“Are you still spaceman?” the human asked.
“No. I returned at length to Avalon with Hlirr, whom I had met and wedded on a world where rings flashed rainbow over oceans the color of old silver. That also is good, to ward a home and raise a brood. But they are grown BOW, and I, in search of a last long-faring before God stoops on me, am here”—he gave a harsh equivalent of a chuckle—”in this cave.”
“You’re spyin’ for Domain, aren’t you?”
“I have explained, I am a xenologist, specializing in anthropology. That was the subject I taught throughout the settled years on Avalon, and in which I am presently doing field work.”
“Your bein’ scientist doesn’t forbid your bein’ spy. Look, I don’t hold it against you. Terran Empire is my enemy same as yours, if not more. We’re natural allies. Won’t you carry that word back to Ythri for me?”
Ripplings went over Erannath’s plumage. “Is every opponent of the Empire your automatic friend? What of Merseia?”
“I’ve heard propaganda against Merseians till next claim about their bein’ racist and territorially aggressive will throw me into anaphylactic shock. Has Terra never provoked, yes, menaced them? Besides, they’re far off: Terra’s problem, not ours. Why should Aeneas supply young men to pull Emperor’s fat out of fire? What’s he ever done for us? And, God, what hasn’t he done to us?”
Erannath inquired slowly, “Do you indeed hope to lead a second, successful revolution?”
“I don’t know about leadin’,” Ivar said, hot-faced. “I hope to help.”
“For what end?”
“Freedom.”
“What is freedom? To do as you, an individual, choose? Then how can you be certain that a fragment of the Empire will not make still greater demands on you? I should think it would have to.”
“Well, uh, well, I’d be willin’ to serve, as long as it was my own people.”
“How willing are your people themselves to be served—as individuals—in your fashion? You see no narrowing of your freedom in whatever the requirements may be for a politically independent Alpha Crucis region, any more than you see a narrowing of it in laws against murder or robbery. These imperatives accord with your desires. But others may feel otherwise. What is freedom, except having one’s particular cage reach further than one cares to fly?”
Ivar scowled into the yellow eyes. “You talk strange, for Ythrian. For Avalonian, especially. Your planet sure resisted bein’ swallowed up by Empire.”
“That would have wrought a fundamental change in our lives: for example, by allowing unrestricted immigration, till we were first crowded and then outvoted. You, however— In what basic way might an Alpha Crucian Republic, or an Alpha Crucian province of the Domain, differ from Sector Alpha Crucis of the Empire? You get but one brief flight through reality, Ivar Frederiksen. Would you truly rather pass among ideologies than among stars?”
“Uh, I’m afraid you don’t understand. Your race doesn’t have our idea of government.”
“It’s irrelevant to us. My fellow Avalonians who are of human stock have come to think likewise. I must wonder why you are so intense, to the point of making it a deathpride matter, about the precise structure of a political organization. Why do you not, instead, concentrate your efforts toward arrangements whereby it will generally leave you and yours alone?”
“Well, if our motivation here is what puzzles you, then tell them on Ythri—” Ivar drew breath.
Time wore away; and all at once, it was a not a single man who came in a plain robe, bringing food and removing discards: it was a figure in uniform that trod through the door and announced, “The High Commander!”
Ivar scrambled to his feet. The feather-crest stood stiff upon Erannath’s head. For this they had abided.
A squad entered, forming a double line at taut attention. They were typical male Orcans: tall and lean, brown of skin, black and bushy of hair and closely cropped beard, their faces mostly oval and somewhat flat, their nostrils flared and lips full. But these were drilled and dressed like soldiers. They wore steel helmets which swept down over the neck and bore self-darkening vitryl visors now shoved up out of the way; blue tunics with insignia of rank and, upon the breast of each, an infinity sign; gray trousers tucked into soft boots. Besides knives and knuckledusters at their belts they carried, in defiance of Imperial decree, blasters and rifles which must have been kept hidden from confiscation.