"You—" Miles's voice cracked, and he found he had to stop and swallow. "Later, you and I are going to have a long talk. There's a lot you don't seem to understand."

Mark's chin came up, defiantly. Surely my face is not that round. It must be an illusion, from the hood. "What about these kids?" said Mark. "These clones."

"What about them?" A couple of young men in brown silk tunics and shorts appeared to be actually helping the Dendarii defenders, scared and excited rather than surly. Another group, boys and girls mixed, sat in a plain-scared bunch on the floor under the watchful eye of a stunner-armed trooper. Crap, they really are just kids.

"We've—you've got to take them along. Or I'm not going." Mark's teeth were set, but Miles saw him swallow.

"Don't tempt me," snarled Miles. "Of course we're taking them along, how the hell else would we get out of here alive?"

Mark's face lit, torn between hope and hatred. "And then what?" he demanded suspiciously.

"Oh," Miles caroled sarcastically, "we're just going to waltz right over to Bharaputra Station and drop them off, and thank Vasa Luigi kindly for the loan. Idiot! What d'you think? We load up and run like hell. The only place to put them would be out the airlock, and I guarantee you'd go first!"

Mark flinched, but took a deep breath and nodded. "All right, then."

"It is not. All. Right," Miles bit out. "It is merely . . . merely . . ." He could not come up with a word to describe what it merely was, aside from the most screwed-up mess he'd ever encountered. "If you were going to try and pull a stupid stunt like this, you might at least have consulted the expert in the family!"

"You? Come to you for help? D'you think I'm crazy?" demanded Mark furiously.

"Yes—" They were interrupted by a staring blond clone boy, who'd walked up to them open-mouthed.

"You really are clones," he said in wonderment.

"No, we're twins born six years apart," snapped Miles. "Yes, we're just as much clones as you are, that's right, go back and sit down and obey orders, dammit."

The boy retreated hastily, whispering, "It's true!"

"Dammit," Mark howled under his breath, if that squeezed sotto voce could be so described, "how come they believe you and not me? It's not fair!"

Quinn's voice, through his helmet, derailed the family reunion. "If you and Don Quixote Junior are done greeting each other, Medic Norwood has Phillipi prepped and loaded, and the wounded ready to transport."

"Form up, let's get the first batch out the door, then," he responded. He called up Blue Squad's sergeant. "Framingham, take the first convoy. You ready to roll?"

"Ready. Sergeant Taura has marshaled them for me."

"Go. And don't look back."