bag he was carrying, which fell over with a loud clank.
Jack gasped, staring at her husband with obvious disbelief. “Do you mean to tell me that I knew before you did?”
“Possibly,” Cat said with a note of caution in his voice. “How did you find out?”
Klara cleared her throat. “I, um, told her.” She gave Moe an apologetic smile. “I probably should’ve waited until we could tell your parents together, but—”
“You broke under the interrogation,” Moe said with a nod. “I’m not surprised. Just wish I’d been there to hear it.”
“I needed to be brought up to speed in a hurry.” Jack patted Klara’s shoulder. “No worries, kid. You did great.” Taking a step back, she shook her head slowly as she eyed Klara from head to foot. “Still can’t believe you’re Trag’s daughter—and half Davordian to boot. Amazing.”
Klara hadn’t felt at such a disadvantage since her first encounter with a Nedwut posse. “Don’t suppose he’ll believe it, either.”
“Figure of speech,” Jack said with a dismissive wave. “With hair like that, I don’t see how he can possibly deny the connection. I’m sure there’s a fascinating story behind all this, too.”
“Dunno how fascinating it is, but there is a story,” Klara admitted. “Maybe we could talk about it later.”
“Righto,” Jack said. “First things first. Gotta get this bird chained up and”—she aimed a sideways glance at Val—“I’m guessing you’re just dying to do the honors. Right?”
“Not precisely dying,” Val replied. “But it would give me a great deal of pleasure to chain him as I was once chained.”
Jack barked out a laugh. “Don’t blame you a bit.”
Moe gathered up the canvas bag and dumped the contents onto the floor. Removing a small box from the pile, he aimed a questioning look at his parents. “Do you remember how to work the remote control?”
“I have not forgotten that, either.” Cat lifted a brow as he glanced at his wife. “Righty tighty, lefty loosey?”
Jack nodded. “I wouldn’t bother with the genital cuff. Although I suppose you could use it to clip his wings together.”
“An excellent suggestion,” Val said as he and Moe proceeded to apply the cuffs to Pelarus’s wrists, ankles, and neck. After that, they rolled him onto his belly, pulled his wings back, and fastened them together.
Klara moved closer to scrutinize the cuff that was clamped around the hinge joint in his wings. “Looks like that would be kinda painful.”
“Very painful,” Val said with a grim smile. “He won’t be flying again anytime soon. Perhaps never.”
“Good,” she said. “Let’s get him out of here.”
Using another remote control, Cat maneuvered the platform next to their captive, then Moe and Val rolled Pelarus onto it.
Moe straightened up and dusted off his hands. “The trick will be getting him out of here without the mob tearing him apart.”
“True,” Klara said. “Handing him over certainly wouldn’t be the humane thing to do, although he probably deserves anything they could dish out.”
“Let’s not get too bloodthirsty,” Moe cautioned. “We still need some information from him.” He glanced at Val. “That is, if you think you’ll need it.”
“Perhaps not,” Val replied. “If he was indeed headed to Orpheseus, I can think of only one place where he would have stashed the, ah, loot.”
Jack huffed out a breath. “If there’s any loot to be had. Wouldn’t surprise me if he hasn’t spent it all.” She pointed toward the main control panel. “That equipment is state-of-the-art, and this is a pretty nice ship, even if it is Scorillian. And you did say he lives in a palace.”
“Yes,” Moe acknowledged. “But the gods only know how much he’s spent versus how much he’s invested. He’s been at this for a long time. Claims he’s the second clone of himself.”
“He must be really hard on a body if he needs to do that,” Jack remarked. “I mean, Ilya Zolo isn’t that old.”
Moe shrugged. “Maybe he discards a body as soon as it starts to age. It’s also possible that someone other than Zolo cloned him the first time around.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Jack said. “God knows there’ve always been plenty of unscrupulous people who’ll do anything for a buck.”
“He’s been cloned twice?” The shock of that revelation had rendered Klara momentarily speechless, but she was beginning to recover. She’d always thought of Pelarus as being older than herself—and her mother—but until the past few days, she hadn’t seen him up close. The man they had chained up couldn’t have been more than forty years old. “No wonder not many