She took up the cubes for her own turn, threw.

Seven.

“Game,” she said.

There was silence. Then those in the room cheered…save the azi, who faded back, reminded that escape was not for their kind. Jim blinked, and fought for breath. He began to shiver and could not stop.

Kont’ Raen gathered up the wands and, one by one, broke them. Then she leaned back in her chair and slowly finished her drink. Quiet was restored in the room. Officers and azi remembered that they had duties elsewhere. Only the Istran couple remained.

“Out,” she said.

The couple hesitated, indignant, determined for a moment to stand their ground. Then they thought better of it and left. The door closed. Jim stared at the table. An azi never looked directly at anyone.

There was a long silence.

“Finish your drink,” she said. He did so; he had wanted it, and had not known whether he dared. “I thank you,” she said quietly. “You have relieved my boredom, and few have ever done that.”

He looked up at her, suicidal in his mood. He had been pushed far. The same desperation which had kept him from withdrawing from the game still possessed him.

“You could have dropped out,” she reminded him.

“I could have won.”

“Of course.”

He took a last swallow from his glass, mostly icemelt, and set it down. The thought occurred to him again that the Kontrin was quite, quite mad, and that out of whim she might order his termination when they docked. She evidently travelled alone. Perhaps she preferred it that way. He was lost in the motivations of Kontrin. He had been created to serve the ships of Andra Lines. He knew nothing else.

She walked over and took the bottle from the Istrans’ table, examined the label critically and poured again, for him and for her. The incongruity of the action made him sure that she was mad. There should have been fresh glasses, no ice. He winced inwardly, and realised that such concerns now were ridiculous. He drank; she did, in bizarre celebration.

“None of them,” she said, with a shrug at all the empty tables and chairs, the memories of departed passengers, “none of them could dice with a Kontrin. Not one.” She grinned and laughed, and the grin faded to a solemn expression. She lifted the glass to him, ironic salute. “Your contract is already purchased. Ever borne arms?”

He shook his head, appalled. He had never touched a weapon, seldom even seen one.

She laughed and set the glass down.

And rose.

“Come,” she said.

Later, high in the upper decks and the luxury of the Kontrin’s staterooms, it came to what he thought it might.

BOOK FOUR

i

“Commercial,” Moth muttered, and steepled her wrinkled hands, staring at them to the exclusion of the several heads of Houses who surrounded her. She laughed softly, contemplating the reports of chaos strewn in a line across the Reach.

“I fear,” said Cen Moran, “I lack your perception of humour in the matter. This involves Istra, and the hives, and the surviving Meth-maren. I see nothing whatsoever of humour affordable in the combination.”

“Kill her,” said Ros Hald.

Moth turned a chill stare on him, and he fell silent. “Why? For trespass? I don’t recall that visiting Istra is grounds for such extreme measures.”

“It’s a sensitive area, Istra.”

“Yes. Isn’t it.”

The Hald broke eye contact. Moth did not miss that fact, but glanced instead at Moran and the others, raised querulous brows. “I think some Kontrin presence there might be salutary, provided it’s discreet and sensible. The Meth-maren’s presence is usually quiet toward non-Kontrin.”

“A hive-world,” said Moran, “another hive-world, and critical.”

“The only hive-world,” said Moth, “without Kontrin permanently resident. We’ve barred ourselves from that…sensitive…contact point, at least by custom. Depressing as Istra is reputed to be, I suspect we simply lack enthusiasm for the necessary privations. But majat don’t seem to mind being there, do they? In my long memory, only Lian had the interest to visit the place after the beta City was set down there—and that was very long ago. Maybe we should reconsider. Maybe we’ve created a blind spot in our intelligence. Reports from Istra are scant. Perhaps a Kontrin should be there. It surely couldn’t hurt their economy.”

“But,” said Kahn a Belo, “ thisKontrin, Eldest? There’s been trouble across the Reach. And the Meth-maren, of the hive-masters—of thatHouse—the simplest prediction would tell us…”

“We will let her alone,” Moth said.

“If it were put to a vote,” said Moran, “that sentiment would not carry. Than would be the logical choice, trustworthy. The Meth-maren, no.”

Moth looked at him steadily. A measure would have to be written up formally: some one of them would have to put his name on it as proponent. Someone would have to risk his personal influence and the well-being of his agents. She did not estimate that Moran quite meant it as an ultimatum: he was simply kin to the ineffectual Thons. There were more meaningful, more inflammatory issues on which opposition could rise. When challenge came, if it came in the Council at all, it would not be like this, on a directive for assassination; such things did not make good rallying points. Assassinations were usually managed by House or executive order, quietly and without embarrassments.

“Let her alone,” Moth said, “for now.”

There was a small and sullen silence at the table. Talk began quietly, drifted to other matters. There were excuses made early, departures in small groups. Moth watched them, and noted who left with whom, and reckoned that not a few of them were plotting her demise.

And after me, she thought with a taut, hateful smile, let it come.

She spread upon the table the reports which had occupied the committee, all the various problems with which the Council had to deal: over-breeding of azi, population stresses and economic distress among underemployed betas, turmoil in the hives, killings of greens and the lately-recovered blues by reds and golds on Cerdin. The Thon House, hive-liaisons in the place of Meth-marens, proved ineffectual: the reports skirted that fact and covered truth with verbiage.

And, persistently, reports that reds sought out Kontrin and made gifts, trespassed boundaries, turned up in beta areas.

There was a proposal put forward by the House of Ilit and the econbureau that this surplus be consumed by the modest ship-building industry of Pedra. It gathered support; it was very possible that it would pass. It would alleviate conditions that created discontent on several worlds.

Moth studied it, frowning—remembered to push a button, to summon the young man waiting—and sat leaning her mouth against her curled hand and staring moodishly at the persuasive statistics on the graphs. The Hald entered; she was still pursuing her train of thought, and let him stand, the while she read and gnawed at her finger.

At last she shifted the reports into three stacks and then into one, and put atop it a dry monograph entitled Breeding Patterns among the Hives.

“Commercial,” she chuckled again, to the listening walls, and looked up sharply at young Tand Hald. “Kill her, you would say too. I’ve heard that Hald point of view until my ears ache. You’re nothing if not consistent. Where’s Morn?”

Tand Hald shrugged, stared at her quite directly. “I’m sure I don’t know, Eldest.”

“Pol with him?”

“I’m sure I don’t know that either. Not when I left him.”

“Where did you part with them?”

“Meron.” He failed to flinch. The eyes remained steady. “Pol involved himself with amusements there. Morn went his own way; I went mine. No one controls them.”