“Be very still.” Pol leaned close, his breath fanning his cheek. “I’ve talked my way in here, you see. The majat is watching . . . such moves as they have eyes to see. Do you hear me, azi?”
He tried to nod against the hand. He could scarcely breathe; words passed out of sense again.
“I told you to stay downstairs.”
“Let him go.” Max’s voice. Jim struggled back toward the sound, toward understanding. “I shouldn’t have let you in.”
“But you have. Get the Warrior out of here. Guard the door if you like. Leave me with him.”
Max, Jim wanted to say. He murmured something. Max did not answer.
“Get downstairs,.” Pol Hald said. “Hear me?”
The crack of authority was in his voice. Jim winced at it. Max went. The door closed. Pol Hald rose and locked it, and Jim rolled onto his side, holding the chair arm, fighting to move at all. Pol returned, caught his arms, jerked at him. His head snapped back with a crack: muscle control was gone. He could not even lift it.
“Shuttle’s down,” Pol said, “but not in either port. Where is she? Come out of it and answer me.”
He could not. He tried to shake his head to protest the fact. Pol flung him down, let him alone; steps retreated, came back—he was roughly lifted and a cup held to his lips.
“Drink it, hear? If there’s a mind left in you. Was it her order you did this?”
He drank. The water eased his throat. Pol let him back then, and touched wet fingers to his temples. He shut his eyes and drifted, came back again to a faint rattling of plastic.
“Kontrin tapes,” Pol muttered. “History. Law. Comp theory—blast! where did she get that one?” He thought that it was safe to rest while the voice railed elsewhere, but suddenly the hands fastened into his toneless limbs again and pressed to the bone. “Why, azi?”
He lay still, looking at Pol, and Pol at him.
“You know me,” Pol said. “Don’t you? You know me.”
He blinked, no more than that. It was truth. Pol understood it.
And slowly Pol sank down beside the chair, gripped his arm quite gently. “You’re sane. Don’t think you can pretend it undid you. I’ve seen suicides by deepstudy. You’re not gone. You’re lying there with your teeth shut on everything, but I understand, you ear? You’ve studied what you ought not. I’m not dealing with an azi, am I? You’re something else. How long have you been delving into those particular tapes?”
He answered nothing, and there was knowledge in his mind, memory of the Family, what he could expect of Halds.
“She ordered this? She set you to suicide?”
“Not suicide.” The accusation that touched her, stung him. “No. I. My choice. To learn.”
“And what have you learned, azi?”
“My name is Jim.”
“You have, haven’t you?”
He thought that Pol would kill him. He expected so, but there was nothing he could do about it; he tried to move, and Pol helped instead of hindering, hauled him forward to sit on the edge, put a glass into his hand. He expected water and got juice, gagged on it. “Drink it,” Pol snapped at him, and when he had done so, dragged him bodily into the bath and into the shower, turned the water on him. He sank down, too weak to stand, and leaned against the glass.
It was Max who pulled him from it. Max’s strong hands lifted him, half-carried him to the bed.
“Pol,” he objected. “Where is he?”
“Downstairs.” The guard-azi looked at him in anguish. “He came to the gate outside—said she’s in trouble. What do we do? What orders?”
Max was asking him. He stared at the azi. Nothing made sense. There was only the single word. She.
He snatched at his abandoned clothing, looked up suddenly at a move in the open doorway. Pol stood there, a shape among shadows.
“The mind’s working now, isn’t it? More than these that could be argued into letting the likes of me into the house.”
It was. Jim looked reproach at Max, and suddenly realised a gulf between. He did not know what he should and knew more than gave him comfort. His knees went out from under him and he had to lean, caught wildly at the chair.