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it was going to occur to the Terran HQ personnel that there were some things even they couldn’t control. She didn’t give a fundamental damn whether the Terrans kept up their pretense of omnipotence. But there was a fellow human being, a woman, caught up in the gears. She said, more roughly than she intended, “Let’s get on with it, then. But I’m not a trained psi-technician, so don’t blame me if all I can do is make things worse. I’ll do my best. That’s all I can say.”

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CHAPTER THREE
Magda hated to ring the night-bell at the Guild-house; it meant that someone would have to be roused, come down the stairs and open the bolted door. Yet she preferred that, inconvenient as it was, to accepting Cholayna’s offer to find her a place to stay either in Unmarried Personnel Living Quarters, or even in the Bridge Society Hostel, where some of the Darkovan nurses in training had their lodgings.
She stood shivering on the steps, for even in high summer it was chilly at this hour, listening to the clang of the bell inside. Then she heard a long scraping of the heavy bolt, and at last the door opened grudgingly, and a young woman’s voice asked, “Who is it? Do you want the midwife?”
“No, Cressa. It is I, Margali n’ha Ysabet,” Magda said, and came inside. “I am truly sorry to disturb you. I’ll just go quietly up to bed.”
“It’s all right, I wasn’t asleep. Someone came for Keitha just a little while ago. Poor girl, she was out all day, and had just gotten to sleep, and a man came for her, his wife was expecting her first, so she’ll be out all night, too. Someone suggested in House Meeting a few moons ago that the midwives should answer all the night bells, because most of the time, night calls were for them.”
“That wouldn’t really be fair,” Magda said, “they deserve to sleep when they can, if only because they lose so much sleep already. I apologize again for waking you. Do you need help with the bolt?”
“Thank you, it really is too heavy for me.”
Magda came and helped her to fasten the heavy lock. Cressa went off to the night doorkeeper’s room, and Magda went slowly up the stairs to the room she had been given to share with Jaelle during this stay in the House. She paused at the door; then turned away, went to a nearby door and knocked softly. After a moment she heard a muffled response, turned the knob and went inside.
“Camilla,” she whispered, “are you asleep?”
“Of course I am, could I talk to you if I were awake?” Camilla sat up in bed. “Margali? What is it?”
Without answering, Magda came and sat on the edge of the bed, where she slumped, letting her head fall wearily into her hands.
“What is it, bredhiya ?” Camilla asked gently. “What did they ask of you this time?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Her sensitivity was so high - she had been using laran at such a level - that she could almost hear Camilla’s thoughts as if the woman had spoken them aloud:
Oh yes, of course, it is because you do not want to talk that you come and wake me instead of quietly going to sleep in your own room!
But aloud, Camilla said only, “You missed dinner here; did they at least feed you in the Terran Zone?”
“It’s my own fault. After all these years using laran I should have known enough to demand something to eat,” Magda said, “but I wanted to get away, I couldn’t wait to get away. Cholayna did offer - “
Camilla’s eyebrows went up in the dark. “You were using laran in the Terran HQ? And you don’t want to talk about it. That does not sound like what I would expect of Cholayna n’ha Chandria.” She slid out of bed and drew a heavy woolen wrapper over her warm nightgown, scuffed her long narrow feet into fur slippers. “Let’s go down to the kitchen for something hot for you.”
“I’m not hungry,” Magda said wearily.
“Nevertheless, if you have been using laran - you know you must eat and regain your strength - “
“What in all of