"I was kept in the ministry. They have rooms there for prisoners. With spy monitors. Men watched me through them; the colonel told me so. They watched when I undressed, when I bathed. He said it excited them, and he was afraid they would come and rape me. And that when they were done, they'd kill me so I couldn't identify them. Then he-did it. And brought me here."

Leolani felt a new anger building, a different anger than she'd arrived with. Veeri had victimized this woman, this girl without family to shield her. "Then you cannot go back there," she said.

The woman looked uncertain.

"What is your name?"

"Tain."

"Tain, you will come and live with me." Images began to flow for Leolani as she spoke, a stream of images. "At my father's home," she went on, and her voice slipped from stern toward earnest. "When I tell him what has happened, he will be glad for you to live with us. We can be like sisters, you and I, ride and swim together and play crossball. If Veeri dares come there, I'll have him sent away. I'll have the dogs set on him if necessary. And when you feel ready, there will be parties, and we will find a husband for you. An honorable one!"

She frowned. Tain had begun to cry silently, tears rolling down her cheeks. "Aren't you willing? Surely you don't love that scum!"

The blonde head shook, the tears flowed faster, and Leolani realized that Tain was unable to speak. She went to her, embraced her, her own eyes filling. "You don't need to talk now. Is there anything here you want to take with you? Show me."

Again the head shook.

"Then come, Tain. An hour from now you'll have a new room, much prettier than this, in the country. I'll have my seamstress measure you for new clothes; we'll pick the patterns together."

They left the apartment. It seemed to Leolani that it would do Tain good to break down and cry hard, to let it all out and sob and wail, but apparently she couldn't, though the tears flowed copiously. Grimly the colonel's bride triggered her blade again as they walked down the hall, hoping her husband would appear. He didn't.

Eleven

In accordance with protocol for receiving a sultan's envoy on business, the Kalif sat crownless in his receiving chamber, wearing a formal robe, and on his head, the simple pillbox cap of an exarch. The robe, however, was carmine instead of exarch-white. Across his desk sat the envoy from Sultan Rashti, along with the Klestronu Ambassador to the Court of the Kalif. The Kalif's nuncio to the sultan's court had arrived with them, and sat a bit apart.

Like the Kalif, Alb Jilsomo Savbatso sat facing the three diplomats, but well to one side, silent, easy to forget despite his bulk.

The Kalif was looking at a brief, a list of persons, each entry with up to a page of particulars. Occasionally he nodded thoughtfully; at length he looked up at the Klestronu envoy.

"This Lady Reenoveseekti-Thoglakaveera-why is she on the list? There was no debrief on her, and nothing significant on this." He flicked the sheaf of papers he held. "Except that she's the colonel's wife."

"She was not on the expedition, Your Reverence. That's why there is no debrief."

The Kalif frowned. "I have no objection to her accompanying her husband to Varatos, but unless she has information that may be useful, she shouldn't be on this list. Does she? Have such information?"

"Your Reverence, Lady Reenoveseekti-Thoglakaveera has become the friend and confidant of the Confederation prisoner. The sultan thought it possible that she might have gained some insights from their conversations."

The Kalif frowned and flicked the brief again. "It doesn't say that here. Why not?"

"Your Reverence, I do not know."

"Hmh!" He held the envoy's eyes for a moment, and it seemed to him the man did know, or at least suspected. He wouldn't press him about it, though, not now anyway. Perhaps after he'd questioned the informants. He recalled there being an Archprelate Reenoveseekti on Klestron, and a Great Noble named Thoglakaveera, both politically prominent, though he knew next to nothing about either man. Including their relationships, if any, to the colonel and his wife; it seemed likely there were some. Perhaps the sultan's reasons had to do with Klestronu politics.

The Kalif's attention returned to the list of witnesses the sultan had sent him-four men and the female prisoner. Plus the Klestronu noblewoman. The men had been debriefed on the expedition, and the debriefs sent ahead by pod. He'd reviewed them in detail. He'd also reviewed what SUMBAA had made of those debriefs, as well as the relevant content of the flagship's DAAS, so he didn't really expect to get many new facts from these people. But there was the matter of reading their emotions, their feelings about the Confederation, its people and its soldiers. Chodrisei Biilathkamoro had long been able to read what moved behind a person's eyes, if not specifically, at least the presence of something. It had been part of his operating kit from his early teens as a "dog," a first-year cadet at the Binoon Academy. It was also a skill one wouldn't find in an artificial intelligence, he was sure. Not even in a SUMBAA.

His eyes returned to the envoy. "I take it your charges are comfortably installed in our guesthouse?"

"Yes, Your Reverence."

"And they were segregated on the trip from Klestron, as I instructed?"

"They were, Your Reverence, and they were left unbriefed, also as you instructed. In fact, the sultan sent them over in stasis chambers. Thus they've had no opportunity to discuss matters with each other, except possibly before you called for them. Your steward has sequestered them in separate suites, where they receive no visitors except servants; they do not even see each other."

"Even the colonel and his lady are segregated?"

The envoy's eyes told the Kalif that something was indeed wrong there. "That is correct, Your Reverence."

"Hmm. I suppose I'd better start then. Our guests will hardly be enjoying their enforced solitude."

"Presumably not, Your Reverence."

The Kalif pursed his lips thoughtfully. "I'll see Lord Tarimenloku this afternoon. At one P.M. Lord Saadhrambacoora can be next, and after him-After him, Commander Ralankoor. Probably the others will have to wait till tomorrow or later."

He looked at his nuncio then. "Meanwhile, Alb Taamos, I would speak with you privately."

Before the Kalif retired that night, he'd questioned not only Tarimenloku, Saadhrambacoora, and Lieutenant Commander Ralankoor, but also Colonel Thoglakaveera. Saadhrambacoora-until recently General Saadhrambacoora-had nothing new to say. He was a husk, his dignity broken by the enemy and the pieces stripped away by a court martial. That the enemy had broken him, and the way they'd broken him, was informative in itself. They were a hard people in the Confederation; hard and clever, and seemingly perceptive.

Tarimenloku, who'd been a brevet admiral and the expedition's commodore, had not come away much better. He'd said frankly that he'd expected execution on his return. And if Gorsu Areknosaamos were still Kalif, the ex-admiral's expectations would no doubt have been realized. Quite possibly at home by Sultan Rashti, who'd have needed to cover his own buttocks. Other-wise by Gorsu himself, who'd no doubt have made it more painful.

Each was ruined, naturally: discharged as unfit, and stripped of his honors, living on as an embarrassment and reproach to his family.

Commander Ralankoor had been more fortunate, though it had been his action that had cost the female prisoner her memory, and the empire her information. Instead of a court martial, he'd undergone a simple board of review, which had failed to agree on a recommendation. Rashti had not even reprimanded him, at least not in writing. Probably in part because the man was gentry, not noble, and the sultan had been pushing gentry into positions of rank. And in part because the fiasco with the prisoner had been recorded on audio cube, with the commodore himself ordering the crucial act. With that order, the commodore had bypassed Ralankoor's proper authority, and as it was not a combat situation, Ralankoor could have queried it on the spot without prejudice. Or rather, without formal prejudice. He'd declined to take the risk, as would most officers.