Almost out of pity she stopped hitting him. She could see that he was hearing much of this for the first time. That, indeed, he had been used. That he did not want to believe, yet his faith was being terribly tested.

"Enough of that. Friend. When you report to your factors, as inevitably you must before you dare yield the criminals I want, tell them for me that I can produce thirteen burned-out ground-effect vehicles, with their cargoes and the corpses of their drivers and passengers, anytime I feel inclined to assemble delegates from the various Communities."

Bagnel composed his features, but could not help staring.

"You do not have to believe me, Bagnel. Just tell them what I said. Nice word, 'driver.' It is from the brethren secret speech, is it not? Not everyone aboard those vehicles died in the ambush."

"What is this madness you're yammering?"

He was innocent of guilty knowledge, she was now sure. A tool of his factors. But he had heard so many wild rumors that she now had him on the edge of typical male panic. Composed as he kept his face, his eyes glittered with fear. His hackles had risen and his head had dropped against his shoulders. She wanted to reach out to him, to touch him, to reassure him. To tell him she did not hold him personally responsible. She could not. There were witnesses. Any softening would be perceived as weakness by those who were not here and did not know them.

"The message will register once you pass it along, Bagnel. Tell them the price of silence is their desertion of the Serke. Tell them they can tell the Serke that if they want to do us in, henceforth they must come at us directly, without help."

He began to understand. At least, to understand what she wanted him to understand. He whispered, "Marika. As a friend. Not as Bagnel the tradermale or Bagnel the security chief of this enclave. Don't push this. You'll get rolled under. I know nothing of the things you have talked about. I do know that you cannot withstand the forces that are ranged against the Reugge. If you really have the sort of evidence you claim, and I report it, they will kill you."

"I suspect they'll be reluctant to try, Bagnel." She spoke in a whisper herself, and pointed to one of the circling darkships, to make those watching think she was talking about her threats. "Their force commander in the Ponath was the Serke number four. Stronger than anyone but Bestrei herself. She's dead. And I'm here."

"There are other ways to kill."

Marika rested a paw upon the butt of her rifle. "And I know them. They may have their way with the Reugge. But they will pay in blood. And pay and pay and pay. We have just started fighting, Gradwohl and I."

"Marika, please. You're too young to be so ruled by ambition."

"There are things I want to do with my life, Bagnel. This struggle with the Serke is a distraction. This scramble is something I want to get over early. If I sound confident of the Reugge, that's because I am. In the parlance of your brethren, I believe the hammer is in my paw. I'd rather you and your silth allies just went away and left us alone. I'd rather not fight. But I am ready to bring on the fire if that is the way they want it. You may tell them that we Reugge believe we have very little to lose. And more to gain than they can imagine."

Bagnel sighed. "You always were headstrong and deaf to advice. I will tell my factors what you've said. I'll be very much interested in their response myself."

"I'm sure you will. As you walk over there, keep one eye on the darkships up top. Keep in mind that they have orders to kill anyone who tries to leave the enclave. You can shoot them down if you like. But I don't think even the Serke will tolerate that."

"I hope you know what you're doing, Marika. I really do. I think, though, that you don't. I think you have made some grave and erroneous accusations, and based serious miscalculations upon them. I fear for you."

She was making a long bet, setting the price of protecting the rogues so high the brethren factors would have no choice but to surrender them. A success would cement her standing within the Community.

She did not care if the silth liked her, so long as they respected and feared her.

"I intend to be very careful, Bagnel. I give these things more thought than you credit me for. Go. Grauel and Barlog will be waiting here at the gate." She walked through the building beside him, halted at the door to the airstrip, counted silently while he walked fifteen steps. "Bagnel!"

"What?" he squeaked as he whirled.

"Why is the Ponath worth risking the very existence of the brethren?"

An instant of panic betrayed him. If he did not know, he had firmly founded suspicions. Perhaps because the tradermales of Critza had been involved from the beginning?

"The plan is for the brethren to betray the Serke after they take over, isn't it? The brethren think they have some way to force the Serke out without a struggle."

"Marika ... "

"I questioned some of the drivers who were with the Serke invaders, Bagnel. What they didn't know was as interesting as what they did."

"Marika, you know very well I do not know what you are howling about. Tell me. Does Most Senior Gradwohl know what you are doing here?"

"The most senior has ambitions greater than mine."

That was not a direct answer, but Bagnel nodded and resumed walking, his step tentative. He glanced at the circling darkships only once. His head lowered against his shoulders again.

She had rattled him badly, Marika knew. Right now he was questioning everything he knew and believed about his bond. She regretted having had to use him so harshly. He was a friend.

Given her victory, the day would come when things would balance.

When she returned to the street outside the enclave, Grauel asked, "Are they going to cooperate?"

"I think they will. You can put anything over on anybody if you sound tough enough and confident enough."

"And if they are guilty as charged?"

"That will help a lot."

Barlog looked at one of the darkships. "Did you really order ... ?"

"Yes. I could not run the bluff without being willing to play part of it out. They might test me."

Barlog winced, but said nothing.

IIGrauel received the rogue prisoners within the deadline. "But nine of them were given over dead, Marika," she reported.

"I expected that. They resisted being turned over, did they?"

"That is what Bagnel told me."

"Want to bet the dead ones could have connected the brethren of the enclave with their movement?"

"No bet. They had to get their weapons and explosives somewhere. Bagnel slipped me a letter, Marika. A personal communication, he said."

"He did?" She was surprised. After what she had put him through? "Let's see what he has to say."

Bagnel said much in few words. He apologized for his brethren having betrayed the conventions. He had not believed her at the gate, but now he had no choice. He was ashamed. As his personal act of contrition, he appended two remarks. "Petroleum in the Zhotak. Pitchblende in the western Ponath."

Petroleum she understood instantly. She had to go to references to make sense of the other.

She hurried to Gradwohl's quarters. "My cultivating the male Bagnel has finally paid a dividend, mistress," she reported. She did not mention the brethren yielding the criminals. Gradwohl's meth would have reported all that already. "He has told me what is so important about our northern provinces."

"You broke him down? How? I had begun to think him as stubborn as you."

"I shamed him. I showed him how his factors had been making a fool of him, using him in schemes he would not have touched had they asked him directly. But no matter. He has turned over the rogues, and he has given me the reason behind all the years of terror.

"Petroleum and pitchblende. Our natural resources. Considering what they were willing to risk, the deposits must be huge."

"Petroleum I understand." It was a scarce commodity, very much in demand in the more advanced technological zones farther south. "But what is pitchblende? I have never heard of it."

"I had to look it up myself," Marika admitted. "It is a radioactive ore. A source of the rare heavy elements radium and uranium. There is very little data available in our resources, but there is at least the implication that the heavy elements could become an energy source far more potent than petroleum or other fossil fuels. The brethren already use radioactives as power sources in some of their satellites."

"Space. I wonder ... Now I wonder why the Serke would ... ?"

"Yes. Suddenly, it looks like we have seen everything backward, does it not? For a long time I thought the Serke were using the brethren. Now I think the brethren have been using the Serke the way the Serke used the nomads. The Serke promised a great prize and secret support. The savages had little real choice, pressed as they were by the onset of the ice age. The brethren in turn baited their snare with the petroleum of the Zhotak. And the Serke leapt on it like an otec onto the scraps of greasy bread huntresses use in their traps along the side creeks. I am sorry. The brethren. I believe they are interested in the pitchblende."

"You have evidence?"

"Only intuition at this point."

Silth accepted intuition as a reliable data base. Gradwohl nodded. "Can you guess what their motives might be?"

"I think that brings us full circle, back to the problem that put me in a position to learn what I have. I think their ultimate goal is the destruction of the silth. Not just the Reugge, a minor Community, but all silth everywhere."

"That is stretching intuition into the wildest conjecture, Marika. Into implausible conjecture."

"Perhaps. Yet there were those who said that about the connection between the rogues and the enclave brethren. And there is no evidence to the contrary. Nothing to show any great tradermale love for silth. Not so? Who does love us? We even hate ourselves."

"I will not permit that kind of talk, Marika."

"I am sorry, mistress. Sometimes I grow bitter and am unable to contain myself. May I proceed upon my assumptions?"

"Proceed? It seems to me that you have handled the situation." Gradwohl glared suspiciously, sensing that Marika wanted to cling to power momentarily gained. "Now it is time we started planning your Toghar ceremonies."