CHAPTER 16

They were both sitting up, their backs against the wall at the head of the bed.

"I didn't mean to distract you," Toni said. "You were talking about war and the historical forces." She was tucked under his arm and leaning into him, cheek against his chest.

"I never realized my mentions of the historical forces raised such bad connotations for you," Bleys said. "To me they're just a neutral force in the background of life. I was surprised when you talked about being a slave to the forces—that's impossible, you know."

"Well, you changed my feelings when you mentioned gravity," she said. "I understood it right away, and it made me feel silly about my earlier reaction." She moved her arm out across his chest, and hugged him.

"Slavery is something only people can create," he said, smoothing her hair gently. "It shouldn't be a worry for you; you just don't have it in you to be a slave."

"I think that's true," she said. "Just being with you has shown me how powerful I am in my own right—and that everybody can be just as powerful if only they're set free to see the possibilities in them."

"You had it in you before we ever met," he said. "It's a spirit of self-reliance, or maybe just self-responsibility... a lot of people seem to have at least some of it, but I want everyone to have it."

"Why do some have it, while others don't?"

"I don't have a complete answer for that," he said. "It seems to come from the way people are raised, but I'm not sure that's the whole answer. From what I've read, the Dorsai seem to produce a lot of individuals with that sense of responsibility—maybe you have your Dorsai ancestor to thank."

"I do thank her," Toni said. "She was an important person in my life. But it's more than that; my non-Dorsai ancestors could never have been enslaved, either."

"I believe that," he said. "And I know there are Friendlies like that, too." He shrugged. "Whatever it takes to produce that completely free, responsible, strong individual, our societies don't seem to have it—not enough of it. That's why I think the race needs to go back to Old Earth and retrench—look into itself until it finds the way to be mature adults."

"Is that what you believe the historical forces want?"

"I don't think the forces have any wants at all," he said. "They're just there?

"Like gravity, you said."

"We never were completely independent entities, any of us," he said. "We never will be. We're like fish: we swim in an ocean of forces—even matter is really a function of forces—and we have no prospect of ever being in a position to order the ocean itself. But that doesn't lessen us; in fact, we need the forces—it's like the ocean: if it weren't there, we could never swim at all.

"Hello?" he asked, after a long moment of silence.

"I haven't gone to sleep," she said. "I was thinking about a cosmology class I took once, long ago."

"What about it?"

"Well, I remember we explored speculations people have had over the centuries, as to what makes up what we call the 'fabric of space.' I had trouble with the idea, I remember, because I'd always understood space to be—well, empty. Nothingness! And yet using the term 'fabric' seemed to me to imply there was—is—something out there with a texture .. . something that can be touched. Or at least sensed, in some way."

"The physicists," Bleys said, "have largely accepted that even though we lack the senses necessary even to perceive that 'fabric,' as you called it, there must be something like it, to hold everything together. My thought is there's something like that going on with history ... or maybe with time."

"Are you saying you have some sort of perception of these historical forces?"

"Not at all," he said. "All I have is a construction—a sort of fictional picture in my mind, that sometimes I can use to help me envision what's going on in the Universe."

"Would you tell me about it? Do you mind?"

"I don't mind," he said. "But I've never tried to describe it to anyone before; so bear with me if this seems a little vague."

He paused for a moment.

"You mentioned the 'fabric of space,'" he said. "Now try to imagine a kind of fabric that flows through time." "A fabric of time?"

"I don't necessarily mean it in the sense of something that holds time together," he said. "What I'm thinking of is more like a ribbon, or even a tapestry—a tapestry made up of threads that each represents the life of a human being, as that life moves through time, so that the entire tapestry runs from the beginning of the race on into the future, indicating the direction the whole race is moving."

"So this tapestry is, in a way, telling you a story—the story of the human race?"

"Yes," he said. "That's why tapestry may be a better word than ribbon, even though the length of the thing is more ribbon-like. I sometimes imagine the threads are all of different colors, and I can pick out my own and those of some other people. I imagine that the great moments of the race are represented when threads of similar color begin to run together—which means some great idea has arisen and begun to influence more and more people."

"Do some people's threads—their lives—have more weight in determining the direction of the tapestry than do others'?" Toni asked.

"People, no," he said. "It's the ideas they hold that gives the weight. Or maybe weight is the wrong word; maybe color or direction would be better."

"I think I get the idea," she said.

"I know these threads aren't real," he said. "It's just a picture, a symbol in my mind, that puts my own position and plans into a form I can think about more easily. I've found that meditating on the image sometimes seems to lead me to answers for some problems . . . perhaps it's a channel into my subconscious mind, that uses my own creative abilities to analyze situations on a level below my conscious mind, when that consciousness is having trouble.

"Sometimes I feel I can see the direction the threads are going, into the future. I'm sure they're not real, but just projections from my mind's calculations—or guesses. But sometimes seeing them gives me ideas for things to do, as if I were looking at a map."

"And where do the historical forces come into this?" she asked.

"They don't, really, in any physical sense," he said. "But the forces are made up of the energies of the life-threads, and the ideas that motivate them. When a large number of people want a particular future for the race—even if they never think of what they want as influencing the race's future—their threads run together. Together they have a kind of—let's use weight for this—weight that bends the tapestry of the entire race's future in their particular direction. If other people have different ideas, their weight tends to lead the tapestry in a different direction... so that the tapestry of the future is being tugged in, at a minimum, two different directions."

"So maybe war isn't a good word for the reconciliation of these historical forces," she said.

"Perhaps not, as applied to the forces themselves," he said. "When water is released from a dam and flows down to a lower-lying body of water, it's not a war—it's only a righting of things that have been out of balance ... a simple search for a state of equilibrium."

"This feels very right to me," Toni said. "It fits with the importance of balance in the martial arts, for one thing. And I recall, too, that some of the masters suggested that the true martial artist should be like water—be infinitely flexible, able to adapt and flow without effort."

"It sounds like the opposite of war," he admitted.

"You said yourself, a while ago, that war is a conflict of opposing forces," she said. "But our art seeks to flow with an opposing force, rather than entering into open conflict with it."

"That's right," he said. "I spoke too loosely. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that although the historical forces don't go to war with each other—people do. War is always a subjective phenomenon; it's only accurately used when it's applied to the way the forces work themselves out in human lives." It took her a moment to reply.

"What it seems to come down to, if I understand you correctly, is that the historical forces themselves are largely irrelevant to the average woman or man. And if a war comes out of those forces—"

"I suspect all wars grow out of those forces," he said. "Sorry—I interrupted you."

"Well, if a war comes, it doesn't matter to the average person whether it's the result of historical forces, or not," she said.

"For the average person, it seldom matters what causes a war," he said. "It's like a storm that blows up in the late afternoon. To all intents and purposes, it's just something that happens, that the person being rained on didn't cause, didn't ask for, and didn't want—but has to endure."

"And you, knowing about these historical forces—you don't feel like you're a slave to them?"

"No," he said. "Maybe an ally. All I'm really trying to do is save the human race; and if that purpose happens to facilitate the working out of some conflict between the forces—so be it. I'm not doing what I'm doing for the sake of the forces, but for myself and for the race."

"So maybe the best analogy might be that you're trying to guide the race through that storm?" "I like that one," he said.

Again, she was silent; and finally he spoke again.

"It is sad that some of our Others have been killed," he said. "I'd've prevented that if I'd seen it coming. But in the course of events, many more are certain to be killed, both Others and ordinary people, before the race is placed firmly on its path to safety. Many of those will die because they oppose what I'm doing, and some will die to support it—and the only difference between them may be that the latter die out of loyalty to a better cause . .. even though many on both sides will never know exactly what it is their struggles and deaths are supporting."

"You said it, a few minutes ago," Toni said: "The Others who've been killed here on Ceta were probably killed for their loyalty." "Yes."

"The converse of that idea is that any of the Others—or the staff, for that matter—who are still alive may have been corrupted."

"It may be," he said, "although I find it highly unlikely that so many could have been diverted from their loyalties. During our first meeting here, I really felt I was seeing people genuinely committed to our organization. Those Others in that meeting seemed interested, even eager, to work on our plan—and, yes, I realize I've just done exactly what you did, a few minutes ago, in talking about your reaction to Sandra Rossoy."

"They may not all be corrupted yet," she said. "On the other hand, the eagerness you saw might have been just interest in getting something from us."

"It's not necessarily the case that any of them are, as you say, 'corrupted,'" Bleys said.

"But if they're not cooperating with our unknown enemies, then they're dupes."

"In any case, we're still facing the problem of what to do about it," he said. "We can be pretty sure of the identity of at least some of the infiltrators. But we can't have them arrested, and there's no way to guarantee they'd tell us anything if we confronted them."

"We could grab some and interrogate them," she said, a questioning tone in her voice.

"That could be a very dangerous move," Bleys said. "Remember, we still don't know the extent of their power and influence here. We know that some of our enemies have taken positions on the Cetan Others' staffs, but we also know they have confederates who aren't on the staffs—and we have no idea who those people are or how many of them there might be."

"Could you try to use your persuasive power to get one or more of the ones we know of, to cooperate?"

"I could try it," he said. "There's no guarantee it would work— remember, there are people who seem to be immune to that particular ability."

"All right, I see that," she said. "But if you're right about them, what are you going to do?"

"What exactly are you asking?"

"Well, just going by the number of staff people over forty years of age—even though we don't know exactly why age might make a difference—and knowing they have confederates who aren't staff members, it seems likely we face a large number of enemies. We can't arrest them . .. can you settle for just firing them?"

"It may be that will be all we can do," he said. "I'd rather find another way."

"Another way to what?" she said. "I don't think you're clear, in your own mind, as to what you want to do—I mean, not just as to what the next step would be, after you've identified those people, but what you want to happen beyond that. Are you?"

Her voice had risen in tone as she spoke, speeding up; and even before he could answer she had turned, to poke him on the chest with a finger.

"That's why you got those blisters when you were walking!" she said, emphasizing her words with another poke. "You know it from your own martial arts work—your thinking was out of balance, and that affected the balance of your body. Mind and body are all tied together, you know that!"

He looked at her, stunned.

"I'm sorry," she said, more softly. "I didn't mean to poke you so hard—"

"It's not that," he said, recovering from the rush of thoughts that had briefly immobilized him. "It's just that—well, of course I've been told about balance, and about the link between body and mind, but it never came home to me until now!"

He put his hand on her shoulder, excited.

"Do you remember Kaj telling me, when I was very ill from the DNA antagonist, about harnessing my creative powers to heal myself?"

"I remember something about that, yes."

"He was talking about the same thing!" Bleys said. "It all fits together!"

He laughed aloud.

'it does all fit together—mind and body!"

"All right," she said, "I think I see: you got the blisters, indirectly, because your thinking was out of balance, so that was your mind affecting your body."

"Maybe it would be more accurate to say it was the body mirroring the mind," he said. "I wonder if anyone has ever tried to study that kind of mind-body relationship?"

"Are you sure, now, that you've balanced your thinking?"

"You're trying to remind me to keep my eye on my overall mission," he said. "I haven't forgotten it. But you're right, at least to the extent that I've been concentrating on finding out who the enemy are, and not thinking about what comes after that."

"Sometimes there are advantages to working like that," she said. "I can't say this isn't one of those times when a problem works itself out if you just let it run. But I've been wondering what would happen next, and I thought I'd ask what you thought about that end of it."

"I've got a few ideas," he said. "I need a lot more information before I can act on any of them."

"So we're back to the problem of obtaining information," she said. "Any plan we make might blow up in our faces if we can't base it on concrete information."

"Our problem, on the initial level at least, has two possible answers," he responded. "On the one hand, the simplest—or at least most certain—way to handle this might be to just dump the entire organization here on Ceta; but that would come at a devastating cost in the money and people we've put into this organization, as well as the influence we've built up with power-brokers on this planet."

"And the other solution is to find a way to prove whether the individual Others—and their staff people—are loyal," she said; "once sorted, you can fire just the disloyal."

"That would be preferable," he said, "if we can figure out how to do it. But even then, we're still left with people working for us who were fooled."

"There are worse crimes than being deceived," she said. "And speaking of crimes, I noticed that one thing you wanted the researchers to seek was undercover groups in the financial and criminal areas—how did you get to that?"

"Oh, that," he said. "I don't know if you'd call it a process of elimination, or just extrapolation, but if you look at what we do know about what those unknowns have been doing—manipulating markets and economies, arranging assassinations—they're good at those kinds of things. They must have had practice."

"Well, then," Toni said, "that brings up another question: why would professional criminals go through all the trouble of working for the Others? Some of them have been with us for years, although it doesn't strike me as the kind of life that appeals to criminals ... and I can't think of a lot they could gain by doing so, either."

"Yes," he said, frowning in the darkness, "that's another question."

He slid back down from the wall, to lie flat.

"We have a lot more to learn," he said.

"Not now," she said, moving down herself. "You need your sleep."

She laughed.

"I'm getting to sound like Kaj."

In the morning Toni was out of the bedroom before Bleys was ready, insisting she would prepare a hot breakfast.

"We've been badly off-schedule," she said. "A return to our usual routine will make us feel better, which means we'll think better. When you're ready, come to the kitchen and help me."

"I should check on what's been happening overnight," he said.

"By the time you get to the kitchen, I'll have breakfast ready. You can help me carry it to our desks, and you can do your checking while you eat."

Reports had already begun to come in from the researchers— most, so far, relayed from the other side of the planet, where the first day of researches had just ended.

"This is puzzling," Toni said, forwarding a new batch of reports to Bleys' screen. "I'm not sure this is of any use, but you said you wanted to see everything."

Bleys only nodded, his eyes glued on his screen while he ate largely by feel.

"A bit later, we'll get back to our workouts," Toni said. She had to repeat herself to get his attention.

Late in the afternoon, Bleys looked up from his screen as Toni appeared in the lounge, her hair still slightly damp—the two of them had completed a short but vigorous workout only a short time before, and Bleys had rushed right to his screen while she went off to their quarters.

"You need to shower," she said.

"I'll go in a moment," he said. "I needed to look at the data right away, to see how it fits with an idea I got while we were working out."

"I could tell you were distracted," she said. "Remember, you have to be able to let go of the world."

"I know," he said. "I just couldn't do it. . . . Anyway, I think I'm starting to see a pattern—or maybe two patterns."

"Two? What do you mean?"

"Let me think about it while I shower," he said. "If it holds up, I'll explain—and maybe we'll have some planning to do." "Is there anything I should look into while you're gone?" He sat silent, thinking.

"I'm working on another plan," he said at last. "It'll need a few of Henry's people, and I'm afraid it'll involve actions he might not be happy about."

"Will anyone get hurt?" Toni asked.

"No."

"Then—" she began; but he interrupted her. "Not immediately," he added. "All right," she said. "What else do you need?" "A medician," he said. "One with advanced pharmacological experience."

She eyed him for a long moment.

"And you don't think Kaj will do it," she said at last.

He nodded.

"Can you locate someone like that?" he said.

"No," she said, "I don't think I can. At least, not quickly. But a couple of the Soldiers are originally from this planet... I'll ask." She paused.

"Quietly," she added.

CHAPTER 17

Three days later another delivery of supplies, packed into several container shells, was loaded onto the conveyor belt that slanted up from the spaceport pad into the depths of the ship known as the Konrad Macklin. Within minutes after they had vanished into the ship, the belt began to move in the opposite direction, and shortly thereafter a sealed utility bin, of the kind used to hold waste and construction debris, rode down the belt. Even before it reached bottom a pair of mechanical arms had risen from the cargo vehicle that had delivered the supplies; less than a minute later the vehicle was moving off in the direction of the Customs Office, where the contents of the bin would be reviewed before it was allowed to proceed into the Cetan economy through the commercial exit gates.

The containers that had entered the Konrad Macklin had not been so inspected; most planets worried more about what might come onto their surface than about what might be leaving.

By that time the second of the newly arrived containers had been opened in a small room just off the ship's cargo hold. A layer of sound-deadening adhesive flooring, each section in its individual carton and all of them stacked on end, was removed, revealing, under a false bottom, the still form of a blond woman dressed in a loose, off-white shift—Pallas Salvador. She was removed to a bed in a stateroom, where she was left to waken naturally, monitored by medical sensors and a video port.

Her waking was slow, a ragged alternation of approaches to consciousness and relapses into darkness; but eventually her mind responded to the urge to push through the blackness, and shortly thereafter her eyes opened to a dimly lit, utilitarian room that she fuzzily recognized, from its architecture, as being in a spaceship.

Even dim, the light caused the headache with which she had awakened to bloom with an increased intensity. She closed her eyelids, hoping the pain would ease enough that she could think, at least a little; and after a few minutes, it did—a little.

She tried to sit up, knowing she would have to pay for the effort with pain. On her second attempt she managed to push herself back enough that she could sit upright, propped against the coated wall at the head of the bed; and she sat there for some minutes, her head down on raised knees while her hands massaged her temples. She attempted to think about her situation, but it was hard to stay on any line of thought when she hurt so much.

A few minutes later the door opened, and she looked up to see Antonia Lu looking in at her.

"Are you all right?" Toni asked, stepping in from the corridor and letting the door close behind her.

Grateful that the light from the corridor—a glare in comparison to the room's subdued lighting—had been shut off, Pallas Salvador started to nod; but hastily aborted the movement as her head threatened to split open from temple to temple.

"I don't know," she said, trying to keep her voice down so as to minimize the pain. "I guess so." Beneath the pain a tide of irritation was rising: she had always hated appearing weak, and she was certain the tears in her eyes would be interpreted in that fashion.

"I know your head is hurting quite a lot," Toni said, her voice soft and sympathetic. "It's an unavoidable side effect of the drugs used on you."

"Drugs?" Pallas asked, unthinkingly throwing her head back; she winced and clamped her eyes shut.

"I'm afraid so," Toni said. She was smiling in sympathy when Pallas opened her eyes again "We think we know which drugs you were given, and we believe we have something to counteract the aftereffects you're feeling." She held up a slim silvery tube.

"May I inject you with this?"

"Yes," Pallas Salvador said. "No! Wait—" She shook her head; and then hissed an intake of air through clenched teeth, clutching at her head as her eyes snapped shut, tears pooling at the bases of her lashes.

"It hurts even to look at you," Toni said. "You don't have to take this if you don't want to, of course. Would you prefer I left you alone for a while, to sort things out?"

The blond woman lowered an arm and forced her eyes open, looking upward at Toni through the blur of the moisture beaded on her lashes.

"No," she said, keeping her voice low. "Give it to me."

Toni held the end of the tube to the inside of the other's wrist; and for the briefest of instants Pallas heard a tiny hissing sound, while her wrist seemed to feel a cool breath.

"You should feel better quickly," Toni said as she pulled her hand back.

"Thank you," Pallas said in a low voice. "Where are we?"

"On one of our ships," Toni said. "But don't speak for a few minutes—just close your eyes and try to relax; it'll speed your recovery."

"But—"

"Don't speak," Toni said. "Please. I'm going to get you something to eat—we think you've been unconscious for quite a while, so as you start to feel more like your usual self you'll probably begin to think you're starving. I'll be back in a couple of minutes."

And she was gone.

Already Pallas could feel the headache easing, and with it the muscle tenseness that had been making her grimace and clench her teeth. She eased herself back against the wall, grateful for the change—and also grateful to find herself able to think more clearly.

How had she gotten on a ship? Antonia Lu's words suggested that she, Pallas, had been drugged by someone before she arrived here. What had happened? She instinctively began inventorying the sensations of her body, a little afraid of what she might find. She was wearing one of her nightgowns, with no underwear beneath it, which suggested that whatever had happened had occurred while she was sleeping; but she could find nothing unusual in how her body felt to itself—at least, nothing that could not be attributed to the drugs she had been dosed with. But she needed to use the bathroom.

She was struggling with her memory when Antonia Lu came back into the room, smiling and carrying a light paper-material tray.

"Here's a little breakfast," she said, placing the tray gently on Pallas' hastily lowered knees and then pulling a cloth napkin out from where it had been tucked into the self-belt of her cherry-red blouse. "Our medician suggested you eat very lightly and slowly for the moment, so we'll see how this poached egg and toast goes down; I'll get you some more when you're up to it."

"That sounds like a good idea," Pallas said. "I didn't really notice how my stomach was feeling when my head hurt so much, but now I guess I'm a little queasy. But I'm thirsty."

"That's what Kaj expected—that's our medician, Kaj Menowsky," Toni said. "He also said he wants to check you over after you've eaten and rested a bit."

"Check me?" Pallas asked. "Is there something wrong?"

"No, no," Toni raised one hand a little. "He ran some tests on you when you first got here, and didn't find anything more than the effects of the drug. But Kaj was Exotic-trained, and he isn't happy unless he can—well, let's say he's really thorough . . . now cat! That container holds a pint of a sweetened tea."

"It's good," Pallas said in a few minutes. "And I think it's going to stay down."

"That's good," Toni said. "Now why don't I leave you alone to get a little more down, and get some rest? You can call me anytime you want, using the control pad on the wall there—I've coded my number into it."

"I think I've had enough, and I am tired," Pallas said. "I feel as if I've been wrung out. But what happened to me? How did I get here?"

"I can't tell you much," Toni said, "and I should probably let someone who knows more talk to you about that. All I know is that our security people stopped a group of people who were apparently trying to kidnap you."

"Kidnap me!" The blond woman's eyes opened wide and she sat up, swinging her feet off the bed and having to clutch at the tray to keep it from sliding to the floor. "Who would do that?"

"As I said, we don't know much. Our people have been investigating, but I haven't heard what, if anything, they've found." "Am I still in danger?"

"Absolutely not," Toni said. "That's why we're on our ship—no one can get to you here." "But—"

"No more questions!" Toni said, softening the imperative words with another sympathetic smile. "Rest! If you don't call me before then, I'll wake you in a couple of hours. Then, if you're up to it, you'll eat a little more, Kaj will look you over—and maybe by that time we'll have more to tell you. Now just relax. You know where the room controls are."

"All right," Pallas nodded. Fatigue was winning out over the remains of her fear and anger.

Somewhat more than three hours later, Pallas Salvador, now dressed in dark blue ship's coveralls, was sitting back in one of the easy chairs in Favored of God’s lounge, the remains of a light lunch still resting on the small auxiliary table next to her. She had not eaten much of it. She was trying to make herself relax.

For the entire time she had been sitting there, she had played with her food, unsuccessfully trying to avoid watching Bleys Ahrens, who was working quietly at a desk on the other side of a long clear space that bisected the large room. He had insisted, when Toni led Pallas into the room, that Pallas eat and relax before they talked; and now she was eager to talk with him, but also—what? Afraid?

"Bleys, are you free to talk with Pallas Salvador?" Toni asked now. Pallas knew Toni had been keeping an attentive eye on her, from her own desk. Bleys looked up from the display on his screen.

"Certainly," he said, his voice, low and calm, soothing her anxiety a little. "No, don't get up, please. We'll both be more comfortable if I come over there."

He walked across to her, his long legs in their dark gray trousers and black boots covering the distance quickly even though he was pulling his oversize chair with him. He placed the chair in a position to her left front, a move Pallas recognized, from her training at Others' headquarters on Association, as designed to avoid the confrontational connotations of a face-to-face situation.

"I won't ask how you're feeling," he said, smiling at her. His white teeth gleamed out of the lightly tanned face beneath his dark hair, and the collar of his white work shirt was open. Even seated, he seemed to tower above her. "Not because I don't care, but because I know what Kaj Menowsky has learned about you, and what you've told Toni."

She found herself relaxing. She really could use a little more sleep, she thought. That slight accent that colored his speech pattern was quite pleasant to listen to ...

"Everyone assures me you haven't been damaged," Bleys Ahrens was continuing, "and that you've been making a solid and fast recovery. We're all glad to hear it, and we're determined to make sure that whatever happened to you doesn't happen to you—or to anyone else among our people—ever again." His last words had taken on a cold tone, while his eyes seemed suddenly to become hard, his jaw muscles to tighten.

Pallas' eyes opened wide, and she sat up in her chair. She had not been thinking in terms of anger, but Bleys' words seemed to fan some hidden ember inside her.

"What did happen to me?" she asked. "And who did it? I don't remember anything at all, and Antonia Lu said she didn't know much—"

"And we don't know much," Bleys said, his voice again low and calm, soothing. In response, he noted, her breathing slowed, the skin around her eyes loosening a little. The purposeful manipulation of her emotions into a series of quick variations would, he knew, leave her more susceptible to his suggestions than she might otherwise be.

"I'm going to tell you everything we've learned so far," he went on, putting just a hint of a smile on the edge of his serious, determined expression. "I'd like you to listen carefully, and tell me whenever you hear something you think is incorrect, or whenever you remember anything—anything at all. Will you do that?"

"Of course," she said. Her chin lifted slightly as her voice became a little stronger. "You can count on me." "I thought so," he said, looking pleased.

Immediately, his trained perceptions noted that she was reacting positively to his approval. He leaned forward in his chair, an action that had the twin effects of bringing his eyes down to the level of hers and moving his face closer to hers. He could see the pupils of her eyes dilating in response to the increased sense of intimacy he had evoked.

"As you know," he began, "there were two attacks on my party while we were on tour." She nodded, her eyes, large and grave, focused on his face.

"Of course, we let you know we were all right." She nodded again.

"What we didn't tell you," he continued, "was that after thinking about the implications of the attack, we became concerned that you yourself"—her head drew back a little—"as well as your colleagues, might be in some danger, too."

"I think I see what you're saying," she said, her words quiet and timid at first, but strengthening and coming faster as she continued: "You're suggesting that the attack on you might not have been due to your position as a Friendly official, but to your work as—as one of us."

"Exactly," he said, smiling at her. "Of course we didn't know the reason for the attack, since the people who planted the bomb weren't found; but we decided to take no chances, and I ordered some of my security people to stand guard over your offices—and over you personally."

"But why didn't you tell me?" Pallas said. "I could certainly have—"

"That was a hard decision," he interrupted her, "but one I made personally." He paused to look her straight in the eye, as if offering her a chance to challenge him.

"That's what my main job in this organization is," he said. "I make decisions. Every organization has to have someone to do that—someone who can do it, and do it well, even when the situation is . . . difficult."

He smiled at her again.

"You weren't in charge here the last time I was on Ceta," he went on, "and I haven't had time to get to know you very well. But I made a decision to trust you would understand, later.... I thought I'd be able to count on your agreeing—as all of our Others have always agreed—to put yourself at the disposal of our movement."

"But of course!" she said. "You can't doubt—"

"—and I didn't," he interrupted again. "I did not doubt at all; and so I did what was best for our movement." He smiled again, almost shyly.

"In short," he went on, "I used you."

"'Used me?"

"Used you," he said, nodding. "I used you as bait. I had to find out who was behind the attack on me—I had to know if it was part of an attack on our movement. So I set our people to observe whether any further attacks were made—which meant they had to watch you, because you were the next most obvious target, if the attacks were in fact aimed at our Others."

"Yes, I see that," she said. "But why didn't you tell me?"

"I had several reasons for that," he said. "For one, it was possible that if you knew our people were watching, you might change your behavior—and our success depended on you continuing to follow your usual routines."

She started to object, but he interrupted once more.

"The other reason was perhaps less obvious," he said, "but was more fundamental: we had no safe way to let you know what we thought might be going on."

"I don't understand!"

"Remember, we were on the other side of the planet," he said, "in the Friendly consulate in Abbeyville."

She nodded, recalling his messages from that location.

"At that point," Bleys continued, "we were unable to communicate safely with you anymore."

" 'Safely'?" She blinked.

"Yes," he said. "If you think about it, you'll realize that in both attacks, the attackers had to have been informed of our exact itinerary." He held up a hand, forestalling her exclamation.

"In short, we believe someone is able to intercept our communications to you," he said.

"I see!" She nearly yelled it. Recovering herself, she continued in a lower tone: "I do see... but I thought our communications were secure—" There was now a question in her tone.

"So did we," he said, a rueful look on his face. "But now you'll realize, we couldn't safely let you know what was happening, because whoever was reading our messages—"

"—would know we were on to them!"

He smiled at her.

"So we trusted you would understand later," he said. "And I see you do."

She smiled back. It seemed so clear and right, the way he explained it.

"Oh, yes," she murmured.

For a few moments there was silence in the lounge.

Eventually Pallas was led back to her room. She was sleepy, but filled with a kind of exhilaration. She felt she had a heightened understanding of the unity of the Others—her Others—under Bleys' leadership, and of the Tightness of their work. She drifted into sleep on a slow, smooth tide of warm feelings that she hugged to herself, smiling.

Meanwhile, Bleys was telling Toni, back in the lounge, that he was now convinced that Pallas Salvador was not one of their unknown enemies.

"I agree," Toni said. "That doesn't mean she's entirely without fault here."

"As head of the organization on this planet, she's of course ultimately responsible for everything," Bleys said. "Or did you have something more specific in mind?"

"Put that way—no," she said. "I'm the one who said being deceived is no crime. But maybe being the leader of a group who were deceived so badly requires a certain—well, penalty."

"As a kind of organizational imperative?" he asked. "I mean, as an example?"