Her lips parted as if to object, but he went on. "Not even when the war was brought on by Klestron's own military; political principle is not always just or logical.

"Beyond that, there is military tradition that defeat in battle must be avenged if possible. In recent millenia it's lost much of its force; few would argue now that we need to fight so large and distant an adversary to save Klestron's face. I doubt that even Sultan Rashti would urge it for no more reason than that. But it's enough to prohibit sending a peaceful embassy. If anything is sent, it must be military, not diplomatic.

"Of course, none of that requires that I send anything, and I must tell you that many would prefer I don't. There are other reasons favoring an invasion over doing nothing." He proceeded then to repeat the arguments he'd given the Diet.

"And were it possible to send an embassy," he went on, "we wouldn't know for five years what the results were. Meanwhile, the Confederation could continue to arm; to send an embassy would be very dangerous for us." He shrugged.

"I'm the Kalif," he finished. "I can't sit back and say to someone else, I cannot decide, I cannot act, I will not accept the responsibility."

He pressed Tain's hand. "That's my answer to you. I realize it may well seem inadequate; no doubt it would be to me, if our places were reversed. That's why I said nothing to you earlier."

Her reply was calm and cool. "You have answered my question, but you haven't eased my distress. Now that I see your reasons more fully, I've lost the bitterness I felt, but it will be difficult to feel toward you as I did before. It will take time. I do still love you, but there is a wound now."

She paused, but he kept silent, knowing she had more to say. After a long and meditative minute she went on. "On the other hand, I'm thinking how remarkable it is that I'm here. In the empire. And that you found me and wanted me, and that you love me. If you still do. You the Kalif, and I a prisoner of war.

"It seems to me that someone I've known, sometime, somewhere, would tell me there was a reason for that. Whether the will of Kargh, or something else. A reason and a purpose."

She fell silent then, and when, after a minute, she'd said nothing more, he squeezed her hand slightly. "I do love you," he said. "Very much. I always will."

After another moment she spoke again. "In your speech, you mentioned those who wished to block you. I can only hope they succeed. Not for lack of loving you, but for love of what I once knew as home." She peered at him in the darkness. "How does that seem to you?" she asked. "Treasonous?"

"No. No, I cannot fault you for feeling that way. As for me, I love this empire which Kargh has given me to rule, and it seems to me that what I propose to do needs to be done. That's a feeling I've rationalized before the College and the Diet, and the reasons I gave them are true. But the feeling goes deeper than that, as if Kargh had ordered it."

It struck him then that neither to the public nor the Diet had he invoked Kargh as his inspiration. He wondered why; Kargh was the force behind the throne. He'd make a point of it the next time he spoke.

"Well then," she said, "if the Diet doesn't dissuade you, I suppose I won't be able to. At most I could destroy your feeling for me. So I shall pray to Kargh to change your mind. And if he doesn't, then I shall pray to my husband to be merciful and just to my people as far as war allows. Perhaps that's why I'm here; perhaps it's Kargh's will that I lighten the heel of war upon them."

While they'd talked, the last ghost of sunset had disappeared; it happened quickly, so near the equator. And on Varatos-on any world in the empire-brightly lit signs, displays of ornamental lights, banks of floodlights that made buildings glow in the dark, none of these had been seen since the beginnings of the kalifate. For The Prophet, that long-time mariner, had said that the night sky was the glory of Kargh, his greatest work of art. Thus, although there were streetlights and headlights and lights in windows, many stars still were visible.

On the open roof, they lent a sense of solitude, and it occurred to Coso that if Tain was isolated here on Varatos, in a very real way so was he. As Kalif, he could hardly be close to people, even Jilsomo. Even Yab, Sergeant Yalabiin, with whom he drilled almost daily with the saber. There might be moments of closeness, as when Thoga had bared his soul, but those were brief when they happened at all.

When they'd married, he and this involuntary exile from her people, they'd formed a bond strengthened by their mutual isolation, a bond stronger than their vows.

Behind them the nearly full moon was rising, glinting on the windows of taller buildings. He raised Tain's hand and kissed it, and when she did not resist, he turned in his chair, leaned toward her and kissed her lips. She had half turned to face him, and kissed him back, but the kiss was cool, and he let be.

As they rode the lift tube back down, her hand was still in his, and he could almost wish with her that his opponents would defeat him. But he would not back away, of that he felt certain. For truly it seemed to him that the future of the empire and its people was at stake.

Twenty-nine

That night Tain dreamed. In the dream she was petting Lotta, and as she petted her, Lotta grew, became a fullgrown cat, then larger than a cat, until she was as large as a person-as large as Leolani. She was still a cat, still orange with green eyes, but now she looked sleek, her hair short like orange velvet.

Lotta spoke to her, not with her mouth but with her mind. ‹Welcome to your dreams,› Lotta said. They were not in the garden anymore, but in a place dark and indistinct, and vaguely threatening. Tain didn't think she'd ever been in that place in all the times she'd dreamed before, and felt ill at ease. Lotta told her it was all right; that whatever happened, she'd be all right.

‹Are you ready?› Lotta asked. A place seemed to take shape around Tain, and she realized she was inside a spaceship.

And Coso was there with her. ‹Your homeworld is just ahead,› he said. ‹It's called Iryala. We'll be there in a little while.›

She watched out a window, wondering how he'd known the name of her homeworld when she didn't. It was as if they were traveling on a houseboat, with clouds below them. The ship settled through the clouds, and when they came out beneath them, there was a cottage, the house she'd grown up in, though it used to be an apartment. About twenty people were in the yard, her parents and other relatives, all waving and calling to her.

Coso opened the glass doors for her and they went out together. Her family hugged and kissed both of them, and she felt strange about it because Coso had come as a conqueror. She wondered if perhaps they didn't know.

Her mother poured them cups of some hot drink, and told her they all loved Coso, that people had been waiting for him to get there, and that his palace was all ready for him. And Tain had thought, of course. He's a good person. It had all seemed so natural.

They started to walk to the palace on a path that went through a beautiful garden. Tain felt happier than she had in her whole life before, and it seemed to her that she could remember all of it, her entire life, right back to infancy, that it was waiting for her to look at whenever she had time. Then she and Coso walked into the palace, and it looked just like their palace on Varatos.

‹That's right,› he told her. ‹Your father had it made like that so I'd feel at home.› Then he kissed her, and it was the sweetest kiss she'd ever had. She felt so happy, it seemed to her she could never be unhappy again.

There was a meow then, and she looked around and Lotta was there, too, cat-sized again. She jumped onto Tain's lap, and as Tain petted her, Lotta began to get bigger and change again, till she looked like she had before, large and sleek.