Finally, three days of flight, we came alongside an unmarked military-style full-wing floating quietly in space. A transfer tunnel was set up and I was sent through, where I was met by a pair of hard-faced men in SkyForce uniforms. No chattier than my jailers had been, they escorted me silently to the command observation balcony above and behind the bridge.
Waiting for me there, as I'd rather expected, was Convocant Devaro.
"So," he said without preamble. "Here you are."
"Yes, sir," I said. "Here we both are."
For a moment he studied my face. "You've figured it out, haven't you?" he said at last. "Something the priestians at the Ponte Empyreal said to you."
I looked past his shoulder through the balcony's twin-sectioned canopy.
Directly ahead, the view over the bow of the full-wing showed that we were coming in toward a planetary darkside; ahead and below, I could see down into the bridge and the SkyForce officers and crewmen at their stations. "I saw the calix you gave to First Ministri Goribeldi," I said. "He told me it wasn't a weapon." I looked back at Devaro. "He was wrong, wasn't he."
Devaro shrugged. " 'Weapon' is an unfairly loaded term," he said. "I prefer to think of it as a tool."
"A tool which you're using to invade other people's privacy," I accused him.
"Giving someone a calix is really no different than doing a brainscan on him.
Except that he doesn't know it's been done. All you have to do is give the wood fibers enough time to adapt to his personality, then take your five-micron core samples and read his personality matrix right off them."
Devaro laughed, a short animal-like bark. "You make it sound so easy. You have no idea how much time and sweat went into developing the proper chemo-mathematical transforms to use."
"I think I have some idea," I said stiffly. "After all, I was your guinea pig in the whole thing. If you hadn't had my weekly brainscans to compare with the calix's chemical changes you'd never have been able to work out your precious transforms."
He shrugged carelessly. "Oh, we'd have managed. It just would have taken longer, and required us to get hold of a calix on our own. Your providential return from Quibsh merely made it simpler." "Well, enjoy it while you can," I bit out. "When we get back to Earth, I'll see you in prison."
He lifted his eyebrows. "On what grounds? You signed a legal authorization before each of those brainscans."
"What about the calix you gave First Ministri Goribeldi?" I countered.
"A thank-you gift. Perfectly legal."
"Except when the gift's part of an illegal brainscan."
"What illegal brainscan?" Devaro countered calmly. "A brainscan is performed with a Politayne-Chu neural mapmaker or the equivalent. There's no such device in a calix."
"You're splitting hairs."
"I'm staying precisely within the letter of the law," Devaro corrected.
"That's all that counts."
I glared at him. But even as I did so, I could feel my position eroding out from under my feet like loose sand. I had no idea how the brainscan laws were worded, but I had no doubt that Devaro had studied them thoroughly. "So where within the letter of the law does destruction of the Church come?" I demanded. "I presume you are planning its destruction?"
"Eventually," Devaro said off-handedly. "But that's a long way in the future.
There are other more urgent matters that need to be attended to first."
"Such as?"
"Such as the threat posed to the UnEthHu by the Kailthaermil Empire," he said, his voice suddenly hard. "And our moral responsibility to protect fellow human beings wherever they might be found."
I blinked. "What are you talking about?"
"Your verlorens of course," he said. "Conquered and enslaved by the Kailth, along with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other races. The UnEthHu has stood by idly for ten years now. It's time we took a stand against such tyranny."
I glanced at the dark planetary surface now rolling by beneath us, a dark suspicion digging into my stomach. "This is Quibsh, isn't it?" I said.
"You're going to attack Quibsh."
"We're not attacking anyone," Devaro said. "We're liberating a human colony from alien overlords."
"And while you're liberating them, you'll also liberate their collection of calices?"
"The calices are evidence of their enslavement," Devaro said evenly.
"Fabulous works of art, routinely and ruthlessly stolen from them by their alien overlords."
"Which you'll no doubt be giving to other high-ranking UnEthHu and Church officials," I said, a bitter taste in my mouth. "And senior SkyForce officers—"
I stopped short, suddenly remembering where we were. On an unmarked military full-wing with SkyForce personnel aboard... "You used a calix to blackmail the SkyForce?"
"Don't be absurd," Devaro sniffed. "A Supreme Convocant hardly needs to stoop to anything as crude as blackmail. Let's just say that when I presented my request to Admiral Gates, I knew the right words to use to persuade him to my point of view."
"Yes, I suppose you did," I said, thinking back over all the conversations I'd had with Devaro during the past few weeks. How he had always somehow managed to say just the right things to keep my suspicions of Tawni alive, even against the evidence of my own eyes and heart. At times, usually late at night, I'd wondered at my inability to make my own decisions and stick to them. Now, too late, I understood what he'd done to me.
The intercom twittered. "We're approaching the target site, Convocant," a voice said.
"I'll be right there," Devaro said. "You're welcome to stay here," he added to me as he stepped over to the lift plate leading to the bridge below.
"This could start a war," I warned quietly. Trying, I suppose, one last time.
"Are a few calices worth that much to you?"
"The calices are power," he said simply. "If you haven't already figured out what that means, you're either too naive or too stupid for me to explain it to you now." He shrugged. "Besides, I've already told you that war with the Kailth is inevitable. If it starts here, so be it."
He touched the control and dropped away through the floor. The opening sealed again, and I was alone.
I walked over to the canopy, a hundred painful thoughts and useless plans and bitter self-recriminations chasing themselves through my mind. Devaro was on the move, with his long sought-after seat on the Dynad in his sights. Only now he had a secret weapon that might just get it for him.
And I'd been the one who'd given it to him. That was what galled the most.
Not only had my brainscans provided the key to his scheme, but I'd even trotted obediently out to Quibsh and gotten him the extra calices he wanted.
He'd used one of them to talk a SkyForce admiral out of a military full-wing and crew. Another was waiting like a hidden time bomb for an eventual attack against the unwanted moral criticisms of the Church. I was afraid to wonder whom he'd given the third one to.
I stepped up to the canopy. We were approaching the terminator now, the hazy line marking dawn on the planet below. Just into the lighted area I could see the familiar chain of volcanoes that bordered the little group of verloren villages.
A motion below me caught my attention, and I looked down into the bridge.