“Hm.” Tabitha stroked her chin… big well-formed hand over square jaw, beneath heavy mouth… “If I were a Terran intelligence officer and someone who claimed to have fled from Avalon brought me such a story, I’d put him under — what do they call that obscene gadget? — a hypnoprobe.”
“No doubt.” Arinnian’s nod was jerky. “But these will be genuine defectors. My father has assigned shrewd men to take care of that. I don’t know the details, but I can guess. We do have people who’re panicked, or who want us to surrender because they’re convinced we’ll lose regardless. And we have more who feel that way in lesser degree, whom the first kind will trust. Suppose — well, suppose, for instance, we get President Vickery to call a potential traitor in for a secret discussion. Vickery explains that he himself wants to quit, it’s political suicide for him to act openly, but he can help by arranging for certain persons to carry certain suggestions to the Terrans. Do you see? I’m not saying that’s how it will be done — I really don’t know how far we can trust Vickery — but we can leave the specifics to my father’s men.”
“And likewise the military dispositions which will make the yarn look plausible. Fine, fine,” Draun gloated.
’That’s what I came about,” Arinnian said. “My mission’s to brief the various home-guard leaders, and get their efforts coordinated.”
Rising from his chair, he started pacing, back and forth in front of Tabitha and never looking at her. “An extra item in your case,” he went on, staccato. “It’d help tremendously if one of their own brought them the same general information.”
Breath hissed between her teeth. Draun rocked forward, off his alatans, onto his toes.
“Yes,” Arinnian said, “Your dear Philippe Rochefort. You tell him I’m here because I’m worried about Equatoria.” He gave details. “Then I find some business in the neighbor islands and belt-flit with Eyath. Our boat stays behind, carelessly unguarded. You let him stroll freely around, don’t you? His action is obvious.”
Tabitha’s pipestem broke in her grasp. She didn’t notice the bowl fall, scattering ash and coals. “No,” she said.
Arinnian found he needn’t force himself to stop and glare at her as he did. “He’s more to you than your world?”
“God stoop on me if ever I make use of him,” she said.
“Well, if his noble spirit wouldn’t dream of abusing your trust, what have you to fear?”
“I will not make my honor unworthy of his,” said Hrill.
“That dungheart?” Draun gibed. Her eyes went to him, her hand to a table beside her whereon lay a knife.
He took a backward step. “Enough,” he muttered. It was a relief when the following stillness was broken. Someone banged on the door. Arinnian, being nearest, opened it. Rochefort stood there. Behind him were a horse and a zirraukh. He breathed unevenly and blood had retreated from under his dark skin. “You were not to come back yet,” Arinnian told him. “Eyath—” Rochefort began.
“What?” Arinnian grabbed him by the shoulders. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know. I… we were riding, talking… Suddenly she screamed. Christ, I can’t get that shriek out of my head. And she took off, her wings stormed, she disappeared past the treetops before I could call to her. I… I waited, till—”
Tabitha joined them. She started to push Arinnian aside, noticed his stance and how his fingers dug into Rochefort’s flesh, and refrained. “Phil,” she said low. “Darling, think. She must’ve heard something terrible. What was it?”
“I can’t imagine.” The Terran winced under Arinnian’s grip but stayed where he was. “She’d asked me to, well, describe the space war. My experiences. I was telling her of the last fight before we crash-landed. You remember. I’ve told you the same.”
“An item I didn’t ask about?”
“Well, I, I did happen to mention noticing the insigne on the Avalonian boat, and she asked how it looked.”
“And?”
“I told her. Shouldn’t I have?”
“What was it?”
“Three gilt stars placed along a hyperbolic curve.”
Arinnian let go of Rochefort. His fist smashed into the man’s face. Rochefort lurched backward and fell to the ground. Arinnian drew his knife, started to pursue curbed himself. Rochefort sat up, bewildered, bleeding at the mouth.
Tabitha knelt beside him. “You couldn’t know, my dear,” she said. Her own control was close to breaking. “What you told her was that her lover is dead.”
XV
Night brought rising wind. The clouds broke apart into ragged masses, their blue-black tinged by the humpbacked Morgana which fled among them. A few stars blinked hazily in and out of sight. Surf threshed in darkness beyond the beach and trees roared in darkness ashore. The chill made humans go fully clothed.
Rochefort and Tabitha paced along the dunes. “Where is she?” His voice was raw. “Alone,” she answered.
“In this weather? When it’s likely to worsen? Look, if Holm can go out searching, at least we—”
“They can both take care of themselves.” Tabitha drew her cloak tight. “I don’t think Chris really expects to find her, unless she wants to be found, and that’s doubtful. He simply must do something. And he has to be away from us for a while. Her grief grieves him. It’s typical Ythrian to do your first mourning by yourself.”
“Saints! I’ve bugged things good, haven’t I?”
He was a tall shadow at her side. She reached through an arm-slit, groped for and found the reality of his hand. “I tell you again, you couldn’t know,” she said. “Anyhow, best she learn like this, instead of dragging out more weeks or months, then never being sure he didn’t die in some ghastly fashion. Now she knows he went out cleanly, too fast to feel, right after he’d won over a brave foe.” She hesitated. “Besides, you didn’t kill him. Our own attack did. You might say the war did, like an avalanche or a lightning stroke.”
“The filthy war,” he grated. “Haven’t we had a gutful yet?”
Rage flared. She released him. “Your precious Empire can end it any time, you know.”
“It has ended, except for Avalon. What’s the sense of hanging on? You’ll force them to bombard you into submission.”
“Showing the rest of known space what kind of thing the Empire is. That could cost them a great deal in the long run.” Tabitha’s anger ebbed. O Phil, my only! “You know we’re banking on their not being monsters, and on their having a measure of enlightened self-interest. Let’s not talk-about it more.”
“I’ve got to. Tabby, you and Holm — but it’s old Holm, of course, and a few other old men and Ythrians, who don’t care how many young die as long as they’re spared confessing their own stupid, senile willfulness—”
“Stop. Please.”
“I can’t. You’re mounting some crazy new plan you think’ll let your one little colony hold off all those stars. I say to the extent it works, it’ll be a disaster. Because it may prolong the fight, sharpen it — No, I can’t stand idly by and let you do that to yourself.”
She halted. He did likewise. They peered at each other through the unrestful wan light. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We know what we’re about.”
“Do you? What is your plan?”
“I mustn’t tell you that, darling.”
“No,” he said bitterly, “but you can let me lie awake nights, you can poison my days, with fear for you. Listen, I know a fair amount about war. And about the psychology of the Imperial high command. I could give, you a pretty good guess at how they’d react to whatever you tried.”