She was speaking to herself. But a voice from behind said, "Perhaps if you had paid more attention to your duties here ... "

"Enough, Grauel. I am going out. Take the names of any who ask to see me. Tell them I will contact them later."

"As you command, mistress."

Irked, Marika began assembling her saddleship.

IIIMarika swept in over the Redoriad cloister as fast as she dared, hoping to remain unnoticed. Vain hope. There was an inconvenient break in the cloud cover. Her shadow ran across the courts below, catching the eyes of several Redoriad bonds. By the time she reached Kiljar's window, meth were running everywhere.

"You came," Kiljar said.

"Of course. Why not?"

"I received your message but doubted you would make it. My sources suggested there is a lot of maneuvering going on inside the Reugge."

"I have been approached," Marika admitted. "But only once. I will tell them all the same thing. First chair is not open. If it were, I would not take it. Though I do want someone philosophically compatible to be most senior. I am busy enough with the brethren and Serke."

"That is what I wanted to discuss with you."

"Mistress?"

"Do not become defensive, Marika. It is time you assessed your position. Time you shed this hard stance."

Marika's jaw tightened.

"Were you not satisfied with what you wrought at that brethren enclave?"

"No, mistress. That was not sufficient at all. That was an insect's sting. I am going to devour them. They destroyed a city. Without cause or justification. They will pay the price."

"I do not understand you, Marika. Victory is not enough. Why do you make this a personal vendetta?"

"Mistress?"

"You are not killing for the honor or salvation of your Community. You are more selfish than the run of silth. No! Do not deny it. For you your order is a ladder to climb toward personal goals. Gradwohl was crafty enough to use you to the benefit of the Reugge. But now Gradwohl is gone. We all fear ... "

"Why does everyone insist that? For years Gradwohl has been in the habit of disappearing. Sometimes for months."

"This time it is for good, Marika."

"How can you know that?" A blade of ice slashed at her heart.

Kublin might know what had become of Gradwohl. That had not occurred to her before. Suppose he had not been unconscious throughout the whole flight? Indeed, all he needed to know was that she and Gradwohl had met.

"Come." Kiljar led her to another room. "Look." She indicated fragments of wood. Some retained bits of gaudy paint. "Parts from a saddleship not unlike yours. Some of our bonds found them drifting in the Hainlin yesterday. I have heard of only one saddleship other than yours. The one Gradwohl was flying when last seen."

Marika settled into a chair uninvited. "Does anyone else know?"

"My most senior. Do you accept this evidence?"

"Do I have any choice?"

"I think it is close enough to conclusive. It seems obvious Gradwohl went down in the Hainlin. How we may never know. What stance will you take now, Marika? Will you think of someone besides yourself?"

"Oh. I suppose. Yes. I have to." Was Kiljar suspicious?

"You had best reconsider your position on the Serke, the brethren, and the convention, then."

"But ... "

"I will explain. I will show you why it can be in our interest to see the convention through to the conclusion you abhor. Let me begin with our passage near Starstalker."

"Mistress?"

"We were attacked. Without provocation. Unprecedented. Have you not wondered why? And the how was so startling."

"Those ships."

"Exactly. Nothing like them has been seen before. Yet they could not have been created overnight. And, sneaky as they are, the brethren could not have built them without the project having come to my attention."

"The brethren have done many things without attracting attention, mistress. Including putting satellites into orbit without the help or license of any Community."

"Yes. I know. They used rockets half as big as TelleRai, launched from the Cupple Islands. For all the organizing you have done, I have resources that you do not. The brethren are not monolithic. Some bonds can be penetrated with the wealth at my command. There are no secrets from me in TelleRai."

Kiljar paused. Marika did not care to comment.

"The brethren did not build those ships here. They came here aboard Starstalker. We were not supposed to see them because the brethren did not build them at all."

Startled, Marika asked, "What?"

"The brethren did not build them. It took great pressure upon my contacts and the spreading of much Redoriad largess, but I wormed out an amazing truth. A truth which has been before us all for years, unseen because it was so fantastic."

"You are toying with me, mistress."

"I suppose I am. Marika, the fact is, Starstalker crossed starpaths with another dark-faring species fifteen years ago. A species without silth. They are like the brethren, only more so. The Serke were unable to comprehend them, so they enlisted the help of those bonds with whom they had operated closely before. And the brethren took control. Much as you have claimed."

Marika could not keep her lips from peeling back in a snarl.

"At first only a few dark-faring bonds were in it with the Serke. Thus, overall brethren policy was inconsistent. The Serke began trying to seize Reugge territories because of advantages they hoped to gain from these aliens. Their ally bonds helped. At the same time the Brown Paw Bond, being uninformed, were battling the nomads the Serke and other brethren had armed. Do you follow?"

"I think I see the outline. Bagnel once said-"

"After Akard and Critza fell, but before you defeated the force near the ruins of Critza, the dark-faring bonds gained ascendancy over all the brethren. A smaller faction inimical to silth controlled them. Though you Reugge suffered, there was much quiet feuding among the bonds in private. Increasing bitterness, failure of communication, and outright disobedience on the part of a few highly placed individuals resulted in the ill-timed, ill-advised, much too massive attempt to kill you at Maksche."

"To kill me? They destroyed an entire city just to get me?"

"Absolutely. There was one among them who was quite mad."

"The warlock. We have been hearing about him for some time."

"The warlock. Yes. He engineered the whole thing. My contacts say he had an insane fear of you. Insanity bred insanity. And when it went sour it all went sour. His madness caused the overthrow of the dark-faring brethren. They have been replaced by conservatives who favor traditional relationships with the Communities. Now."

"Mistress?"

"Now is the time you must listen and hear. Timing is important now. If the convention moves fast the rogue faction can be disarmed forever. What the Serke found, and hoped to use to our detriment, can be exploited for the benefit of all meth. If we do not move fast the dark-faring brethren may regain their balance and attempt a counter-move. I have gotten hints that they received fearsome weapons and technologies from the aliens."

Marika left the chair, began to pace. She recalled once naively telling Dorteka or Gradwohl that the Reugge ought to try creating factions within the brethren.

"The pitchblende. These aliens wanted it?"

"The brethren believed so. Apparently they use it in power plants of the sort you once predicted in one of our discussions. It seems the Ponath deposit is a rich one indeed. It was because of it that the dark-faring brethren took control of all the brethren. They believed they could use the ore to buy technology. And thus the power to destroy all silth. But for you they might have succeeded."

"Me?"

"You have a friend among the brethren. You were open with him apparently, even when relationships were most strained. The brethren, like silth, are able to extract a great deal from very little evidence. Like the Serke and Gradwohl and everyone else who paid attention to you, they saw what you might become."

"Bestrei's replacement."

"Exactly. With a strong conservative bent and a tendency to do things your own way. The brethren foresaw a future in which they would lose privileges and powers. Also, you are more than Bestrei's potential successor. You have a reasonable amount of intelligence and a talent for intuiting whole pictures from the most miniscule specks of evidence. That you insisted on isolating yourself in a remote industrial setting only further disturbed those who feared you. You recall the stir at the time of your first visit here? You recall me remarking that everyone was following you closely? Had you spent more time in TelleRai you might have been more aware of what you are and how you are perceived."

"Such talk mystifies me, mistress. I have heard it for years. It always seems to be about someone else. I think I know myself fairly well. I am not this creature you are talking about. I am no different from anyone else."

"You compare yourself to older silth, perhaps. To sisters who have risen very high, but who are in the main within a few years of death. They have passed their prime. You have your whole life ahead of you. It is what you might become that scares everyone. Your potential plus your intellectual orientation. That can frighten meth who, to you, may seem unassailable."

Marika looked inside herself and did not find that she felt special. "Where do we stand now? Where are we headed? You wished specifically to know about my position on the convention."

"Yes. It is critical that none of us holds a hard line. We must not give the dark-faring brethren excuses to recapture control. We must be satisfied with recapturing yesterday. The ruling brethren are eager to please right now."

"They attacked-"

"I know what they did, pup! Damn you, listen! I know bloodfeud. I come from a rural background. But you cannot make enemies of all brethren. That will give the wicked among them ammunition. In that you risk defeat for all silth."

Marika moved toward her saddleship, suddenly aware that Kiljar was unusually tense. There was a threat implicit in her plea.