It took a long time, but she managed to get her body reasonably clean.

She was cold, half frozen, the chill from the metal she lay on struck up through her flesh into her bones, but she was clean.

Using her feet, she got the pallet turned over, the bottom side was filthy and stained, but hospital hygienic compared to the mess she’d been lying in.

She clamped her teeth on the water tube, used her feet and knees to find the food drip and maneuver it into her mouth, then she slid the pallet over and stretched out on it. It was warmer and softer than the floor, not much but enough. She sucked on the food tube and began to feel almost human.

Kikun, she thought suddenly. I didn’t touch him. Or Rose. Dead? Or what?

She went painstakingly around the hold once more, touching each of the lifesparks. They were all there, except Lissorn who was dead. Ginny was there. His clients. And this time she located Ajeri the Pilot. All there but Kikun. And Autumn Rose.

He slipped them.

Clever little lizard. Took Rose with him. I hope. Unless she’s as dead as Lissorn.

He’ll come after us, I know it. Yes.

All right.

They mean to break me any way they can.

Let them try.

2

She lay and listened, using the ears and eyes of spiders and other small vermin.

She lay and thought.

Slowly, carefully she began building THE PLACE THAT COULD NOT BE TOUCHED.

Slowly, carefully she withdrew HERSELF within THE PLACE, pulling memory and everything else vital to who she was inside the armor she’d built to protect herself from the interrogators that waited for her.

Mindwipe waited for her, where her memories would be evoked then unreeled and dissolved. A competent tech could strip a mind clean in a few hours, yet leave the organic machine intact, the basic intelligence unmarred-or mostly so-ready for reprogramming and resale.