Carrie slept lightly, on the edge of wakefulness as always when Elise was working at Geshader, the Alien Pleasure City. Despite the sleeping pill and her sister's mental block, vague images from Elise drifted through her sleeping mind, interweaving themselves with her dreams.

Once more dwarfed by the size of her parents, she tossed and turned in a sweat-soaked bed, moaning in agony as they and the doctor probed and pressed the livid bruises on her back and arm, looking for a more serious injury that didn't exist... for her. Then they thought to check her twin.

They found Elise sitting placidly with her right arm at an impossible angle and blood from the lacerations on her back slowly seeping through her clothes into the sofa. She had been the one who had fallen out of a tree.

Carrie had hardly felt the sting of the hypodermic amidst the fire in her back and arm.

"It's the damnedest thing. Her sister has no sense of pain," she'd heard the doctor's voice boom as she began to slip into unconsciousness.

"It hurts," she whimpered, stirring fretfully in her bed.

Monsters lurked in the fever dream, lizards of gray-green on two legs, lumbering slowly after her with a ponderous determination as, utterly terrified, she fled down echoing corridors.

"Stop!" The voice was low and sibilant, the English distorted by a tongue not made to form the words.

She hesitated, every muscle still poised for flight, staring back to where her pursuers waited for her.

"Tell us where they are hiding," one demanded.

An invisible hand closed viciously on Carrie's wrist, non-retractable claws pressing into her flesh. She jerked free, her other hand pressed to her mouth as the scene blurred.

"Valtegans," she moaned, drops of blood pearling on her wrist and dropping to the coverlet.

She dreamed again of standing shivering in her underwear as she stowed her clothes in the small locker beside the coffin-shaped sleep pod, the chill caused by more than the lack of heating in the cryo level. Then lying down on the form-shaped interior, waiting for the medic to come and attach her to the life-support and cryogenic systems.

Carrie glanced at her brother Richard before turning to grin nervously at Elise through the clear perspex sides as sensor pads were attached. Their parents hovered at the ends of their pods, anxiously waiting until all three children were safely asleep.

She jumped as a hand touched her.

"Don't worry. It's only a sedative to help you relax," smiled the crew woman, fixing the small adhesive patch to her arm. "Next thing you know, you'll be waking up in orbit around our new home."

"Just to remind you, the system is automatic so there is very little you have to do. If you turn your head to the right, you'll see it's printed on the plaque there."

"The main thing to remember when you wake up is to press that red button to release the pod cover, then take off the sensors. After that, you'll hear the instructions on the speakers."

Already she could barely make out the woman's voice.

"Sleep soundly, children. I love you," was the last thing she heard her mother say.

The cover slid into place over her and she began to drift gently, imagining herself surrounded by a soft, warm, gray mist.

Suddenly she was jolted to awareness by the sting of the hypo on her sister's arm.

The drug swept through Carrie's system, burning its way along her nerves, setting them on fire until her whole body was convulsed with spasms. She tried to fight it, to open her eyes, but all she could see were colors swirling around her until her stomach was heaving with vertigo. She felt herself slipping... slipping...

"Mother!" she had screamed, her mind and body trapped in the slow time cold hell of cryogenics, unable to do anything as she felt at last her mother's blind terror at waking too soon.

She could sense her beating futilely at the walls of the cryo pod, trapped like a butterfly transfixed by a pin as she tried desperately to activate the release mechanisms that were locked in stasis.

Her mother's movements quickly grew sluggish, finally stopping as the limited air supply in the pod ran out.

"Mother! Don't leave me!" Carrie screamed, desperately fighting the effects of the drug that this time dragged her down into darkness.

Carrie felt herself pushed and pulled in every direction. Scaled faces loomed at her out of the dim light, clawed hands grasped at her, pawed at her, making her flesh recoil from their sharp, cool touch. She stumbled against bodies that thrust her away to fall to the ground, only to be dragged to her feet again. Noise surrounded her, loud, sibilant voices shouting. Like the images, the sounds faded in and out with her consciousness.

"We have to fight them, Carrie. I can't do it passively like Dad. I'm leaving to join the guerrillas. The Valtegans are soldiers, not civilians, and they're Alien. We can't appeal to their better nature because they haven't got one."

"I'm leaving now, tonight, for Geshader."

"Geshader? But..."

"Don't try to change my mind, Carrie," Elise warned quickly, "it's made up. As one of the women in their pleasure city, I can get close to the officers, a thing no man can do. And once I'm with them, I'm sure I can get access to all sorts of useful information."

"But to become one of the prostitutes... and with them! How could you?"

Elise gave her a wry grin. "Come off it, Carrie. It's the oldest profession going, and the women from Geshader that I've talked to say it isn't that bad."

"It isn't as if we can't keep in touch. There's our link after all."

"You just take care, for both our sakes!"

"Do you mind too much? You know the risks we face, don't you?"

"I know," Carrie nodded, "but you're the one taking the real risks. I'll cope somehow. Jack Reynolds is used to us by now."

"At least you didn't pick up much when I was with that lad from Seaport this spring," her twin grinned, "so with any luck you'll be spared my 'working experiences.'"

Her voice faded, leaving only the impression of the grin behind.

"It's the only way I could fight them, Carrie."

Figures jostled her again, dark red light on pallid skins, rough claws digging into her arms, drawing blood. Again, every nerve flared with excruciating pain and she tried to arch her body away from it, but she only succeeded in cracking her head against the wall. Stunned, she heard her own scream as if from far away as her hands tried to grasp for something concrete-- anything-- to help her hold onto reality. She was aware of a sudden warmth running down her right arm. Blood.

Shock and fear brought her briefly out of her twin's world of pain. Blood. Dear God, there had never been blood before!

Footsteps pounded along the landing and her door burst open. Dimly she saw her father and brother standing there, their faces blanching when they saw the state she was in.

She lifted her head up from the floor and tried to disentangle herself from her bedding but only succeeded in slipping in her own blood.

"They've got Elise," she said, her voice made blurry by drugs and pain.

While the pain continued, she knew that Elise was still alive. When that stopped, her sister would probably be dead. Carrie began to whimper again, a low-pitched animal sound. Pain flickered through her body, but it no longer seemed to burn so fiercely. She lay there unthinking for the moment, thankful for the brief respite, while knowing the worst was not yet over.

Two days before, the Valtegans had seized Elise; two days and nights of torment for Carrie. Her one comfort had been the knowledge that nothing they could do would make her sister reveal anything about the Terrans' resistance movement on Keiss.

Elise was not particularly brave, it was more that she possessed no sense of pain. Born the stronger of the two, she had never had to suffer the hurts of childhood. Instead, in some strange way, it was Carrie who had suffered the agonies of her twin's broken arm, or the fever of some illness. As in the past, Carrie was the one suffering now.

She could feel Elise, a faint but unmistakable presence in the depths of her mind.

If I want to survive, I must remain detached, Carrie thought. Blank. I must keep my mind blank.

Slowly, she tried to edge out the consciousness that was Elise, pushing her sister down from the surface of her own thoughts. The response was immediate. Waves of fear began spreading upward, catching her unaware and pulling her back into that other life.

She cried out, flinging herself from side to side in an effort to escape the welter of pain that began to course through her fever-wracked body. Would they never stop questioning Elise?

Strong hands grasped her, pressing her down, but still she thrashed from side to side.

"My God, she's got some strength!"

"I'm afraid we might lose her, Peter. Even if she doesn't go catatonic as she did after the death of her mother, her system can't take much more."

The voice sounded faint and far away, receding farther until all the reality she knew was the awful shriek that echoed inside her head.

Abruptly, it stopped, and the terrible emptiness rushed in. That part of her mind where Elise lived was a void. There was no more pain or fear, just emptiness. Total panic overwhelmed her and she began to scream.

"She's dead! Elise is dead!"

All reason left her. She ignored the feelings of disintegration as mentally she stretched herself thinly in every direction, searching frantically for something to hold on to. Never since the moment of her birth had her mind been hers alone. Elise had always been there. Racing through every part of her mind, she checked over and over again, unable to believe her sister was gone, but there was nothing. Not a trace remained.

She opened her mouth to scream her disbelief-- then stopped in astonishment. Like a faint glow from a dying candle, she could feel something in the corner of her mind. She reached for it, nursing it carefully, hardly daring to hope, but the thoughts were totally alien to her. Mentally she drew back, feeling the blind terror surging in once more, but the new personality clung to her, refusing to be ignored. Against her will, she felt herself being held and examined. In return, she could sense its surprise at the contact.

As if it understood her fears and terror, it began to reassure her, sending only thoughts of comfort and friendship.

Exhausted, Carrie began to relax, letting a sweet lassitude steal over her. Within moments she was asleep.