"No," said Jindigar.

Into Trinarvil's puzzled silence, Seum said, "We can't leave Kamminth, Lelwatha and Fedeewarn—"

"Bring—" started Trinarvil.

Jindigar cut her off. "Under the circumstances, I'm sure Rantan has already denied permission to remove the bodies from Onerir. Your only chance of pulling out without being stopped is to go swiftly, without announcing intent—"

"We're not leaving anyone behind," declared Trinarvil.

Jindigar silently consulted Seum and Dinai, then said, "Kamminth's Oliat contracted to survey three worlds. We found one colonial, and haven't debriefed on it yet. For Kamminth's sake, we must debrief. You've served Oliat—"

"Yes, I understand. But the danger—"

"We're still in the field," said Dinai. "Hazard is part of that life."

"There's one other point," added Jindigar. "I'm under direct imperial edict to submit a complete and detailed report of the Raichmat Surveys. I'm sworn to the Allegiancy Emperor, as he is to me. I'm not so naive as to believe myself safe from him. But for the Oliat, and for Dushaun, I must carry out imperial commands before I leave."

Trinarvil frowned gravely out of the screen, meeting Jindigar's eyes in a silent contest that lasted longer than any Krinata had ever witnessed. Finally, Trinarvil said, "You've always been such a stubborn kid."

"And you always told me my attitude would get me into a final trouble one day. Perhaps this is the day, and your prophecy will be vindicated."

"Would that I were wrong." She turned to the other two Dushau. "You're with him?"

The two looked to Jindigar as if he were their Outreach

still. He asked, "It could be otherwise? You knew Lelwatha and Kamminth. You knew Kamminth's."

"Arlai," said Trinarvil, "do you agree to this?"

"Without reservation," said Arlai's voice.

After deliberating, Trinarvil said, "Another prophecy then. One day, I'll serve in Jindigar's Oliat."

Jindigar grinned. "It's a deal! I'll see you there!"

The red haze shrank until Trinarvil's figure was sharply outlined. She made another formal obeisance and faded.

The silence was so deep Krinata could hear the ice melting in their forgotten drinks. She understood the ambassador was leaving Onerir and Jindigar was staying, but the reasons had escaped her. Nearly an hour later, still in total silence Dinai and Seum rose and went into the guest room she'd given them.

Jindigar muttered, "I'll explain tomorrow," and followed his zunre. Krinata let Fiella make up the sitting room guest bed. Her own room, with its pink rose-petal carpet, violet drapes and mint green bedding seemed to mock her mood. She couldn't believe the Allegiancy would fall apart in her lifetime. To Dushau, "immediately" might be three hundred years from now.

She heard the water running in the guest bathroom, and muffled Dushau voices while she was bathing. Fiella scolded her on the condition of her formal attire—piol dropping stains, Dushau urine from Dinai's convulsions. She hadn't even realized that she hadn't changed. "I'm sorry, Fiella. It won't happen again."

"Never mind," said Fiella from the bathroom screen. "We haven't had guests since your mother died. We should do things like this more often, even if it costs a few suits. They are so wonderfully courteous." She sighed. "Arlai says you were so heroic, rescuing Dinai and all."

She wasn't about to argue with the Sentients, so she distracted Fiella by asking for the syntax and vocabulary to retrack that interview and understand it while she slept. Then she snuggled into her bed and turned on the sleep field.

She woke four hours later, when the field went off automatically. Since she'd gotten over her mother's death, she'd always slept through that abatement, waking naturally at dawn. She tossed fretfully for a while, then tried combing her forearms with her fingernails and pressing her thumbs into the palms of her hands to trigger the sleep reflexes. She felt a mild relaxation from it, but then a vision surfaced of the piol left out on the balcony.

Before she knew it, she was on her feet, grabbing a robe and opening her door. The sitting-room lights were on low, and Jindigar was at the desk terminal, one hand propping his chin, the piol curled on his head and snoring while he scanned old records of the Raichmat expeditions and made new entries with his free hand.

The animal poked its head up, then scrambled down Jindigar and climbed up her robe, leaving claw marks on the delicate fabric. She plucked it off and cradled it in one arm as Jindigar roused to ask, "Did I wake you?"

"No, I just remembered leaving the piol outside."

Chagrined, Jindigar said, "I'd forgotten him, too. But I couldn't sleep."

She settled cross-legged on a nearby ottoman and turned the piol over to look for genitals. "Neither could I. How do you tell it's a he?"

"Well, you might say we asked him." He forced a grin onto his ravaged features. "Not very helpful, am I? Here." He reached for the animal and turned its rear to her, raising its tail. "Females usually have a light patch here. And they smell different, even when immature."

"Oh, I never had a piol, though I once had a cat. I thought about getting a dog after my mother died." She hadn't meant to say that. From there, it took only a few gentle questions by Jindigar to elicit the whole story of her mother's death from thransaxx and its complications.

''She must have been a fine woman."

To change the subject, she asked, "Does he have a name?"

"Why, no. There hasn't been time to think." He tried to smile, but she could see strained grief behind the facade. "Do you have any ideas?"

The picture of Rantan's livid face as the piol munched on the prize fish with its festoons of rainbow fins spread about him made Krinata say, "Why not call him Imperial Fisher, Imp for short?"

"Irreverent, but appropriate."

"You're not smiling. I thought it was funny."

"I'm sorry." He sighed hugely and flicked his fingers over the keypads, sending text and diagrams flowing over the screens in three dimensions.

Abashed, she remembered that his only memory of Imp's greatest moment was the pain of the deaths of three of his zunre. "Are you planning to finish that report so you can leave in the morning with Trinarvil?"

He turned his head to inspect her with astonishment, then answered, "It's going to take longer than that to chronicle over four hundred years. When this... grieving is over, I'll have completely lost touch with those memories, barricaded them behind a kind of emotional scar tissue. So I have to finish this before I..." He shuddered.

"Look, if you'd rather be alone—"

He just looked at her, unable to answer.

"After I saw you had the piol, I came out because I thought you might like to talk. It's helpful to humans to talk out a grieving. That's what funerals and wakes are for." She began to uncurl her legs. "But sometimes it doesn't work across species lines. Perhaps it's too soon."

He put out a hand to halt her. "The grieving will go on hard and long, Krinata. I must ask you to forgive. Let me tell you what Trinarvil said."

"I understood most of it, and got the rest from..." Suddenly, the full import of the conversation bit her like a cannon blast. And she knew what had wakened her after the sleeper had turned off. The Dushau really believed the end was at hand, and that Rantan was going to make them his scapegoat. Despite all of that, Jindigar was going to honor his vows of fealty, taken hundreds of years ago to another Emperor. What a beautiful man! How could anyone believe those lies! She didn't know what Zinzik was trying to accomplish, but it must be that he was so intent on his goal of peace and prosperity among the Allied Species that he had allowed his advisors to lead him into a ghastly blunder. And if it went on much longer, it could be very dangerous indeed.