Deep beneath the city grottoes on Ix, the hot subterranean tunnels were illuminated red and orange. Generations ago, Ixian architects had drilled field-lined pits into the molten mantle of the planet, bottomless shafts that served as hungry mouths for industrial waste. The thick air smelled of acrid chemicals and sulfur.

Suboid workers sweated through twelve-hour shifts beside automated conveyors that dumped debris over the lip into the brimstone fires. Robed Tleilaxu guards stood perspiring, bored and inattentive. Dull-faced laborers tended the conveyors, removing items of value, gleaning bits of precious metal, wires, and components from wreckage torn out of scrapped factories.

On the job, C’tair Pilru stole what he could.

Unnoticed on the line, the young man was able to snag several valuable crystals, tiny power sources, even a microsensor grid. After the Sardaukar raid on the freedom fighters two months earlier, he no longer had a network to supply him with the technological items he needed. He was all alone in his battle now, but he refused to concede defeat.

For two months he’d lived in paranoia. Though he still had a few peripheral contacts in the port-of-entry grottoes and the resource-processing docks, all the rebels C’tair knew, all the black marketeers he’d dealt with, had been slaughtered.

He kept a desperately low profile, avoiding his previous haunts, afraid that one of the captured and interrogated rebels had provided some clue to his identity. Out of contact with even Miral Alechem, he went deeper underground, literally, than he had ever gone before, working on a labor gang in the refuse-disposal shafts.

Beside him, one of the disposal workers fidgeted too much, glanced around too often. The man sensed intelligence in C’tair, though the dark-haired man studiously avoided him. He made no eye contact, did not initiate conversation, though his work partner clearly wanted to make a connection. C’tair suspected the man was another refugee pretending to be much less than he actually was. But C’tair could afford to trust no one.

He maintained his dull demeanor, pondering a shift in jobs. A curious work partner could be dangerous, perhaps even a Face Dancer mimic. C’tair might need to flee before anyone closed in on him. The Tleilaxu had systematically wiped out the Ixian middle class as well as the nobles, and would not rest until they had ground even the dust under their boot heels.

Accompanied by a Master, robed guards approached them one afternoon in the middle of a shift. With hair hanging limp in front of his fatigued eyes, C’tair was drenched in sweat. His curious work mate stiffened, then concentrated furiously on the task at hand.

C’tair felt cold and sick. If the Tleilaxu had come for him, if they knew who he was, they would torture him for days before executing him. He tensed his muscles, ready to fight. Perhaps he could throw several of them down into the one-way magma pit before he himself was killed.

Instead, the guards stepped up to the fidgety man beside C’tair. Leading them, a Tleilaxu Master rubbed his spidery fingers together and smiled. He had a long nose and a narrow chin; his grayish skin looked as if it had been leached of all life. “You, Citizen— suboid . . . or whatever you are. We have discovered your true identity.”

The man looked up quickly, glanced over at C’tair as if beseeching him for help, but C’tair studiously averted his gaze.

“There’s no longer any need to hide,” the Master continued in a syrupy voice. “We’ve found records. We know that you were actually an accountant, one of those who kept inventories of Ixian-manufactured items.”

The guard clapped a hand on the man’s shoulders. The worker squirmed, panicked. All pretense slid away.

The Tleilaxu Master stepped closer, more paternal than threatening. “You misjudge us, Citizen. We have expended a great deal of effort to track you down because we have need of your services. We Bene Tleilax, your new masters, require intelligent workers to assist us in our government headquarters. We could use someone with your mathematical expertise.”

The Master gestured around the hot, stinking chamber. The clatter of the automated conveyor rolled on, dumping rocks and twisted scraps of metal over the lip into the blazing pit. “This work is far beneath your skills. Come with us, and we will give you something much more interesting and worthwhile to do.”

With a thin smile of hope, the man nodded faintly. “I’m very good at accounting. I could help you. I could be very valuable. You have to run this like a business, you know.”

C’tair wanted to scream a warning. How could the man be so stupid? If he’d survived for a dozen years under Tleilaxu oppression, how could he not be aware of such an obvious trick?

“There, there,” the Master said. “We’ll have a council meeting, and you can tell us all your ideas.”

The guard looked sharply at C’tair, and the Ixian’s heart froze again. “Is our business of concern to you, Citizen?”

C’tair made every effort to keep his face slack, not to show fear in his eyes, to keep his voice slow and dull. “Now there’ll be more work for me.” He looked forlornly at the assembly line.

“Then work harder.”

The guard and the Tleilaxu Master took their captive away. C’tair went back to his labors, staring at the debris, picking over every item before it toppled into the long shaft. . . .

Two days later, C’tair and his work shift were ordered to gather out on the floor of the main grotto so they could watch the execution of the accountant “spy.”

When he accidentally stumbled upon Miral Alechem during his monotonous daily routine, C’tair covered his surprise well.

He had changed jobs again, nervous by the arrest of the hidden accountant. He never used the same identity card more than two days in a row. He moved from assignment to assignment, enduring a few curious looks, but Ixian workers knew better than to question. Any stranger could well be a Face Dancer who had infiltrated work gangs in an attempt to pick up talk of unrest or secret sabotage plans.

C’tair had to bide his time and make new plans. He frequented different food stations, standing in long lines where bland cooked fare was distributed to the workers.

The Tleilaxu had put their biological technology to work, creating unrecognizable food in hidden vats. They grew vegetables and roots by splitting cells so that the plants produced only shapeless tumors of edible material. Eating became a process rather than a pleasurable activity, as much a chore as the routine tasks during a shift.

C’tair remembered times he had spent in the Grand Palais with his father, the Ambassador to Kaitain, and his mother, an important Guild Bank representative. They had sampled outworld delicacies, the finest appetizers and salads, the best imported wines. Such memories seemed like fantasies now. He could not recall what any of that food had tasted like.

He straggled at the end of the line so that he did not have to fight the press of other workers. When he received his helping from the server, he noticed the large dark eyes, raggedly cropped hair, and narrow but attractive face of Miral Alechem.

Their gazes locked and recognition flashed between them, but both knew enough not to speak. C’tair glanced behind him toward the seating areas, and Miral raised her spoon. “Sit at that table, worker. It’s just come free.”

Without questioning, C’tair sat at the indicated place and began eating. He concentrated on his meal, chewing slowly to give her all the time she needed.

Before long, the line ended and the food shift was over. Finally, Miral came over, bearing her own food tray. She sat down, stared at her bowl, and began eating. Although C’tair did not look directly at her, they soon began a mumbled conversation, moving their lips as little as possible.

“I work at this food distribution line,” Miral said. “I’ve been afraid to change assignments because it might draw attention to me.”

“I have lots of identity cards,” C’tair said. He had never given her his correct name, and he was going to leave it that way.

“We are the only two left,” Miral said. “Of the whole group.”

“There will be others. I’ve still got a few contacts. For now, I’m working alone.”

“Can’t accomplish much that way.”

“Can’t accomplish anything at all if I’m dead.” When she slurped her food and didn’t answer, he continued, “I’ve been fighting alone for twelve years.”

“And you haven’t accomplished enough.”

“It will never be enough until the Tleilaxu are gone and Ix has been returned to our people.” He clamped his lips together, afraid he had spoken too vehemently. He took two slow mouthfuls from his bowl. “You never told me what you were working on, those technological items you were scavenging. Do you have a plan?”

After glancing at him, Miral quickly tore her glance away. “I’m building a detection device. I need to find out what the Tleilaxu are doing in that research pavilion they keep so carefully guarded.”

“It’s scan-shielded,” C’tair mumbled. “I’ve already tried.”

“That is why I need a new device. I think . . . I think that facility is the reason behind their entire takeover.”

C’tair was startled. “What do you mean?”

“Have you noticed that the Tleilaxu experiments have entered a new phase? Something very dark and unpleasant is happening.”

C’tair paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth, looked over at her, and glanced down at his nearly empty bowl. He would need to eat more slowly if he wished to finish this conversation without anyone noticing.

“Our women have been disappearing,” Miral said with a slash of anger in the back of her voice. “Young women, fertile and healthy. I’ve watched them vanish from the work rolls.”

C’tair had not remained in one place long enough to notice details like that. He swallowed hard. “Are they abducted for Tleilaxu harems? But why would they take ‘unclean’ Ixian women?”

Supposedly, no outsider had ever seen a Tleilaxu female; he’d heard that the Bene Tleilax guarded their women zealously, protecting them from the contamination and perversions of the Imperium. Maybe Tleilaxu women were kept hidden because they were as gnome-ugly as the men.

Could it just be a coincidence that the missing females were all healthy and of childbearing age? Such women would make the best concubines . . . but the mean-spirited Tleilaxu did not seem the type who would indulge in extravagant sexual pleasures.

“I think the answer has something to do with what’s going on in that shielded pavilion,” Miral suggested.

C’tair set his spoon down. He only had one bite left in his bowl. “I know this much: The invaders came here with a terrible purpose, not just to take over our facilities or conquer this world. They have another agenda. If they simply wanted to take over Ix for their own profit, they would not have dismantled so many factories. They would never have ceased production of the new-design Heighliners, reactive fighting meks, and other products that brought a fortune to House Vernius.”

With a nod, she said, “I agree. They intend to accomplish something else— and they’re doing it behind shields and closed doors. Perhaps I’ll learn what it is.” Miral finished her meal and stood up. “If I do, I’ll let you know.”

After she left, C’tair felt a glimmer of hope again for the first time in many months. At least he wasn’t the only one fighting the Tleilaxu. If one other person was involved in the effort, others must be forming pockets of resistance as well, here and there. But he hadn’t heard of anything happening, not for months.

His hopes sagged. He couldn’t stand the thought of waiting for the right opportunity, day after day, week after week. Perhaps he’d been thinking too small. Yes, he needed to change tactics and contact someone outside for assistance. He would have to reach off-world, no matter what the risk might be. He needed to search for powerful allies to help him overthrow the Tleilaxu.

And he knew of one person who had far more at stake than he did.