"Perhaps," said Stavros finally, "it would be better if you would go up to Saber for a time, into an environment more familiar to you, where you can sort out your thinking.”
"No, sir. It would not be better. You took me off assignment with you. I accept that. But give me something else: I waive my transfer home, and my discharge. Give me another assignment, here on Kesrith.”
"That is a request, I take it.”
"Yes, sir. That is a request.”
"Everything you do, since you were attached to me, is observed and taken for omen by the regul. You've persisted in aggravating the situation. You came here to assist, SurTac Duncan, not to formulate policy.”
Duncan did not answer. It was not expected. Stavros' mouth worked in the effort prolonged speech cost him; he drew a difficult breath, and Duncan grew concerned, remembering that Stavros was a sick man, that he was trying, amid all other pressures, to remember something of personal debts. He put a curb on his temper.
"You took it on yourself," Stavros said at last, "to accuse bai Hulagh of murder. You created an incident that nearly shipwrecked the whole Kesrithi diplomatic effort. Maybe you think you were justified. Let us suppose " Stavros' harsh, strained voice acquired a marginally gentler tone. "Let us suppose for the sake of argument that you were absolutely justified. But you do not make decisions like that, SurTac Duncan, and you must know that, somewhere at the bottom of your righteousness.”
"Yes, sir," he said very quietly.
"As it happens," said Stavros, "I don't doubt you. And I'm positive the bai tried to kill you in spite of all my efforts to reassure him. When he found you among mri, that was too much for him. I think you know that. I think you're bothered , by that possibility, and I wish that I could set your mind at ease and say that it wasn't so. I can't. Hulagh probably did exactly what you charge he did. But charges like that aren't profitable for me to pursue right now. I recovered you alive. That was the best that I could do, with all else that was going on. I recovered your mri too, quite incidentally.”
"What remains of them. The medics “
"Yes. What remains of them. But you can't undo that. You can't do a thing about it.”
"Yes, sir.”
"The medics tell me you've healed.”
"Yes, sir." Duncan drew a deep breath and decided finally that Stavros was trying to put him at ease. He watched as the governor tried awkwardly to manipulate a clean cup into the dispenser rose and took over that task, filling the cup the governor was going to offer him. Stavros favored him with a one-sided smile.
"Still not what I was," Stavros said ruefully. "The medics don't make extravagant promises, but the exercises are helping. Makes the metal beast easier to manage, at least. Here, give my cup a warm-up, will you?”
Duncan did as requested, put it in Stavros' hand, settled again with his own cup cradled in his palms. After a moment he took his first sip, savoring the pleasant warmth. Soi was a mild stimulant. He found himself drinking more of it than was likely good for him these last few days, but his taste for food had been off since his sojourn in the desert. He sipped at the hot liquid and relaxed, knew that he was being swept into Stavros' talented manipulations, set at ease, moved, directed; but he was also being heard, for what it was worth. He believed, if nothing else, that Stavros began to listen and cultivated the regul for reasons that did not involve naivete.
"It was a mistake, my speaking out," Duncan admitted, which he had never admitted, not to his several interrogators or in any of the written reports he had filed. "It wasn't that I didn't know what I was saying; I did. But I shouldn't have said it in front of the regul.”
"You were in a state of collapse. I understood that.”
Duncan's mouth twisted. He set the cup aside. "Security got a sedative into me to shut me up and you know it. I did not collapse.”
"You talked about a holy place," Stavros said. "But you never would talk about it in debriefing, not even to direct questions. Was that where you found the artifact you brought back?”
Duncan's eyes went unfocused, his heart speeding. His hands shook. He attempted to disguise the fact by reaching for the plastic cup and clenching it tightly in both hands.
"Duncan?”
Dark and fire, a gleaming metal ovoid cradled in Niun's arms, precious to the mri, more than their lives, who were the last of their kind. Do nothing, Melein had bidden him while he stood in that place holy to the mri, touch nothing, see nothing. He had violated that trust, delivering the wounded mri into human care, to save their lives, by putting that metal ovoid into human hands, itself to be probed by human science. He had spoken in delirium. He looked at Stavros, helpless to shrug it off; he did not know how much he had said, or with what detail. There was the artifact itself, in Flower's labs, to make lies of any denial.
"I had better write the reports over," Duncan said. He did not know what else to say. A colonial governor had dictatorial powers in that stage before there were parliaments and laws. He himself was not a civ, and unprotected in any instance. There was very little that Stavros could not do even including execution, certainly including shipping him to some station elsewhere, away from the mri, away from all hope of access to them and to Kesrith, forever.
"Your account was not accurate, then.”
Duncan cast everything into the balance. "I was shaken. I wasn't sure, after I was silenced the first time, how much was really wanted on record.”
"Don't give me that nonsense.”
"I was not rational at the time. To be honest to be honest, sir, I had the feeling that you wanted to bury everything about the mri, everything that happened. I wasn't sure I might not be put off Kesrith because I knew too much. I'm still not sure that it won't happen.”
"You know the seriousness of what you're charging?”
"This is a frontier," Duncan said. "I know that you can do what you want to do. Even to having me shot. I don't know the limit of what I know or how important it is. If an entire species can be wiped off the board and forgotten what am I?”
Stavros frowned, sipped at his drink, made a face and set it aside again. "Duncan, the regul are living; their victims aren't. So we deal with the regul, who are a force still dangerous and the mri " He moved the sled, turned it, looked at him at closer range. "You have your opinions on the mri, very obviously. What would you do with them?”
"Turn them loose. They won't live in captivity.”
"That simple? But it's not quite that simple afterwards. What of the regul?”
"The mri won't fight for the regul any longer and there are only two of them. Only two “
"Caring nothing for their lives, even two mri are considerable; and they have a considerable grudge against bai Hulagh who heads the regul peace party, SurTac Duncan.”
"I know these two mri," Duncan said. "They did nothing to anyone on this world except to defend themselves. They only tried to get to safety, and we wouldn't let them. Let them go now, and they'd leave. That's all they want.”
"For now.”
"There is no tomorrow for them," Duncan said, and then Stavros looked at him quizzically. "There will be no more generations. There's a taboo between those two. Besides, even if there weren't ten, even twenty generations wouldn't make a vast threat out of them.”
Stavros frowned, backed the sled, opened the door. "Walk with me," he said, "upstairs. You're going nowhere else, I trust.”
"Yes, sir," Duncan agreed. Stavros undoubtedly meant to put him off his balance, and he had done so. He was asked to accompany Stavros in public, before regul. It was a demonstration of something, a restoration of confidence: he was not sure what. Perhaps he was being bribed, in subtle fashion, offered status and the alternative was transfer to Saber. Stavros made it very difficult to continue the debate.
The sled eased its way through the office door, past the ComTech; it passed the outer doors, into the corridor. Duncan overtook it as Stavros waited for him. Stavros did not lock into the tracks that could have shot him along at a rate no man afoot could match, but trundled along beside him at a very leisurely pace.
"First thing," said Stavros, :"no more library." And when Duncan opened his mouth at once to protest: "You have to walk among regul over there, and I'd rather not have that. Flower staff can find what you need, if you describe it. Do you understand me?”