"Pilot, we have been played for fools. You lost your home, name, and station. I lost my kingdom," he stared at her from across the room. "We have many things in common. I, too, was exiled from my land as a child. Now, I'm disgraced as a leader." "Did your own father publicly whip you into unconsciousness?" Pilot could not withstand the weight of that memory in silence any longer. "Not yet," he smiled as her face reddened with shame. "I will come into heat soon and return to my home planet of Bova to face my father. There can be only one adult Bovid male so our battle will be to the death."...

The government continued to impose its control in the form of the census where all adults over the age of eighteen were required to report to the city to be tagged with an implanted computer chip. Resistance to the census was met with the threat of imprisonment. The government's purpose was obvious; to enable the surveillance of all citizens of the state even those who did not want to be counted, or watched. The journey south, back to the city, for those that had fled, was often treacherous, winding through regions both hostile and lawless. It was not a journey for the weak, the frail, or the...