The cool and luminous ecstasy had no counterpart among mortals, although religious enlightenment or a basic mathematical insight shared aspects of it. He was in a single mind that built its own memories and discoursed with itself by many thinkings on many levels conjoined. That polylogue was not for any human tongue to repeat. Even its material content grew cumbersome when set baldly and linearly down.
Aiant, husband of Lilisaire, resident here in Tychopolis, is seldom in contact with her and almost never meets her. They are second cousins. She succeeded her father in the ancestral estates by right of optigeniture, but Aiant contested this and there is reason to suspect he had the father assassinated. Although she was only 23 at the time, Lilisaire undertook intrigue and occasional surreptitious violence on her own behalf. In the course of five years she outmaneuvered him, leaving him stripped of most of his conciliar powers and close to bankruptcy. Then she married him. The alliance works well. He is secondary but not subjugated, and profits by serving her interests, especially her share of the spacefaring Venture.
He and his city wife (probably chosen for him by Lilisaire because of her family connections, she being of the Mare Crisium phratry) received me courteously if not cordially and were as cooperative as could be expected. They were eager to convince me that there is no plot to sabotage the Habitat, as I had led them to believe we suspect. A full-scale investigation by the Peace Authority would inconvenience the Venture at best, and might turn up matters that really are being kept secret. They retrieved all the data I requested (not knowing me for a synnoiont, who could get more out of this information than an entire detective squad).
Conclusion: They are ignorant of any untoward activity, and their organization is not involved in any, although individuals and cabals within it may be.
It was already established that Caraine of Hertz-sprung, Lilisaire’s younger husband, their adult son Bornay, and Caraine’s other two wives are equally uninvolved. Although oftener together physically with Lilisaire than Aiant is, Caraine has little to do with her various undertakings. The alliance is useful to both, coupling Phyle Beynac and Phyle Nakamura in a genetically and strategically desirable bond between the Cordilleran and Korolevan phratries, and a personal affinity exists. However, besides his estate, Caraine is engaged in politics, being one of the few Lunarians, especially of Selenarchic descent^ who has condescended to develop parliamentary skills.
As such, he is valuable to the aristocratic faction, machinating to keep them in effective power and the Terran minority effectively disfranchised. Lilisaire would likely regard it as wasteful to engage his energy and talents in anything else. Moreover, in recent months he has been fully and conspicuously occupied in the effort to mobilize opposition to the Habitat sufficient to force the cancellation of the project. Improbable though his success is, he would scarcely be wanted meanwhile in any clandestine endeavor. Nor have his wives and children left home or communicated with anyone off the Moon.
Thus Lilisaire may well be the only Lunarian magnate preparing trouble for us. This gives no grounds far complacency. She could prove as formidable, and is certainly as ruthless, as her famous ancestors Rinn-dalir and Niolente.
Evidence: Legal proof is lacking, and the case would in any event not be prosecuted by the present Lunar government; but the Peace Authority intelligence corps has ascertained that in younger days she killed at least two men in duels. One was fought topside in the wilderness with firearms, one in her castle with rapiers. She has traveled widely, even braving the gravity of Earth, where she has a large inherited property. She has gone out to Mars, the asteroids, Jupiter, and Saturn. She is enamored of deep space and of endeavor in it. (A more distant ancestor of hers was a grandson of both the explorer Kaino and the poet Verdea. But she is coldly realistic about her part in the Venture operations.
She maintains connections throughout the Solar System. Some of these are with former lovers, especially influential Earthmen, who, if not actually her allies, are usually willing to oblige her with information and assistance. Her reckless, voluptuous youth is behind her, but her power to fascinate and mislead has, if anything, grown with the years. This is not a negligible factor. It is one which the cybercosm is ill suited to comprehend or control.