Even that distinction Naismith had stolen from him. The mercenary admiral, publicly and falsely, now claimed to be a clone himself. A superior cover, concealing his other identity, his other life. You have two lives, he thought to his absent enemy. I have none. I'm the real clone, damn it. Couldn't I have even that uniqueness? Did you have to take it all?

No. Keep his thoughts positive. He could handle Thorne. As long as he could avoid the terrifying Quinn, the bodyguard, the lover, Quinn. He had met Quinn face to face on Earth, and fooled her once, for a whole morning. Not twice, he didn't think. But Quinn was with the real Miles Naismith, stuck like glue; he was safe from her. No old lovers this trip.

He'd never had a lover, not yet. It was perhaps not quite fair to blame Naismith for that as well. For the first twenty years of his life he had been in effect a prisoner, though he hadn't always realized it. For the last two . . . the last two years had been one continuous disaster, he decided bitterly. This was his last chance. He refused to think beyond. No more. This had to be made to work.

The pilot stirred, beside him, and he slitted open his eyes as the deceleration pressed him against his seat straps. They were coming up on the Ariel. It grew from a dot to a model to a ship. The Illyrican-built light cruiser carried a crew of twenty, plus room for supercargo and a commando squad. Heavily powered for its size, an energy profile typical of warships. It looked swift, almost rakish. A good courier ship; a good ship to run like hell in. Perfect. Despite his black mood, his lips curled up as he studied that ship. Now I take, and you give, Naismith.

The pilot, clearly quite conscious that he was conveying his admiral, brought the personnel pod into its docking clamps with a bare click, neat and smooth as humanly possible. "Shall I wait, sir?"

"No. I shouldn't be needing you again."

The pilot hurried to adjust the tube seals while his passenger was still unbuckling, and saluted him out with another idiot, broad, proud smile. He twitched a returning smile and salute, then grasped the handlebars above the hatch and swung himself into the Ariel's gravity field.

He dropped neatly to his feet in a small loading bay. Behind him, the pod pilot was already re-sealing the hatch to return himself and his pod to its vessel of origin, probably the flagship Triumph. He looked up—always, up—into the face of the waiting Dendarii officer, a face he had studied before this only in a holovid.