“Not cloned, precisely,” he reminded. Having rarely been on this globe before, and then as a child, she had the ignorance which follows from lack of interaction. She had better get rid of it. “They reproduce in the common fashion. But they are genetically near-identical, apart from sex. A hermit society, theirs, despite its far-flung enterprises. Nobody really knows what goes on inside it, unless they be other Zacharians dwelling elsewhere in the Empire.”
“Well, but, Targovi,” Diana protested, “an individualist like you should be the last to think somebody’s up to no good, just because they’re different and value their privacy.”
“In times of danger—and the winds were foul with danger, already then—you cannot afford to assume that anyone is trustworthy. Certainly not ere you’ve investigated them. A shame, from the moral viewpoint; but secret agents cannot afford morals, either.”
“What’d you do?”
“What doctrine called for, my dear. Having found all this spoor, I reported to my superior. As it happens, he was at top of Intelligence operations on Daedalus, Captain Jerrold Ronan. That was logical, when the Patrician System had never hitherto required surveillance of the truly intensive kind. What was not logical was Ronan’s reaction. He forbade me to follow the trail any farther or bespeak it to anybody whatsoever, and ordered me straight back to Imhotep, despite the fact that this was an implausible move for a trader whose cargo was half unsold.”
“And you didn’t give up!” Diana cried. “You took it on yourself to keep on trackin’. Oh, you are a Tigery!”
“Well, it was irresistible,” he said. “I had not flatly been barred from Daedalus, simply warned that I might be marooned—which was, itself, queer, for why should the sector command await any new emergency? In you and Axor, I found what seemed the perfect—stalking horses, is that your human phrase? Gently nudged this way or that on your innocent quest, you would draw attention off me. Never meant I to endanger you—”
“Though you didn’t hesitate to take a chance with us.” Diana caught his hand again. “Don’t you mind. I don’t. And who’d want to shoot at gentle old Axor? Killin’ him would be a contract job anyway.”
Fangs flashed as Targovi grinned. “What a waste, him a pacifist!” Soberly: “Well, the rebellion began—not a complete surprise to us—as we were approaching Daedalus. Needs must I pounce on my decision. We could return to Imhotep and abide there, safe and impotent, while events played themselves out. Or we could plunge forward and land. Did we do so, then belike a computer program had my meddlesome self listed for indefinite detention. I chose to risk that. If I decamped, you and Axor should not suffer worse than inconvenience.
“The rest of the story you know, until this day.”
They walked on. The trail bent out of the woods, toward the verge of the riverbank. Long green blades rustled under a slow breeze. They resembled grass, but were not. A few boats traversed the water. The absence of aircraft overhead had begun to seem eerie. Patricius was declining toward mists that it turned sulfurous, that veiled the distant sea. Although this was summer, and Daedalus has an axis more tilted then Terra’s, daylight is always brief; or else, if you reckon the sun-ring, it is never absent.
“Tell me about today,” Diana said softly.
Targovi did. She clapped hands together in glee. “Hey, what a stunt, what a stunt!”
“Let us hope nobody looks too closely at the mise-en-scène.” Targovi had acquired a good many-tag-ends of human languages other than Anglic. “I think your main part in the act will be to divert thoughts away from it.”
She squinted westward. “You aim to get us to Zacharia, then?”
“Yes, and snoop about.”
“What do you think you might find?”
Targovi shrugged with his tendrils. “It is a capital mistake to theorize in advance of the data. I have my suspicions, naturally. Clear does it seem, the Zacharians have close connection to Magnusson. For example, the lady Pele casually mentioned bringing in another person soon—which means by air, at a time when air traffic is restricted. Mayhap they’ve decided Magnusson will be the best Emperor, from their viewpoint. In any case, what support have they been giving him? Unmistakably, it’s of importance. What hope they to gain? I doubt they nourish any mystique of the Terran Empire as an end in itself.”