Crossing the Line by Karen Traviss

you to Wess’ej. Why should I make concessions?”
    â€œBecause it’s the right thing to do. He did it for me. I’m the risk, not him.”
    â€œThat is the problem. He doesn’t behave as a wess’har. He puts personal and individual whims above the common good.”
    â€œOkay, let me put it another way. You have one chance to learn what it takes to deal with humankind and I’m it.” Shan reached behind her back and down her spine into her waistband the way she had a thousand times before, feeling the body-warmed composite and wrapping her fingers round it. She pulled the gun out in a practiced arc and held it two-handed to Chayyas’s left temple. Chayyas didn’t move. There was no reason why she should know what a gun looked like.
    â€œYou have lights in your skin,” said the matriarch.
    â€œIt’s the gun you need to look at, sweetheart.”
    â€œWill that kill me?”
    â€œIndeed it could.”
    â€œWhy do you want to do that?”
    â€œIt’s the sort of thing humans do if they want to achieve an end. I want you to let Aras go.”
    â€œOr you’ll kill me.”
    â€œPerhaps.”
    â€œMy bloodline lives on. I don’t fear death.”
    The safety was off. “Neither do I. But you know you need the intelligence I can provide. Leave Aras out of it and you have my full cooperation. Harm him, and you’re going to have to guess your way out of this. You can’t even stop me bringing a weapon into your home. How are you going to cope with an army?”
    Chayyas’s scent began to take on a more acidic note. “I don’t bargain with gethes .”
    â€œI’m the one who might spread this thing to humans. Without me, there’s no threat.”
    Chayyas didn’t quite smell of fear. The pupils of her amber eyes were just slits, a faint black cross on a cabochon topaz. “Is that weapon less powerful than the isenj one that struck you?”
    â€œProbably,” said Shan, listening to herself as if she were standing outside her own body. Where the hell am I going with this? She sat down and put the gun on the table, safety still off, within easy reach. Then she took the grenade from her jacket and turned it round so Chayyas could see it. “But this isn’t. Once I pull this pin, you have a count of ten to get out of this room before it blows. This will fragment me. You know what that means. Not even c’naatat can repair me then. Problem solved.”
    What the hell am I saying?
    Chayyas said nothing and looked at the grenade as if it was just a fascinating toy. She thinks I’m bluffing . Shan flicked her thumb under the cap, suddenly struck by the completely irrelevant fact that her claws were looking almost like normal nails now. Am I? And bluffing was something she couldn’t afford to do, not with a matriarch.
    It was all happening too fast. She hadn’t planned this at all well.
    I have to mean it .
    She drew the pin out all the way. “Ten,” she said. “Nine.” Chayyas still stared. “Eight.” Shan shut her eyes. “Seven.” And then it seemed that Chayyas suddenly understood, because there was a rush of air and acid and a massively powerful grip closed round her hand and the grenade, pinning both to the table, and almost crushed bone. Shan opened her eyes in shock and pain.
    Chayyas held on grimly. “Replace that pin,” she said. “Now.” The matriarch’s anger seethed like boiling vinegar in the air. The pain was all-consuming but Shan held her position.
    â€œLet Aras go.” Jesus, I can’t hold this thing much longer . “Let him go.”
    The matriarch’s pupils snapped from flower to cross and back again.
    Shan held on and Chayyas held on. Shan hoped her eyes wouldn’t start watering from the pain. If her hand went numb and she dropped the damn thing…
    Chayyas stared at the little dial on the cap of