"The fact is seldom as important as the perception, Marika. Illusion is the ruling form. Shadow signifies more than substance. Silth always have been more fancy than fact."

"Mistress?"

"It is not important whether or not you made an effort to save this male. What signifies is his belief that you saved him. Which in fact you did."

Marika was puzzled. Why the interest in Bagnel?

"You have been away for a while. Living in rather primitive, difficult circumstances. Would you like another day on the city?"

Yes, she thought excitedly. "I have studies, mistress."

"Yes. I hear you have added your own regimen to Dorteka's."

"Yes, mistress. I have been studying flying, space, and-"

"When do you sleep?"

"I do not need much sleep, mistress. I never have."

"I suppose not. I was young once, too. Are you learning anything?"

"There is not much information available, mistress. Most paths of inquiry lead to dead ends where tradermales or other Communities have invoked a privilege."

"We will find you fresh sources. About this Bagnel."

"Yes, mistress?"

"Will he accept a continued friendship?"

Warily, Marika replied, "He invited me to return, mistress. He told me I should ask for him, and he would see that there was no trouble."

"Excellent. Excellent. Then go see him again. By all means."

"Mistress? What do you want?"

"I want you to cultivate him. The brethren are supporting our enemies for reasons we do not understand. It is not like them to compromise their neutrality. You have a contact. See more of him. In time you might learn something to help us in our struggle with the Serke."

"I see."

"You do not approve?"

"It is not my place to approve or disapprove, mistress."

"You have reservations then?"

"Yes, mistress. But I cannot say what they are exactly. Except that the thought of using Bagnel makes me uncomfortable."

"It should. We should not use our friends. They are too precious."

Marika gave the most senior a calculating look. Had she meant more than she had said? Was that a warning?

"Yet at times greater issues intervene. I think Reugge survival warrants pursuit of any path to salvation."

"As you say, mistress."

"Will you pursue it? Will you cultivate this male?"

"Yes, mistress." She had decided instantly. She would, for her own purposes. For information she wanted. If some also fell the most senior's way, good. It would keep the cloister doors open.

"I thought you would." The most senior's tone said she knew Marika's mind. It said also that she was growing excited, though she concealed it well.

Perhaps she could read minds, Marika thought. Some silth could touch other minds and steal secrets. Was that not how a truthsaying worked? And would that not be a most useful talent for one who would command an entire unruly Community?

"I will tell Dorteka to let you out whenever you want. Do not overdo it. You will make the brethren suspicious."

"Yes, mistress."

"There is plenty of time, Marika. We will not reach the time of real crisis for many years yet."

"Yes, mistress."

Gradwohl again expressed restrained amusement. "You could become one of the great silth, Marika. You have the proper turn of mind."

"They whisper behind my back, mistress. They call me doomstalker and Jiana."

"Probably. Any of us who amount to anything endure a youth filled with distrust and fear. Our sisters sense the upward pressure. But no matter. That is all for today. Unless there is something you want to discuss."

"Why do we not make our own darkships, mistress? Why depend upon tradermales?"

"Two answers come to mind immediately. One is that most sisters prefer to believe that we should not sully our paws with physical labor. Another, and the one that is more close to the honest truth, is that we are dependent upon the brethren in too many other areas. They have insinuated tentacles into every aspect of life. If they came to suspect that we were trespassing on what they see as their proper rights, they might then cut us off from everything else they do for us.

"There is an ecological balance between male and female in our society, as expressed in silth and brethren. We are interdependent, and ever more so. In fact, I suspect an imbalance is in the offing. We have come to need them more than they need us. Nowadays we would be missed less than they."

Marika rose. "Maybe steps ought to be taken to change that instead of pursuing these squabbles between Communities."

"An idea that has been expressed often enough before. Without winning more than lip service support. The brethren have the advantage of us there, too. Though they have their various bonds and subbonds, they answer to a central authority. They have their internal feuds, but they are much more monolithic than we. They can play one sisterhood against another."

"Find ways to split them into factions," Marika said from the doorway. And, "We built our own ships for ages. Before the tradermales."

Gradwohl scowled.

"Thank you, mistress. I will visit Bagnel soon."IIGrauel and Barlog were beside themselves when Marika announced another expedition to the tradermale enclave. They did everything possible to dissuade her. She did not tell them she had the most senior's blessing. They gossiped. She knew, because they brought her snippets about the Maksche sisters. She did not doubt but what they paid in kind.

The huntresses became suspicious soon after they left the cloister. "Marika," Grauel said after a whispered consultation with Barlog, "we are being followed. By huntresses from the cloister."

Marika was not pleased, but neither was she surprised. A silth had been set upon by rogue males not a week before her return from the upper Ponath. "It's all right," she said. "They're looking out for us."

Grauel nodded to herself. She told Barlog, "The most senior protecting her investment."

"We'll be watched wherever we go," Marika said. "We have a friend."

"One is more than we did have."

"Does that tell me something?"

"Did you know that we were not supposed to come back from the Ponath?"

"We weren't?" The notion startled Marika.

"The story was whispering around the barracks here. We were sent out to build that blockhouse behind the most senior's back. We were not supposed to get out of it alive. That is why Paustch was demoted. It was an attempt to kill us."

Barlog added, "The senior councillors here are afraid of you, Marika."

"We survived."

Grauel said, "It is also whispered that nomad prisoners confessed that our blockhouse wasn't attacked once they found out who the keeper was. You have gained a reputation among the savages."

"How? I don't know any of them. How could they know me?"

"You slew the Serke silth at Akard. That has been bruited about all the Communities, they say. The one who died had a great name in her order, though the Serke aren't naming it. That would mean admitting they were poaching on the Ponath."

"I love this hypocrisy," Marika said. "Everyone knows what the Serke are doing, and no one will admit it. We must learn the rules of this game. We might want to play it someday."

"Marika?"

Grauel's tone warned Marika that she had come too far out of her role. "We have to play the silth game the way it is played here if we are to survive here, Grauel. Not so?" She spoke in the formal mode.

"I suppose. Still ... "

Barlog said, "We hear talk about the most senior sending you to TelleRai soon, Marika. Because that is where they teach those who are expected to rise high. Is this true? Will we be going?" Barlog, too, shifted to the formal mode.

Marika shifted back. "I don't know anything about it, Barlog. Nothing's been said to me. I don't think there's anything to it. But I will not be going anywhere without you two. Could I survive without touch with my pack?"

How could she survive without the only meth she had any reason to trust? Not that she trusted even them completely. She still suspected they reported on her to curry favor, but to do that they had to stay close and remain useful.

"Thank you, Marika," Barlog said.

"Here we are. Do not hesitate to admonish me if I fail to comport myself properly." Marika glanced back. "Any sign of our shadows?" She could have gone down through her loophole and looked, but did not care enough.

"None, Marika."

"Good." She touched the fence lightly, examined the aircraft upon the field. Today the airstrip was almost naked. One small freight dirigible lay in one of the cradles. Two Stings sat near the fence. There were a couple of light craft of a type with which she was unfamiliar. Their design implied them to be reconnaisance or courier ships.

She went to the desk in the gateway building. The same guard watched the same vision screen in the same state of sleepy indifference. He did not notice her. She wondered if his hearing and sense of smell were impaired, or if he just enjoyed being rude to meth from the street. She rapped on the desk.

He turned. He recognized her and his eyes widened. He sat up.

"I would like to speak to Assistant Security Chief Bagnel," Marika told him.

He gulped air, looked around as if seeking a place to hide, then gobbled, "Yes, mistress." He hurried around the end of his desk, down the hallway leading to the airfield. Halfway along he paused to say, "You stay here, mistress." He made a mollifying gesture. "Just wait. I will hurry him all I can."

Marika's ears tilted in amusement.

The guard turned again at the far door, called back, "Mistress, Bagnel is no longer assistant chief. He was made chief a few months ago. Just so you do not use the wrong mode of address."

"Thank you." Wrong mode of address? What difference? Unless it was something the nervous guard had let carry over from the mysteries of the tradermale brethren.

She supposed she ought to examine the relevant data-what was known-if she was going to be dealing with Bagnel regularly.