“You’re challenging me to do that?”
Again a shrug, a hint of mockery. “I’m betting the old woman knows a good part of it already.”
“Or that it’s already too late? It would take eight days for the shockwave to reach us.”
“Possible,” he said. “But not my reason.”
“Men you believe I don’t want the break right now. You could be mistaken.”
Pol said nothing.
“You don’t plan,” Raen said in a bard voice, “to be setting up on Istra”
“I’ve a problem,” Pol said. “If I go back, I’ll be called in; and if I run alone . . . they’ll know I heard something here that made it advisable. I’ve put myself in difficulty on your account, Meth-maren.”
“If I believed any of it”
Pol made another of his elaborate gestures of offence. “I protest. I shall go back to my ship and wait until you think things over in a clearer mind. Someone else will come, mark me.”
“Ah, I don’t doubt that much. And help would be convenient. But likewise I remember the front porch at Kethiuy. You knew. You knew when you were talking to me. Didn’t you?”
A profound sobriety came on Pol’s face. He lowered his eyes, raised them steadily. “I knew, yes. And I left, with the rest of the Halds, before the attack. Revenge, Meth-maren, involving another generation. It had nothing to do with you.”
“Now it does.”
He had no answer for that. Neither did he flinch.
“This one’s mine,” she said. “I always had profound respect for your intelligence, Pol Hald. You were in Hald councils before I was born. You were alive when the Meth-marens split, Sul from Ruil. You have contacts I don’t. You’ve access to Cerdin. You’ve been staying alive and embarrassing Council twice my whole lifespan. You knew, back in Kethiuy. You’re telling me now that you don’t figure precisely what’s in others’ minds?”
Pol drew a long breath, nodded slowly, looking down. “The plan was, you understand, to break out of the Reach. That was Thel’s idea. To build. To breed. And it’s all here on Istra, isn’t it? You’ve put it together for yourself.”
“Enough to take it apart.”
“They’ll kill you for sure. They’ll drag Moth down and kill you before they let you expose their operation.”
“Their.”
“Their. I’m not in favour. I go my own way. As you do. I’ll run when the time comes. I’ll stay, while the mood takes me. Only you won’t have that luxury. Is it worth this much, your vendetta?”
“It’s beyond argument.”
He looked at Warrior, stared into the faceted eyes, glanced back with a faint touch of revulsion. “Hive-masters. It’s that, isn’t it? Ruil Meth-maren tried to use the hives. And Thel wanted to use them. Look where that took us.”
“No one,” she said, “uses the hives. Hive-master was a Ruil word. Sul never used it And Thon’s still playing that dangerous game. Are red-hivers out again on Cerdin?’
“They make gifts to all the old contacts.”
Warrior’s palps flicked nervously. “Pact,” it said
Pol glanced that way in apprehension.
“Do you not understand the danger?” Raen asked hint “The hives don’t have anything to gain . . . nothing Hald could want out of the exchange.”
“Azi,” Pol said. “They ask for more azi. For more land. More grain.”
“Hives grow,” said Warrior. “Hives here—grow.”
Raen looked on Warrior. Truth. It was clear truth. It fit with all the knowledge elsewhere gathered.
“Don’t you understand?” she appealed to Pol. Doesn’t Council? Who talked first of this expansion? Thel, Ruil . . . or red-hive?”
“Thel claimed unique partnership, claimed that even Drones could be brought into partnership with humans.”
Her heart beat very fast. She laid her hand on one of Warrior’s auditory palps, stroked it gently, gently. “O Pol. Don’t they realise? Drones are the Memory. Humans can’t touch that.”
Pol shrugged, and yet his dark eyes were quick with worry. “The Meth-marens are dead. The hive-masters are dead, all but you. And Council doesn’t have access to you, does it? Moth’s kept saying that you were important”
“I’m flattered,” she said hoarsely. “Hive-masters. Ruil deluded themselves. They were never hive-masters. They listened to the hives. Get out of here. Take your ship. Tell them they’re all mad. I’ll give you reasons enough to tell them.”