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their tongues.”
    Delmantias grimaced, and in that Barrodagh was in full
agreement. None of the Catennach Bori trusted the Ur-fruit, despite the rumor
of an addictive taste. But there was no denying that productivity had been
rising since many of the under-Bori and all of the Dol’jharian ordinaries now
competed to earn them.
    “Very well, serach Barrodagh,” Delmantias replied. The minimal honorific there, but Barrodagh
didn’t expect more. “Then I will need to assign more workers to harvesting
them, since they grow ever more freely.”
    “You know the priorities,” Barrodagh said coldly. Yes, he knows them all too well. With
the personal directive of the Avatar backing him, Delmantias was inflexible on
the subject of the additional stasis clamps that Barrodagh so desperately
wanted for his quarters. Well, Ferrasin’s other worm would help take care of
that.
    After Delmantias left, Barrodagh dealt with the rest of the
interviews in summary fashion and then told his new secretary, Gilerrant, that
he was not to be disturbed unless one of the lords summoned him. Seating
himself behind a desk whose clutter was becoming hard to bear, he brought up
the records the computers had delivered on the crew of the Telvarna , winnowed from the DataNet and Rifthaven.
    He scanned the summary again. His lips curled. Lower than
mediocre, even for Rifters. A rakehell gambler, a cheat, a refugee from the
Panarchist hellhole Timberwell, a crazed boy infected by aliens.
    Barrodagh grunted in disgust. The lot of them were barely
worth recycling, except for the tempath, and she, being tempathic and
Dol’jharian, was a rarity that could only mean deadly danger as far as he was
concerned. Even without her alien pets; Barrodagh was thankful the Eya’a had
not awakened yet, either. It would be his pleasure to dump the lot into space
if Vi’ya didn’t wake up.
    Right now, on the assumption she would, it was the newest
member of the Telvarna’s crew he was
concerned with: Sedry Thetris, traitor to the Panarchy for a time, now a
Rifter. She had apparently been implicated in the disruption of the control of
Arthelion’s DataNet before the attack.
    That demanded a closer look. It would be interesting to see
how forthcoming she was about developments on Ares and how closely her account
corresponded to what the noderunners on the DataNet and Arthelion, and VLDA
surveillance of the station itself, had revealed. Being a Rifter, she would be
no friend to her former commanders; it might be that her noderunning talents
could be turned to his advantage, perhaps even enabling him to dispose of
Ferrasin’s assistance.
    He checked the latest recordings from the Rifters’ quarters,
then picked up the boy’s flimsy. Bonded to one of the Kelly beasts in some
fashion—according to the same Rifthaven source the very Kelly the Avatar’s
Tarkans had butchered before the Emerald Throne. Perhaps that’s why he
chattered of this Blessed Three, some religious nonsense picked up from the
snaky tripeds. He would be the next to interrogate, after the Thetris woman.
    But that would have to wait until the tempath awoke or died.
Until then, let boredom, inactivity, and fear weigh on them all.
    His compad beeped. “What is it?”
    “Hreem on the Flower
of Lith has arrived in-system.”
    Barrodagh opened his mouth to blast his secretary for
ignoring his instructions, then paused. In this case, Gilerrant’s judgment had
been correct: Hreem was a very important piece of unfinished business.
    He composed a brief message to Juvaszt on the Fist of Dol’jhar and sent it off, first
priority. “Put him through,” he said finally, and tabbed the comm signal to
silent mode.
    In the brief interval before the connection was established
from the hyperwave chamber to his console, Barrodagh reflected on the
situation. He had no illusions about what had really happened at Malachronte,
where Hreem had very nearly captured a completed battlecruiser in the Ways. And
he had no