Bruen leaves the spawning pool, deep in thought. So distracted is he that he doesn't notice the red ball bounce past him. Nor does he notice the grelld chasing it.

  The much smaller creature crashes into the unaware general, snapping him out of his daze.

  "Sorry, Mos," calls Han.

  The young alien runs up, laughing. In one claw he holds a package of preserved worms, a favored treat of domestic grelld.

  "Made a new friend?"

  Han nods. "I call him Tickles." The grelld, ball forgotten, returns to the youth and leaps at his legs, tentacles working frantically.

  "A fine name," agrees Bruen, noting the animated motions of the grelld. "Training him to hunt?"

  "Huh? Oh, no. Just playing chase-the-ball." The young Tserri offers Tickles a dried treat. The little beast snatches it and consumes it with evident enjoyment. Han laughs and scratches at the bundle of writhing limbs. "Yosip won't let him on the ship, so Tickles misses me."

  "Clearly."

  Han looks around, scanning the wide path. "Did you see which way my ball went?"

  "Over there," answers Bruen, pointing.

  "Thanks."

  "Don't spoil the creature," recommends Bruen. Han waves and runs off, Tickles chasing behind him. Feeling a warmth inside, Bruen leaves the youth to his play.

  He doesn't get far before a familiar voice stops him.

  "Don't let your soldiers see you acting soft like that," teases Don Yosip. The gray alien holds two drinks, one in each metal hand. He offers one to Bruen.

  "So long as my decisions continue to lead to victories, they will still follow me," Bruen chides. He accepts the drink and removes the cap. The drink fizzes, releasing the smell of processed fruits. "My thanks."

  "He's a good kid," Yosip says, pointing with his chrome jaw. Farther down the path, Han and Tickles roll upon the ground in mock combat over their ball. Yosip takes a long drink, then adds, "Thanks for looking out for him."

  "It is good practice," admits Bruen. "Practice I sorely need."

  Yosip chuckles and takes another drink. "You'll do alright. Just remember every way your pa disappointed you, and do something different. Try to do the things you remember enjoying as a kid, right?"

  "As you say."

  Scratching the side of his face, Yosip says, "Sorry. I forget. No childhood, right?"

  "Correct. Still, I do intend to use my own training as an example. When the time comes, of course."

  "Of course," grunts Yosip with a wry grin. "Well, I've got more work to do. The boys wired in new targeting systems. Put the cursed thing in backwards." His face contorts into a fierce scowl. "I'll be days replacing blown circuits," he blusters.

  "I assume you'll be making them help?"

  Yosip grunts. "That's why it'll take so long. If the kid's any trouble, let me know."

  "I shall," agrees Bruen.

  Yosip grunts again, then stomps off. Bruen watches with bemusement as the officer pretends to clumsiness that Bruen knows to be false. Once the Don is no longer visible, Bruen lowers himself to the ground.

  Han and Tickles play alone for some time before the mischievous grelld carries the ball to Bruen instead of Han. After that, the three play together until the youth begins to yawn and rub at his eyes.

  "Time to take Tickles home," observes Bruen, feeling tired himself.

  "Yeah. Play with us tomorrow?"

  "If I am not busy," Bruen agrees cautiously. Han cheers and runs off, Tickles in his arms.

  Bruen returns to his own dwelling within the estate he claims within Sba City. The casteless soldiers welcome him home with their usual casual respect, rubbing tendrils only lightly with him. He returns their touches, careful not to act too familiar with them as he makes his way to his room.

  Finally, he reaches his refuge and sinks onto his cot. Sleep claims him immediately.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Another familiar presence greets him. His sleeping mind takes form in a huge cavern, facing a glowing Somner Zek. Shadows bathe the surroundings in shifting blackness, making the walls seem an endless distance away.

  "Tonight we move to the next phase," she states mysteriously. He has no time to question her for she turns and dashes away into the darkness.

  Bruen, having little other choice, follows her. No matter how fast he moves, she remains somehow ahead of him. The soft white glow she emits keeps him from losing her but does nothing to dispel the ever-present darkness. They travel for a time his inner senses cannot track, as is the way of dreams, before meeting another three pairs of figures.

  Of them, five remain strangers. The final form is oddly familiar. Though he knows he has never seen this person moving so strongly under their own power, still the stranger before him has a face that he could never forget.

  "Mos Denn? Father?"

  Zek hisses at him, but she is too late. Denn glides over to meet his former servant and adopted son. As soon as the two dream bodies are close, the no longer old Denn strikes Bruen hard across the thorax.

  "It is good to see you," agrees Bruen, returning the blow with one much softer.

  Mos Denn, despite being a dream, draws in a deep breath. "It is good to see! But you are an especially fine sight, indeed."

  "Denn?" A third voice, one unknown to Bruen, shouts. A body quickly joins them. "Aren't you dead?"

  "Indeed," agrees a fourth dream figure. Bruen recognizes the voice, but her armor plating is missing. "Though, why would that stop him?" Gol is every bit as tall, even without her composite alloy.

  "Go bite a spear, Scro," declares Denn, rubbing tendrils with his old companion and rival.

  All four generals exchange delicate touches, taunting one another jovially.

  "If you are quite finished," snaps a Jurer unknown to Bruen, "we have much to discuss. Time grows short!"

  "Now, just you wait, Nov," Scro shouts peevishly. "What is all this? Why did you bring us here?"

  "I'm trying to explain that," answers Nov, voice dripping with condescension. "Of those gathered here, only you, Scro, have yet to encounter the dead one's new form."

  "What of it? He's dead, isn't he?"

  "Do I look dead to you, hold out?"

  The two former rivals puff up, facing one another squarely. Nov forces them apart with unreal strength. Bruen doubts they would have come to blows. If they were going to attack one another, they wouldn't announce it. And they most surely wouldn't allow the much smaller Jurer to stop them were their intent lethal.

  "Yes and no," answers another of the unknown thaumatists. "His astral tether was shifted to a new vessel, leaving his mind mostly intact. I believe I could replicate the process, though not necessarily on the first attempt."

  "Learned that much, did you Noll?"

  "Yes, dead one," she answers. "My time with you was quite enlightening. Nuhst really was a genius."

  "Too bad the madness took him," laments the last thaumatist. "He would have made this much simpler."

  "Wish for rain, but return to the sea," recites Nov. The chastised thaumatist mutters inaudibly and everyone pretends not to hear.

  "So what? He's young again? That's why we're young, then." He holds his tendrils in confident patterns as he speaks, but they drop and Scro adds suddenly, "But Bruen is not old. Lucky bastard."

  "We did not make you young," Nov says patronizingly, "this is just a visual representation to help us communicate to you more clearly. It is also, coincidentally, quite private."

  "Well, it feels real," grumps Scro. Gol slaps the back of his head, silencing him. "Very real." Nearly silencing him.

  The thaumatists, losing patience, lean towards each other and swell in size until their presence humbles the gathered generals. From a height that even the keen eyes of the warrior caste cannot track, the voice of Zek booms down.

  "The immortal rule of the Duv draws to its inevitable end. No being can live forever. Even the form untouched by decay Denn now holds will one day be destroyed. But our rulers wish to extend their time."

  Bruen stands in shock. The beautiful, powerful Duv, in danger of some kind? The being he remembers had been in the flush of maturity, strong and virile. What possible danger could harm so majestic a being?

  The old ones are not as quiet. Gol and Scro voice aloud the thoughts Bruen cannot. The words of Denn address a different concern. He states them to his fellows rather than the thaumatists.

  "The concerns of the du-, robed ones are valid," he says with eerie calm. "Think on this: are your thoughts as swift as once they were? Mine are not. If our rulers are as old as these thaumatists are suggesting, what then might their minds be like?"

  Scro can do no more than grumble. Behind them, the thaumatists resume their normal size and shape, drifting in loose orbit around the Mos.

  Gol speaks next, considering her words carefully as she does, "Parts of the body can be repaired or replaced. The mind is a more delicate thing. Is this not why we retire those unable to return to the fight? Thousands of seasons of rule by failing minds would be disastrous, I fear."

  Finding his voice, Bruen moves forward. "What then is your plan to stop them? If the Duv take this new form, could their rule not extend that far into the future and doom our kind?"

  "Who said anything about stopping them?" Zek's tendrils ripple with amusement. "No, clutchmate, that is not what we brought you here to discuss."

  Clutchmate? The idea of being from the same spawning as thaumatists sends Bruen reeling. He stumbles back, loses his balance. Strong lower tendrils catch him as he falls.

  "It's true," Denn says softly, holding Bruen. "The rest of the young were given dust. They were casteless, and we needed more healers. You were from that pool, but I needed someone to take care of me. So you remained casteless."

  "Lucky bastard," Zek says, echoing Scro's words. She says them fondly, without malice. "But we all were, really. A lot of hold out spawning pools were deemed," her last word holds all her anger, "unnecessary."

  Bruen frees himself from the grip of dream Denn and backs away a dignified distance. Both he and Denn twist their tendrils in an identical mannerism of unease.

  "Some of them are more realistic," Noll states, resuming the lecture. "The last emperor banned this kind of research. He met his death with dignity. His replacement favors life extension. You three are examples of the research we've done for her."

  "Nuhst's findings, though illegal, are too tempting for the Duv to ignore," explains the fourth thaumatist.

  "What are we here to discuss then?" Scro's irritable complaints spur movements of agreement among the Mos. "Giving the Duv exactly what they want?"

  Zek's answer leaves them all quiet. "Yes, father. And you're going to help us do it."