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tired and too old to follow. She shook her
head. "Have it your way."
    "Thank you, Zhena Trelu." He paused. "It
would be better, maybe, not to tell your guards that I have been
here."
    She snorted; he inclined his head.
    "Yes. Zhena Trelu, I ask your
forgiveness."
    She blinked. "My forgiveness? For what?"
    "For bringing change to Gylles–and to
Vandar. I should not have come here, and put a whole world into
danger. Choices have consequences. I know this–and still I chose
life over death, for my zhena and for me."
    The smooth golden face was somber; his
shoulders not quite level.
    Tears started; she blinked them back, and
held her hand out. He came forward and took it, his fingers
warm.
    "You made a good choice, Cory. This world's
been changing for a long time. Would you believe I remember a time
when the nearest telephone was right downtown at Brillit's?"
    He smiled, faintly. "I believe that, Zhena
Trelu."
    "Well, good, because it's true." She gave
his fingers a squeeze and let him go.
    He went light and quiet across the room,
opened the door–and looked at her.
    "Sleep well, Zhena Trelu. We will bring our
child to see you–soon."
    The door clicked shut behind him.
    *
    He'd never gotten near enough to talk to the
zhena with the quick golden hands, though he had learned her name
from another in the ring of her admirers: Karsin Pelnara. The
zhena, according to Hakan's informant, was newly arrived in Laxaco;
her precise field something of mystery, though she appeared
well-informed in a broad range of scientific topics. The
forward-coming zamir wasn't able to tell Hakan where the zhena had
arrived from, precisely, though he did know that she had been
sponsored in to the Club by Zamir Tang.
    Seeing that he had little chance of
approaching the zhena herself, Hakan had gone off in search of
Zamir Tang, finding him in his usual place beside the punchbowl,
engaged in a heated debate with two students Hakan recognized as
seniors in the aeronautics college.
    He'd hung on the edge of that conversation
for a time, first waiting for Zamir Tang's attention, and then
because he found himself caught up in the description of the
challenges of building a proposed supersonic wind-tunnel, until a
random remark recalled him to the hour.
    Which was . . . late.
    And later, still, by the time he had walked
across the dark campus, only to find that the trolley to the
married students' housing had stopped running hours before.
    By the time he'd walked home, it was no
longer late, but very early.
    Kem , he thought, using his key on the street door, is not going to like this .
    *
    Nelirikk was not at his post
    This was . . . worrisome.
    Val Con stood very, very still,
listening.
    Breeze rattled branches overhead, and combed
the moist grass with chilly fingers. Somewhere to the left, and not
immediately nearby, a night bird muttered and subsided. From
further away came the sound of measured steps along pavement–the
garrison guard, pursuing his duty. Beyond that, there was
silence.
    "Ain't like him to just run off," Miri said
quietly from just behind his right shoulder.
    "Nor is it." His murmured agreement had been
shredded by the chilly breeze before he remembered that Miri was
not covering his offside, but minding the Clan's business on
Surebleak.
    He took a careful breath, and brought his
attention back to the night around him.
    From the right–a soft moan.
    Cautiously he moved in that direction,
slipping noiselessly through a scrubby hedge. He dropped to one
knee and peered about. To the left a drift of last year's leaves,
crackling slightly in the breeze.
    To his right a shadow leaned over another,
and then straightened to an impressive height.
    "Scout?" Nelirikk said, softly. "Is it well
with the old woman?"
    "Well," Val Con said, exiting the shrubbery
and moving toward the second shadow, which remained unmoving on the
ground.
    "A watcher," Nelirikk said, as Val Con knelt
down. "And an uncommonly poor one."
    Val Con slipped a dimlight from his