“You don’t.”
“No, sir. I don’t.”
Stavros stared at him. “You have this personal attachment to those two mri. Attachment obsession. You’re no longer a rational man on the subject, Duncan. Think. Explain to me. What do you hope to do or to find? What’s the point of this sudden scholarship of yours, these hours in the library, in full view of the regul? What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“You don’t know. But’ it involves every mri record you can find.”
Duncan clenched his jaw, leaned back and made himself draw an even breath. Stavros left the silence, waiting for him. “I want to know,” Duncan said finally, “what they were. I saw them die. I saw a whole species die out there. I want to know what it was I saw destroyed.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“I was there. You weren’t.” Duncan’s mind filled again with the night, the dark, the blinding light of the destruction. A mri body pressed against him, two men equally trembling in the forces that had destroyed a species.
Stavros gazed at him a long time. His face grew sober, even pitying, and this was unaccustomed for Stavros. “What do you think? That it might have been you that drew the attack to them? Is that what’s eating at you that you might be responsible, as much as Hulagh?”
It hit near enough the mark. Duncan sat still, knowing that he was not going to be able to talk rationally about it Stavros let the silence hang there a moment.
“Perhaps,” said Stavros finally, “it would be better if you would go up to Saber for a time, into an environment more familiar to you, where you can sort out your thinking.”
“No, sir. It would not be better. You took me off assignment with you. I accept that. But give me something else: I waive my transfer home, and my discharge. Give me another assignment, here on Kesrith.”
“That is a request, I take it.”
“Yes, sir. That is a request.”
“Everything you do, since you were attached to me, is observed and taken for omen by the regul. You’ve persisted in aggravating the situation. You came here to assist, SurTac Duncan, not to formulate policy.”
Duncan did not answer. It was not expected. Stavros’ mouth worked in the effort prolonged speech cost him; he drew a difficult breath, and Duncan grew concerned, remembering that Stavros was a sick man, that he was trying, amid all other pressures, to remember something of personal debts. He put a curb on his temper.
“You took it on yourself,” Stavros said at last, “to accuse bai Hulagh of murder. You created an incident that nearly shipwrecked the whole Kesrithi diplomatic effort. Maybe you think you were justified. Let us suppose ” Stavros’ harsh, strained voice acquired a marginally gentler tone. “Let us suppose for the sake of argument that you were absolutely justified. But you do not make decisions like that, SurTac Duncan, and you must know that, somewhere at the bottom of your righteousness.”
“Yes, sir,” he said very quietly.
“As it happens,” said Stavros, “I don’t doubt you. And I’m positive the bai tried to kill you in spite of all my efforts to reassure him. When he found you among mri, that was too much for him. I think you know that. I think you’re bothered , by that possibility, and I wish that I could set your mind at ease and say that it wasn’t so. I can’t. Hulagh probably did exactly what you charge he did. But charges like that aren’t profitable for me to pursue right now. I recovered you alive. That was the best that I could do, with all else that was going on. I recovered your mri too, quite incidentally.”
“What remains of them. The medics ”
“Yes. What remains of them. But you can’t undo that. You can’t do a thing about it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The medics tell me you’ve healed.”
“Yes, sir.” Duncan drew a deep breath and decided finally that Stavros was trying to put him at ease. He watched as the governor tried awkwardly to manipulate a clean cup into the dispenser rose and took over that task, filling the cup the governor was going to offer him. Stavros favored him with a one-sided smile.