115

Why hadn’t she thought of them before? She had assumed that, as civilians, they would be allowed to go about their new responsibilities on Ireta. She should have known better.

“It is not just heavyworlders,” Zebara murmured, as if he’d read her mind. “You know there are others?” Lunzie nodded.

Any of the commercial entities would find greater profit in resource development without regulation. Humans and aliens both. She had heard of no society so idealistic that it had no criminals among it. Perhaps the Ssli, she amended: once sessile, how could they do anything wrong, in anyone’s terms? But here and now?

“Seti!” came Zebara’s murmur. “They’ve used us, pretended sympathy for our fate, for having been genetically altered. But they despise us for it, as well.”

She nodded against his chest, trying to think. The Seti predated human membership in the FSP, though not by much. They were difficult, far more alien-seeming, and less amusing, than the Ryxi or Wefts. They had destroyed a Weft planet and later claimed to have done so accidentally, not knowing of the Wefts they killed. And the Thekl

“It’s three-cornered, really.” Zebara nuzzled her hair a long moment and she felt the draft of someone’s movement past them again. “Our Governor’s worked for the Pralungan Combine for over twenty years. He’s been paid off in money, shares, and positions for his relatives. The Combine gets strong backs for its internal security forces, industrial enforcers. Even private troops. Crew for illegally armed vessels to fight Fleet interference. Your Sassinak’s been a major problem for us, by the way. She gets along too well with her heavyworlder marines. That word’s spread and we have too many • youngsters thinking of Fleet as a future. Not to mention the number of ships she’s blown up in her career. Also, the Seti have some gain of their own we haven’t quite figured out. They want some of the planets we’ve taken: mostly those unsuitable for human settlement. They’re fanneling money into the Combine and the Combine funnels some, as little as they can, to us.”

116  

It was almost too much to take in. “What do you want me to do?” asked Lunzie.

“Get the real data out. Not the faked stuff you’re supposed to be caught with. You’ll have to leave before your team. It’s supposed to look as if you’re fleeing with stolen information. And if you don’t, they’ll know I didn’t convince you. But you can leave before even they expect it. I can say you double-crossed me, used the pass you were given too soon.”

It sounded most unlikely. No lightweight could get oflplanet unnoticed. Surely they would be watching her. If she tried to bolt, they would simply call Zebara to check. And then find on her the real data, dooming both of them. She said this, very fast and very softly, into his ear. He held her close, a steady grip that would have been calming if her mind had not gone on ahead to the obvious conclusion.

He did not mean her to escape as a lightweight: as someone walking up the ramp, opening her papers for inspection at the port, climbing into her seat in the shuttle. He had something else in mind, something that would not be so obvious. The possibilities scrolled through her mind as if on a screen. As cargo? But an infrared scan would find her. As— She stiffened, puBed her head back, and tried to see his face in the darkened hall.

“Not in coldsleep.” She meant it to be non-negotiable.

“I’m sorry,” he said, into her hair.

“No.” Quietly, but firmly, and with no intention of being talked into it. “Not again.”

At that very inopportune moment, the softly passionate music stopped, leaving the hall in sudden silence interspersed with rustling clothing. The silence lengthened. A single drumbeat, slow, inexorable, signalled a dire event, and the back of her seat shoved her up, away from Zebara. The armrest slid upward between them. The footrest dropped. Another drum joined the first, heavy, sodden with grief. Muted brass, one grave note after another followed the drums. Onstage, lights showed the barest outline of a heap of bodies, of sufferers still alive and starving. The sacrifice had not been enough. They would all die after all. A child’s soprano.