Gorram, this was a long one, especially odd considerin' I completed it so fast. Well, a bit of background onto what happened to poor old Early since he was seen in Objects in Space, an overview of the usefullness of a telepath without compuction to lie, and a new and deadly enemy steps out of the wings, making a short and dramatic appearance.

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One by One

The sun was setting on the sixth day at Eavesdown when the Boss said anything, having spent the last week studiously avoiding everybody except for his little cadre that had sprung up. Early somehow got dragged into it, but still Zane got stuck outside the loop. It was damn irritatin' to always be on the outside. He had been dozing on the ramp for the entire afternoon, having nothing better to do while Jacob made arrangements for fuel that never seemed to arrive. No fuel, no go. No go, no ship.

Something had happened to the crew, of late. Not just Sylvia's penchant for the insane. Certainly not his two-day brush with matrimony which ended with him a widower. Something else. It was like there was a battleline growing down the middle of the ship. He was on one side, Boss and the rest on the other. Only Anne was able to straddle it, but that was mostly due to the other things on the ship she straddled.

His thoughts again drifted to Penelope, and the horrible way she died. He might have come to love her, in time. That angered him more than anything. To have a woman foisted upon him, and him just getting her killed. What sort of husband did that? He didn't even notice how he was finally admitting to be her oh-so-brief husband. Part of this was his fault. He should have protected her.

How he was supposed to do that was another matter entirely. The blood on the floor was shocking, not just from her head-holes, but from the still barely living Early and the two men in suits. That was when Early stepped onto the boss's side of the line, as if it drove him. Zan