Willa had noticed that Ekhart was awake as she had pushed the floater past him, so she returned to the tool box he was leaning against, still bleeding. She squated leaned down and grinned at him. “Morning Sunshine! How’s your head doing? Mine is all better now, even after that concussion grenade that you threw at me. So let’s have a little chat. Tell me who hired you to kidnap Bourne.”

"Vhy should I tell you anydhing, Adhenian?" He coughed weakly. "You vill kill me vhedher I talk or not. And my men vill eidher avenge me or rescue me."

Her eyebrow rose at his assumptions, “Well, I had planned on having our doctor fix you up after I was done, but if you are that insistent on dying, don’t bother telling me anything. Lay there in your pool of blood, in pain, and go to the long sleep. I’m sure we can handle anything your men send at us. We’ve already recovered from your little attack.” she stood and started to walk around the tool box.

Ekhart chuckled -- which sent him into a painful fit of coughing-- but he said nothing else.

She laughed as she walked away. “Suit yourself. I certainly won’t miss you.”

Qamala tried to stay out of it, she really did. But as the others moved with purpose into their tasks, they had left her to her own devices, completely not understanding that a young Magellen left to her own devices was more curious than a box full of Andarran kittens, and with about as much restraint. Given what she'd been told about the man bleeding on the deck, and the information she'd brought into the bay with her, it really was almost impossible for her to not to attempt to speak with Col. Ekhart.

Still in her long white robe, she approached the dying man, feeling a need to heal him that was almost unbearable. Paulos had told her it would be that way sometimes, but she'd never felt it so strongly as she did in that moment. Still -- one didn't attempt to heal a pit viper unless without adequate protections. Qamala knew she was naive on a lot of topics, but she wasn't stupid. Staying clear of whatever gore was on the decks around him (also keeping herself out of arm's reach), she stood within sight and gazed at him with all the open acceptance and nascent compassion a young Magellen could feel.

"They tell me you are a bad man," she finally said, soft voice pitched for his ears alone.

"Do dhey?" He coughed. And coughed and coughed. It was a painful experience to watch. By the time the spasm had finished his lips were red with blood. It was clear even to one only as minimally trained as Qamala that his lungs had been punctured. Without Leeda's expert aid, death was not a question of if, but of when. "I suppose dhat depends on the measuring stick you're using. Did dhey send you to `soften me up?" He asked sarcastically. "I am ready to die, pretty voman. As ready as my legion is to avenge me."

Her head tilted slightly, curiosity rampant in her expression. She crouched down to bring her face nearer to his, holding her knees in front of her to rest her chin on them. It caused her to look like a human 12 year old girl, but of course, she didn't know that.

"What does that mean? That you're `ready to die'?" She asked, just audibly enough to be heard over the machinery around them. "What happens? Do you just stop? Or is there something else that happens to the real part of you, after your body becomes inoperative?"

Another coughing fit marred Ekhart's almost beatific face. "It means I meet Allah. It means dhe struggle is over; it means a dhousand virgin's avait my arrival to meet my slightest desire; it means I finally get to meet Him, to talk widh him, face to face, after all dhese years." His eyes became glazed as he talked, as though he was willing life to leave his body. "It means peace."

She smiled, her violet eyes crinkling slightly at the corners. "Allah? Really?" Qamala had known of the clan from which all three branches of that particular pantheon had descended, but she couldn't talk about that, and she knew it. "It's been a long time, but let me see if I can remember it now... `la.. il allah.... il allah'. Is that it? Did I say it right?"

His eyes went wide and filled with tears. "Yes," he murmured, collapsing back into his broken body. "How is it you know this trudh? Are you from Neu Haus?"

Qamala shook her head. The tingling in her hands was spreading up her arms and despite her best efforts, the tiny motes of sunlight were beginning to dance around her again. "No. From much farther than that, Verlag Ekhart. Much, much farther. But where I come from, all such truths are spoken freely, and known to be truth by all."

"Der Teufel," he breathed.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what that means."

"You are of Satan," He wheezed out the translation for her. "You are an infidel."

"Oh." Her head tilted again. "Um, excuse me for being very ignorant, but aren't we all supposed to be infidels, if we're not from New Home? Or are you assigning me some special privilege with that name?"

Ekhart glared at her. His eyes were glazed with the pain of his wounds, amplified by blood loss and internal hemorrhaging. "You understand nodhing," he finally replied. It cost him another round of wracking coughs.

Qamala waited patiently for him to quiet, to open his eyes and look at her again, whereupon she nodded quite sincerely. "It's true. Well, mostly true. I probably shouldn't be here talking with you. I don't understand you, and everything I say seems to cause you pain. I'm sorry."

The look he gave her was an odd cross of disbelief and disgust. "It is dhe price of being an infidel," he assured her. "You have turned your back on Allah; and so your sins cause dhe vorld pain and anguish."

She really wanted to know how, why, what sins, and which world, but realized that Ekhart's answers probably weren't going to be anymore enlightening than his previous ones had been. His pain and suffering were almost unbearable for her, `bad man' or not, but that latent sense of self-preservation in her knew that healing him right then would just make him more dangerous.

"I-- For the last five standard years, I have been having visions," Qamala finally said, shifting into a kneeling position, palms up and relaxed atop her thighs so she could stare into them. Motes of sunlight danced there hypnotically as she spoke. "It is not a dream, for it comes over me when I am awake. I cannot stop it once it starts, nor control it. It is the same every time, only it becomes more terrifying each time I experience it."

Her voice quaked a little, and the motes of sunlight became stronger, more numerous, and danced about her shoulders and arms. Qamala decided to use some of them to show him the symbols in her vision, forming the motes into shapes of light that corresponded with the action in her words. "I don't know what it means, Verlag Ekhart, but there is a child somewhere in that vision suffering -- unbelievable pain and anguish, like you said."

Between her hands, Eckhart could see the perspective of tearing through fog and brambles, could hear that child's screams in the unknown distance, and the diabolical male laughter behind it. He caught a glimpse of the child, and the evil-faced man leering above it, then the vision suddenly, maddeningly changed.

"Before I can get to it, a magnificent bird of prey swoops down out of the sky upon a... well, it is a small herd animal on my homeworld, I doubt you would have heard of it."

The bird is enormously out of proportion to the small animal, plummeting out of the sky like a meteor. And then, abruptly, it ends. Qamala's own eyes are swimming with tears as the images turn back into motes of light, swirling around her once more.

"The vision always stops before the small animal is struck, but as you saw, it turns to face the predator, unafraid, just before it all ends." She tipped her lovely face up toward the lights above as if she were searching imaginary skies for that creature, clenching her hands in her lap to keep from touching Ekhart. "I have been compelled from my home in pursuit of this vision and its meaning. I cannot rest until I have found that child, faced that predator, until I've used all the gifts at my disposal to bring an end to that suffering."

Ekhart's eyes went wide, and then tears started to stream from them. But they weren't tears of pain -- though there was still a lot of that coursing through his body.

"You are dhe child of dhe Virgin Mudher," he shook his head in wonder. "Vidh dhese wonderful miracles you can do. And yet you are but a lost sheep because you do not know dhe Virgin Mudher. You must pray to her for guidance vidh dhese prophecies. Satan vants you -- you see his face, and dhen he comes to take you. Only dhe Virgin Mudher can save you. It is dhe only vay."

Qamala remembered... the teachings, the visual images much like she'd just shown Ekhart, only these reproduced from thirteen minds older than human civilization itself. A giant... cathedral, they'd called it, full of light and voices... "Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of mercy," she began, smiling through her own tears as she recited the poem she'd heard, chanted by hundreds of voices. It was only later she'd been told it was a `prayer', and had it explained to her what a prayer actually was. Homesickness was a powerful thing, but it could look like religious devotion to Ekhart, she thought. "Our life, our sweetness and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears...."

Paulos had been right. Religious poetry was some of the most beautiful art humans had ever produced. "La il'allah il allah, Verlag Ekhart. Allah's will has moved us to this moment in time. His will brought me here to share my vision with you, brought you here to see me as something beyond a mere infidel, and to offer me guidance on my journey. I thank you for it, but my journey goes on from here, as does yours."

The sparkles of sunlight surged around her in that moment, but she fought them down lest Willa or Morgan see and come to investigate and ruin everything. "I-- have healing for you, you see it here in my hands," she said, voice barely loud enough to be heard. "But I am afraid to touch you, for you are still a dangerous and powerful man, and I..." Qamala laughed a little and dashed the tears from her eyes. "I am a lost soul who still doesn't understand very much at all. "Please tell me how I can trust you. You have more guidance to offer me, but are you enough of a child of the Prophet to bow to his will, rather than your own?"

He laughed at that, and once again the laughter brought on the wracking cough. "You must come vidh me," managed to wheeze out around the coughing. "You must meet my fadher Imam. He vill teach you."

"Please don't laugh like that, you're killing us both," she grimaced, shaking her head. "Not thy will, or my will, Ekhart. None but Allah's -- which moved me before I met you and will move me long after we part ways." She briefly considered going with him to New Home, but wasn't entirely sure she wanted to see the twisted end result of human egos masquerading as religious teachings. "I'll be leaving in that bird of prey," she told him, pointing at the ship, which did resemble the bird in her vision somewhat. "As the vision sent to me from the Virgin Mother foretold. The crew doesn't know it yet, but it is Allah's will. Not theirs. Not even mine."

Qamala leaned forward then, still careful to stay out of his reach. "You are a man of this world, this reality," she said, gesturing around them to the world of humankind. "And yet you are a child of Allah. You have more guidance to offer me, I know this. You have a piece I need to decipher this vision," she went on, words tumbling over one another under the force of her need, "to continue Allah's will and the Virgin Mother's work in this galaxy. I don't know how to get to that knowledge, and I'm not sure if you do either, but -- won't you at least tell me who sent you here today? Please? Maybe -- maybe it would at least be a place to start."

"Is it Allah's vill dhat I break my vord? Vould dhe Virgin Modher ask dhat of me?" It seemed to be a question as much to himself as to her. Something had taken him out of his depth. Perhaps Qamala's `miraculous' abilities; perhaps the adrenalin and endorphins that were, at the moment, the only thing keeping him conscious. "Perhaps it is Allah's vill dhat I die here today."

"No," she smiled through her tears. "I think you had better start considering that it is Allah's will that you live."

That seemed to draw him up short. "I lay here dying from dhe wounds of dhat Adhenian voman," he pointed out. "And you suggest live?"

Her eyes grew wide. "It is a test of faith," she replied breathily. "Do you seriously mean to tell me you think her will," she pointed at Willa, "is greater than Allah's? Can you possibly believe there is any injury done to you that the Virgin Mother would find beyond her power to heal?"

"You suggest I believe in miracles," he scoffed. "Dhey are children's stories meant to excite dhe peasants."

It was her turn to start laughing, through tears that poured down her face. "Then prepare to be excited," she choked, closing her eyes and giving into it at last. Ekhart saw those tiny, dancing motes of light become denser, more numerous, increasing in brightness until the woman beside him appeared to be made of that light, shining like a small sun. "By the Blessed Virgin and Mother's grace, take what healing your heart can hold." And with that, Qamala leaned forward, placing her hand gently on the center of his chest, gasping audibly as the power shot through her and into him, transfiguring them both for that one precious moment.

It wasn't enough to heal him fully, but supercharged energy withdrew ribs from lungs and laced them back together enough to allow him to draw breath, mostly pain free. He still couldn't walk out of there, but it had pulled him from death's door. As Qamala had said, he would live.

It took several minutes for him to recover -- from the shock of the sudden change. "You have healed me," he said brilliantly, his eyes a bit glassy with wonder. "Vhy have you done dhis?"

"Because I need you to believe in Allah enough to answer the question I asked you," she told him simply, hoping she hadn't just done something very stupid. She scooted back from him, placing her hands inside her robe as if she were suddenly cold, but in reality laying her right hand on her bow handle, just in case. "And maybe because Allah needs you to believe in him that much, too. For once. I need to know, Verlag. Please. Who sent you here?"

He thought about that for a moment, then sighed. "Dhen I place my life in dhe hands of dhe servent of dhe Virgin Modher," he nodded toward her. "I vas hired by ITI; may Allah forgive my veakness for telling you dhis."

Qamala took a deep breath, released it slowly. "Allah will always forgive those who act under his will," she murmured. "I don't even understand the significance of what you told me, but I'm sure I will, when the Virgin Mother is ready for me to understand it. If I may press you further, though -- they said something about a senator's son. That you were here to take him by force. Can you tell me why this ITI wants him?"

His eyes flashed dangerously, but he controlled himself. "My vork to stop dhe infidels is not easy to explain," he said simply.

"I... understand that better than you may realize," she replied. "Do you think they," and she jerked her head toward the ship, "are going to understand my vision, for example? Or why it compels me as it does?" Her eyes were sober, serious, and did not waver from his even a little. "I may not completely understand why you do what you do, Verlag -- but you know I will try my best to do just that."

"Dhis Princess infidel must be stopped," he said flatly. "Dhe infidel Senator knows vhere she is. Ve must have dhis knowledge from him. It is Allah's vill dhat she die."

"Stopped from what?" Qamala asked, much in the same manner a child might ask why they mustn't put their hands in a fire. "Are you talking about the princess that was kidnapped?"

"Yes yes," Ekhart answered impatiently. His color was returning, now that most of his wounds had been healed. They wouldn't stay healed as long as the darts remained in his body, but that fact had yet to register in the fanatic's consciousness. "Dhe Princess Aldeborahnn. Dhe infidel spawn of dhe goddless ones voo claim sovereignty over Allah's vorld!"

Qamala lifted a hand, a universal plea for calm -- among humanoids, anyway. "Verlag, whatever it was that was shot into you is still inside you, so please try to stay still. If you move around too much, you're just going to re-injure yourself," she told him. "In your case, the power to heal you didn't include making those projectiles disappear." She got to her feet, sighing in some perplexity until she saw Willa returning from her errand in the next landing bay. She caught the Athenian's eye and waved her over, noticing that Teagan stopped her for a quick conference on the way. "I'm going to have to ask you to stay here under custody until we can get those things out of you. I'm not sure what Willa and the others will want from you, but I'll do all I can to make sure you're treated in accordance with whatever rules humans have for such things."

"I am under your protection, daughter of dhe Virgin Modher," He said confidently. "You vill not let them harm me or my men."

Willa nodded to Qamala in acknowleddgement from across the bay, and walked over to where she was talking to Ekhart. “What’s up?”

She smiled up at the taller woman -- Athenians were so beautifully impressive! -- then gestured to the man still seated on the deck. "I've had a chance to talk to Colonel Ekhart, here. We've come to an understanding of sorts. Can we have him and his men treated by Leeda, when she's finished with your friend? I'm not really sure what's to be done after that -- will we be taking them with us?"

Looking down at Ekhart, Willa noticed that he was gaining a bit more color. “You already healed him. The doctor will remove the darts from his chest after she has taken care of Paladin. As for his men, you may want to check and see if they are even still alive. I don’t have time to stop and take care of someone who tried to kill me.” She glared down at Ekhart, and said, “I think we will turn him over to the Senator, let the father of the man he tried to kidnap decide what to do with him.”

"All right," the Magellen said, stepping over to check the three other men. "May I ask that you see Colonel Ekhart is treated with the honor due his station and position until we can do that, Willa? I'm not sure what it means under human rules, but I did give my word."

With a sneer at Ekhart, Willa replied, “Most ercenaries have little honor and this one has less then even those. I will treat him as I would any prisoner.” She looked up at Qamala, knowing that she did not know what that meant and reassured her, “I will not harm him.” She grabbed a rope off the top of the toolbox and tied his feet together, then leaned him forward and tied his hands behind his back.

"Thank you," Qamala replied, wincing as the chattering of an air hammer reverberated through the bay. "I appreciate that. But, Colonel, I'm afraid your men are already dead," she said sadly. "There's nothing I can do for them."

"Ah vell... " He shrugged. "Dhey were soldiers, ready to die for Allah at need."

Leaning down, Willa hiked Ekhart onto her shoulder once again, and carried him into the ship. She took him to medical and placed him on one of the beds. “Got another patient for you here doc. Might want to keep him restrained or sedated, he is dangerous.” She turned around and went back into the hanger to figure out what needed to happen next.