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"What you are proposing is a merger of tribes, Rena. This happens all the time in my country. It is done through a marriage."
She blinked. "Marriage?"
"If I marry all nineteen of you, then you would be one with our tribe. My crew would agree to a business partnership. You would not be equal in station to my current wives, however. They are of my tribe by birth. You are not. You would be considered my concubines."
Rena smiled, and it took everything she possessed not to start laughing. "Arjuna, I am flattered that you would so willingly take us on as your concubines, but we cannot marry you."
"Then this conversation is at a close. I cannot enter a partnership with women who are not my wives. There would be mutiny."
Rena considered this then said, "Why don't we say that our husbands are away? We have never recovered their bodies. And in our tribe, women can speak for the family in their husbands' absence. Ours would be a merger of tribes that recognizes our husbands in absentia."
He shook his head. "My crew knows that your husbands have died, Rena. You have discussed their deaths with some of them. It doesn't matter that we have not seen their bodies. We have seen your grieving faces, and that is worse."
"What about the boys? Franco is twelve. That's Bella's son. He is the oldest male. We could say he is the leader of our tribe and this merger is his wish."
Arjuna shook his head. "He is not man grown. He cannot speak for the tribe."
"Then what about Victor? My son. He is a man grown. If I can prove that he's alive, he would be the head of our tribe, would he not? He would speak for us. He could approve this merger."
Arjuna frowned. "Why do I feel like I've just been painted into a corner? Do you lay all of your snares so delicately, Lady of El Cavador?"
"You can't keep calling me that," said Rena. "I'm not the only lady from that ship."
"No, but you are the most regal of your tribe. The most worthy of that title."
"I didn't lay a snare. It just worked out that way."
"That's what's every fox would say."
She smiled. "In my tribe, to call a woman a fox is to call her beautiful."
"You are certainly that, Lady, but in my tribe a fox has a different meaning altogether."
"So are we in agreement?"
He gestured toward the helm. "Come. Let us see if the chief of your tribe still lives."
CHAPTER 13
India
Mazer was running on a treadmill in a government safe house in New Delhi when the call finally came. He looked at his beeping wrist pad, saw that it was Wit, and stepped off the treadmill to answer it.
"Where are you?" asked Wit.
"Exercise room. Trying to keep from dying of boredom. Please tell me we can leave this building and be useful again."
It was their tenth day in India. After a rocky entrance into the country--during which the Indian Air Force had threatened to shoot them down and fired a volley of warning shots--Wit had gotten on the radio and secured them a military escort to New Delhi. A decontamination crew had met them at the airport, and once Mazer, Wit, and Shenzu were clear of their biosuits, the military had taken them directly to the safe house, where they had remained under house arrest without any contact with the outside world.
"Shower and meet me and Shenzu in the lobby in ten minutes," said Wit. "A car will take us to Gadhavi's labs. He believes he has the answer."
The goo guns they had brought from China had been confiscated the moment Mazer had landed in New Delhi. Dr. Gadhavi and his team had supposedly been hard at work on a counteragent ever since.
Mazer jogged back to his room and hit the shower. He met Wit and Shenzu in the lobby a few minutes later. A car and two junior officers of the Indian army were waiting outside. The officers sat in the front and drove them north of the city to a large government compound surrounded by military checkpoints. The driver weaved through the campus until he parked at the curb of a white office building. A decorated officer of the Indian military in his mid-fifties met them at the curb. He smiled wide when Wit stepped from the vehicle. The two men embraced and then Wit turned to the others.
"Captain Rackham, Captain Shenzu, I present a dear friend of mine, Major Khudabadi Ketkar of the Indian Para Commandos. His men trained with the MOPs before the invasion."
Ketkar smiled good-naturedly and shook everyone's hands. "What Captain O'Toole means is that his MOPs ran circles around our PCs. Like a cat playing with a blind, three-legged mouse. He even had the gall to kill me once during a mock battle. In my own office. I'm still assembling the shattered pieces of my pride." He laughed, winked at Wit, then gestured to the main entrance. "But come. They are waiting for us."
