She splashed cold water on her face, drew a deep breath, and toweled off. Through force of will she regained her composure — Basil was a master at that. For years, as his protegee, she had listened to him describe the necessities of politics, how to stomp down emotions and take the required action. She had learned from the best.

She emerged from the bathroom only to hear him at the door of her quarters, surreptitiously leaving. Sarein froze, holding her breath, hoping he would not turn back. She didn’t call out to him. When Basil sealed the door behind him, she shuddered with relief.

Sarein slumped back onto the rumpled bed. After a moment of paralysis, she began to tear at the sheets, uprooting them from the mattress. She couldn’t stand to feel the fine fabric against her skin, reminding her that she had already felt it beneath her, with Basil on top, thrusting. She had squirmed, not in passion, but loathing. Sarein hated herself for fearing him.

She pulled up one of the pillows to rip off the case and found a package hidden beneath. Basil must have put it there — which explained why he had left so soon. Clearly, he had wanted to be gone when she found his “surprise.”

Sarein stared at the package, as if it were a hidden featherviper coiled and waiting to attack: an imagepak, with a screen and a player. She dreaded finding out what it held, but she also knew — from Basil’s training, of course — that the sooner one learned of a threat, the more time one had to counteract it.

She played the series of images. Basil had not recorded an introductory message, as she had expected. Instead, she saw grainy surveillance images: Sarein and Captain McCammon smuggling the green priest Nahton in to see King Peter and Queen Estarra when they had been under house arrest; Estarra’s conversation with her in the greenhouse wing, during which she laid out evidence of Basil’s crimes and indiscretions; whispered conversations with Deputy Cain. Sarein was in all of the surreptitious recordings. Any one of them would have been damning enough.

They had thought they were so careful. yet Basil had watched them all.

Cold sweat trickled down her spine. Now she understood what Basil was telling her. He knew full well that Freedom’s Sword had not, in fact, been behind the assassination attempt. He knew that McCammon hadn’t acted alone in his schemes. He knew that Sarein had taken part in the conspiracy. He had all the evidence he needed.

Yet he had allowed her to live — for now — with the knowledge that he could change his mind at any time he chose.

Sarein rushed back to the bathroom, and this time she did vomit, long and loudly.

114

Anton Colicos

Fighting the malaise of grief in his empty, pointless-seeming university office, Anton took his files out of storage and stacked them on the desk. Books and documents, handwritten notes, papers, printed correspondence from his parents, newsnet articles stored in a special scrapbook folder. everything he needed. The extensive biography project had been interrupted, cut short — just as his parents’ lives had been.

But his heart was so heavy he could not find the initiative to get back to the work. Where once he had been enthusiastic about writing a celebratory chronicle of the renowned xeno-archaeologists Margaret and Louis Colicos, now the silence and emptiness of the office weighed upon him.

Somehow along the way, he had forgotten how to do anything without Vao’sh.

Feeling desolate, he remembered that he had also promised to write the poignant and dramatic story of the green priest Nira, her tribulations in the breeding camps on Dobro and her love for Mage-Imperator Jora’h. Now she was gone, too, escaped with the Solar Navy when all Ildirans had fled the Moon. leaving Vao’sh behind.

And, most important of all, he had to make sure that Vao’sh was remembered in theSaga of Seven Suns, seen as a real hero, part of the brave tale and not just a detached storyteller.

He didn’t know how he could ever find the heart to finish any of those projects.

For so long he and the old rememberer had worked side by side, talking with each other, pointing out nuances or factual contradictions in theSaga or long-censored apocrypha. Anton had translated from the original Ildiran and delivered portions of the epic to appreciative Earth scholars. He and Vao’sh had been true companions of heart and mind. Even during their imprisonment on Earth, at least they had been together. He had never imagined how empty he would feel now.

All through their time at the Department of Ildiran Studies, ostensibly under “close debriefing” as ordered by Chairman Wenceslas, the two of them had gone to numerous gala events and spectacular conferences, and had given countless talks in crowded lecture halls. Now that the old rememberer was gone, Anton simply sat at his desk and stared.

The dean had recently given him the most spacious office in the building. Its large windows looked out on the parklike courtyard and the Ildiran-inspired sculptures. Four unwashed coffee mugs sat on his desk. A plant — a gift from someone? — was brown and dead because he’d neglected to water it.

At any moment, a big burning rock could hurtle through the atmosphere and obliterate the entire campus. He wasn’t sure he cared.

Across the planet, the whole population lived with that fatalism. Some people had become dramatically religious; others responded with wild end-of-the-world hedonism. Many didn’t know what to do. To Anton, no disaster seemed as significant as the death of Vao’sh. He heaved a sigh. Hearing somebody at his door, he looked up from his desk.

For the first time in years, Anton saw his mother.

He stared, and Margaret stared back at him. “Hello, Anton.”

The silence stretched out for an impossibly long moment, and he finally blurted, “Where have you been?”

He couldn’t remember doing so, but suddenly he was up from his desk and running to the office door. His mother seemed bony and rigid as he threw his arms around her. It was an automatic reaction; he couldn’t recall the last time Margaret had given him a hug. His parents had always been so wrapped up in their archaeological pursuits that they didn’t know how to deal with children, not even grown-up ones.

He continued, barely pausing for a breath. “I looked for you! I begged Chairman Wenceslas to send search teams, and he did. I made inquiries, but then I went off to Ildira — ” He shook his head, as if to rattle his thoughts back into place. “It was so hard to get news there.”

“No one knew where I was,” she said. “I was too far away. Much too far. You always did enjoy epic stories, and I’ve got one that’s a saga and a half.”

“What’s it about? Will you tell it to me?” Anton realized maybe he would be able to complete writing that long-planned biography after all.