She asked, "Jindigar, are you sure you're not staying here out of a need to court danger, from depression over the incredible losses you've sustained? As a human might do?"

"Dushau might do such things in the emotional turbulence of the onset of Renewal. But I have quite a few more years. This shock alone wouldn't trigger Renewal for me, or Dinai or Seum. And what I told Trinarvil is true: I owe it to Kamminth and her Oliat to complete this debriefing. Also, I owe it to the Allegiancy to carry out the Emperor's orders."

She was listening with more than her ears. Renewal was the period of about a century every thousand years when Dushau retired to their home planet, took mates, raised families, and became younger day by day. "Kamminth meant a lot to you."'

"Yes," he admitted heavily. Again, he put his forehead in his hands as if to soothe a deep ache. "She mated me during Renewal once. We have a son home now—in Renewal. Her last dying concern was for him."

He looked sharply at her, saw her sympathy and shook his head. "No, you don't understand. Such a reaction was most unlike Kamminth—until Lelwatha became her Emulator. Lelwatha was more to the Oliat than a sun to its planets. He was like a deep, still pond, clear to the depths of soul; the radiant stillness acquired through ten Renewals. He exemplified the beauty of ultimate attainment, and his mere presence awakened some of that in us. Kamminth was sharp, young, irascible. Her spiky temper and self-absorption, though simply youthful, made it difficult to be with her. But when Lelwatha came, the Oliat steadied in balance. We doubled in perceptivity. And we became open to joy. I learned—I hope I learned—so much from him.

"Krinata, I'm so afraid I'm going to lose his touch, that I will be unable to give meaning to his life because we didn't have enough time. And Kamminth—oh, Kamminth. She was learning too. Now—"

As he broke off, she was aware that he'd revealed more than he'd intended, but she was fascinated to have glimpsed the spiritual value of the Oliat to its officers. To them, it was a maturing, soul-enriching experience. And that, not money or adventure—or power—was why Dushau worked Oliat for Planetary Survey.

In his silence, she felt the immensity of his loss, and how it could scar and cripple him for life. She said, "I'll get Fiella to make some tea."

She went into the dining room and summoned Fiella while he continued to stare at his screen. How does a Dushau cry? She'd made a professional point of learning all she could about them, and still knew nothing important except that he needed a good cry right now. So did Krinata, but with less cause. She sat at the table waiting for the tea and wiped at her leaking eyes with a furious embarrassment.

When she took the tea in, along with some cakes Fiella had provided, he was totally absorbed in his work. She curled up in her favorite chair, meaning to stay only long enough to drink a cup of tea. She watched him sip his tea and munch distractedly while torrents of data swept across all five of the display screens arrayed around the desk.

As he worked, the strain lines smoothed from his face and he seemed younger. She tried to imagine him a thousand years younger. She didn't even know how old he was. But Raichmat had Dissolved more than thirteen hundred years ago.

She woke with a start to find Dinai bent over Jindigar at the desk, one arm around Jindigar's shoulders, whispering to him. Jindigar finally roused from his communion with the screens and moved vaguely, his eyes dazed, his words slurring. Dinai's alarm was written plainly in his posture, his tone, even though she couldn't understand a word he was saying other than zunre, the term for a fellow Oliat member.

She got up, alert as if there were something she could do for Jindigar. But as she moved, Jindigar dragged himself together, and said, "Oh, Krinata, I didn't know you were still there. Did I wake you?"

"No," she lied, checking the time. "I've got to get to the office." She pasted on a smile. "I've got a heavy debriefing later today!" But he should be in the hospital!

As she went to dress, he said, "We'll be there."

She left while they were closeted in the guest room, apparently chanting in unison.

The office was buzzing when she arrived. She marched past the reception counter behind which scores of her subordinates sat at desk terminals. Many of them did most of their work at home, corning into the office only occasionally. Today, however, everyone had come expecting a show. They were in their places, but gossiping, not working.

Clorinda Dover, one of the newest additions to the Survey Base data pool, fresh from Terra with the air of automatic authority that made everyone hate her while envying her pretty face, was regaling the young Lehiroh male, Sharfolk, with fictitious details of Kamminth's death, as if she had an inside track to the Emperor's apartments. Krinata strode past and snapped, "There's work to be done."

"Yes, Lady Zavaronne," intoned Clorinda. The worst of it was, she meant it. To her, rank was everything, and she acknowledged Krinata's status while vying to raise her own.

Krinata stopped, sorry she'd cracked her invisible whip at Sharfolk, who wasn't impressed by titles. "We do have Kamminth's debriefing today, and I'm sure the Outreach will be grateful if we can make it as quick as we can for him."

Clorinda put on a knowing smile that Krinata wanted to wipe off her tastefully made-up face. Three years ago, people like Clorinda wouldn't have been tolerated in positions of any responsibility. With a bit more rancor than she intended, Krinata said, "And I don't want to hear a single snicker if he walks in here with a piol on his head. The Emperor didn't bat an eyelash, neither will you."

/ shouldn't be so hard on her. She's just young. Besides, she's a member of my team!

Whispers followed her all the way into her private office. She powered up quickly and began shooting questions at her staff. making sure all the queries from the field had been answered, all new data filed and integrated. By the time she'd been on-line five minutes, her department's Sentient and all his semi-sentients were fully occupied.

Then she checked with Arlai to make sure Jindigar and the others were really as well as they claimed. He answered, "They're not well, but they'll heal faster after they get this over with."

She was planning how to make it easiest on them when her door rattled open as if hit by a tornado. Six Holot guards led by a gilt-carapaced Cassrian trooped into her office in perfect marching step and took up a formation. Feeling smaller than the Cassrian, shock prickling along her skin, she rose to her full height behind her desk.

The Cassrian was gloating at pulling rank on someone technically his superior. "We have orders from the highest to observe this debriefing."

She roared, "Get out of my office!"

He ignored her, waving toward the full staff outside. "You plan to finish today?"

"The interview part," she answered. "In privacy! I shall file full formal objections—"

"They will be ignored."

Hauteur had always been a Zavaronne tool. She turned it on now, meeting the Cassrian's gaze coldly. "Debriefing must take place in private, or we may lose vital details."

She won the stare-down. Lowering his eyes, he bowed, joints clicking. He said more humbly, "Of course. We will make ourselves inconspicuous. You are ordered to say no word of our presence to the Dushau. But we must monitor. We have our orders." He handed her a slim message tube with the imperial seal on it. "Long live the Emperor."

She broke it and rammed it into the reader. While she folded nervelessly back into her chair, the Cassrian deployed his guards by pairs into Krinata's two side rooms—one a storeroom, the other a bath and dressing room.