And yet what can I do but accept it… unless and until I hear from my spy, whatever has happened to him? (And that is something I may well never know.)
He shook himself. “So whether or not Ivar received help from an individual Orcan or two, you doubt he’s contacted anyone significant, or will have any reason to linger in so forbidding an area. Am I correct, Prosser Thane?”
She nodded.
“Could you give me an idea as to where he might turn, how we might reach him?” Desai pursued.
She did not deign to answer.
“As you will,” he said tiredly. “Bear in mind, he’s in deadly danger as long as he is on the run: danger of getting shot by a patrol, for instance, or of committing a treasonable act which it would be impossible to pardon him for.”
Tatiana bit her lip.
“I will not harass you about this,” he promised. “But I beg you—you’re a scientist, you should be used to entertaining radical new hypotheses and exploring their consequences—I beg you to consider the proposition that his real interests, and those of Aeneas, may lie with the Empire.”
“I’d better go pretty soon,” she said.
Later, to Gabriel Stewart, she exulted:
“He’s got to be among Orcans. Nothin’ else makes sense. He our rightful temporal leader, Jaan our mental one. Word’ll go like fire in dry trava under a zoosny wind.”
“But if prophet didn’t know where he was—” fretted the scout.
Tatiana rapped forth a laugh. “Prophet did know! Do you imagine Builder mind couldn’t control human body reactions to miserable dose of narcotic? Why, simple schizophrenia can cause that.”
He considered her. “You believe those rumors, girl? Rumors they are, you understand, nothin’ more. Our outfit has no liaison with Arena.”
“We’d better develop one…. Well, I admit we’ve no proof Builders are almost ready to return. But it makes sense.” She gestured as if at the stars which her blinded window concealed. “Cosmenosis— What’d be truly fantastic is no purpose, no evolution, in all of that yonder.” Raptly: “Desai spoke about Merseian agent operatin’ on Aeneas. Not Merseian by race, though. Somebody strange enough to maybe, just maybe, be forerunner for Builders.”
“Huh?” he exclaimed.
“I’d rather not say more at this point, Gabe. However, Desai also spoke about adoptin’ workin’ hypothesis. Until further notice, I think this ought to be ours, that there is at least somethin’ to those stories. We’ve got to dig deeper, collect hard information. At worst, we’ll find we’re on our own. At best, who knows?”
“If nothin’ else, it’d make good propaganda,” he remarked cynically. He had not been back on Aeneas sufficiently long to absorb its atmosphere of expectation. “Uh, how do we keep enemy from reasonin’ and investigatin’ along same lines?”
“We’ve no guaranteed way,” Tatiana said. “I’ve been thinkin’, though, and— Look, suppose I call Desai tomorrow or next day, claim I’ve had change of heart, try wheedlin’ more out of him concernin’ yon agent. But mainly what I’ll do is suggest he check on highlanders of Chalce. They’re tough, independent-minded clansmen, you probably recall. It’s quite plausible they’d rally ’round Ivar if he went to them, and that he’d do so on his own initiative. Well, it’s big and rugged country, take many men and lots of time to search over. Meanwhile—”
XVI
The room within the mountain was spacious, and its lining of Ancient material added an illusion of dreamlike depths beyond. Men had installed heated carpeting, fluoropanels, furniture, and other basic necessities, including books and an eidophone to while away the time. Nevertheless, as hours stretched into days he did not see, Ivar grew half wild. Erannath surely suffered worse; from a human viewpoint, all Ythrians are born with a degree of claustrophobia. But he kept self-control grimly in his talons.
Conversation helped them both. Erannath even reminisced:
“—wing-free. As a youth I wandered the whole of Avalon … hai-ha, storm-dawns over seas and snowpeaks! Hunting a spathodont with spears! Wind across the plains, that smelled of sun and eternity!… Later I trained to become a tramp spacehand. You do not know what that is? An Ythrian institution. Such a crewman may leave his ship whenever he wishes to stay for a while on some planet, provided a replacement is available; and one usually is.” His gaze yearned beyond the shimmering walls. “Khrrr, this is a universe of wonders. Treasure it, Ivar. What is outside our heads is so much more than what can nest inside them.”