‘And it wasn’t your intention that he should pauperize himself getting to Deepsoil Five? He did, you know. His wife and child are destitute.’ Clarin sipped at the last of her tea, watching Don’s face.
‘I didn’t know.’ Don leaned forward, burying her head in her hands. ‘Nothing went right, did it? I had no idea he’d done that. My friend arranged the whole thing. I should never have….’
‘Never mind, Don,’ Tasmin said gently. ‘It wasn’t your fault. Not any more than it was mine or my father’s or Lim’s own. He was trying desperately to prove himself. He put everything he had into this – more than he had. Your friend’s only mistake was to count too heavily on someone whose own demons were riding him. There’s more than enough guilt to go around, but you don’t deserve much of it.’
‘Meantime,’ Clarin said, going on with her précis, ‘two attempts were made on your life. One here in the Redfang Range, one sometime later in the Chapter House at Splash One. But you say you do not know who is attempting to kill you.’
‘It’s true. I don’t. I’ve been over and over everything I said to anyone from the beginning. As I said, I did bubble around a little bit, right at the first, but I never actually said anything. Maybe someone could suspect that I know something I shouldn’t, but no one can know, not for sure.’
‘For some people, suspicion is enough,’ Tasmin commented. ‘More than enough. Crystallites, for example. Though I should think they would welcome proof of sentience.’ He waited for a comment from Don but heard none. ‘Surely you must suspect someone.’
‘Someone with BDL, obviously,’ she said uncomfortably. ‘We all know how unscrupulous they are. He is.’
‘He being?’
‘Justin. The more profit out of Jubal, the more goes in his own pockets. At least, so I’ve heard.’
‘In his pockets, and the Governor’s. Some say it even goes to the PEC.’
‘I don’t like to believe that,’ Don said wearily. ‘The point is, what am I going to do now?’ She stood up and walked around the little fire, swinging her arms, rotating her head, working the kinks out. ‘I don’t know where to go, what to do. All I can think of is to use the com network to send information to everyone I can think of and hope it gets generally disseminated before they catch up to me.’
‘I doubt they’re going to let us out of here long enough for you to do that,’ Clarin remarked. ‘We’re bottled up.’
‘Oh, we can get out,’ Don said. ‘I know this Range well. Even if they come in after us, there are all kinds of little side canyons and slots you can’t even see from the satellite charts. But if we get out, what?’
‘I’m still trying to figure out what’s going to happen,’ Jamieson said in a puzzled voice. ‘There are some pieces that don’t seem to fit.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, we met an officer when we were coming into Splash One, and he told us all the Crystallites would be rounded up pretty soon for the sake of public order. They make a lot of noise, the Crystallites, but there aren’t all that many of them. Then when we were coming up to Northwest, the driver talked about the military and the roads. They’ve closed the base on Serendipity and moved the sector garrison here. The Deepsoil Coast is already overcrowded. Jubal can hardly feed its population now, while Serendipity has surpluses all over the place. It doesn’t make any economic sense at all. And what I’m wondering is, what are they going to use all those troopers for?’
‘It’s almost as though they expected general disorder, isn’t it?’ asked Tasmin in a deceptively mild voice. He had been staring out over the ranges while suspicions gradually solidified within him.
‘What kind of general disorder? Who are those troopers going to be used against?’
‘Well, considering that BDL will probably start destroying Presences shortly after the CHASE Commission delivers its report, I would judge the troops are to be used against us,’ Tasmin said.
‘Us!’
‘Tripsingers. Explorers. All the dependents and ancillary services. All those who earn their living from us, the storekeepers, farmers, and mule breeders. Thousands of us, Reb. If we see the destruction of a few Presences, most of us will forget lipservice to BDL. We might get violent.’
‘Damn it, we would get violent,’ the boy asserted.
‘I think BDL knows that. If I were Harward Justin, I’d be planning to destroy a lot of Presences within minutes of the CHASE report. Before there could be any general uprising. Then I’d use the troops to keep order.’
‘So what do we do?’ Don asked again. ‘Sit here and die? Try to get out? To do what?’
‘Figure something out,’ said Clarin definitely. ‘We’ll figure something out, Don. But it would help a great deal if you would start by trusting us more than you have.’
Donatella shook her head as though she did not understand.
‘Oh, come on, Don. You’ve talked around and around it, for hours. You’ve told us you found this proof. You’ve told us you checked the proof. You’ve told us you have real, factual information. You’ve told us everything – except what the process was and what the information is. I don’t see how we can help you if we don’t know.’
The Explorer knight rose, stalked away from the fire and stood at some distance from it, her back to them, as rigid as when they had first arrived at the quiet pocket. The fire threw flickering lights along her back glimmering in her pale hair. ‘If anyone finds out, they’ll kill me,’ she said.
‘They’re trying to kill you anyhow. We didn’t bring the threat with us. It’s already here. I don’t think they’ll try any harder if they know what the real
