“I’m sure,” Bossman asserted. “That’s one thing this farmer can do. She’s got to die, but she’ll die happy. You’re going to ask her real nice, and bring her in here where nobody can see you, and tell her those lies you know the gals go for, and make up to her like you meant it. She deserves that much, and she’s going to get it. The rest of them’ll take a break and get ready for the crossing.”

Aton studied him. The man was serious. “You expect her to believe it?” He shifted position slightly.

“She’ll believe what she wants to believe. I know her well enough for that. And you’re going to make it easy for her. You’re a good enough talker when you want to be.”

Here Bossman permitted himself a slight smile. “Why she fixed on you I can’t figure. But she’s ready for anything you put on the line. You make it good, and you carry it all the way through—or you’ll be decoy this time, not her. If you don’t believe that—”

Aton didn’t. Trained to give no warning he twisted over, a bare foot lashing out with all the deadly skill of his fighting art. The krell farmer was overdue for a lesson.

The edge of an iron hand brushed the kick aside. So fast he hardly seemed to move, Bossman was inside the thrust of the leg. His calloused foot kicked Aton’s other leg from under him. The bruising slam of his body against the stone floor was doubled by that of Bossman’s weight on top of him. Under what little fat was left, the farmer was hard as a cavern wall. An unyielding arm clamped Aton’s head, a powerful hand locked his own arm in an unbreakable grip. Fingers probed under his jawline.

Aton thrashed wildly. He screamed, An explosion of intolerable agony in the throat, an involuntary and useless recoil against the restraining arms, a howling darkness on the world.

The world came back, oddly unreal except for the light touch of those steely fingertips on a buried nerve center. A voice said softly, “Baby wants to play?”

Bossman let him up, on guard. “Tell her we fought for her, and you won,” he advised. “I don’t want you to look roughed up, spaceman—yet.” Bossman had made his point.

And so they played it out, the three of then, setting the scene for Garnet’s sacrifice—

—while Bossman waited with corded fist, knowing the sounds of love were false, when his compassion would willingly have made them true.

—while Aton found, obscurely, that the knowledge of death brought the melody, and the melody brought a passion astonishingly real.

—while Garnet accepted a willing death as the only way to bring that passion, and perhaps a hidden moment of genuine love, to end her misery.

...And the white wake waited...