With a sudden blaze of anger she understood.

Not his concern over the punishment but his manner of letting her know how useless he thought it to be. And the rest? The earlier talk of guilt? She remembered his mother back in the early days of her rule. The woman had joined a cabal and fled when the rebellion had been thwarted. Together they had lived in exile and Tamiras had only returned to Esslin after her death. Would he still bear a grudge?

He had been old then, fully grown and studying on an industrial world. A whim of his mother's, but Vaada had been a stupidly ambitious woman. And had there been a marriage of some kind? An alliance with a low-born family? She must remember to ask Gustav about it.

Now she said, "We are bound by custom, Tamiras, as you well know. Impalement is legal execution for certain crimes. And why feel sorry for those who deserve it? Did anyone force them to break the law?"

"In certain circumstances that could be the case."

"Explain!"

"A slave is property," he said carefully. "He or she must obey the owner. Now, suppose that owner were to order the slave to commit a crime-who would be to blame?"

"The owner."

"And who would testify against him? Who but the slave." He smiled as she remained silent. "You see how it could be?"

"We have procedures for such cases."

"The irons? The rack? The tools with which our ancestors wrung the truth from stubborn lips? But who was put to the questions? The slaves, naturally, for it was obvious they must be lying."

"And what is your suggestion for eliminating this abuse of power if any such abuse exists?" Gustav leaned forward from where he sat. "Your polygraphs?"

"What else?" Tamiras became alive now that his subject had been touched on, his eyes gaining a brighter fire. "Lie-detectors for all. An accusation is made, the one making it is tested as to veracity, those denying the charge also probed. A fast and efficient method of arriving at the truth and one used on a multitude of worlds. No judge, no jury, no defense counsels. Just a machine and an arbitrator."

"Souless perfection," said Kathryn. "It would never be permitted on Esslin."

"Because too many women wish to cling to their positions of power. To sit in judgment and claim infallibility. What else to expect in a culture which tolerates slavery?" Shrugging, he added, "I'll give the monks their due on that. They hate it."

"Slavery?" Kathryn changed the subject. "What do they really believe in? Not just their credo but the rest. Why do they suffer so much privation without real need?"

"As an example." Tamiras looked at the wine in his goblet and now his tone was free of mocking inflections. "They help the poor and are poor as anyone can see. No fine clothing, no jewels, no luxurious quarters. No monk is ever better dressed or better fed than his followers. This is true on all worlds I have visited."

"They love poverty?"

"They hate it. To them it is a disease. They fight it in every way they can. There is no virtue in suffering. There is no grace to be found in pain. But as for what they believe, well-"

"They believe that all living things are the parts of a whole," said Gustav quietly. "That the intelligences which reside in the multiplicity of brains are akin to the individual cells of a body. All is one and one is all. Death is a rejoining of the individually aware scrap of consciousness with the great, common pool. You, I, all of us are as the fingers of a hand. We do not know we are simply the extensions of a far more complex being. If you choose to call that common pool God, then you are as correct as any other."

"You know about these things?" Tamiras sounded astonished. "Gustav, you amaze me!"

"Because I have read and studied and arrived at certain conclusions? You, a student of science, to find that strange?"

"Hardly a student," said Tamiras dryly. "My school days are far behind me and yet I will admit there is always something new to learn. The behavior of the storm, for example. I would have sworn that seeding the clouds was a waste of time and yet, somehow, we succeeded. Why? A shift in the electromagnetic potential of the area? A minute alteration in water content? Something which affected the ionization of the clouds? Who can tell?"

"Can't you find out?" The information could be important and urgency edged her voice as Kathryn fired the question. "Surely your instruments would have yielded the information?"

"Instruments?" His ironic smile made her remember the raft she had seen, the men swinging from their ropes, "What instruments? We carried chemicals and little else. We were lucky, that's all."

"So you don't think that similar precautions would work again? Or rather you cannot guarantee they would?" Gustav pursed his lips as Tamiras shook his head. "So it comes back to your fields. But how are you going to brace them against the thrust of moving masses of air?"

"It is all in my report. Towers must be set at regular intervals along the line of the foothills. They must be strongly braced and equipped with balancing fields in order to lock the entire installation into the planetary crust." China rattled as Tamiras, suddenly vibrant, pushed aside the table furnishing in order to clear a space. "See?" He set items on the cloth; knives, spoons, trails of salt, patches of spice. "Lock a field here and another here and we have a buttress which will withstand any storm threatening this area. Power could be supplied from installations built here and here with double compensators and automatic feedback relays." His finger rapped at the table. "By cross-linking we shall be able to utilize all generated energy at any one point as needed. Once built the installations will protect the crops against snow and hail and anything the mountains can develop. Yields will increase and we could even gain an extra planting a year."

"'But at a price." Gustav mused over the rough plans. "What if portable installations could be built? Massed rafts to bear the heavy equipment which could be sent out as the need became manifest? Power could also be supplied from mobile sources and would only be used to give protection when actually needed. At other times they could serve factories and remote areas. You see my point? It would be less expensive and more versatile."

"But less efficient."

"Only relatively so. If…"

Kathryn leaned back in her chair as the discussion continued. Her head ached a little and it was a relief to close her eyes but darkness brought no consolation. Against her lids she could see the pale beauty of Iduna, the Tau, the face of Dumarest now lying in an apparent coma.

Heard again the voice of the technician who attended him.

"No response as yet, my lady, but that is all to the good. As far as we can determine his normal processes are unimpaired." Then she'd added, spoiling it all, "Of course it's early to tell yet. For all we know his mind could have gone as did the others."

Damn the stupid bitch! Couldn't she at least have left her with hope? If Dumarest failed what else did she have?

Chapter Six

He sat on a rock in a plain of coarse, volcanic sand, black grains which stretched as far as he could see to a horizon limned with smouldering ruby. Flame which rose to cover the sky with swirling tendrils of somber red and darting, orange, strands and swaths of savage color edged with black, the black fading to scarlet, to crimson, to fill his eyes with the hue of blood.

A sky Dumarest had never seen before, a plain which was strange.

He moved, feeling the solidity of the stone beneath him, the grate of sand against his boots. He was dressed now, the knife snug in its sheath, warm and divorced from the need of food and water. Able to think and plan and review the situation.