He had awakened that morning after a troubled night’s sleep with the knowledge that it was the seventh day of his ten day allotment for finding and delivering the berezi, and he was no closer to accomplishing his task than he had been on day one. He had crawled wearily out of his sleeping chamber and donned his makina, grimacing at his reflection in the mirror. His appearance was far below regulation. He bent to the task of grooming himself, feeling strangely soothed by the familiar routine even though he didn’t particularly like his appearance. He found it difficult, if not impossible, to understand what it was that humans found so appealing about his looks. The long, shiny blonde hair, the white iridescent skin, the clear green eyes, even the pale red lips all seemed garish and gaudy to him. As he worked washing and brushing and combing himself, he tried to come up with some new plan for getting the berezi back. So far he had sent eleven human agents to the Dracons’ ranch, all of them with strict orders to learn as much as possible about the berezi and, if possible, to get her off the property. He had not really expected that any of them would really be able to get the woman off the ranch, but it never hurt to try. Only two of the agents had managed to gain access to the ranch, one of those being Lio’s old assistant, Elliot. Worse, the news they had returned with had not been good. Apparently the berezi was not only working with the Jasani on some plan that nobody seemed able to uncover, but she was never alone. She slept in a high ranking Jasani’s home, and was always surrounded by more Jasani during the day. She had not left the ranch even once since her arrival.
