There was a considerable space of silence. Fear was thick in the air.
“There has been some violence,” said one of the others. “The station is particularly vulnerable to sabotage and such acts. We fear it. We have sent appeals. None were answered.”
“The Family ignored them. Is that your meaning?”
“Yes,” said another after a moment.
“That is remarkable, seri. And what agency do you suspect to be the source of your difficulty?”
No one answered.
“Dare I guess,” said Raen, “that you suspect that the source of your troubles is the Family?”
There was yet no answer, only the evidence of perspiration on beta faces.
“Or the hives?”
No one moved. Not an eye blinked.
“You would not be advised to take any action against me, seri. The Family is not monolithic. Quite the contrary. Be reassured: I am ignorant; you can try to deceive me. What brought the two of you to Meron?”
“We—have loans outstanding from MIMAK there. We hoped for some material assistance . . .”
“We hoped,” Parn Kest interrupted brusquely, “to establish innerworlds contacts-to help us past this wall of silence. We need relief . . . in taxes, in trade; we were ignored, appeal after appeal. And we hoped to work out a temporary agreement with MIMAK, against the hope of some relief. Grain. Grain and food. Kontrin—we’re supporting farms and estates which can’t possibly make profit. We’re at a crisis. We were given license for increase in population, our own and azi, and the figures doubled our own. We thought future adjustment would take care of that. But the crisis is on us, and no one listens. Majat absorb some of the excess. That market is all that keeps us from economic collapse. But food . . . food for all that population . . . And the day we can’t feed the hives . Kont’ Raen, agriculture and azi are our livelihood. Newhope and Newport and the station . . . and the majat . . . derive their food from the estates; but it’s consumed by the azi who work them. There are workers enough to cover the estates’ needs four times over. There’s panic out there. The estates are armed camps.”
“We were told when we came in,” Eln said in a faint voice, “that ITAK has been able to confiscate azi of some of the smaller estates. But there’s no way to take them by force from the larger. We can’t legally dispose of those contracts, by sale or by termination. There has to be Kontrin—”
“—license for transfer or adjustment,” Raen finished. “Or for termination without medical cause. I know our policies rather thoroughly, ser Eln.”
“And therefore you can’t export and you can’t terminate.”
“Or feed them indefinitely, Kontrin. Or feed them. The economics of the farms insist on a certain number of azi to the allotted land area. Someone . . . erred.”
Eln’s lips trembled, having said so. It was for a beta, great daring.
“And the occasion for violence against the station?”
“It hasn’t happened yet,” one of the others said.
“But you fear that it will. Why?”
“The corporations are blamed for the situation on the estates. Estate-owners are hardly able to comprehend any other—at fault.”
There was another silence, deep and long.
“You’ll be glad to know, seri, that there are means to get a message off this world, one that would be heard on Cerdin. I might do it. But there are solutions shoat of that. Perhaps better ones.” She thought then of Jim, and laid a hand on his knee, leaning toward him. “You are hearing things which aren’t for retelling . . . to anyone.”
“I will not,” he said, and she believed him, for he looked as if he earnestly wanted to be deaf to this. She turned back to Eln and Kest.
“What measures,” she asked them, “have the corporations taken?”
No one wanted to meet her eyes, not those two, nor their companions.
“Is there starvation?” she asked.
“We are importing,” one of the others said at last, a small, flat voice.
Raen looked at him, slowly took his meaning. “Standard channels of trade?”
“All according to license. Foodstuffs are one of the permitted—”