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"She'll forget all about you," Rhye snarled. "Once she's in my bed again, beneath me where she belongs, I'll make her forget you ever put your filthy, bestial hands on her."

The Reaper flexed those bestial hands and was pleased to find the claws already

extended. The talons were drawing inward as his fingers curled and he ticked the long,

sharp points softly on the stone floor, one after the other as though drumming his fingers

in boredom.

"She loves me," Konnor stated. "I know she loves me. We were to be married until you took her from me."

Inse drew back his boot and kicked Cree hard, delighted with the sound he thought to

be a moan of pain. "Are you listening to him, Iceman?" The Reaper groaned with unholy delight as the heat began to glow in his demon eyes. Daring not open the lids lest the

humans see the piercing red light that would shine like an inferno in this dark room, Cree

kept his eyes shut, the better to expand his other senses. He braced his right heel against

the floor and began to gather his strength. Saliva dripped in a long thin string down his

leathery chin.

"I asked to be there when they hang you," Rhye bragged. "I want to see what they do to you, you arrogant bastard. I want to be there when you start to choke."

"I want to see him piss his pants. When that noose starts tightening around his neck,

he's going to—"

The thing came at Inse like a whirlwind out of the darkness; he never had a chance to

cry out his surprise or horror. It flowed up and over him, driving him down to the stone

floor with a speed that could not possibly have been of this world. It enveloped him in

ape-like arms that crushed his lungs and burst organs.

Konnor Rhye shrieked and jumped back as the Reaper sprang. There would be no help

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for Inse. Bolting for the corridor, Rhye began screaming for Hein, for anyone to help him.

He slapped viciously at the door pad and then ran as fast as he could from the death

screams of his friend, hoping the portal would lock before the creature could get out and

come after him.

The last thing Deon Inse saw before he died was the unbelievable width of the gaping

jaw coming toward his face from behind double rows of razor-sharp teeth.

The last thing Inse felt was the piercing agony that exploded in his throat as those

steel-like jaws closed over his neck, severing his jugulars, ripping out chunks of flesh

before it clamped down on his spine and crunched the fragile cartilage between its

massive jaws.

The last thing Inse ever heard was the slurping sounds the beast made as it fed.

THEY HAD reached the outer hatchway of The Vortex. The new Chief of Space

Fleet Operations looked at the black prison ship sitting in her docking harness alongside

Feis Coure's ship, The Sirocco. He hated the sight of that massive long-range cruiser. She

was ugly and she bore the unmistakable stamp of the Tribunal on her. Many men had died

on that hell ship, but if he had anything to say about it, there would be no more torture

and death inside her matte black hull. He meant to have her de-commissioned when this

was all over.

"That thing gives me the creeps," Kullen remarked.

"Aye," Hesar agreed. "You and me both, Cap'n."

"Can you fly a LRC, McGregor?" Kahn asked the young man who had appeared in the

hatchway.

"Aye," Raine McGregor admitted.

Kullen looked past the young man to the dark hulk who stood behind the Serenian

prince. He frowned, having a particular dislike for darklings, but he kept his mouth shut.

If this man had had his life saved by Cree, there was something to be said for continuing

to preserve that life, worthless as Kullen deemed it to be.

Kahn studied the ship a minute then turned to Hesar. "Get Noll on the horn and tell him

I want the bodies of our fighters brought out to the Vortex."

"Why?" Kullen asked, tearing his attention from the dark man who was glaring back at him none-too kindly.

"We were going to bury them in a mass grave on Rysalia Prime, but I think it might be

best to take them to Haelstrom Point and send them into the Hole."

"What the hell for?" Kullen demanded.

Kahn looked at the ship. "We'll send her in with them. Set them both free of Tribunal

evil."

"I get your meaning," McGregor agreed. He looked over at the Vortex. "How many bodies are you taking about?"

"About thirty," Hesar spoke for the Admiral. "We were lucky. Twenty-nine women and one man."

"The lone male was one of Cree's," Kahn said. "One of his Shepherds."

"Not the young one, I pray. Not the one called Lona," Lares Taborn spoke up.

Kahn looked at the massive man. "I'm afraid so."

"Bad," Lares pronounced. "Very bad." He had met the boy and liked him very much.

"Take Thorne and Noll," Kahn told McGregor. "You shouldn't need any more crew

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than that should you?"

Raine thought a moment. "For an LRC? I'll need three beside myself."

Kahn nodded. He looked at Hesar. "Go with him, Teal." His attention shifted to the

Necromanian giant.

"I go where the son of the McGregor goes," Lares stated and headed with the young

Serenian prince toward the black ship.

Kullen rubbed his hands together. "Shall we go get our Prime Reaper, then, before he

grows any taller?"

The men were silent as they filed on board Symthian Kullen's ship. The other five

Reapers: Coure and Kiel, who were twins; Tohre; Belial; and Gehdrin were already on

board with their men. Kahn took his seat at the Captain's console and thought of the last

words Dr. Dean had said to him before he left for the docking bays.

"With over ninety-eight percent of the population being women now, there won't be a

need for Retrieval Units."

"Unless," she had answered quietly, "you go after men this time."

Kahn shuddered. With three hundred thousand men dead on fifteen space stations, that

left a little more than five hundred thousand on Rysalia Prime. With a ratio of 48 women

to every man before this all began—

He shuddered again. It was too terrifying to think about. Thank God the men of Rysalia

Prime had been spared the evil that had been visited upon the men of the Frontier

Stations.

HAEL SEJM and Sada MacCorkingdale, one of her followers, did not speak as they

walked along the Boulevard of Tears. Their faces were hidden within the deep cowls of

their dark blue postulant's robes and they walked stooped, the better to hide their features.

The leather sandals they wore made slapping sounds on the cobblestones as they made

their way to the religious center of Tethys, The Mother.

"Good morning, Daughters," they were greeted by the Guardess of the Gate, who

manned the tall verdigris portal behind which lay the octagonal-shaped grounds of the

center.

Silently lifting one hand in greeting, Hael made good use of the rules of the Order,

which forbade its members to speak until they were once more behind the twelve-foot

high bronze perimeter of the compound.

As the gate was unlocked for them to enter, Hael raised her head only high enough to

allow her to get a glimpse of the center. A grim smile touched her pursed lips as she

swept her eyes along the cluster of seven 600 foot tall black marble towers which circled

the soaring majesty of the center's main building: the 1400 foot tall amethyst-sheathed

obelisk called the Titaness.

Hael's furtive gaze moved over the immaculately groomed grounds with their six oval

fountains; the cobblestone courtyard which encircled the Reflecting Pool at the base of

the Titaness. Her heart began to accelerate. She was with her own kind. Her sisters. The

Daughters of the Multitude, at last! She and the other woman were safely within the

protective arms of the Order and no man was allowed on these sacred grounds. A sigh of

relief came from both women as they pushed back the hoods of their robes to reveal their

faces.

The Guardess of the Gate smiled at them as the massive portal closed and locked. "We

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have been expecting you, Sister," she said.

THE BIOENGINEER breathed a sigh of relief. "Then it isn't contagious," she said.

Beryla held up the test tube of pale blue liquid. She had cloned the original retrovirus

and had then set to work on a vaccine. Working around the clock for the past thirteen

hours, she believed she was only an hour or two away from success.

"The only way the virus can be contracted is through breathing in the living

bacterium," Beryla explained. "Once it's in the lungs, it attaches itself to the air sacs. It isn't expelled so it can't be passed from one person to another." She was exhausted and

her voice hoarse. "Once the bacteria is inhaled, it starts to destroy the immune system at such a rapid pace, we could never administer an antigen fast enough to stop it."

"Like the old Ebola virus from the late nineties," suggested Dorrie.

"Yes," the Director agreed. "It, too, was a hemorrhagic virus."

"Can we safely conclude this horror won't repeat itself?" asked Amala.

The Director held up the test tube containing the lethal virus. "I am going to destroy

this as soon as the vaccine is developed." She stared with fascination at the innocuous-

looking liquid. "I want to make sure this demonic product of Sejm's warped mind is never unleashed on the men of any world ever again!"

THE PROPHETESS-Mother's hands were folded into the loose sleeves of her

purple gown as she led her flock up the serpentine stairway of the Titaness. Twelve

women in lavender silk robes followed silently in the Prophetess-Mother's wake. The

flickering lights of lavender candles lit up the circular stairwell and cast long shadows on

the gilded plaster walls.

It was evening; the time for Vespers.

The women were heading for the vertex of the obelisk upon which rested a hundred

foot wide circular platform. Opened to the evening air, protected only by an intricate

fretwork railing around the outer perimeter, the Chanting Dais was a focal point of more

than two thousand blue-clad women of the Order of Oceania who were gathered in a

circle around the Reflecting Pool far below, their faces lit by the shifting lights of torches set in high stanchions.

Cyle Acet, the spiritual leader of these women, gained the platform just as the last

melodic tone came from the Vespers Bell. She stood aside as her Court fanned out around

the platform and took their places facing the statue of Tethys, The Mother. When

everyone was in her assigned place, the Prophetess-Mother walked to the statue of their

beloved Creatoress and knelt; the women on the platform, as well as those on the ground

far below, knelt with her.

"Oh, Majesty of the Multitude, Fruitful Mother of us all: Hear out prayer!" Cyle

chanted.

"Hear our prayer!" came the united response from the women.

Sejm spoke the words almost absently as she stood high atop the pinnacle of their

Order's power. She closed her eyes to the stirring of the brisk wind that whipped her

robes around her ankles and breathed in the smell of frangipani borne on the air from the

botanical gardens a mile away. She stood with her Sisters then turned with them to face

the four arcs of the heavens, the wind pushing at their backs.

The Prophetess-Mother lifted her arms to the evening sky. "Lead us from our misery,

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oh, Mother of us all!" she cried out.

"Lead us!"

"Teach us the pathways to peace and prosperity!"

"Teach us!"

"Grant us the fulfillment of our bodies and souls!"

"Grant us!"

"Grace us with the wisdom to rule our world with a just hand and a pure heart!"

"Grace us!"

"Protect us from the savagery of the male who would abuse us and enslave us; who

would murder our Sisters with impunity and slay our offspring!"

"Protect us!"

"And give us your Majestic help to set right the wrong that was done to our Sisters on

this very night so long ago!"

"Help us!"

Cyle Acet brought her arms down from the heavens to which she had cast her prayer

and extended a hand to her Court. "May the Wind be with you," she said softly.

Hael Sejm moved as one with her sisters as each woman reached into the pocket of her

robe and withdrew a vial of pale blue liquid. Uncorking the vials, the women released the

live bacterium into the wind that swept over Rysalia Prime.

THERE WAS a noxious smell coming from the Reaper's cell as the group of five men

made their way down the poorly lit corridor. Onar, already infuriated to find the guard

absent from his post, drew a clean handkerchief from the pocket of his tunic and held it

over his quivering nostrils.

"Put Hein on report, Ensign," he ordered. "Sixty lashes for dereliction of duty."

The four Interrogation Guards—ranged two in front, two behind Onar—felt a distinct