“I’m afraid we’ve no time for gaiety,” he got out. “We’ve walking weather ahead.”

“Indeed?”

“The Empire’s about to expand our way.”

“C’mon to the, house.” Tabitha took his arm and urged him toward the compound. Its thatch-roofed timber dwellings were built lower than most Ythrian homes and were sturdier than they seemed; for here was scant protection from Avalon’s hurricanes. “Oh, yes,” she said, “the empire’s been growing, vigorously since Manuel the First. But I’ve read its history. How has the territory been brought under control? Some by simple partnership — civilized non-humans like the Cynthians found it advantageous. Some by purchase or exchange. Some by conquest, yes — but always of primitives, or at most of people whose strength in space was ridiculously less than Greater Terra’s. We’re a harder gale to buck.”

“Are we? My father says—”

“Uh-huh. The Empire’s sphere approaches 400 light-years across, ours about 80. Out of all the systems in its volume, the Empire’s got a degree of direct contact with several thousand, we with barely 250. But don’t you see, Chris, we know our planets better? We’re more compact. Our total resources are less but our technology’s every bit as good. And then, we’re distant from Terra. Why should they attack us? We don’t threaten them, we merely claim our rights along the border. If they want more realm, they can find plenty closer to home, suns they’ve never visited, and easier to acquire than from a proud, well-armed Domain.”

“My father says we’re weak and unready.”

“Do you think we would lose a war?”

He fell silent until they both noticed, through the soughing ahead, how sand scrunched beneath their feet. At last: “Well, I don’t imagine anybody goes into a war expecting to lose.”

“I don’t believe they’ll fight,” Tabitha said. “I believe the Imperium has better sense.”

“Regardless, we’d better take precautions. Home defense is among them.”

“Yes. Wont be easy to organize, among a hundred or more sovereign choths.”

“That’s where we birds come in, maybe,” he ventured. “Long established ones in particular, like your family.”

“I’m honored to help,” she told him. “Arid in fact I don’t imagine the choths will cooperate too badly—” she tossed her head in haughtiness — “when it’s a matter of showing the Empire who flies highest!”

Eyath and Vodan winged together. They made a handsome pair, both golden of eyes and arms, he ocher-brown and she deep bronze. Beneath them reached the Stormgate lands, forest-darkened valleys, crags and cliffs, peaks where snowfields lingered to dapple blue-gray rock, sword-blade of a waterfall and remote blink of a glacier. A wind sang whoo and drove clouds, which Laura tinged gold, through otherwise brilliant air; their, shadows raced and rippled across the world. The Ythrians drank of the wind’s cold and swam in its swirling, thrusting, flowing strength. It stroked their feathers till they felt the barbs of the great outer pinions shiver.

He said: “If we were of Arinnian’s kind, I would surely wed you, now, before I go to my ship. But you won’t be in lovetime for months, and by then I might be dead. I would not bind you to that sorrow for nothing.”

“Do you think I would grieve less if I had not the name of widow?” she answered. “I’d want the right to lead your memorial dance. For I know what parts of these skies you like best.”

“Still, you would have to lift some awkward questions, obligation toward my blood and so on. No… Shall our friendship be less because, for a while, you have not the name of wife?”

“Friendship—” she murmured. Impulsively: “I dreamt last night that we were indeed like humans.”

“What, forever in rut?”

“Forever in love.”

“Kh-h’ng, I’ve naught against Arinnian, but sometimes I wonder if you’ve not been too much with him, for too many years since you both were small. Had Lythran not taken you along when he had business in Gray—” Vodan saw her crest rise, broke off and added in haste: “Yes, he’s your galemate. That makes him mine too. I only wanted to warn you… don’t try, don’t wish to be human.”

“No-no.” Eyath felt a downdraft slide by. She slanted herself to catch it, a throb of wings and then the long wild glide, peaks leaping nearer, glimpse through trees of a pool ashine where a feral stallion drank, song and rush and caress of doyen air, till she checked herself and flew back upward, breasting a torrent, every muscle at full aliveness — traced a thermal by the tiny trembling of a mountain seen through it, won there, spread her wings and let heaven carry her hovering while she laughed.

Vodan beat near. “Would I trade this?” she called joyously. “Or you?”

Ekrem Saracoglu, Imperial governor of Sector Pacis, had hinted for a while that he would like to meet the daughter of Fleet Admiral Juan de Jestis Cajal y Palomares. She had come from Nuevo Mexico to be official hostess and feminine majordomo for her widowed father, after he transferred his headquarters to Esperance and rented a house in Fleurville. The date kept being postponed. It was not that the admiral disliked the governor — they got along well — nor distrusted his intentions, no matter how notorious a womanizer he was. Luisa had been raised among folk who, if strict out of necessity on their dry world, were rich in honor and bore a hair-trigger pride. It was merely that both men were overwhelmed by work.

At last their undertakings seemed fairly well along, and Cajal invited Sarocoglu to dinner. A ridiculous last-minute contretemps occurred. The admiral phoned home that he would be detained at the office a couple of hours. The governor was already on his way.

“Thus you, Donna, have been told to keep me happy in the teeth of a postponed meal,” Saracoglu purred over the hand he kissed. “I assure you, that will not be in the least difficult.” Though small, she had a lively figure and a darkly pretty face. And he soon learned that, albeit solemn, she knew how to listen to a man and, rarer yet, ask him stimulating questions.

By then they were strolling in the garden. Rosebushes and cherry trees might almost have been growing on Terra; Esperance was a prize among colony planets. The sun Pax was still above the horizon, now at midsummer, but leveled mellow beams across an old brick wall. The air was warm, blithe with birdsong, sweet with green odors that drifted in from the countryside. A car or two caught the light, high above; but Fleurville was not big enough for its traffic noise to be heard this far from the centrum.

Saracoglu and Luisa paced along graveled paths and talked. They were guarded, which is to say discreetly chaperoned. However, no duenna followed several paces behind, but a huge four-armed Gorzunian mercenary on whom the nuances of a flirtation would be lost.

The trouble is, thought the governor, she’s begun conversing in earnest.

It had been quite pleasant at first. She encouraged him to speak of himself. “—yes, the Earl of Anatolia, that’s me. Frankly, even if it is on Terra, a minor peerage… Career bureaucrat. Might rather’ve been an artist — I dabble in oils and clays — maybe you’d care to see… Alas, you know how such things go. Imperial nobles are expected to serve the Imperium. Had I but been born in a decadent era! Eh? Unfortunately, the Empire’s not run out of momentum—”

Inwardly, he grinned at his own performance. He, fifty-three standard years of age, squat, running to fat, totally bald, little eyes set close to a giant nose, and two expensive mistresses in his palace — acting the role of a boy who acted the role of an homme du monde! Well, he enjoyed that once in a while, as he enjoyed gaudy clothes and jewels. They were a relaxation from the wry realism which had never allowed him to improve his appearance through biosculp.

But at this point she asked, “Are we really going to attack the Ythrians?”