“I don’t believe I have ever met your son,” Regis said.

“His name is Felix,” Lawton said, and they both smiled, for the name was popular and much-honored on Darkover. Many Comyn, Regis among them, bore it somewhere in their long string of names. “He’s eleven, and a handful.”

“May the happiness of his name follow him through his lifetime,” Danilo said.

“Thank you,” Lawton replied. “He’s still at the most trying age, no longer a child and not yet a man. If it were up to me, I’d send him to be fostered for a few years at Armida or Carcosa, so that he could use up some of that exuberance learning to ride horses or cutting brush on fire-lines, but his mother won’t hear of it. Today they’re out looking for ‘native treasures’ as offerings for her grandfather’s saint day.”

“I’m not familiar with that custom,” Regis said. “Is it proper to offer best wishes?”

Lawton frowned. “Not on Temperance. Tiphani’s grandfather has been dead for twenty years now, but his entire family still feels obliged to offer sacrifices for the atonement of his sins. Whatever she sends home will be purified and then burned. It seems a waste to me, but it’s their way.”

“Was he as terrible as that?” Regis was familiar with the concept of a punitive afterworld. As a youth, he had studied for some years at the monastery school at St.-Valentine’s-of-the-Snows. Altogether too aware of the universality of human frailty, Regis had little sympathy with the monks’ obsession with purity and perdition.

Or,he added silently, with a quick glance in Danilo’s direction, their condemnation of certain expressions of love.

“I never met the man,” Lawton continued. “For myself, I prefer to be remembered for the good I achieved and the happiness I brought to those I loved.”

“So should we all.”

Lawton turned back to the console on his desk. He engaged the visiphone with a few efficient strokes. “I’ve set it to play the priority message that arrived on coded frequency for you. I’m afraid it’s formatted as play-and-destruct, so you’ll only be able to watch it once. Touch this panel to begin and this one here to record a reply, if any.” He got to his feet, bowed again, this time in an abbreviated, less formal manner, and left Regis and Danilo in privacy.

“What’s this about?” Danilo asked, coming around to view the screen as Regis took Lawton’s seat.

“I assume it’s from Lew Alton. I can’t imagine who else would want to contact me in such a manner.”

Regis pressed the panel Lawton had indicated. The screen’s background pattern dissolved into bits of iridescent gray. An instant later, the familiar scarred features of Lewis-Kennard Alton, one of Regis’s oldest friends and now the Darkovan Senator to the Terran Empire, came into focus.

Since his ordeal fighting the immensely powerful, illegal matrix known as Sharra nearly twenty years ago, Lew had never looked well. The battle had left him battered, a widower aged beyond his years, and in despair. Time and a happy second marriage had softened his expression, but his gray eyes still looked bleak.

“ Vai domRegis,” Lew began formally in casta.Regis imagined him leaning forward, choosing his words with care, masking the urgency behind them.

“I can’t risk sending this through normal channels, although soon enough the news will be broadcast everywhere. You may think me overly cautious. Paranoia is, after all, an asset in this profession. If I’m right, however, you’ll need all the advance warning I can give you.”

Lew paused and glanced down, consulting his notes. “The debate over changing the constitutional structure of the Empire has been going on for three years now, most of it behind closed doors. The people promoting it, particularly Sandra Nagy and Augustus Verogist—sorry, those names won’t mean anything to you, but they are two of the most powerful politicians in the Empire—have managed to keep all reports to the level of rumor so they can move ahead while no one takes the issue seriously. I’ve just learned through my own sources that the proposal will come up for a vote in the full Senate this session. Nagy and her allies are planning a preemptive strike against their opponents.”

Regis and Danilo exchanged glances. Neither had given much attention to the internal politics of the Terran Empire. But Regis had heard, through Lawton and Dr. Jason Allison as well as Lew himself, about the move to change the Empire to a Federation. He had considered it an alteration in name only. Most people didn’t really care if the Terranancalled themselves an Empire or a Federation or an Alliance or a spring dance. But Regis could not mistake the urgency in Lew’s voice or the grave expression in his eyes.

“The measure will pass,” Lew went on. “Make no mistake about it. This is no mere relabeling of the same system. You will undoubtedly hear propaganda about how the new Federation will extend autonomy to all member worlds, increase interstellar cooperation, and promote free trade—all the persuasive phrases that people want to hear. Even people on Darkover. Don’t fall for it, Regis.This whole process is a power grab by the Expansionist party. They want free access to developing worlds, and they’ve as much as admitted that their goal is to bring an end to what they call special privilegesand protected status.”

Regis drew in his breath. Beside him, Danilo tensed. The light in the office was too bright, too yellow, the air tainted with alien chemical vapors.

Regis paused the recording. “Danilo, if what Lew says is true, then Darkover could lose its status as a Class D Closed World.”

The immensely powerful corporations that had hired the World Wreckers would like nothing better than to have free access to Darkover. Only the Empire’s restrictive laws governing Closed Worlds prevented others from turning Darkover into a colony planet. Without legal protections, nothing would stand in the way of those who wanted to exploit Darkover’s resources or its pivotal position in the galactic arm.

Not even the Comyn,Danilo sent the telepathic thought.

“Although I hate to admit it, the Telepath Council is completely inadequate to this challenge.” With a sigh, Regis resumed the recorded message.

“The new Federation must tread lightly at first,” Lew said. “The Expansionist alliance will be fragile, and they will need every vote. They dare not alienate their supporters by forcing full membership on any planet that does not desire it. Therein lies our hope. If Darkover refuses to change its Closed World status, then we have a chance of surviving this period of instability. Eventually the political pendulum will swing back to a more sane and compassionate balance between the benefits of cooperation and the need for self-determination.

“Regis . . . if anyone can preserve Darkover’s independence during this dangerous time, it is you. For the sake of all we hold dear, may the gods walk with you. Adelandeyo,my friend.”

The screen went blank, then words appeared: MESSAGE DESTROYED. Regis read Terran Standard well enough to make out the words.

They sat for a moment in silence, letting the weight of Lew’s words sink in. Disgust rose up in Regis, abhorrence of the glass and metal cage around him, the machines, the regulations, the artificiality, the smug implied superiority. He reminded himself that he had survived crises before. Having been raised and shaped by Darkover’s greatest living statesman, he knew the uses of power.

“Let’s get out of here,” Danilo said. “This place is not good for either of us.”

He opened the door and followed Regis into the reception room. Dan Lawton bent over his secretary’s desk, going over some documents with her. He looked up, and his expression shifted.

“Is it something you can tell me?” he asked Regis. “Can I be of any service?”