“… and people took sides as to whether it was morally defensible for us to have done so,” Bertran concluded mildly.
“It was not defensible,” said Nela definitely. “Because at the same time we were invading these bad smallish countries, our politicians were making excuses for our groveling around bad large countries who treated their citizens even worse! I think people should kick out their own despots.”
“Killing numerous innocent bystanders in the process,” said Bertran dryly. “As well as a good many of themselves.”
Nela glared at him and worked her mouth as though tasting what she intended to say next.
Before she could speak, Curvis said, “We Enforcers are taught that we must not set ourselves up as judges. Fringe knows that!”
“She may know it, but she does judge,” cried Nela. “I saw her face when that monster swallowed the child in the basket! She tried not to show any feeling, but her face betrayed her!”
“Had it been up to you, you would have rescued the child?” asked Jory in an interested voice.
“I would.”
“But you just said one shouldn’t intervene.”
Nela flushed. “That’s different. The child wasn’t in some foreign country. It was on the river all alone.”
“Don’t you think a man being tortured in a dungeon feels all alone?” asked Bertran. “No matter what country he’s in?”
Nela shook her head at him. “You know what I mean.”
“I don’t.” He felt a sudden spurt of anger at her assumption. Why should she believe he always knew what she meant! He didn’t. Sometimes he didn’t care! “I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean. When we were with the circus, I read about a group of seamen and their captain who were captured by a country hostile to their own. The hostiles confined them, tortured the captain, humiliated him, eventually sold him and his men back to their own country for ransom. Of course, the hostiles felt that when they’d humiliated the captain, they’d humiliated his country, which was very satisfying.
“The point is, after his return, the captain confessed that he and his men had prayed every day that their country would end their pain and wipe out their humiliation by totally destroying the city where they were being held, where their captors were. They were eager to die if it meant they would be avenged. They felt death was preferable to confinement, torture, and humiliation. The captain wrote, ‘It is better to die than be used by evil for evil’s purposes.’
“Emotionally, I think I’m on the side of intervention. Nela, however, seems to feel differently, and on this world—”
“On this world,” interrupted Curvis in a furious whisper, “the question does not arise. We do not think of provinces as ‘evil.’ We do not think of death or torture or human sacrifice as ‘evil.’ That is simply the custom in certain places, and intervention is always wrong, no matter who is being saved or for what or who or what is being risked! We intervene only to maintain the status quo!”
The twins were silenced by his vehemence. His seemed to be the last word on the subject. They fell silent, closed in by the dark that hid everything except the stars and the deeper blackness of the banks whenever the Dove came close to one shore or the other as it tacked upstream. The ship’s progress was made up of long diagonal runs followed by laborious changes of direction. The silent thoughts of those along the rail were accompanied only by the humming of the wind among the shrouds and the rattle of the sails when they came about on a new tack. Then, as they approached the southern shore, Jory took a deep breath, almost a sigh.
“There,” she said softly. “Along the bank. As I suspected.”
In moments they all saw what she did, a line of luminescent blotches moving along the southern bank, staying even with the Dove as it made its slow way upstream. Those at the railing blinked, to be sure they were indeed seeing something. Jory shivered uncontrollably. Asner put his arms about her.
“What’s the matter with her?” whispered Nela.
“She’s frightened,” said Asner. “And so am I.”
“Of those?”
“We’ve seen something like them earlier tonight,” he reminded her.
“In Derbeck,” commented Curvis. “Before Chimi-ahm appeared. The shapes in the smoke.”
Hearing the alarm in their voices, Fringe left the unconscious girl and returned to the rail where she was joined by Danivon. They peered at the southern shore, trying to make sense of the featureless blobs.
“Ghosts,” said Danivon, remembering Boarmus’s message.
“No one said anything to me about ghosts,” said Curvis, annoyed once again.
Danivon shook his head, though he had no doubt these were what Boarmus had warned him against. The elder Luzes came to rejoin the group, peering at the blobs, taking what comfort they could in the company of others as they watched the strange pursuers. Though not large, at least not at the distance they were being observed from the ship, they were numerous, moving with deliberation. No barrier prevented their progress, no copse of trees or swampy morass, not even lofty ramparts of stone, several of which reared against the stars as they moved upriver. The shapes kept precisely even with the ship, slowing when the wind fell, speeding when it grew brisker, growing more numerous the farther they went.
Curvis found this persistence menacing though he refused to admit it to himself. “Perhaps they are something sent from Tolerance,” he suggested. “By Council Supervisory.”
“No,” Jory replied, turning to put her back to the rail. “I rather imagine your Council would be as surprised at them—and as frightened—as I am.”
“I’m not frightened,” Danivon snarled. “Why should I be?”
“You should be because you’re not a fool, no matter you are a cockerel who crows before he thinks,” she whispered. “You say Boarmus warned you about ghosts. What did he mean?”
Danivon muttered, “I don’t know what he meant.”
“Ghosts of whom?” asked Asner, peering through the darkness at the flapping forms, now so close they could
