Two kzinti in the aisle, spaced three yards apart, hissing the Hero’s Tongue at each other. A handful of human customers watched in some amusement. There didn’t seem to be danger there. One wore what might be a loose dark blue swimsuit with a hole for the tail. The other (sleeveless brown tunic) took down four yards of disassembled fishing rod. A kzinti clerk?

The corner of my eye caught a clerk’s hands (human) opening the case and reaching in for that smaller tube, with a grip built for a kzin child. Or a man—

My breath froze in my throat. I was looking into Feather’s horrible ARM weapon. I looked up into the clerk’s face.

It came out as a whisper. “No, Sharrol, no no no. It’s me. It’s Beowulf.”

She didn’t fire. But she was pale with terror, her jaw set like rock, and the black tube looked at the bridge of my nose.

I eased two inches to the right, very slowly, to put myself between the tube and the kzin cop. That wasn’t a swimsuit he was wearing: it was the same sleeve less, legless police uniform I’d seen at breakfast.

We were eye to eye. The whites showed wide around her irises. I said, “My face. Look at my face. Under the beard. It’s Bey, love. I’m a foot shorter. Remember?”

She remembered. It terrified her.

“I wouldn’t fit. The cavity was built for Carlos. My heart and lungs were shredded, my back was shattered, my brain was dying, and you had to get me into the cavity. But I wouldn’t fit, remember? Sharrol, I have to know.” I looked around quickly. An aisle over, kzinti noses came up, smelling fear. “Did you kill Feather?”

“Kill Feather.” She set the tube down carefully on the display case. Her brow wrinkled. “I was going through my pockets. It was distracting me, keeping me sane. I needed that. The light was wrong, the gravity was wrong, the Earth was so far away—”

“Shh.”

“Survival gear, always know what you have, you taught me that.” She began to tremble. “I heard a sonic boom. I looked up just as you were blown backward. I thought I must be c-crazy. I couldn’t have seen that.”

It was my back that felt vulnerable now. I felt all those floors behind and above me, all those eyes. The kzin cop had lost interest. If there was a moment for Feather Filip to take us both, this was it.

But the ARM weapon was in Sharrol’s hands—

“But Carlos jumped into the boat and roared off, and Feather screamed at him, and you were all blood and sprawled out like—like dead—and I, I can’t remember.”

“Yes, dear.” I took her hand, greatly daring. “But I have to know if she’s still chasing us.”