"-when I got to the top of the ladder, it was *gasp* waiting for me." The Hunter rolled onto his back, his rotund body falling back into the hospital bed's cradling curved harness. "I don't know how it *gasp* knew about the one vulnerable spot on my envirosuit, *gasp* but I didn't have time to react as it cut through the thin seam between *gasp* my breather and collar with one swipe of its razor-sharp claws."

I made a noise in my throat, indicating surprise and a bit of sympathy. "Explosive decompression is an ugly way to die."

"You can't *gasp* tell, but I'm a mess in here." The volus' optics whirred as he focused on me. "I fell from the ladder onto one of my traps *gasp*. When the electrified net closed around my helmet, it shorted out my *gasp* HUD. I could see flashes, nothing more. I panicked. I could feel my skin swelling up and splitting open in the low-pressure atmo *gasp* like rotten fruit. The only reason I survived is one of the estate's guards heard me scream and scream and *gasp* scream."

Inspecting my talons, short and blunt as they are, I wondered if I could do the same as the . . . cat had done. The strike would have to be eminently precise, near surgical. Turning my gaze back to the recovering volus, I asked, "Do you think it was a deliberate action on the cat's part to attack where you were most susceptible?"

"Nothing I observed about its behavior suggested *gasp* sentience, but . . .."

"It wouldn't be the first time one race enslaved another." I finished, feeling a familiar bitterness rise up in me. In my youth, I'd doubted the Primacy's intentions in outsourcing their violence. And there was so much violence. I often mused that the seas of Kahje should be redder.

"The worst part was in between *gasp* the flashes of darkness, when I could see, the cat sat nearby, within arms' reach, taunting me. Staring at me as I *gasp* suffered." The Hunter's voice went warbly with something that tasted of terror. "It seemed to me in those last moments before I *gasp* blacked out, that the very Scourge was upon me, ready to devour my soul."

The volus made a warding gesture at the mention of his race's Great Adversary. I shook my head at the idea that a small fur-bearing beast had so cowed one of my colleagues. I frowned in disapproval. Superstition aside, the Hunter had failed. Stroking my bottom lip with a finger, I advanced on the bed. "How do I know that you do not exaggerate the animal's prowess to cover up your failings?"

Rapid puffing exhalations vented through the volus' breather, accompanied by a low chuffing. I recognized it as a laugh. The Hunter looked at me from behind his inscrutable mask and said, "I would think my current *gasp* disposition would help corroborate my story, Krios. You shall find out for yourself. Perhaps they'll put you in here with me when the *gasp* cat is done with you. Then, you'll see. You'll see."

Scowling, I left.

"We can be roommates. I'll give you my gelatin. It's awful anyway." The Hunter's wheezing chuckles chased after me, filling me with doubts. I shook them free with effort. There was no place for uncertainty in the middle of a job. I banished all thoughts but the Plan. And the execution.

But first, I needed more information.

Memnos raised one elegant cerulean hand to greet me. I came forward to take it and bring it to my lips. As ever, the genteel convention drew a smile out of her. She whispered, "Thane."

"A pleasure to see you again." I eyed her body, wrapped from head to toe in nano-plaster. The damage seemed extensive. I wondered if she'd ever walk again, let alone dance as she once had in my memory. Only her one arm remained free to move about.

"A pleasure, you say? You would have to come see me when I look like this." She pouted at me, reminding me that while lithe and graceful as an acrobat, her best weapon, seduction, had not suffered from whatever calamity had befallen her.

"Whether clad in Shixian silk or these . . . cerements, you are still the loveliest asari I have ever laid eyes on." My flattery did its work well and Memnos' face flushed, the beeping of the heart monitor to my left sped up by an increment. Two can play this game, my tone said. Approval warmed her eyes to a softer grey.

"I do not like that word, 'cerements'. It reeks of the grave. But I appreciate the compliment." As though lounging in her conservatory and not laid up in a small, dismal hospital room, she waved at a nearby chair, inviting me to sit. I did so with a courteous bow. Memnos looked at me askance as she sipped bone-mending nutrients from a long straw. "So what brings you here, my friend? Surely not just to visit me in the hospital. Much as I might dream of it, you've never been very . . . susceptible to my charms."

"Dear lady, your charms are bountiful. Had I not been sworn to fidelity, you know nothing would have kept me from succumbing to your arts." I then sighed. "But you are not wrong. Your charms are not the reason I am here."

"Aw, so you're here on business?" She pretended to look crestfallen, but the mischievous twinkle in her eye belied that impression. "Don't tell me Tevos contacted you, too."

"Indeed."

"Well, perhaps you'll succeed where we failed." A flush on her cheeks indicated a touch of real embarrassment.

I put my hand over hers. "Tell me what happened."

Memnos shot me a crooked smirk. She warned, "It's silly."

"Very little about this job isn't absurd."

"True enough." Her look turned sly. "I'll tell you on one condition."

"Oh?" I prompted with my own smirk. I made my voice husky and dark. "What would you have of me?"

"Thane Krios is offering me whatever I want? What if I desire a tryst? One night of mind-shattering passion with the galaxy's most eligible assassin? Worlds would move!" She turned an eye down to her broken body. "Er, when I'm better, of course."

Having guessed that this would be her request, I still felt a touch of trepidation and guilt. "Is that what you'd seek?"

She laughed. "Much as I'd like to say yes . . .. My pride would never allow me to be 'the other woman.' You can go back to your boring little wife uncompromised. No, I'm an 'all or nothing' kind of girl."

Ignoring the barb against Irikah, I said, "I am well aware that your 'all' sometimes included their lives."

Memnos smiled in recollection, a dimple appearing in one cheek. "It did, didn't it? Well, I can tell you, those men and women died with a smile on their faces."

"And singing your praises, no doubt. So, if not carnal delight, then what do you want?" I leaned forward in my chair, receptive to whatever she might say next.

"So blunt." The asari hummed in amusement. "Mmm, and I'd hoped to play this game for a while longer yet. I get bored, here, all by myself."

"Memnos," I warned.

"Fine." She pointed with her one arm down towards the end of the bed. "You see where the cast ends just above my left ankle?"

"I do."

"There is an . . . itch, that I cannot reach. It's driving me mad. I would be ever so grateful if you'd scratch it. And while you do," she purred, then paused as I moved to accommodate her. Her eyes closed in pleasure, eyelashes fluttering, as I reached up inside the cast and dragged my talons across her skin, light and gentle. Her mouth dropped open in sinful abandon, full and ripe lips quivering. I do not deny a flush along my own skin at the sight. Or a stiffening of a certain appendage. As if suddenly aware of her lapse in conversation, she stuttered, "And-and while y-you do . . .."

"Would you like me to stop so you can think of the rest of that sentence?"

"No, no, don't stop. That's positively heavenly." She moaned, low and soft, then cleared her throat. "Mmm, keep doing that and I'll tell you everything you want to know about anything."

"Easiest interrogation ever," I teased. Then, I led her back to the point of this whole exercise. "And while I do this for you-"

Memnos picked up where I left off, "-I'll tell you how the cunning little beast lured me into a trash compactor."

"If it isn't the Killer Supreme, himself. Fancy seeing you here. Come to see the casualties?" The aged salarian leaned back on his pillows and clasped his hands behind his head. If not for his surroundings, he might be any man at his leisure.

I frowned as I took in his relaxed and flippant greeting. "Czerkis. It has been a long time."

"Yeah, well, time flies when you're having fun." For some reason, that brought a bitter twist to the salarian's mouth. It made the scar that wormed across Czerkis' charcoal cheek writhe in the flourescent light. "I assume you got roped into this contract, as well?"

"You assume correctly." I looked around for evidence of cat-related wounds and found none. "Are you not injured?"

"Oh, you missed the entertaining part. They just took the tube out of my lungs not two hours ago." Czerkis fixed me with a humorless grin. "You know, you come to a fairly unimpressive job and expect things to go smoothly. I mean, how hard can it be to put down one stray animal?"

"I am getting the overall impression that things are not what they seem with this job."

"You're telling me, brother. I should known better. The money was too good." The dark-skinned salarian shook his head. "The money was too damn good. You know I was going to finally be free of my contract with the proceeds?"

I shook my head. No, I did not know that.

"Yeah, thirty years before the mast, man and hatchling. I was going to take up painting. Get some healthy hobbies that don't include stabbing people in the vitals." Czerkis nodded as if agreeing with his own words. He looked off into the middle distance and sighed. "So much for dreams. Now it looks like the Union is going to 'retire' me."

"Can you not make it up with other jobs?"

Czerkis sat up and picked up a datapad hanging at the foot of the bed. He tossed it to me, as he said, "Take a look at my chart. The damn doctors think I can't read their medical jargon, keeping their diagnoses obscured in almost mystical obtuseness. But I understand, oh, do I ever. The salarian in me could have deciphered it in my sleep."

I looked at the notes and saw what he meant. Sifting through the word-y chaff, I caught the important parts. "Impaired respiratory function. Lung capacity down to twenty percent and diminishing."

"I can't even stand without getting winded. It's going to be near impossible for me to ice a mark in this condition."

"Irreversible?"

"I'm not a spry little egg-sucker any more. Can't bounce back like I used to. Even with a transplant, it'll be years before I can work again. Years I don't have and what money I had, I've already pissed away on booze and entertainment. The Union won't let me take on any more debt." Czerkis grunted in dissatisfaction and shrugged. "I don't have the credit."

A harsh system, but nowhere near as callous as the one I grew up in. Not that I planned on enlightening my fellow assassin to the reality of the Compact. Some secrets were better left unattended. "Terrible misfortune. When will they send their cleaners?"

"Oh, they'll let me grow careless before they think to scrub me. Tidier that way." His tone told me he cared little for that. He wanted them to come while he was still able to put up at least a little of a fight. "Less collateral." He spat the word like it tasted sour.

Of the three who'd come before me to this ill-omened venture, I respected Czerkis the most. Only he worked as I did, clean, simple, elegant kills. A true professional. A kindred spirit. I did regret his fate. "Would you honor me by telling me the story?"

He nodded. I watched him compose himself. After a long while, he started, "I knew something was wrong the moment I set foot on the property. It was in the air. My eyes itched, my tongue felt swollen. Five hours, I tracked the animal. I found its haunts and the corpses of the prey it had killed to survive. Some were quite large, easily four times as large as itself. Impressive, to say the least. By this time, my nares became inflamed and started to drip a cloudy fluid. I wadded some field dressing and stuffed my nose with them. It didn't really help. And my eyes watered constantly. No amount of scrubbing and wiping alleviated it."

"You became ill."

"Not like any illness I've ever encountered before. And I lived through the Kepesh Herpes epidemic." Czerkis closed his huge, jewel-like eyes and continued, "I had mucus coming out of every pore in my body by hour seven. I couldn't stalk the beast any more, hadn't even caught a glimpse of it. I decided to retreat and find out what the hell was wrong with me . . ."

The salarian's eyes snapped back open and pinned me where I stood. They blazed with anger and frustration, and the tiniest bit of respect. He raged, "Then the little bastard flew out of an open vent and latched onto my face! It made the worst racket, yowling and shrieking. I inhaled to yell and choked on its spoor. All my earlier discomfort paled in the face of the agony I felt then. My lungs felt like they were on fire! My skin burned, my eyes swelled up and closed. My own tongue tried to suffocate me. I tried to gut the damn thing with my knife, but by then, it had fled. It ran and left me crawling and puking my intestines out. I barely managed to send an emergency message before the seizures started."

I closed my mouth. It had dropped open in shock. "Some natural biological weapon?"

Czerkis laughed. "Nothing so rarified or intentional. They tell me it was severe anaphylactic shock."

A small huff escaped me. "You were allergic to it?"

"In short."

I couldn't help myself, I snorted a laugh. Czerkis joined me, a dry little chuckle that said he didn't take offense to my mirth.

He spoke then, "You watch yourself out there. Don't underestimate it. It's already ended one assassin's career and set back two others'."

"Worry not. I will take all precautions." I moved to leave. "I will take care of it."

"Confident." His tone said, Over-confident.

"I must. For all of our reputations. We can't be known to have failed in killing a cat." I smiled to show I jested. "How would anyone take us seriously ever again?"

"You have a point. Go on, then, avenge our pride."

"I will come visit, after," I promised, with a bow.

"Tell me all about it. I have a feeling life's pleasures will become fewer still in the days ahead."

"Then, for our camaraderie and all I've gained from our long association, I must add what I can to them." With that, I left, feeling both more and less armed against the unknown.