Brother To Shadows

'You, Learned One,' retorted the captain, 'are no longer a member in good standing of your service—and because you meddled with this very scanner of yours! Any protest will have to be entered through your Clan Elder and, since we are half the galaxy away from your home, that will take quite a time to resolve.'

'I am on detached service, Captain. Consult the authorities if you wish. You will discover my credentials in order. My search. Before my journey was so brazenly interrupted, I was on my way to Lochan. I have already shown my authorization for such a study. That this has occurred on Tssek, is, I assert, no fault of mine.'

'It remains that there is a civil war in progress on the other side of that fence,' the captain waved at the nearest window opening onto the port, 'and that you have had a hand in stirring it up, willing or not willing. You have transgressed against the creed of your own people as well as the central law of noninterference.'

'Captain,' again the port commander spoke, 'is it not better to wait and see? There is abundant proof which you yourself have viewed,' again he waved toward the discs, 'that a strong underground movement was underway even before this Learned One and his bodyguard were brought here. That the attack came at the time it did was also certain. They had knowledge—my listening service is not a questionable one—that the Holder planned to broadcast his carefully edited version of the Great Ingathering. The overturn of his plan was caused because two of the technicians selected to set up the already prepared broadcast of his own editing were members of the underground party. They were prepared to sabotage his efforts. When the Zacathan was brought in it added a new factor they had not planned on. But in fact, Learned One,' now he addressed Zurzal, 'you did show what might have been the truth fifty years in the past. This was a support they had not counted on, but one they speedily turned to their advantage. For what your scanner showed was broadcast over more than half of the machines, picked up by underground installations and passed on. The broadcast had already been arranged as the signal for the uprising, and they moved in.'

'Their control is not yet complete,' the captain stated. 'It is difficult to believe that they will prevail over such fortresses as Smagan or Wer.'

'Thanks to our friends here,' the port officer nodded to the three on the other side of the table, 'they have the Holder. As do all who rise to power he has for years systematically weeded out all below him who could question his authority, depending on those linked to him so tightly that his fall would mean theirs also. They may hold out in pockets because it means their lives, and even ras-rats will turn and fight if they are cornered, but there is no longer any leader to rally them and there has long been jealousy and infighting among them.'

'You have been watching the building of this situation for long, Commander?' Zurzal's frill was lightening in shade.

'As the one responsible for this port I have had to make observations,' the other agreed. 'Every form of government sooner or later reaches a plateau from which there is no longer an upward advance. Since the lives of sentient beings do not remain static, there follow changes. As your people know so well, Learned One. So it happened here. But when the rebels win they will have something to thank your guard for—that they have the Holder.'

'As I have said!' the captain scowled, 'interference with the native government—'

'You would rather, Captain, that we be dead?'

Startled, it was not only the Patrol officer but all the rest of them who turned now to look at the fifth member of the party. Gone were the floating, seductive garments of the assured Jewelbright. Taynad had asked for and changed speedily into a spacer's drab garb. The long waves of her hair had been tightly braided, and were now bound around her head, though the wealth of that hair made it seem she must be wearing a turban.

'Yes,' the captain had almost instantly adjusted to her entrance into this meeting, to the implied criticism of her question. 'There also remains you, Gentlefem. I believe that you arrived here by the invitation of the Holder, is that not so?'

'Having done so,' Taynad returned calmly, 'there is no reason for my remaining once he is no longer my host. My very presence in his company would probably have damned me with these rebels. I owe my continued existence to the Learned One and his guard. And I am duly grateful. I hardly think, Captain, that you are going to hand me over to Tssekians—'

Jofre was sensitive to what she was doing, using trained willpower. Even though she had not turned it on him, he could feel the gathering force of it. And he did not believe that this Patrol officer, disciplined as he might be, could stand against the issha assurance of the Jewelbright.

'Why did you come?' It was not the officer but the port commander who asked that bluntly, and she answered as fully:

'The Holder had (I sawhim cut down in the hall and so he is no longer my employer) a Horde Commander who was ambitious. He had gone off-world hunting the Learned One here as an offering to his master, and on Asborgan he chanced to learn of the Jewels. As was custom he bargained for my services. I was to be another gift. He had plans—' She shrugged. 'I was a weapon; he did not have time to use me.'

'Now that we have discussed a number of explanations and scraps of news,' Zurzal cut in, 'may we return to the main point of this meeting? I have suffered a crude and unnecessary interruption to plans I have been making for years. It is my intention that I carry those out and I do not think that anyone, Captain, is going to produce a good reason why I cannot.'

'You will wait until there is a settlement here!' returned the Patrol officer flatly.

Zurzal spoke then, not to him, but to the port commander. 'Commander, you have shown that you have ample reason to believe that my coming here had in reality nothing to do with the present embroilment. You also know that my appearance on Tssek was entirely against my will. By Stellar Law can we be held in this fashion?'

The commander looked neither to the Patrol captain nor to the Zacathan, instead he was studying with great interest the nails on his right hand.

'He's right, you know,' he observed. 'We have proof of the kidnapping, of the fact that he was being used against his will. He has claimed refuge under the Code of Harktapha—that has held since the first spacers met with his kind. We have no quarrel with Zacathans—their knowledge is ever at our service—their persons are diplomatically sacred—'

'This one presumes too much!' the Patrol officer interrupted.

'In your opinion—' The three words brought a sour silence from the captain. His hands clenched on the edge of the desk as if he would upend that innocent piece of furniture and send it in the general direction of those three across from him.

'So, Learned One,' as if he need expect no more interruption the commander turned again to Zurzal, 'what is