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Does theater work as a ritual for any human culture? Even one grown and bred on a planet other than our own? Are these aspects of the human condition, are the emotions that theater engenders, universal to our genetic coding? And if they are, where does the real translation take place: in the words, or in the gestures? In the letter, or in the spirit? That’s what we’re going to Rhui to find out.”
    Still talking the figures imploded into mist and evaporated.
    “Tai Charles,” said Naroshi, acknowledging his visitor.
    “Tai Naroshi,” said Charles, with the exact same lack of inflection, acknowledging his host.
    “You undertake a journey,” said Naroshi.
    “I am honored by your interest,” said Charles.
    “Rhui is a primitive world. Certainly it is not a planet where any civilization can be found.”
    “It is interdicted,” agreed Charles, and David had to wonder what Charles was thinking, what message he meant Naroshi to read from this colorless conversation. It is interdicted, and I know damn well you sent agents down onto Rhui in direct defiance of that interdiction.
    “Yet still you intend to travel there.”
    In the muted light within the interior octagon, David could still detect fleeting colors chasing themselves across the white skin of the steward, colors that reflected his emotions as he listened to this conversation between the two noblemen. But the duke, Naroshi, remained as pale as frost. No hint of color tinted his skin. Were the high nobility genetically superior or simply taught techniques from an early age with which to control the shadings of their skin? No human knew.
    “Still I intend to travel there.”
    “With these others, some of whom are artisans.”
    Rather than replying, Charles simply inclined his head.
    “May I hope that you will still consider my sister for the design of the mausoleum for your sister?”
    “Tai-en, I have just returned from the palace. Indeed, from the presence of the emperor himself. I have not yet considered what I intend to do to honor my sister.”
    “Ah,” said Naroshi, and paused. David strained to see if any color stained the duke’s face, but he could discern none. On the distant walls, color shifted along the mosaics, moving subtly along the wall and lightening and darkening the images in slow waves. “The Keinaba house. I am surprised that you would take in a dishonored house.”
    “Yes,” agreed Charles. “I did not know that you were interested in theater.” He extended a hand and gestured in the direction of the arch under which Owen and Ginny had, for that brief time, appeared.
    “Many of us are interested in Rhui, Tai-en. I am not alone in my interest in such a rich planet.”
    “No,” agreed Charles, “I do not suppose you are.” From this angle, David could only see the back of Charles’s head; he could not observe his expression, and he could not hear any emotion in his voice. Silence followed the remark. The two dukes seemed to have reached a stalemate.
    Into their silence, a humming rose, soft, implacable. The air began to shimmer. The wand laid over Charles’s knees shone all at once with a brilliant light, picked up a high-pitched overtone from the hum, and quite simply dematerialized.
    Both dukes stood up at once.
    Naroshi spoke a curt command to the steward, and the Chapalii servant turned on his heel and hurried away. But even as the steward crossed under the double arches, the arches themselves vanished. The air shimmered, melding, blending; the whole huge chamber melted away and the grand architecture was overwhelmed by another locale.
    The change occurred over seconds—minutes, perhaps—but it was hard to keep track of time when you were floating in immaterial space, in a shifting void. David caught a glimpse of the mosaic wall, of a hollow-eyed man draped in robes splintered by a sudden bright light, and then it, too, was gone. They stood in a chamber so vast that David could not see walls but felt the presence of