"has tricks that make me look like a lamb." Hop wondered vaguely what a lamb was.
"There are different kinds of pain," Arran said quietly. "Maybe you can take this kind without breaking. I'm sure of it."
"What kind of pain can you take?" Hop asked.
"I can keep smiling when I want to kill. I can seduce a man I loathe. I can spend six months without a single moment of privacy, waking, sleeping, or going to the bathroom. I can endure lovers who feel only contempt for me and pretend that I love every minute of it."
Hop didn't feel like making a clever answer, and Jazz patted her shoulder gently. "All right, and you held up pretty damned well when I was hitting you, too."
"What are you going to do with me now?" Arran asked.
"Sit and watch you, I suppose, until suppertime," Jazz said.
"She needs a doctor," Hop offered.
Jason shook his head. "If we try to take her out of here now, she'll need a mortician. Her whole flat's probably full of troops, searching for her everywhere. If they find her, the law lets them kill her. She did try to poison one of Mother's officers of the fleet."
"Does that mean we can never leave here?"
"It means we'll stay here awhile, Hop. Try to be patient. We'll be through with this before your waking's over. You won't lose any sleep."
"And when we leave, what'll we do? Report on this Farl Baak?"
"Whom do you report a Cabinet minister to? God?"
"What'll we do, then?"
"I want to find out what Baak is really up to. There is no somec plot, and I'm certainly not part of one even if there is. So there must be some reason all those wakings were timed to my arrival. I mean to find out."
"She was probably lying."
"She wasn't."
"You sound pretty sure of that."
"I plan to find out who's behind the plot to kill me. And what his real reasons are. And then I'm going to kill the bastard."
"That's the Jason Worthing I've known and loved," Hop said.
Hours later, Jason decided it was safe for him to go look for Arran's private doctor. She told him how to get out, and to Hop's surprise he believed her immediately. Apparently he was a better judge of people than Hop.
The doctor confirmed that the rib was, indeed, broken. The shock was dangerous, the doctor said. They should have got immediate medical attention. Jason didn't bother explaining that it would have been impractical, and so Hop also kept quiet. And not even Arran hinted as to how she had broken the rib, or what she was doing naked in a secret room. Either the doctor was very good at hiding his curiosity, or he had done all this before. He left without asking for a credit card, either. Hop decided he had to look into the idea of getting a private physician.
Jason had picked up a full outfit of clothing for Arran. He had chosen from her wardrobe in the flat an outfit loose enough to fit over the bandages the doctor had told her she would have to wear for at least six hours until the growth hormone wore off. "Otherwise," he had said, "you'll have a very odd - shaped chest, which might hurt business." Jason had also found a shirt and jacket that made his military pants look a little less like a uniform.
And Hop got his topjacket back. "Well, dressed for the evening and nowhere to go," he said.
"Arran will tell us where to go," Jazz said.
"I don't know any hiding places outside my flat."
"I don't want a hiding place. I want you to take us to Farl Baak," Jazz said.
She gasped. "He'll kill you."
"He doesn't really care if I'm dead, Arran. He only wants to make sure I won't interfere with him. But what if I'm on his side in this little rebellion?"
She shook her head. "He won't believe you."
"Maybe not. Let's go see."
"I don't want you dead."
"Why the sudden change of heart?" Jason asked.
Arran suddenly made her face ugly. The woman can look downright natural, Hop realized. "Because even a bitch like me is capable of realizing that you had every right to kill me and instead you saved my life."
"Only in order to get information from you," Jazz said.
"If that were true," Arran answered, "I'd be dead now. You know how to get to Farl's place. You don't need me."
"I don't want to go in the front door."
She sighed. "Now that my ribs are healing,