She took a deep breath and looked up into the eyes of the heavyset woman at the foot of her bed.

There was a man sleeping on her sofa, courtesy of the department. He had a gun. One yell would suffice to bring him stumbling in. And then what? The woman, the Plug-ugly, could probably break him in half. The close confines of her small bedroom were no fit environment for gunplay.

And still there was just the one, and she stood there, not meeting Alison’s stare—shuffling slightly as though embarrassed.

“What are you here for?” Her voice sounded admirably composed.

The Plug-ugly risked a moment’s eye contact, then stared fiercely into the corner of the room. She mumbled something Alison couldn’t make out. She was wearing some kind of shapeless robe. Like a muumuu. It didn’t look like anyone’s idea of Earth-casual camouflage, not even like the mismatched tramp outfits the others had sported.

“Say again?” she prompted.

The woman sighed hugely and said, “We want your help.”

From the standpoint of their respective technological developments and their own past history, that seemed unlikely. However, Alison caught herself thinking: But they did help Julian. That was a real debt, owed by Alison to the enemy and separate to her obligations to state or Hind. So she listened. Then she called Hind on the twenty-four-hour emergency number she’d been given, requesting emergency debrief facilities for a non-human agent.

Julian had obviously got wind of what was going on before he pitched up for work the next morning. Alison had half expected him to get hauled out of bed at three in the morning for the interrogation. But apparently the conspiracy was already broadening and Hind had other people for that. Having already gone through two complete caffeine cycles, Alison was feeling ragged, exhausted but still strung out on excitement and anticipation. Julian seemed brighter, too, and she guessed that whatever happened now, at least something had happened. Living day to day under the Sword of Damocles was exhausting. Sometimes you needed a change, even if it meant the blade was going to drop.

Hind called them both in shortly afterwards, their chief’s office seeming too small for Hind, her secretary, four armed security men and their new guest. The latter, particularly, seemed to simultaneously take up too much space and be trying to shrink in on herself. Alison was well aware of how physically solid the Plug-uglies were. Standing there, the woman seemed to stress the floor beneath her. Her quiet stillness seemed an implicit threat.