It felt like an eternity passed before Tuck found me.

I could have screamed in sheer relief or broken down and cried or thrown my arms around his neck and hugged him. But I didn't do any of those things; I just stared at him, afraid to believe my eyes.

It was Spike who'd led him to me. Puffans, it turns out, have an excellent sense of smell to go along with their great hearing. She seemed as happy as always.

"It's good to see ya, Bryt," Tuck said softly, smiling.

I quickly joined him at the mouth of the cave. It was night, and almost as dark in the open valley as it was inside the cliff. Tuck was carrying a torch, which surprised me, and that helped some.

"You all right?" he asked me.

I nodded, then found my voice. "Yeah. Are you?" I asked.

"Yup. I've been looking for you for an hour, though."

"How did...how did the jailbreak end up?" I ventured.

"I'm not sure." Tuck grimaced as we walked back along the valley floor. "We freed some. They were quick to react, though. Once they'd set up a barrier there was no escape. I think more made it out of the general prison since the guards all swarmed the officers'. Captain Shay made it out, though. So did Mina. They're up in another cave. We'll stay there for the night and leave in the morning if it's safe. See that black hole ten meters up? The fastest way back to the cave is through there. Think you can climb in just torchlight?"

I nodded, then said, "yes," like before. Tuck held the torch up for me and I grabbed hold of the highest visible handhold. I made sure it was sturdy then pulled myself up.

"Aahh!" I winced in pain. The scab that had formed across my shoulder had split with the strain.

"What's wrong?" Tuck asked. "Oh, Bryt, you're hurt." He looked over my back at the wound.

"It's not deep," I assured him.

"Mina can patch it up for you. She's a medic," he said.

I didn't answer, but kept climbing. It was difficult to scale the cliff in the black night. Sometimes I needed Tuck to pass the torch up to me so I could see to find the next crack or rock jutting out. Sometimes he had to have me hold Spike so he could pull himself higher. But we made it to the cave with no incidents.

Next Tuck led me through a maze of caves and tunnels of which I could never possibly have found my way out again on my own. The one small light helped some, but I still felt my footing out carefully before each step. More than once I wondered if Tuck really knew where he was leading us or was just guessing. I didn't ask him, though.

Finally, I saw a light at the end of a tunnel. At first I thought I was imagining things, but as we got closer I saw that the tunnel opened up into a small cave with a fire burning in the center. I don't know where they'd gotten wood to build a fire, but I didn't really care. The warmth was wonderful, not to mention the light. So was the sense of security, knowing that no Baron could ever find us here.

Unless, of course, they blew up the cliff with their explosive powder.

A man and a woman, both older than Tuck or me, were seated on the floor against the wall of the cave, talking earnestly. The man held his head in his hands, so all I could see was his sandy hair. He wore prison red. The woman looked solemn as she whispered, and had on no trace of prison clothing. None that I recognized, anyway.

She stopped whispering when she heard us walk in. Spike rolled around the fire and playfully butted the woman.

"Can we join this party?" Tuck asked, grinning in his boyish manner as he tossed the torch into the fire. "Meet Brytani Sarliss, everybody. Bryt, Captain Shahan Quent and Mina Quent. Married, of course."

Neither looked happy to meet me. For a moment I was crushed. The Captain, looking very grim for someone who'd just escaped from prison, said dully, "Tuck, Mina has something important she has to tell you."

Mina stood up. I just looked on nervously. She was tall, thin, and pale, with black hair that fell to her shoulders and large, birdlike brown eyes. Her solemn expression didn't change as she said to Tuck, "You'll probably want to sit down." Her voice was soft and gentle.

Tuck remained standing and crossed his arms over his chest, looking unimpressed. "I know," he said evenly. "Seile's dead. We're all just going to have to get over that fact."

Mina looked at the ground. "Yes," she said quietly. "I know they killed Seile. But that's not what I was going to tell you."

"What, then?" Tuck asked indifferently, as if nothing she could say could possibly compare.

"I...I..." her voice wavered. "I'm just going to get this over with. Tuck, I'm not going to be with you and Shay and longer. I'm going to stay here at the prison. I've working as a medic here for weeks now."

I felt my mouth drop open. I tried to close it � this was not my business � but found it hard to do so. How could she do that? I stared in disbelief and awe.

I glanced at Tuck. His mouth had dropped open, too, and he'd sort of backed up into the cave wall. Then he slid down the rough stone and sat on the floor, hard. His expression probably mirrored my own. Finally he just asked, incredulously, "What?"

"I know you're disappointed." Mina was looking at the stony floor in shame. "But you have to understand. You know I never wanted to fight or kill people. I just wanted to help. That's the only reason I became a missioneer � to help make a difference. When I fell in love with Shay it got easier, but only for a little while. I couldn't take the killing anymore. She glanced down at her husband, who was watching her with sad blue eyes. "And I knew someday it would happen to me," she continued. "And to Shay. I was afraid of death."

Tuck closed his mouth, but his eyes narrowed. The Captain nodded faintly in understanding. I had backed into a corner of the cave and just watched, mesmerized, an innocent bystander. Mina continued her story.

"Then when we got captured, and I was separated from Shay, well, I guess I started getting desperate. You know you and I never really got along. And I know your opinion of me sunk to a new low when I refused to participate in that crazy jailbreak you and Seile inspired. Well, you can me a coward however you want to, Tuck, but I didn't want to die! Not yet. Not when I could still do good here. I don't think that sounds so unreasonable." She closed her eyes. "When I saw them kill Seile, that was it �"

At this point Tuck came alive. "You saw them kill her?" he asked, then continued in a pained tone, "What...how...?"

Mina shook her head. "You don't want to know."

"I do."

"No, you don't."

"I do. I owe it to her," Tuck begged.

"She wouldn't have wanted you to know...know what they did to her." Mina looked away. "They humiliated her."

Tuck stood up again, and said in a very quiet, very forceful voice, "The more they humiliated her the greater my respect is for her." His eyes were practically glowing with intensity.

"She'd want to spare your feelings, then," Mina told him.

"I can have bad feelings!"

"No," Mina said firmly. "You don't have to suffer. She wouldn't want you to. No. Tuck, when I saw what they did to her, I just snapped. I didn't know if you'd made it out alive or not. I didn't know whether Shay were still alive. I just knew that one person I loved was dead, and that I didn't want to die the same way."

"That's exactly what they wanted you to think, though," I was shocked to hear myself softly pointing out. "That's why they did the executions publicly � to scare the other prisoners into submission."

I didn't even try to read the expressions the three of them turned on me. Was I wrong? How could I speak out so boldly?

Mina nodded, with what I thought was actually a trace of a smile. "That's what Shay, said, too." She sighed. "It's the truth. And it works. It worked. A few days later, I volunteered myself for medical duty at the prison. They didn't trust me at first, but gradually saw that I was posing no threat. I was helping people. And that's what I'm doing now. This is all I ever wanted � to help people instead of harming them, without lowering myself to joining a pac."

"Oh, really?" Tuck snorted. "But you have no problem with selling out to the enemy."

"I'm not selling out," Mina calmly argued.

"Yes, you are," Tuck stubbornly accused. "For security. For safety. You've abandoned everyone you love to keep your own skin safe."

"I didn't even know if Shay were alive anymore!" Mina protested. "I thought I'd never see him again. To me, he was dead."

"He's right here!" Tuck exploded, holding his arms out. "He's right here in front of your face!"

"But for how long?" Mina's voice wavered. "How long before this happens all over again, or worse?"

"And you're not even willing to take that chance! I always knew you were a coward, but I thought you at least cared �"

"I do care �"

"No, you don't! You've got the man you love sitting inches away from you and you're going to walk away!"

"I told you all my reasons," Mina said defensively.

Tuck spun around and banged his clenched fists against the wall, swearing. Then he turned back and faced Mina, and said very simply, "I'm going to kill you."

I looked up at him sharply, and saw with dread that there was no trace of sanity in his dark eyes.

But Captain Shay's arms were around Tuck's before he could even remove his knife from its sheath. I'd been so focused on reading Tuck's expression that I hadn't seen the Captain move. Tuck struggled, but it was futile.

"Everyone take a deep breath and calm down," the Captain ordered so persuasively that I found myself complying.

Tuck, however, was in no mood to calm down. "She doesn't deserve to live!" he shouted. "You deserve to die, Mina! Let me go!"

"No more than you do, Tuck," she told him in a very quavery, but still firm voice.

"We're supposed to kill Barons, right?" Tuck grunted as he tried to twist away. "So let me kill this Baron!"

"No one is going to kill anyone." The Captain, of course. "Now. If Mina has decided to defect to the other side, we can't stop her. She can make her own decision. But she's the one who'll have to live with herself. For the rest of her life. Years, Mina." His voice was steady, but pained. Tuck still struggled to break free. "Tuck!" Captain Shay roared in exasperation. Then his voice returned to normal volume. "What do you think Seile would do?"

Tuck finally stopped fighting and looked at him, then looked away, and said, "She'd make her live with her own disgusting self." The Captain released him and he stalked away, pressing himself into the back wall of the cave, as far from Mina as possible.

Captain Shay sighed. "Mina, I think this would be a good time for you to go. Take a torch. Can you find your way out?"

"I'll manage," she said through her teeth, as she carefully extinguished the flames from a stick halfway burned and relit only the tip.

Mina walked past me and stood in the entrance. For a moment she just stared into Shay's eyes. I wondered what they were saying to each other. And also whether they still knew each other well enough to talk without using words. I was sorry the Captain's last glimpse of his wife had to be like this.

"I won't tell them you're here," were Mina's final words to her former teammates.

As her footsteps faded down the dark corridor, I knew she could still hear Tuck shouting after her, "Oh, thank you! Thank you for taking the risk that your new allies will find out! Thanks for risking yourself for us, Mina! How can we ever thank you enough?"

Tuck yelled for awhile more, but he'd basically given up. The Captain stared after her for a long moment, and then sat down against the back wall next to his underling. All I could see in his blue eyes was depression. As for me, I was still watching from the corner, bewildered. This had certainly been the most bizarre day of my life.

When Tuck had finally calmed down, Captain Shay gripped him by the shoulder and looked at him pointedly. I noticed that reason had returned to Tuck's face.

"You okay?" the Captain asked him darkly, a blend of disgust, hatred, and sympathy in his voice.

"Yeah." Tuck looked at the ground, then asked, "Are you?"

Captain Shay just smiled a little. "I'm free," he said. Then his smile became grimmer. "In multiple ways."

"Hey, maybe we'll see her again," Tuck mused, but his voice was not entirely sympathetic. "Maybe she'll even join up with our side again." He stepped away from his Captain's grasp.

Captain Shay just looked at him, his expression unreadable.

"Think about it," Tuck continued. "Especially if we start winning battles around here. Maybe raid the prison often enough and it'll become too dangerous for her. I'll bet she'd come with us, then."

"Don't push it, Tuck," Captain Shay warned, standing up and grabbing his teammate by the shoulders again.

"Don't you think it's something she'd do? It does sound like Mina. She'd be a traitor to whatever side she's on. Just keep switching back and forth. Look, she's already started by not telling the Barons where their enemies are lurking in the cliffs."

"Tuck, shut up!" I told him, exasperated.

Tuck just turned to Captain Shay. "Why couldn't you have done the planet a favor and let me kill her?"

That, apparently, was over the line. By the time he'd finished talking, the Captain's fist had swung around and caught him on the side of the head. A second later, Tuck slumped to the ground and lay there, unconscious.

The Captain knelt down by this underling, then looked up at me with a small, sheepish smile. "I didn't mean to hit him that hard," he said.

"He's had a long day," I said, doing my best to sound reassuring, though I was smiling, too.