"I feel like I'm going to have a stroke," Olma said as she poked around the work bench in Harper's machine shop. Rhade watched from the door as Harper busied himself repairing a component on a counter.

"It is a bit of a mess," Rhade lamented.

Olma smirked at him. "Oh, please. You were no better as a boy, and you know it." She turned to Harper: "Don't let him give you a hard time, Seamus. There isn't a Nietzschean boy's room that doesn't look like this. Trust me. Especially on asteroids or drifts - they're all thruster heads, even after they discover girls."

Rhade grumbled. "I was undisciplined then."

Harper chuckled.

"No," Olma said, "I was referring to K'Elyr's hybrid DNA. The very idea-" She broke off and pulled a small box from the folds of her gown. "Excuse me, but would you boys mind if I scanned your DNA? I just need to see a bit of normalcy."

Rhade shrugged and rolled up his sleeve.

Olma passed the box over his hand. It beeped and she read the small screen. "What I figured. Your turn, Seamus."

Harper rolled up his sleeve and noticed the scanner as she passed it over his arm. "Never saw that model DNA sniffer before," he said.

"I made it myself years ago," Olma said.

"Really?"

"Really. Any matriarch worth her salt makes, maintains, and zealously guards her own equipment. A genetic scan is usually the last hurdle between a Nietzschean male itching to mate and another wife, so you can see why-" The box beeped. She read the screen and whistled. "Wow! You really are a purebred human - no trace of any engineering."

"You expected otherwise?" Harper said.

"Well, Tyr said you bragged about being a purebred, but most everybody has some trace of some engineering. Your family had to stay pure for several generations to have bread anything out."

"Yep." Harper paused. "So Tyr Anasleezy say anything else about me?"

"Many good things. According to him, you're a pain in the neck, but you are loyal, trustworthy when it counts, and the best engineer he ever saw. He was impressed with you creativity and skill. Let me see….he mentioned one invention I found interesting. He called it a 'shriller.'"

"Yeah, I think I have a couple." Harper started looking through drawers.

Andromeda's hologram appeared. "Harper?" She pointed at a wall cabinet.

"I was going to look there next," Harper said. The holo vanished has he opened the cabinet and fished out a shriller. "Here ya go." He handed Olma the tiny gadget.

She began to fiddle with it. "How do you-" It emitted a high screech, barely loud enough to bother Harper, but both Nietzscheans grabbed their ears; Olma dropped the shriller.

Harper picked it up and turned it off. "My day is complete," he grinned.

Rhade growled.

"Wow!" Olma said. "That would be effective." She gingerly took it from Harper and examined it. "Ah, I see the controls. And you engraved your initials on it. May I keep this? I have a thing for concealable, unorthodox weapons."

"Really?" Harper said.

"Yes," Olma said. "They come in very handy, especially if one is underestimated." She wrapped her arms around herself; her bone blades tucked down against her arms. "Please don't hurt me, kind sir," she said in a pleading voice. "I'm just a little old widow woman."

Harper laughed. "That is good. Almost got me."

"Sometimes guile is more valuable than brute force; never be afraid to play to your strengths. The key is to be honest with yourself about what they really are." She took another look at the shriller. "Tyr said you made these when you were a boy, to harass the Dragon's Boston Garrison."

"Yeah, me, my cousin Brendan, and our buddy Isaac. He was killed when the Nietzscheans sent a whole platoon after us."

"Do you know why the Dragons came down on you so hard, Seamus?"

"Other than being general scum bags? No offense, Olma."

"Why should I be offended, Lad? Compared to what Nietzscheans say about the Drago Kasov, you were being kind. But no, there is a specific reason. You remember who commanded the garrison at the time?"

"Kinda sorta. Some Slavic name."

"Well, he was a most unpleasant man by any standard. His idea of entertainment was to have humans publicly hung, drawn, and quartered. Not my idea of a good time, and he may have been aroused by it."

Harper grimaced. "Yeah, I heard some strange stories about him."

"And you heard what was fit for human consumption, in more ways than one," Olma said. "In any case, the night of your first attack, the commandant was hosting some V. I. P.'s - the newest fleet marshal was touring the major slave worlds in the Drago Kasov empire. As I understand it, Boston's garrison was also the command post for Nietzschean forces in that quadrant of North America and the North Atlantic as far as Greenland."

"Yep," Harper said.

"So, they had just finished eating at a state dinner in the marshal's honor," Olma went on, "and the commandant was giving a speech, bragging about his accomplishments and how they had managed to suppress human rebellions when one of your shrillers went off right outside his window."

Harper laughed. "You serious?" he managed.

Olma nodded.

"I think I set that one off," Harper went on. "Whoo wee….I remember there was a lot of commotion, but I didn't think anymore of it."

"Oh, there was more than commotion, Seamus - he put the whole planet on high alert! Went on and on how this had to be the lead unit on an attack on the Drago Kasov pride. So he had his soldiers lay in wait for another attack, and when it happened, they pounced. And what did they find? A human boy-your friend. And when they took his shriller apart, they discovered it had been made with parts stolen - or reported stolen - from human-owned electronics shops."

Harper couldn't stop laughing. "I didn't know that. I shouldn't…I mean, it wasn't funny when Isaac was killed….but maaaaannnn…."

Rhade said, "I gather the commandant was executed?"

"No, commander," Olma answered, "worse: he was reassigned to the north polar ice cap. On Mars."

Harper laughed again. "Man…knowing that is worth it. Thanks. Anything else I can do for you?" He sounded genuinely friendly, no lewdness at all.

"Just one question," Olma said. "Your name, Harper. It's Gaelic in origin, isn't it?"

"Old Earth Irish," Harper said. "Boston has always had a huge Irish community, going all the way back to its founding, thousands of years ago."

"There are humans of Irish descent on Nua Eireann as well. Would you have any relatives there?"

"Nua Eireann?" Harper asked, surprised. He turned testy: "Uh, no, sorry, no relations off Earth."

"Are you sure?" Olma asked.

"Yes!" Harper snapped. He calmed down. "I'm sorry, Olma, but I have a lot of work to do."

"Of course. I won't keep you any longer."

After Olma and Rhade had left, Harper paced his cage in the middle of the room. Then he picked up a small part and hurled it against the wall.

Andromeda's hologram appeared. "Harper-?"

"Not now!" Harper snapped. "Sorry. I need some space. Just a few minutes."

"Privacy mode again," the hologram said, not hiding her puzzlement over her engineer's attitude. But she still vanished.