the man.

She scowled inwardly. This guy lied his way into the military, and you're complimenting him on how good he looks in uniform? Come on, McMallard!

Well, at least their suspicion of each other was mutual. Craine seemed accustomed to being protective of Duke, in a paternal sort of way, and it was plain that he hadn't figured her out yet. The twins he'd found equally baffling, though that hadn't stopped Angel from clambering up into his lap, where she'd promptly fallen asleep.

Duke's voice interrupted her thoughts. "Come again, Sel?"

"You're wondering what happened to me." Craine shifted in his chair very carefully, his gaze fixed on the child in his arms as if he wasn't quite sure what to do with her, but Angel never stirred. "It was Saurians."

Mallory found her voice. "Would you mind telling us how you got here first?"

He regarded her coolly, making her shudder inwardly as she realized-not for the first time that day-that she couldn't tell what color his eyes were. She thought they were gray-but a peculiarly clear gray, changeable as water. The directness of Craine's gaze, coupled with the low raspiness of his voice and the liquid, croupy cough he'd acquired from Tanya's procedures, made her distinctly uncomfortable, and she had the feeling it was deliberate.

But then he said slowly, "I booked passage on a trading scoutship from Santira to the Phaedrania system. I've done it before; interesting part of the universe. On Phaedrania Nephthys I was told that there were Saurians here, on Sol Terra-what do the natives call it? Earth?-and I knew I was in the right place."

He sighed, watching Angel stretch in his arms. "I had the devil's own time getting here. No one in the local systems wants to come here, apparently, now that Dragaunus is here-"

"That explains why there haven't been any UFO sightings lately," Nosedive quipped, half aloud.

"-but I finally found a freighter captain who was willing to take me as far as Iovas-for double the usual price, of course, but when I offered to triple it I was able to talk him into bringing me here. I spent three months on Phaedrania Tropas-it's the prison planet in that system-working as a guard and helping hunt down escaped convicts, to earn the thirty thousand simis for my passage."

He said this all matter-of-factly, ignoring the ducks' stares; and at last it was Wildwing who said, "That's a lot of money...and a lot of trouble. What'd you want to come here so badly for?"

Craine looked at him, then shifted his colorless gaze to Duke; and in a grim, yet oddly triumphant, voice he said:

"Dragaunus."

Mallory had to bite her tongue. I knew it, I knew this bastard was up to no good... "Dragaunus?"

"Oh yes." Those colorless eyes were flinty. "You all know now that I'm Santiran, and that I was on Puckworld, in the military, illegally. But Puckworld was...home, more so than any other place I've been. And after what the Saurians did to it...I imagine the Overlord's head would fetch quite a lot of money; didn't Duke tell you I'm a bounty hunter? Besides, it's personal now." Craine blanched a little around his nostrils. "One of those Phaedranians must have tipped him off-he found me before I found him."

In spite of herself, Mallory said, "So it wasn't you who shot that woman."

"What woman?" Craine's eyebrows arched. "Oh, you mean the...human?" He pronounced the two syllables distinctly: hu-man. "No. I didn't do that. Let me explain.

"I'm not really sure what happened. I'd only been planetside a few hours, and I decided to stake out the alley behind that building, because it was quiet and inconspicuous. I was back there, minding my own business, waiting for things to get properly dark, when I noticed this greenish light-"

"Teleportation energy," Tanya muttered. "It fits."

"-and the next thing I knew, I was face-down in the dirt, having the sh-" Craine broke off suddenly, his gaze falling on the still-sleeping Angel. "Having the stuffing knocked out of me. I couldn't do anything, they'd caught me completely off guard, so I just curled up and hoped they wouldn't hit anything vital. And after a while I stopped caring."

"Which ones did this?" Duke asked.

Craine shrugged. "At first I only saw a big orange one-he's the one who attacked me. Next thing I knew, he was tying my hands behind my back and picking me up. He took me into the store and dropped me in a corner." He frowned, trying to remember details through the remnants of a narcotic haze. "There was another one, an ugly little green one. He shot the human. Made a mess of it too."

Duke grimaced. "That sounds like Chameleon, all right. He use your gun, Sel?"

"No." Craine shook his head. "I don't know where he got the pistol. I don't carry a gun when I'm traveling-it's just something for nosy little boys to steal." This with a faint, fond smile at Duke. "It's usually easy enough to find something in the area that fits the bill."

"So they just left you there," Wildwing said. "Why?"

The corvin shrugged painfully. "I suppose they were hoping the police would find me and automatically assume I was to blame, so I'd be disposed of." He laughed dryly, bitterly. "I don't care how powerful the Saurians are. As a rule they're not very bright. I was hurting like hell, and I couldn't breathe; but I knew that the woman was dead and that I had to get out of there, so I managed to get out of the cord they'd tied me with, and I crawled back out to the alley, where Duke found me."

"But not before you ripped out one of your own feathers to leave behind," Duke said.

"No, not before that." Craine smiled tightly. "When the Phaedranians told me Dragaunus was here, they told me that you were here too. I wanted to be sure that you knew it was me-although if you did blood typing on that carpet, I daresay some of it's mine."

His smile faded quickly as he met Mallory's gaze. "I'm sorry if you decide not to believe me. I can't tell you just what went on; I'm not sure anymore. I don't know why Dragaunus didn't tell his goons to just kill me outright, but obviously he didn't."

Before she could say anything to this, Craine lifted Angel off his lap and got to his feet slowly, swaying. "I came here to do a job, and I'm going to do it. But right now...I think I need a little more sleep."

"Jaden and Angel are wanting a bedtime story." Mallory reached for the coffee pot and the largest mug she could find. "Don't tell me Duke's still in the infirmary with that-that loon."

"Yeah." Tanya took her glasses off, wiped them, put them back on. "Come on, Mal, try to be a little understanding. If you had a friend you hadn't seen in ten years, wouldn't you want to do some catching up?"

Mal only shook her head. "I haven't seen one of Duke's 'friends' yet who wasn't crooked somehow. This guy's no exception."

"I think you're wrong." The kitchen door swung open to admit Wildwing, who perched on the edge of the counter. "Think about it, guys. Say Dragaunus brought this guy here to do something to us. Then he has him beaten senseless and just-dropped? No. I don't think Draggy's clever enough to dangle that kind of bait."

"You've got to admit it's a possibility," Mallory snapped. "Come on, Wing, you see how suspicious Craine is of all of us-"

"He's got a right to be suspicious of us, Mal," Wildwing said patiently. "We're all half his age." He smiled. "Trust me for once, okay? I think the guy's legit."

"Yeah, whatever." Mallory grabbed the carafe full of coffee and pushed past Wildwing, out the door. "That still doesn't give Duke the right to neglect his children."

She was so irritated that she was halfway down the hall before she noticed the coffee pot in her hand. Why the hell have I got this thing? And where the hell am I going?

Of course, she knew where she was going: to the infirmary, to get Duke. But she paused in the middle of the hall to run a hand through her hair, sighing.

I don't mind if Duke wants to sit up all night and gab with this guy. Really I don't. But he could at least come read a story to his own children.... Her thoughts went back to this afternoon, and the image of Angel sleeping in Craine's lap, and she was surprised to feel a tiny stab of jealousy.

She pushed it aside. Stupid.

At the infirmary doors she keyed in her access code, and the doors hissed open to admit her. The large outer room, where Tanya did examinations and tests, was dark. There was a light on in the dispensary, but that light was always on. Beyond that, the farthest of the six holding rooms appeared to be dimly lighted, but she wasn't sure.

The thing that struck her immediately was the silence-she could hear a very low, indistinct murmur at times, but nothing else. Whatever Duke and Craine were saying to each other, they were keeping it quiet, and the redhead frowned. Legit, huh?

The door to Craine's room was closed. Mallory paused, listening; she heard Duke mutter something, and then Craine coughed and groaned, a painful sound. Then again, maybe Wing's right. Maybe I am overreacting....

There was silence again. She knocked softly on the closed door, but got no answer beyond another incomprehensible mutter, and the familiar sound of a pain-racked body shifting in a too-small bed. Her frown deepening, Mallory pushed the door open. At this point, she guessed, she was prepared for damn near anything....

But not for the sight that met her eyes, of Duke kneeling on the bed between the corvin's outstretched thighs, his face between Craine's hands and-

The carafe hit the floor in a spray of hot coffee and splintered glass, but Mallory never noticed.

"Mal, if you'd just listen," Duke began.

"Listen!" the redhead shrieked. "I don't have to listen, Duke! I know what I saw! And now we all know what kind of-of 'deal' you made with that creep!"

Her scream of shock had brought the whole team running; and now, sitting on the edge of one of the examining tables, Duke wanted very badly to be somewhere else.

"It had nothing to do with our professional relationship," he sighed. "But yes-Selwyn was my lover."

Mallory's voice lowered a fraction, became cold and bitter. "That didn't look like 'was' to me."

"Would you just let me explain?"

"I don't want you to explain, l'Orange!" she exploded. "I don't want you to explain a fucking thing!"

"Hey," Wildwing said, weaving his way through the broken fragments of glass, "calm down, Mal. I'm sure this is all just a mis-"

"Calm down?" Mallory repeated heatedly. "Don't tell me to calm down!" Her retort took him by surprise, but instead of getting involved, Wildwing went with his better judgment and fell silent.

She turned viciously back to the gray drake in question. "And you," she spat, "how dare you do this to me!" She was raging-her face flushed red from the fury. "We've been through so much-for God's sake, Duke, we have children together, and now-now I find out you're a-a closet faggot! I can't believe you're willing to just-just throw it all away, like we don't even matter!" She took a breath, and for a moment her anger subsided; but when she spoke her voice was laced with dejection. "Like I don't even matter."

Duke took a step forward. "But you do matter-"

Her anger returned in a mad fury, more intense than before. "Shut up!" Mallory screamed. "You lie! You always lie! I never mattered; you never cared about Jaden or Angel or me. All you care about is yourself!"

She was seething. "You just needed someone to fuck, didn't you?"

That took everyone by surprise, especially Duke. "What?" he shouted. "Mal, you know that's not true!"

"Yes it is! You told me you loved me, and I believed you, I trusted you, but it was all just a trick just to get me into bed, wasn't it? Wasn't it?" she screamed. "And now that-that your boyfriend's back, you won't be needing me anymore, huh? Well, that's fine, l'Orange, that's just fucking fine-"

"Mama?" A still small voice.

Mallory whirled, the blood draining from her face. "Angel?"

Angel hovered in the doorway, her green eyes large and round. Behind her toddled Jaden, teddy bear clutched possessively in one small hand.

They both looked confused and frightened, and Mallory's heart sank. How much had they heard, what had they...?

She tried to shake it off. "What are you two doing out of bed?"

"Wanted a drink of water," Jaden said, "and heard you yelling at Daddy."

Mallory started to tremble. "Kids...."

"Please." It was Selwyn Craine, coming out of his room, tugging his jeans on. "They're only children. They don't need to hear this."

"Just what do you-" Mallory began; but there was obvious reproach in Craine's cool gaze, and she fell silent.

The corvin walked stiffly to where Angel and Jaden were standing and squatted in front of them. "Your mum and dad are trying to have a talk," he said. "A grown-up talk. So why don't you just come with your Uncle Selwyn and let me read you a story?"

There was obvious assent to this, because he picked Angel up, wincing, and took Jaden by the hand with a soft, "Come along, little man," and led them away.

Mallory sighed as she watched them go. She felt as if she'd been suddenly deflated...but then she turned to Duke, and saw the fond way in which he was looking after his lover, and her anger swelled again, this time bringing tears.

"You could have told me!" she snapped at Duke. "If you'd only told me, before-"

Duke cut her off. "Why should I have? I wasn't planning to see him again."

"Oh, that explains it! You weren't planning to see him again!" Mallory threw up her hands in disgust. "He just comes breezing in here and you drop me and the kids like we don't exist, but it's all right! You weren't planning to see him again!"

Duke shook his head. "No, Mal, it's not like that." He cautiously reached his hand out to her, but she recoiled.

"Don't touch me, you-you traitor!"

The anger was beginning to blur her vision. Her world was swimming right before her eyes. This was too much to take. She had to get out of here... "No," she said out loud. "You need to get out of here. Both of you. You and your boyfriend."

"Mal, please. We can work this out..."

She shook her head vehemently. "No! I can't even look at you! You disgust me! Now get the hell out!"

And just like that, the argument was closed.

"Selwyn?"

The corvin had chosen a recliner in the rec room, and was bent over a thin battered book-The Little Engine that Could-with one of the twins on either side, but he looked up at the sound of Duke's voice. "Yes?"

But he saw the pain that etched the younger man's face, and thought he understood. Craine closed the book and lowered the two protesting ducklings gently to the floor, and then got up with some difficulty.

He came to Duke, careful to keep his voice low. "It's bad, isn't it."

It wasn't a question, and Duke nodded slowly. "She wants us to leave. Both of us."

"Well." Craine ran a hand through his blue-black hair. "Do you think that's best?"

Duke shook his head, and for the first time Craine noticed the redness of his eyes. "I don't think we've got a choice, Sel. And-and I've got a place we can go."

"All right. I'll just get properly dressed, and...." Craine trailed off, looking behind him at where Angel and Jaden were now tussling over their beloved book; and in a much softer voice he whispered, "What are you going to tell them?"

Duke looked over Craine's shoulder at his children, and his heart lurched painfully.

"I don't know, Sel." He was blinking rapidly. "I don't know."

Duke was standing in the doorway, watching Selwyn dress, when Tanya came up and laid a hand on his shoulder. She'd been in the dispensary for a few minutes, and now she held up a clear plastic bottle filled with orange tablets.

Duke took the bottle and looked at it. "What's this?"

"It's Darvocet. A-a painkiller, he's going to be sore and everything for a while, and-" Tanya broke off, her gaze frank and appraising. "Can I talk to you a minute before you go? Privately?"

"Yeah." Duke gestured to Selwyn and tossed him the bottle, then turned back to Tanya. "Anywhere you got in mind?"

She was already opening up the dispensary again. "In here."

The room always made Duke nervous, small and cramped, lined with shelves that were in turn lined with pill containers of every shape and size; it always had a faint hospital smell to him. "So what's on your mind, kid?"

She hesitated; it was plain that she didn't want to make him angry. "I'm sorry, Duke. I'm sorry about what's happening. It seems like just when things start going right for you and Mal and the kids, they've got to go wrong again...."

Tanya took a deep breath. "Mal's right, you know. You should have told her."

There was a brief angry spark in Duke's dark eyes, but it quickly died; and to her surprise he chuckled, a soft dry sound too loud for the tiny room. "Yeah. She was right. I should have told her. But I meant what I said, Tan. When I left Puckworld, I hadn't seen Selwyn in-oh, five or six years, and here-God, he was the last person I thought I'd see."

"Five or six years? You said nine or ten, before."

Duke scowled briefly. "All right, all right, lemme think...six years, okay? Six years before the Invasion, so it's eleven years since I saw him last...."

He became aware that Tanya was looking at him strangely, and trailed off; but when he raised his eyebrows, she just shook her head.

"I'm sorry," she repeated. "I know it's none of my business. But I look at you, and Mal, and the kids, and I can't help wondering how, how you can...."

He smiled faintly, sadly. "How I can sleep with a guy?"

"Yeah."

"I used to ask myself that." Duke stared at the floor briefly, then met Tanya's gaze. "I've never...'questioned'...if that's what you're asking. When I met Selwyn, I knew that I preferred girls, and it didn't take me long to figure out he was gay. But...."

He paused and looked away, dark eyes glistening. "I was sixteen years old, Tanya. My own father had just tried to kill me. I couldn't do anything, couldn't tell anyone. I didn't have any friends. And Selwyn...." A huge breath. "He cared, Tanya. He acted like he cared. And none of you-not you, not Mallory, none of you-have any idea how much that meant to me."

She watched him swallow his tears, and then another question tumbled out unbidden. "Do you love him?"

"Yes." Duke didn't hesitate. "Not like I love Mal. It's not the same. But yes, I love him."

He scrabbled at his eyes and sighed. "Me and Sel, we never had a real regular relationship. He was gone all the time-first with the military, and then later, after he started bounty hunting. But he'd come around, once or twice a year, and spend a few days or a week.... When he was there, we were together, and when he wasn't, we weren't. That was just how it worked, and in the meantime I had my girlfriends."

He laughed sourly. "I've never been too good at being faithful-to anyone. And I didn't want it to be this way, Tan. I never wanted to hurt Mal. It's just that...."

Before Tanya could ask him what he meant, Duke had turned around, away from her, and was opening the door.

"Till I saw Selwyn again," he finished quietly, "I never realized how much I'd missed him."

Craine dropped his bag in the doorway. "Looks like a nice place you've got here."

"Yeah." Duke allowed his gaze to sweep around the large, comfortably furnished apartment, and his heart ached. "Me and Mal got this, before the kids came along, for when we needed to be alone...." Why did it hurt so much to say that? "We've had a lot of fights here."

He meant it to be funny, but the effort fell flat, and Craine shook his head. "I'm sorry. When you told me that you-you had a family, I should have-"

"No." Duke was adamant. "It's not your fault, Sel. It's mine." He sighed. "Tanya was right-I should have told Mal about you, ages ago, she'd have understood better...hell, she might have even let you stay."

He laughed sourly, but his laughter died when he took in how pale Craine had suddenly become. "You all right, Sel? You don't look too good."

"I'm fine." The corvin's sigh was ragged. "It's just that so much has changed. So much is going on that I don't understand. And-and I feel like I've hurt you...and I'm so tired...."

Duke nodded, drew him into a brief gentle hug. "Bedroom's upstairs."

Duke puttered around while Craine slept. He'd been down to the corner grocery and picked up a few things, mostly fruit and bread and coffee. Craine liked oranges; he remembered that well.

It wasn't until he was standing over the sink, rinsing a head of cauliflower, that Duke first became aware of the footsteps in the hallway; and as soon as he'd put the cauliflower in the refrigerator, he felt a pair of strong lean arms snake around him and pull him backward. He encountered the warmth of flesh and he knew that Craine was bare-chested, if not completely naked, and the thought made his body flush with heat.

"Selwyn." He found himself struggling in Craine's grasp as he felt the Santiran's mouth on the back of his neck. "Sel, we shouldn't, I-I really don't want...."

But Craine slipped a hand inside Duke's shirt, against the flat of his belly, and Duke couldn't deny the first faint shiver of desire that went through him, or the sigh that escaped from his throat.

"You always were a lousy liar." The corvin turned him round, chuckling softly. "Kiss me."

Tanya had decided to wait a few hours before she went looking for Mal.

The tantrum Mallory had had earlier was the fiercest one she'd ever seen from the younger woman. It was understandable, in a way. It was one thing to find your lover in bed with another woman; it was something else entirely to find him with another man.

She was surprised to find the door to Mal and Duke's room unlocked. Guess she knew I was coming.

Tanya stepped quietly into the dimly lit room. "Mal?" she whispered, but received no answer. She ventured further into the room, peering through the darkness for her friend.

She found Mallory standing beside the door that led to the twins' bedroom. The door was slightly ajar, and Mallory was peering inside, watching her children sleep peacefully. The twins seemed blissfully unaware of the argument that they'd witnessed between their parents, and Tanya was grateful for that.

Tanya approached the redhead silently, but Mallory already knew she was there. Without looking away from her children, she said, "Hey."

Tanya forced a smile, even though Mallory couldn't see it. "Hi," she said simply, and remained silent for a few moments before asking, "Are you okay?"

The redhead heaved a tired sigh. "Honestly, no. No, I'm not okay."

Tanya nodded. That was to be expected. "You want to talk?"

Another sigh, this one made a bit more painfully, before she pulled the door closed. "Yeah."

They left the room and headed for the kitchen in silence. Tanya had already made the customary cups of coffee, and realized she had no idea where to begin. Luckily, Mallory made the decision for her. "I don't hate him, you know."

Tanya nodded as she set her mug down. "Yeah, I know, Mal."

She stared into her mug. "I should hate him. I want to hate him, but I can't. I-" She paused. "I love him too much, Tan."

Tanya chose to remain silent as the redhead continued. "You have to admit, our relationship hasn't been easy. It's been through a lot of ups and downs, more downs then ups, unfortunately. But this," her face soured, "after everything he's lied to me about, this is probably the worst thing he's ever kept from me.

"I thought he was done keeping his secrets. I mean, how many more secrets can one person have? I thought he had finally told me everything, then this Craine guy shows up and-"

She faltered, and for the first time all night, she felt tears building up in her eyes. "I feel like we have nothing. We had worked through some really tough situations before, and everything seemed to finally be coming together. It fits, like we fit. But now..." A single tear slid down her cheek. "Now everything has fallen apart. We don't have anything anymore."

Tanya squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. "You have the children."

Mallory finally looked at her friend. "And just what am I going to tell them when they wake up tomorrow and wonder where their father is?"

"What have you already told them?"

"That we had a little disagreement. And it bothers me, Tanya, I don't know how much they heard, or how much they understand, or-" Mallory composed herself with some difficulty. "I told them that Daddy and"-she made a face again-"Uncle Selwyn were going away for a few days. That they were old friends and they had things to talk about." She sniffled. "I lied to them, Tanya. I'm just as bad as Duke-I lied to them!"

Tanya sighed. "Listen, I know this is hard, but you don't know the whole story behind this. None of us do. You more than all of us should know there's more to Duke than what's on the surface."

Mallory's gaze was suddenly frosty. "What did he tell you?"

Tanya blinked, caught completely off guard. "Huh?"

"What did he tell you?" Mallory demanded impatiently. "I saw the two of you talking before he left-what did he tell you?"

"Not much," Tanya said at last. "I did most of the talking. Asked him how he got in...in this sort of situation."

"Oh?" The redhead's eyebrows lifted. "And?"

"He said...." Tanya hesitated. "I asked him about Craine, and...well, his exact words were, 'He cared. He acted like he cared.'" She sighed. "I guess when you're not used to that, any sort of affection looks good."

She said it carefully, and Mallory scowled. "Is this more of that psychological bullshit about how negative attention is better than no attention at all?"

"Yeah," Tanya admitted, "I guess it is. Tell me something?"

"What?"

"How do you feel about Selwyn Craine?"

The redhead's frown grew deeper. "I don't see what that's got to-"

"Just answer the question, Mal. I would think you'd be a little upset at him too."

Mallory regarded her in baleful silence for a long moment, then hung her head. "I wish he was a woman."

Even Tanya hadn't expected that. "Why?"

"Because then I could hate him."

They awoke entwined, warm, oddly content. Neither spoke or really moved much at all; that would have spoiled this perfect stillness.

Duke had his head pillowed on Craine's left shoulder, but he lay on his side, in the crook of Craine's arm, careful not to put any weight on the corvin's bandaged chest. Drowsily he drew a deep breath and let it out in a sigh, reaching out with tentative fingertips to trace the edges of his lover's beak, his collarbones, the curve of his shoulder. Craine made a soft noise of pleasure, shifting a little, but there was no other movement.

It was amazing, what the body remembered. Despite the years that had separated them, everything was as it had always been: the exquisiteness of first contact, the slow building pleasure, the sweet melting culmination. Duke had always found Craine a tender, careful lover, and he'd tried to be the same.

At last Craine spoke, the tip of his tongue brushing Duke's fingers with each word. "You remember the first time we did this?"

"Vaguely." Duke stretched, smiling faintly at the memory. "I was drunk, remember?"

"I had to get you loosened up properly-and you weren't that drunk." Craine laughed softly, briefly drew one of Duke's fingers into his mouth. "Doesn't take so much now, does it?"

"No," Duke agreed quietly, "not when you do that."

Craine reached out lazily. "What about this?"

"Well," Duke began after a moment, "that's-ah-that's another matter...."

It took him a long time to get his breath back.

Mallory was fuming. It was only eight o'clock, but already she'd had a long morning; the constant chorus of Where's Daddy? and I want to see Daddy and When's Daddy coming home? , provided faithfully by Jaden and Angel, had worn her already frazzled nerves nearly to the breaking point.

There was only one thing to do.

Kids in tow, she pounded on Nosedive's door until the young drake, groggy and quite surprised, opened it. "Mal?" he yawned. "Whassa matter?"

"I need you to watch the kids for me for a couple of hours," she said. "I've got to go out for a little while."

When she got to the apartment, she almost knocked on the door; in fact, she was in mid-motion when she realized, Fuck this, I've got a key and pulled back.

The living room was dark, the whole place quiet expect for the usual household sounds-the ticking clock, the hum of the air conditioning, the distant but distinct drip of the bathroom sink that she'd always meant to have fixed. But after she'd stood there a few minutes, acclimating to the darkness, Mal became aware of a dim light from the kitchen, and a few faint noises within.

She found Selwyn Craine at the breakfast table, spreading cream cheese on a toasted bagel half. He had his back to her initially; but when she walked in he turned to face her, almost as if he'd expected her. "Good morning. You could have knocked, you know."

The way he said it was mild, unruffled, almost pleasant; but there was enough reproach in it to make Mallory see red. "Look, buster, my name's on the lease agreement for this dump, so don't tell me I can't come in! Where's Duke?"

"He's still asleep." Craine chewed a mouthful of bagel, swallowed. "Do you want a cup of coffee?"

Mallory started to speak, then stopped as she realized-not for the first time lately-how tired she was. It wasn't lack of sleep; it was the fighting, the arguing, the endless anger. But it was just as exhausting.

"Yes, please," she said quietly. "Cream and two sugars-if you don't mind."

"Not at all." Craine got up, and for the first time Mallory saw that he was shirtless, long arms and shoulders a deep rich brown against the whiteness of his bandaged chest. He was barefoot and wore a pair of faded black jeans-they looked like the jeans Duke had been wearing when they'd left. When he offered her a steaming cup she accepted it silently, trying to ignore what her eyes were telling her.

She shook herself, realizing that Craine had said something. "I'm sorry, what?"

"I asked, why didn't you bring the children?"

Mallory knew he was trying to have a civilized conversation with her, but the whole situation here bothered her so much that she didn't feel much like being civil. She glared daggers at the corvin over the rim of her coffee cup. "I don't see how that's any of your business."

"Probably not," Craine agreed, apparently unfazed by her tone of voice, "but then what are you going to tell Duke when he asks you the same question?"

Mallory scowled. "I don't want them exposed to this-this perversion! They're too young to understand what's going on-hell, I'm not even sure what's going on!"

Before she even realized it, she had pushed the mug away, hot coffee slopping over the side as it nearly toppled. "You know, you've got some nerve, Craine-just popping up out of nowhere and-and barging into my life like this! Do you have any idea how much damage you've caused?"

It was as if a dam was breaking, torrents of painful memories crashing through her brain, her tongue loosening as her anger mounted. "Everything was fine until you showed up-everything was fucking fine, and now it's all been turned upside down!" She knew she was shouting, but she didn't care. "He's the father of my children, but I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about him anymore, all because of you! Why the hell did you even have to come here-and why did it have to be now?"

Mallory wanted to say more, but it seemed that her words had abruptly run out. She took a deep breath and covered her eyes with her trembling hands, cringing inside at the sound of what she'd just said.

"Feeling better now?"

Craine's quiet voice echoed much too loudly, making Mallory jump in spite of herself. He sounded faintly patronizing, faintly mocking, and there was bitterness in her voice when she answered, "Yeah. I guess so."

Craine regarded her for a moment, then picked up the remnant of his bagel and finished it.

"I came here for Dragaunus," he said, a wry smile flashing across his face. "Mostly."

Mallory could feel her mouth twisting into a scowl again. "Mostly?"

"Yes." The corvin sighed. "You have to understand, I travel a lot in my line of work. I hear things, gossip and odd rumors-and I knew that Dragaunus was here a long time before I found out that the rest of you were here too."

"Mostly," Mallory repeated.

For the first time Craine began to look faintly irritated. "Don't think I don't know what you're about, girl dear. You want to hear me say that Duke was my sole reason for coming here. No, don't deny it, I can see it's so." Mallory had been about to speak, and now she flushed crimson. "But he wasn't. He was part of the reason, yes, but only secondarily-so before you start accusing me of wrecking your happy home, child, rest assured that it wasn't my intention."

"I know." Mallory sighed; she suddenly felt terribly ashamed. "I didn't mean all those things I said, Selwyn, I just-"

"Wanted someone to blame?" Craine smiled. "But you did mean them, Mallory. You did. You're angry, and you've got a right to be. Every time you think you've got Duke where you want him, something changes."

This time he was the one sounding bitter. Mallory was surprised. "Speaking from personal experience?"

The corvin raised his eyebrows. "You aren't the first person who's found out the hard way that Duke has trouble with commitment."

Mallory couldn't help bristling a little. "You don't have to remind me that I'm only the latest in a long line," she said archly. "I know that. But I love him. I love him."

"I know you do," Craine answered. "So do I. So did the others. But it's never been enough."

He sighed. "You've got children, Mallory. You've got a claim on him, and I don't. So you see-it's natural that you're angry, that you want someone to blame. Trouble is-if it isn't me, and it isn't yourself, then that narrows the field considerably."

Mallory shook her head, got to her feet. "Stop. Just stop, I-" She let her breath out shakily. "You're right, Selwyn. I know you're right. But I can't listen to anymore of this right now."

Craine stood too, and hugged her carefully, tentatively, as if he were afraid that she would shatter in his arms. "Go home, girl dear. Get some sleep so you can look after your children-and bring them next time. It's going to be a little while yet before I'm in any shape to tackle Dragaunus, so we've got plenty of time to talk."

She nodded, only half hearing him. "I love him," she repeated.

"I know." Craine squeezed her shoulders lightly. "But loving Duke means having to accept that you get left out a lot."

While Craine was tidying the kitchen, Duke came down the stairs, groggy, tottering, rubbing his eyes. "Sel? What's happened?"

Craine didn't turn to face him. "Nothing's happened," he lied, frowning inwardly. "What are you talking about?"

"I-" Duke yawned hugely. "I thought I heard Mal down here."

"I've just been having breakfast." Craine reached out to him then, gave the gray drake's thick bang an affectionate tug. "You must have been dreaming. Go back to bed."

"Angry?" Mal repeated caustically. "No. He wasn't angry, he was very rational. Every inch the gentleman." She scowled. "He even told me to come back-and he wants me to bring the kids!"

Wildwing seemed to be fighting an urge to smile, which only irritated her further. "So you worked up a tantrum for nothing?"

"Yeah." Then Mallory was suddenly struck by the absurdity of it, and she did smile. "But I've been thinking-that's why I was so long getting back, I just went for a drive. And-Wing, as much as I don't want to admit it, Selwyn's right."

"Selwyn?" Wildwing grinned at her, sensing that the tension had eased a little. "You two must have come to a major understanding."

"Yeah, well...." She let it drop. "But he's right, Wing. It isn't his fault. It isn't mine." She sighed. "Hell, I'm not even sure I can blame Duke for this one.

"I mean," she continued; and then her throat tightened painfully. "I-I guess it would be natural, when you see someone that you haven't seen in years, and they're someone you care about-I guess it's natural to go a little crazy."

"I guess," the white drake agreed, and his expression was unreadable.

"Selwyn cares about Duke, he really does." Mallory stopped suddenly. It sounded so strange to hear herself saying that.... "I can't fault him for that-God knows it's easy to love Duke. But he knows how I feel too. The fear of commitment. The knowing that however much you love Duke, you're never sure of where you stand with him." She sniffled a little, and steeled herself; she was not going to cry in front of Wildwing. "He said something that really hit home with me, Wing. Something like, 'Every time you think you've got Duke where you want him, something changes.' And he's right. He's so right."

She was nearer tears than she wanted to admit, but Wildwing was kind enough to at least pretend not to notice. "I thought I knew him, Wing. I thought I'd finally learned everything there was to learn about Duke, and then I get hit with his father, and his son, and that whole assassin business, and now his lover shows up...." Her voice quavered, and the tears finally broke through. "If he'd only told me about all this, before we got so serious, I could have coped, I could have tried to understand-but no, he's got to wait till it's right in my face!"

"Mal-"

"Why, Wildwing?" she sobbed. "Why does he have to hide everything from me?"

For a moment Wildwing only looked at her; then he shook his head and sighed.

"I don't think Duke really meant to hide these things from you, Mallory," he said. "I think he's trying to hide them from himself."

"You lied to me." Duke's voice was thin and hurt, and Craine winced inwardly. "She was here, and you lied to me-why, Sel? You've never done that before."

The corvin sighed, tugging at the collar of his shirt. "You were asleep, and she was rather upset-she didn't seem particularly interested in talking to you, either."

"Oh." Duke's tone became sarcastic. "So you two are in real good now, huh?"

The drake was angry-but that was nothing new; he got angry so easily-and in a carefully measured voice Craine said, "We came to something of an understanding. I thought you'd be pleased."

Mallory, be understanding about this mess? Get real, Sel, Duke thought irritably; but he only said, "What kind of understanding?"

Craine hesitated, wondering how to phrase the problem; then he said to himself, For God's sake, we're grown men, we should be able to say what we think-especially to each other....

"Let me put it this way," he said. "She found out about me. I found out about her. It wasn't what either of us had expected."

"Oh." Duke frowned. "And this gives you and Mallory some kind of common ground?"

"I love you," Craine answered softly. "And she loves you. But neither of us seems to know where we stand with you right now...and you can't have us both, Duke."

"Is that what this is about?" Duke demanded, alarmed. "She wants me to...stop seeing you?"

"No!" Duke's voice cracked on the single syllable. "Not after I've waited all these years to see you...not after all we've been through together...."

"We've been through precious little 'together,' you and I," Craine murmured. The sight of Duke, so close to tears, made his heart ache. "Mallory's not like the others, Duke. She loves you, she's worth holding onto...and besides, you've got children together, and your children need their father."

"I need you."

"Poor Duke," the corvin sighed, feeling a pang of pain at his own words. "It's always been about what you need, hasn't it? Never mind how I felt watching you sport all those girls around, never mind what I went through when I was being-"

He stopped abruptly, turned away; and Duke, utterly at a loss, could only say, "When you were being what, Sel?"

"I could have rotted in that military prison, for all the good you did me." Craine could feel anger tugging at his heart like a flood tide; he had to fight the urge to simply give in and rage, and so his voice trembled. "You knew I'd been arrested, Duke. You knew I was there. You could have written, or come to see me, or something-hell, if you were in so thick with that blasted Brotherhood, you could have gotten me out, and instead-" He turned back then, saw how white Duke had become, and his anger evaporated abruptly, leaving him cold and sick inside. "Nothing. It's nothing. Never mind."

But Duke knew it was something, had always known, and he approached his lover tentatively. "Selwyn? You want to talk about it?"

"No." Craine realized, then, how harsh that sounded. "Maybe later. Not right now. I'm going for a walk-I need to be alone for a little while."

He started to push past Duke, and the gray drake said, "I do love you, Sel."

"I know." Craine couldn't look at him. "But this wasn't how I wanted things to turn out."

Strange weather, this planet; warmer than Puckworld, colder than Santira. To Craine the breeze seemed unnaturally cool-or maybe that was just because of what he'd been through.

Mustn't think, he told himself, mustn't think about it....

It had been eleven years since he'd sat in that narrow cell in Puckworld's military prison, waiting for the higher-ups to decide what to do with him. Eleven years since the incident. And ever since then he'd vowed that he'd never tell anyone...especially Duke.

But he'd nearly lost it just now, nearly spilled the beans in his anguish.

It was one reason he kept refusing the strange orange pills Duke kept pushing at him; the pain of his injured ribs kept him from thinking too much about the things in the back of his mind. He didn't like to sleep any more than he had to; sleep brought dreams, and dreams brought back those taunting, jeering faces....

-Lousy Santiran. Thought y'were too smart for us, didyer?

No. Don't. That had been his own voice, scarcely a whisper. Please don't.

-Don't yer wanna play? Three of us an' one of you, pretty.

The taste of blood in his mouth then, as the inside of his head exploded.

-C'mon, corvin, fight me! Gimme an excuse! Whyn't he fightin'?

Pain. Oh God. Pain.

It still haunted him. You like pain, pretty fairy?

And the feeling afterward: raw, bleeding, soiled. Dirty. So dirty. He'd wanted to die.

He could feel it still, the same sense of uncleanness, the same revulsion. Craine shook his head abruptly, violently, forced himself to push the memory back down.

But things haven't been the same since then, he told himself. I'm not the same, not entirely. And Duke...Duke deserves to know. Better he hear it from me than someday get back to Puckworld and learn the hard way. Anyway I think he suspects.

But another, less rational part of him felt differently. Why? It's not like he doesn't keep things from me. And he wouldn't understand. I'm a fool to think he'd keep me out of pity...he scarcely wants me now. All he can see is that woman. Love indeed....

God, why had he ever come here?

Craine paused, turned around.

"There's only one way to make this right," he muttered, and started walking again. "Only one-whether I like it or not."

As Craine was leaving the apartment earlier, Duke had flung himself onto the couch and curled his body into a compact little knot; and that was where the corvin found him.

Duke was quite asleep; but when Craine touched his shoulder the gray drake stirred. "That-that you, Sel?"

"Yes, it's me. Get up, love." The word seemed to stick in Craine's throat. "There's something we need to talk about."

"Good God," Duke said.

They'd gone to bed, because it seemed the place to be for this kind of talk; and now Duke turned to his lover and said, "You mean you were-"

Craine kissed him quickly, to keep him from saying it. "Yes."

"But-but why didn't you tell me? Selwyn...."

"I didn't think you'd understand." The corvin's gray eyes burned with unshed tears. "I didn't think you'd want me."

Duke reached for him. "But I do want you."

Craine drew away. "If you wanted me, all those women would never have mattered." The tears were starting to fall now. "Don't you see, Duke? Things aren't the same now. I've changed. You've changed. And I-I can't spend the rest of my life sharing you with someone else. Not anymore."

He slumped forward, eyes streaming profusely. Duke didn't know what to say. "Selwyn."

"Do you have any idea of how they made me feel?" Craine shrieked. "Do you? Do you have any idea what I'd be willing to give if I could forget it?"

He started to sob unevenly. "Oh, God, if I could forget...just once, if I could forget...."

"Sel." Duke touched him tentatively. "Let me help you."

"No." The corvin's whisper was thin and broken. "You can't."

"Let me try," Duke pleaded. "I know it's only for a little while, this way, but...that's better than nothing, ain't it?"

Craine regarded him balefully, sniffling; but then he nodded slowly.

"Yes," he said. "You're right. That's better than nothing."

When Duke awoke, it was afternoon and he was alone, and he knew Craine was gone.

He got up, his head ringing hollowly, and walked from room to room, though he knew he wouldn't find anything. Even the corvin's clothes were gone, nothing left but Tanya's small orange bottle of painkillers, still untouched on the dresser.

Just like always, Duke thought, sagging against the doorjamb in the kitchen. When it came time for us to go our separate ways, you were always the one to go. He could feel tears building up slowly, but they wouldn't fall, and he didn't have the energy to force them. But at least I always knew you were leaving....

He found a note on the counter next to the sink, a single sheet of paper covered in Craine's small neat handwriting and held down by a half-empty coffee cup.

Duke picked up the cup first and drained it, finding the contents still warm; then he picked up the paper and started to read.

For a long time Duke just stood there, staring at the note; then he felt moisture trickling down the edge of his beak and realized he was crying, and he put his head down on the counter and howled.

But after a while the shock gave way to a sort of numb emptiness and he straightened up, wiping at his eyes.

"Well," he asked himself, "what do I do now?"

He'd taken the cordless phone into the den, thrown himself into a recliner in front of the TV and turned on a music-video channel, muting the sound, wishing he could mute the roaring in his head.

At last it seemed he'd gathered the courage to call Mallory, though his fingers still shook when he dialed the number; and when she said "Hello?" he felt as if his heart would give out on him.

"Mal-" Duke nearly couldn't speak. "Mal, he's gone. Selwyn's gone."

"Gone!" Mallory yelped. "You mean he-"

But Tanya's voice interrupted her. "Duke! Turn the TV on! Channel Nine, quick!"

Duke froze for a second, then fumbled with the remote, flicked channels, turned on the sound. A trenchcoated reporter was talking into a microphone in front of a vaguely military-looking building.

"-A spokesman for the Sierra Army Depot has confirmed that the stolen item was a Y78 plasma rifle prototype. No one was apprehended and the police have yet to identify a suspect, though the public should be warned that he or she may be considered heavily armed and extremely dangerous."

There was more-but Duke scarcely heard it. All he could hear was Craine's voice in his head: I don't carry a gun when I'm traveling...it's usually easy enough to find something in the area that fits the bill.

"Dear God," he whispered. "He's gonna do it."

"What?" Mallory's voice startled him; he'd forgotten about the phone. "What?"

"Selwyn," he told her. "He's going after Dragaunus."

"But he's in no shape to-" she began.

"I know that," Duke said. "Look, I'm closer than you guys to this depot thing. I'll check it out-and you ring me if something else comes up."

It didn't take long.

Duke had been halfway to the Sierra Army Depot when Tanya had buzzed him, indicating suspicious energy at a warehouse less than a block from his current position; the sole security guard had spotted something and fled in terror.

Now Duke crept through the maze of hallways and doors, coming at last to a single massive room. He started to cross the floor-then he noticed the hunter drones.

Dozens of them. The walls bristled with them. He ducked behind a barrel; then he heard the voice.

"Well, well." Dragaunus. Duke, slinking forward between two crates, finally saw him. "It appears you've had a change of heart-did you finally realize where the real power on this miserable planet lies?"

He seemed to be speaking to someone, though there was no sign of any of the other Saurians. And apparently the someone was in front of him, because Duke could see nothing other than the Overlord's broad back.

There was an indistinct reply to Dragaunus' question-though not so indistinct that Duke couldn't recognize the voice, and his heart sank. Oh, Selwyn. Oh, no. Not this.

He eased forward a little more, to hear better, and Dragaunus was saying, "Yes. Yes. You're quite right, Craine, it would be useful. What do you want from me in exchange for this little bauble?"

The rifle, he's got that plasma rifle, Duke realized; and Craine said, "I don't want any part of your conquest. I just want to go home."

"To Puckworld?"

"No," Craine answered. "To Santira. Surely it's nothing for you to teleport me?"

"Santira." Dragaunus sounded thoughtful. "A most cooperative planet, as I recall. Very well, corvin, it's a satisfactory arrangement." It appeared that something was about to change hands, and then the Saurian said, "However...if you'd be so kind to test it for me first?"

Craine considered. "On what?"

"On...." Dragaunus was turning slowly, scanning the room...then he turned completely round, and saw Duke, and smiled. "Him."

Craine stepped around Dragaunus, followed the line of his gaze-and for a split second the corvin froze, the color draining from his face; then he seemed to shake it off, and shrugged, hoisting the plasma rifle. "All right."

Duke couldn't move. No, he whispered soundlessly. No, Sel, please, no....

But Craine took careful aim, smiling faintly-

-then he whirled, and fired at Dragaunus.

The blast caught the Overlord in the shoulder, spun him round, made him roar with rage and pain. He scrambled around, sprang at Craine, but the corvin calmly fired again. This time the shot went a little wide but nicked the Saurian's neck.

Dragaunus stumbled, open-mouthed, pale-green blood pouring from his smoking wounds. For a moment he stood still, swayed; then there was a violent burst of green light and he had vanished.

Craine too stood motionless; then the rifle clattered to the floor and he followed, sinking to his knees, his face in his hands.

Duke sprang from his hiding place. "Selwyn! Sel, are you-"

Then he realized Craine was laughing, his body shaking with it. "Selwyn-"

Craine raised a tear-streaked face and held out his hand, and Duke recognized the outlines of a Saurian teleport module.

"It appears," he said, "that I'm not such a bad bargainer after all."

But he got to his feet, and picked up the rifle-and suddenly the mass of hunter drones clattered to life.

"Ah, shit," Craine breathed, and he sounded strangely elated.

"Selwyn!" Duke tugged at his arm. "Sel, we've got to get out of here, we can't fight all of these-"

Craine pulled away, shook his head, still smiling.

"Do you feel lucky?" he whispered. "Because I do."

The night sky was restless, purple-black, shot through with constant flickers of lightning. Duke could feel the first cold raindrops pelting him, and he shivered. "You're sure about this?"

"I'm sure." Craine pressed the plasma rifle into his hands. "You'd better take this back where it belongs-but only if you can convince them you didn't steal it."

Duke nodded. "You were going to bargain with Dragaunus."

Craine sighed, looked away. "It was stupid of me-but I was desperate, and you've got to admit, it worked in a way."

"You could stay." Duke could feel his eyes filling, but he didn't care. "You could."

"No," was Craine's soft answer, though his gray eyes glittered. "No. You've got Mallory, you've got your children. I'd only be in the way-besides, I haven't seen Santira in a while." He put out a hand, wiped Duke's tears, which made the gray drake weep more copiously. "Don't cry. Please don't cry. We both know how it's got to be."

"But Selwyn-" Duke managed; and then the corvin kissed him softly, and they held each other for a long time. "Will-will I see you again?"

"I don't know." Craine cleared his throat. "I may go back to Puckworld-I don't intend to stay on Santira forever." He pulled the drake into another brief embrace. "And I've really got to go."

"Yours," he whispered, "always," and walked away.

"Selwyn-" Duke stumbled forward, but the lightning flashed in his face, blinding him, and when he could see again Craine was gone.

When he got back to the Pond his eyes still ran freely, and this was one time he didn't care for his teammates noticing.

But they were strangely quiet, saying nothing; and when he got to his quarters he found Mallory sitting on the edge of the bed. "Mal."

"Duke!" She sprang to her feet. "What happened? Where's Selwyn?"

"He went back to Santira. He didn't get Dragaunus-Draggy wouldn't hang around long enough." His voice shook, and his attempt at a smile fell flat, and all he could say was, "Please forgive me."

"Duke-"

"Please," he whispered. "I love him. But I love you too, and you mean so much to me, and-" He gulped air. "If you both abandoned me I don't think I could stand it."

Mallory stared at him. His face was etched with pain, almost palpable. He means it. God, he really means it.

"Duke, sweetheart." She embraced him carefully. "I'm not going anywhere."