Biron felt horror fill him. He dropped to his knees, disregarding the wrenching pain, and reached out a hand to touch Gillbret's shoulder gently.
"Gil," he whispered. He watched the damp, white face, anxiously.
"Out of the way, man." The medical officer was scowling at him. He removed his black doctor's wallet from an inner pocket.
"At least the hypodermics aren't broken," he grumbled. He leaned over Gillbret, the hypodermic, filled with its colorless fluid, poised. It sank deep, and the plunger pressed inward automatically. The doctor tossed it aside and they waited.
Gillbret's eyes flickered, then opened. For a while they stared unseeingly. When he spoke finally, his voice was a whisper. "I can't see, Biron. I can't see."
Biron leaned close again. "It's all right, Oil. Just rest."
"I don't want to." He tried to struggle upright. "Biron, when are. they Jumping?"
"Soon, soon!"
"Stay with me, then. I don't want to die alone." His fingers clutched feebly, and then relaxed. His head lolled backward.
The doctor stooped, then straightened. "We were too late. He's dead."
Tears stung at Biron's eyelids. "I'm sorry, Oil," he said, "but you didn't know. You didn't understand." They didn't hear him.
They were hard hours for Biron. Aratap had refused to allow him to attend the ceremonies involved in the burial of a body at space. Somewhere in the ship, he knew, Gillbret's body would be blasted in an atomic furnace and then exhausted into space, where its atoms might mingle forever with the thin wisps of interstellar matter.
Artemisia and Hinrik would be there. Would they understand? Would she understand that he had done only what he had to do?
The doctor had injected the cartilaginous extract that would hasten the healing of Biron's tom ligaments, and already the pain in his knee was barely noticeable, but then that was only physical pain, anyway. It could be ignored.
He felt the inner disturbance that meant the ship had Jumped and then the worst time came.
Earlier he had felt his own analysis to be correct. It had to be. But what if he were wrong? What if they were now at the very heart of rebellion? The information would go streaking back to Tyrann and the armada would gather. And he himself would die knowing that he might have saved the rebellion, but had risked death to ruin it.
It was during that dark time that he thought of the document again. The document he had once failed to get.
Strange the way the notion of the document came and went. It would be mentioned, and then forgotten. There was a mad, intensive search for the rebellion world and yet no search at all for the mysterious vanished document.
Was the emphasis being misplaced?
It occurred to Biron then that Aratap was willing to come upon the rebellion world with a single ship. What was that confidence he had? Could he dare a planet with a ship?
The Autarch had said the document had vanished years before, but then who had it?
The Tyranni, perhaps. They might have a document the secret of which would allow one ship to destroy a world.
If that were true, what did it matter where the rebellion world was, or if it existed at all.
Time passed and then Aratap entered. Biron rose to his feet.
Aratap said, "We have reached the star in question. There is a star there. The co-ordinates given us by the Autarch were correct."
"Well?"
"But there is no need to inspect it for planets. The star, I am told by my astrogators, was a nova less than a million years ago. If it had planets then, they were destroyed. It is a white dwarf now. It can have no planets."
Biron stared. "Then-"
Aratap said, "So you are right. There is no rebellion world."
Twenty-Two: There!
All of Aratap's philosophy could not completely wipe out the feeling of regret within him. For a while he had not been himself, but his father over again. He, too, these last weeks had been leading a squadron of ships against the enemies of the Khan.
But these were degenerate days, and where there might have been a rebellion world, there was none. There were no enemies of the Khan after all; no worlds to gain. He remained only a Commissioner, still condemned to the soothing of little troubles. No more.
Yet regret was a useless emotion. It accomplished nothing.
He said, "So you are right. There is no rebellion world."
He sat down and motioned Biron into a seat as well. "I want to talk to you."
The young man was staring solemnly at him, and Aratap found himself gently amazed that they had met first less than a month ago. The boy was older now, far more than a month older, and he had lost his fear. Aratap thought to himself, I am growing completely decadent. How many of us are beginning to like individuals among our subjects? How many of us wish them well?
He said, "I am going to release the Director and his daughter. Naturally, it is the politically intelligent thing to do. In fact, it is politically inevitable. I think, though, that I will release them now and send them back on the Remorseless. Would you care to pilot them?"
Biron said, "Are you freeing me?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"You saved my ship, and my life as well."
"I doubt that personal gratitude would influence your actions in matters of state."
Aratap was within a hair of laughing outright. He did like the boy. "Then I'll give you another reason. As long as I was tracking a giant conspiracy against the Khan, you were dangerous. When that giant conspiracy failed to materialize, when all I had was a Linganian cabal of which the leader is dead: you were no longer dangerous. In fact, it would be dangerous to try either you or the Linganian captives.
"The trials would be in Linganian courts and therefore not under our full control. They would inevitably involve discussion of the so-called rebellion world. And though there is none, half the subjects of Tyrann would think there might be one after all, that where there was such a deal of drumming, there must be a drum. We would have given them a concept to rally round, a reason for revolt, a hope for the future. The Tyrannian realm would not be free of rebellion this side of a century."
"Then you free us all?"
"It will not be exactly freedom, since none of you is exactly loyal. We will deal with Lingane in our own way, and the next Autarch will find himself bound by closer ties to the Khanate. It will be no longer an Associated State, and trials involving Linganians will not necessarily be tried in Linganian courts hereafter. Those involved in the conspiracy, including those in our hands now, will be exiled to worlds nearer Tyrann, where they will be fairly harmless. You yourself cannot return to Nephelos and need not expect to be restored to your Ranch. You will stay on Rhodia, along with Colonel Rizzett."
"Good enough, " said Biron, "but what of the Lady Artemisia's marriage?"
"You wish it stopped?"
"You must know that we would like to marry each other. You said once there might be some way of stopping the Tyrannian affair."
"At the time I said that I was trying to accomplish something. What is the old saying? 'The lies of lovers and diplomats shall be forgiven them.' "
"But there is a way, Commissioner. It need only be pointed out to the Khan that when a powerful courtier would marry into an important subject family, it may be motives of ambition that lead him on. A subject revolt may be led by an ambitious Tyrannian as easily as by an ambitious Linganian."
Aratap did laugh this time. "You reason like one of us. But it wouldn't work. Would you want my advice?"
"What would it be?"
"Marry her yourself, quickly. A thing once done would be difficult to undo under the circumstances. We would find another woman for Pohang."
Biron hesitated. Then he put out a hand. "Thank you, sir."
Aratap took it. "I don't like Pohang particularly, anyway. Still, there is one thing further for you to remember. Don't let ambition mislead you. Though you marry the Director's daughter, you will never yourself be Director. You are not the type we want."