“Nonsense.”
“You know what I mean. Flower is your conscience. Stavros whoever sent them did right. There will be witnesses. The lieutenant here others in your crew they will be witnesses. You are warring against a dying people, killing an ancient, ancient world.” His eyes wandered to Sharn, who sat with nose-slits completely closed. “And you likewise. Bai Sharn, do you think that you want humanity without the mri? Think on checks and balances. Look at your present allies. Either without the other is dangerous to regul. Do not think that humankind loves you. Look at me, bai Sharn.”
The bai’s nostrils fluttered rapidly. “Kill this youngling. Be rid of it and its counsels, bai Koch. It is poisonous.”
Duncan looked back to Koch, to the cold and level stare that refused to be ruffled by him or by Sharn, and of a sudden, thinking of humans agafn, he knew this one too, Havener, full of hate. A mri could not hold such opinions as ran in Koch: a mri had allegiance to a she’pan, and a she’pan considered for the ages.
“You want to kill them,” he said to Koch. “And you are thinking perhaps that you will hold me here as a source of information. I will tell you what I know. But I would prefer to tell you without the presence of the bai.”
He had set Koch at disadvantage. Koch had to dismiss Sham or keep her, and either was a decision.
“Do your explaining to the security chief,” Koch said. “The report will reach me.”
“I will say nothing to them,” Duncan said.
Koch sat and stared at him, and perhaps believed him. Red flooded his face and stayed there; a vein beat at his temple. “What is it you have to say, then?”
“First, that when I am done, I am leaving. I have left the Service. I am second to the kel’anth of the mri. If you hold me, that is your choice, but I am no longer under orders of Stavros or of your service.”
“You are a deserter.”
Duncan released a gentle breath. “I was set aboard a mri ship to learn them. I was thrown away. The she’pan gathered me up again.”
Koch was silent a long time. Finally he opened his desk, drew out a sheet of paper, slid it across the desk. Duncan reached for it, finding the blockish print strange to his eyes.
Code numbers. One was his. Credentials, special liaison Sten X Duncan: detached from Service 9/4/21 mission code Prober. Authorization code Phoenix, limitations encoded file SS-DS-34. By my authority, this date, George T. Stavros, governor, Kesrith Zone.
Duncan looked up.
“Your authorizations,” said Koch, “are for mediation at my discretion. Your defection was anticipated.”
Duncan folded the paper, carefully, put it into his belt, and all the while rage was building in him. He smothered the impulses. I can make you angry, Niun had said once, I have passed your guard again. I have given you something to think about besides the Game.
He looked at Sharn, whose nostrils trembled, whose bony lips were clamped shut “If there is no farther firing,” said Koch, “we will cease fire.”
“That relieves my mind,” Duncan said from that same cold distance.
“And we will land, and establish that things are permanently settled.”
“I will arrange cease-fire. Set me on-world again.”
“Do not,” said Sharn. “The bai will take a harsh view of any accommodation with these creatures.”
“Do you,” Duncan asked cynically, “fear a mri’s memory?”
Sham’s nostrils snapped shut and color came and went in her skin. Her fingers moved on her console, rapidly, and still she stared at them both.
“Mri can adapt to non-mri,” Duncan said. “I am living proof that it is possible.”
Koch’s dark eyes wandered over him. “Drop the veil, SurTac.”
Duncan did so, stared at the man naked-faced.
“You do not find it easy,” Koch said.
“I have not passed far enough that you can’t deal with me. I am what Stavros, perhaps, intended. I am useful to you. I can get a she’pan of the People to talk, and that is more than you could win by any other means.”