His pulses roared. “You also, good friend and wise man,” he heard her propose to Iang.
“I bid you goodnight, then,” Erannath said.
The chaplain bowed to him. “Forgive us our confidentiality.”
“Maybe we should invite you along,” Mea said. “Look here, you are not one plain scientist like you claim. You are one Ythrian secret agent, collecting information on the key human planet Aeneas, no?” When he stayed silent, she laughed. “Never mind. Point is, we and you have the same enemy, the Terran Empire. At least, Ythri shouldn’t mind if the Empire loses territory.”
“Afterward, though,” Iang murmured, “I cannot help but wonder how well the carnivore soul may adapt to the enlightenment the Old Shen will bring.”
Moonlight turned Erannath’s feather to silver, his eyes to mercury. “Do you look on your species as a chosen people?” he said, equally low. At once he must have regretted his impulse, for he went on: “Your intrigues are no concern of mine. Nor do I care if you decide I am something more than an observer. If you are opposed to the occupation authorities, presumably you won’t betray me to them. I wish to go on a night hunt. May fortune blow your way.”
His wings spread, from rail to rail. The wind of his rising gusted and boomed. For a while he gleamed high aloft, before vision lost him among the stars.
Mea led Iang and Ivar to her quarters. Her husband greeted them, and this time he stayed: a bright and resolute young man, the dream of freedom kindled within him.
When the door had been shut, the captain said: “Ahoa, Ivar Frederiksen, Firstling of Ilion.”
“How did you know?” he whispered.
She grinned, and went for the cigar she had bespoken. “How obvious need it be? Surely that Ythrian has suspected. Why else should he care about one human waif? But to him, humans are so foreign—so alike-seeming—and besides, being a spy, he couldn’t dare use data services—he must have been holding back, trying to confirm his guess. Me, I remembered some choked-off news accounts. I called up Nova Roma public files, asked for pictures and— O-ah, no fears. I am one merchant myself, I know how to disguise my real intents.”
“You, you will… help me?” he faltered.
They drew close around him, the young man, the old man, the captain. “You will help us,” Iang said. “You are the Firstling—our rightful leader that every Aenean can follow—to throw out those mind-stifling Terrans and make ready for the Advent that is promised— What can we do for you, lord?”
Chunderban Desai broke the connection and sat for a while staring before him. His wife, who had been out of the room, came back in and asked what was wrong.
“Peter Jowett is dead,” he told her.
“Oh, no.” The two families had become friendly in the isolation they shared.
“Murdered.”
“What?” The gentleness in her face gave way to horror.
“The separatists,” he sighed. “It has to be. No melodramatic message left. He was killed by a rifle bullet as he left his office. But who else hated him?”
She groped for the comfort of his hand. He returned the pressure. “A real underground?” she said. “I didn’t know.”
“Nor I, until now. Oh, I got reports from planted agents, from surveillance devices, all the usual means. Something was brewing, something being organized. Still, I didn’t expect outright terrorism this soon, if ever.”
“The futility is nearly the worst part. What chance have they?”
He rose from his chair. Side by side, they went to a window. It gave on the garden of the little house they rented in the suburbs: alien plants spiky beneath alien stars and moons, whose light fell on the frosted helmet of a marine guard.
“I don’t know,” he said. Despite the low gravity, his back slumped. “They must have some. It isn’t the hopeless who rebel, it’s those who think they see the end of their particular tunnels, and grow impatient.”
“You have given them hope, dear.”
“Well … I came here thinking they’d accept their military defeat and work with me like sensible people, to get their planet reintegrated with the Empire. After all, except for the Snelund episode, Aeneas has benefited from the Imperium, on balance; and we’re trying to set up precautions against another Snelund. Peter agreed. Therefore they killed him. Who’s next?”