Flandry felt pretty sure that intelligent life on Chereion had evolved from birds, and that the planet must be dry, with a thin cold atmosphere. He had hints that its native civilization was incredibly old, and reason to believe it was not a mere subject of Merseia. But beyond that, his knowledge emptied into darkness. He didn’t even know where in the Merseian sphere the sun of Chereion lay.

Aycharaych extended a six-fingered hand. Flandry shook it. The digits were delicate within his own. For a brutal moment he thought of squeezing hard, crushing the fine bones. Aycharaych stood a bit taller than he, but Flandry was a rather big human, much broader and more solid.

“A pleasure to meet you again, Sir Dominic,” said Aycharaych. His voice was low, sheer beauty to hear. Flandry looked at rust-red eyes, with a warm metallic luster, and released the hand.

“Hardly unexpected,” he said. “For you, that is.”

“You travel about so much,” Aycharaych said. “I was sure a few men of your corps would be here tonight, but I could not be certain of your own whereabouts.”

“I wish I ever was of yours,” said Flandry ruefully.

“Congratulations upon your handling of l’affaire Nyanza. We are going to miss A’u on our side. He had a certain watery brilliance.”

Flandry prevented himself from showing surprise. “I thought that aspect of the business had been hushed up,” he said. “But little pitchers seem to have big ears. How long have you been in the Solar System?”

“A few weeks,” said Aycharaych. “Chiefly a pleasure trip.” He cocked his head. “Ah, the orchestra has begun a Strauss waltz. Very good. Though of course Johann is not to be compared to Richard, who will always be the Strauss.”

“Oh?” Flandry’s interest in ancient music was only slightly greater than his interest in committing suicide. “I wouldn’t know.”

“You should, my friend. Not even excepting Xingu , Strauss is the most misunderstood composer of known galactic history. Were I to be imprisoned for life with only one tape, I would choose his Death and Transfiguration and be satisfied.”

“I’ll arrange it,” offered Flandry at once.

Aycharaych chuckled and took the man’s arm. “Come, let us find a more peaceful spot. But I pray you, do not waste so amusing an occasion on me. I own to visiting Terra clandestinely, but that part of it was entirely for the easement of my personal curiosity. I had no intention of burgling the Imperial offices—”

“Which are equipped with Aycharaych alarms anyway.”

“Telepathizing detectors? Yes, so I would assume. I am a little too old and stiff, and your gravity a little too overpowering, to indulge in my own thefts. Nor have I the type of dashing good looks needed, I am told by all the teleplays, for cloak and dagger work. No, I merely wished to see the planet which bred such a race as yours. I walked in a few forests, inspected certain paintings, visited some chosen graves, and returned here. Whence I am about to depart, by the way. You need not get your Imperium to put pressure on the Ymirites to expel me; my courier ship leaves in twenty hours.”

“For where?” asked Flandry.

“Hither and yon,” said Aycharaych lightly.

Flandry felt his stomach muscles grow hard. “Syrax?” he got out.

They paused at the entrance to the null-gee conservatory. A single great sphere of water balanced like silver at its very heart, with fern jungle and a thousand purple-scarlet blooms forming a cavern around it, the stars and mighty Jupiter beyond. Later, no doubt, the younger and drunker humans would be peeling off their clothes and going for a free-fall swim in that serene globe. But now only the music dwelt here. Aycharaych kicked himself over the threshold. His cloak flowed like black wings as he arrowed across the bubble-dome. Flandry came after, in clothes that were fire and trumpeting. He needed a moment before he adjusted to weightlessness. Aycharaych, whose ancestors once whistled in Chereion’s sky, appeared to have no such trouble.

The nonhuman stopped his flight by seizing a bracken frond. He looked at a violet burst of orchids and his long hawk-head inclined. “Black against the quicksilver water globe,” he mused; “the universe black and cold beyond both. A beautiful arrangement, and with that touch of horror necessary to the highest art.”

“Black?” Flandry glanced startled at the violet flowers. Then he clamped his lips.

But Aycharaych had already grasped the man’s idea. He smiled. “Touche. I should not have let slip that I am colorblind in the blue wavelengths.”

“But you see further into the red than I do,” predicted Flandry.

“Yes. I admit, since you would infer so anyhow, my native sun is cooler and redder than yours. If you think that will help you identify it, among all the millions of stars in the Merseian sphere, accept the information with my compliments.”

“The Syrax Cluster is middle Population One,” said Flandry. “Not too suitable for your eyes.”

Aycharaych stared at the water. Tropical fish were visible within its globe, like tiny many-colored rockets. “It does not follow I am going to Syrax,” he said tonelessly. “I certainly have no personal wish to do so. Too many warcraft, too many professional officers. I do not like their mentality.” He made a free-fall bow. “Your own excepted, of course.”

“Of course,” said Flandry. “Still, if you could do something to break the deadlock out there, in Merseia’s favor—”

“You flatter me,” said Aycharaych. “But I fear you have not yet outgrown the romantic view of military politics. The fact is that neither side wants to make a total effort to control the Syrax stars. Merseia could use them as a valuable base, outflanking Antares and thus a spearhead poised at that entire sector of your empire. Terra wants control simply to deny us the cluster. Since neither government wishes, at present, to break the nominal state of peace, they maneuver about out there, mass naval strength, spy and snipe and hold running battles … but the game of all-out seizure is not worth the candle of all-out war.”

“But if you could tip the scales, personally, so our boys lost out at Syrax,” said Flandry, “we wouldn’t counter-attack your imperial sphere. You know that. It’d invite counter-counterattack on us. Heavens, Terra itself might be bombed! We’re much too comfortable to risk such an outcome.” He pulled himself up short. Why expose his own bitterness, and perhaps be arrested on Terra for sedition?

“If we possessed Syrax,” said Aycharaych, “it would, with 71 percent probability, hasten the collapse of the Terran hegemony by a hundred years, plus or minus ten. That is the verdict of our military computers — though I myself feel the faith our High Command has in them is naive and rather touching. However, the predicted date of Terra’s fall would still lie 150 years hence. So I wonder why your government cares.”

Flandry shrugged. “A few of us are a bit sentimental about our planet,” he answered sadly. “And then, of course, we ourselves aren’t out there being shot at.”

“That is the human mentality again,” said Aycharaych. “Your instincts are such that you never accept dying. You, personally, down underneath everything, do you not feel death is just a little bit vulgar, not quite a gentleman?”

“Maybe. What would you call it?”

“A completion.”

Their talk drifted to impersonalities. Flandry had never found anyone else whom he could so converse with. Aycharaych could be wise and learned and infinitely kind when he chose: or flick a whetted wit across the pompous face of empire. To speak with him, touching now and then on the immortal questions, was almost like a confessional — for he was not human and did not judge human deeds, yet he seemed to understand the wishes at their root.

At last Flandry made a reluctant excuse to get away. Nu, he told himself, business is business. Since Lady Diana was studiously ignoring him, he enticed a redhaired bit of fluff into an offside room, told her he would be back in ten minutes, and slipped through a rear corridor. Perhaps any Merseian who saw him thus disappear wouldn’t expect him to return for an hour or two; might not recognize the girl when she got bored waiting and found her own way to the ballroom again. One human looked much like another to the untrained non-human eye, and there were at least a thousand guests by now.