Danilo glided to the bedstand and touched the taper to the candle there. “I’m sorry to disturb you, vai dom,but there is an urgent matter requiring your attention.”

“Meaning something you cannot fend off by yourself?” Regis winced at his own dark mood. His anger was not toward Danilo but toward whatever had so disturbed Danilo’s sleep that he should be up and dressed—and armed—at this hour.

The second source of irritation was Danilo’s use of the honorific, the shift from lover and equal to loyal paxman.

“What is it?” Regis asked, more gently.

“A messenger from the Legate.”

“It’s not yet dawn. Couldn’t it wait until a decent hour?”

“Apparently not.”

“Forgive me, I’m in a beastly mood. You have done nothing to displease me.” Regis reached out for the bond between them, heart and mind and body’s sated need.

And if Ishould displease you?

“Zandrua’s frozen hells, Danilo! What does thatmean? Look, I don’t want to quarrel with you. If I can’t rely on you, you of all people—to whom can I turn?”

Danilo drew a breath, almost disguising how his voice trembled. “I will be here at your side as long . . . as long as you want me.” When Regis reached out a hand to him, he shifted to avoid the touch.

Regis cursed silently, not caring if Danilo sensed his thoughts. It’s that dream, or the Federation, or old memories. Whatever it is, I won’t let it come between us!

“All right, I’ll see the messenger in the downstairs parlor.” Regis pulled on a dressing robe and shoved his feet into fleece-lined house boots. “I’ll be down in a minute. Make sure the man has something hot to drink.”

A few minutes later, Regis joined Danilo and the Terran messenger around a newly lit fire. Shivering in his synthetic parka, the Terran looked vaguely familiar in the way many off-worlders did, but Regis could not recall meeting him before. From the tray with its steaming pitcher and untouched mugs, Regis surmised the messenger had refused refreshment. Danilo, despite the outward nonchalance of his posture, looked ready to draw his dagger any instant.

“I am Regis Hastur. My paxman says you have a message for me.”

The poor messenger was not only half frozen, but was terrified at facing an armed and obviously suspicious bodyguard. He could not have been more than twenty, probably on his first tour of duty.

“From the Legate,” Regis prompted.

“Your Highness—er, Your Honor—Lord Hastur,” the man stammered and attempted a bow.

“We can dispense with titles,” Regis told him. “I’m sorry you had to come out here on such a night. What is so pressing it cannot wait until morning?”

Some of the stiffness left the messenger’s body. “I don’t rightly know, sir. The Legate—Mr. Lawton—he asked if you could please come up to Medical. As soon as possible.”

“Medical? He’s not ill?” Regis felt a little frisson of fear. Why would Dan Lawton send for him, of all people? He had no medical training and only the most rudimentary knowledge of laranhealing, so he could be of little use there. If Dan were badly injured, dying, he might send for Regis—to disclose what?

The messenger shook his head. “I wasn’t g-given that information, j-just to ask you to come.”

Regis nodded, decisive. “I’ll be ready shortly. Wait here, and for Evanda’s sake, man, get some hot drink into you!”

Outside, clouds had blotted out the stars. Needle-edged rain slashed down, a harbinger of the coming spring. Although the temperature was above freezing, the damp wind penetrated even the warmest woolen clothing.

A motorized ground transport stood waiting for them outside the gated grounds of the town house. Regis sensed Danilo’s abhorrence of the machine, an echo to his own. The messenger held the door open. Regis sighed as and he and Danilo slid into their seats. The conveyance was practical, given the hour and the weather. Truthfully, he was glad not to have to walk, to arrive at Terran HQ shivering and soaked.

Danilo, tautly vigilant, eyed the Spaceforce patrolmen as they passed through the checkpoints. Beyond the gates, fences and barricades cut off all view of the spaceport. Stark white lights illuminated the entrance to Central Headquarters. The building was dark, the floors slick. The heels of their boots clattered on the hard synthetic surface. Although an underground power plant heated the complex, the entrance hall was frigid. To Regis, the chill was as much of the spirit as of the flesh.

As they made their way up the strange rising shafts and along the corridors of the Medical section, the lighting shifted, became less harsh. Perhaps the sick required illumination that soothed and sustained instead of assaulting the senses. Unlike the outer areas of the building, the Medical section was as busy at this hour as during the day. Staff in white uniforms, and some in pale green or blue, hurried by, speaking in pairs, clutching recording tablets. A few stared at Regis and Danilo.

The messenger brought them to a halt below a sign that read, INTENSIVE CARE. A young man glanced up from behind a long, curving barrier that served as counter and desk. Regis decided he must be a nurse, because his white uniform bore the staff- and-serpent emblem of the Terran Medics. A musical recording issued from the console behind the counter, a woman singing in a lilting, alien tongue, accompanied by drums and guitar. The snatch of melody reminded Regis of the sea.

Regis tried not to stare, for the nurse’s skin was a glossy blue-black and his hair a cap of fuzz. His ears were like ebony shells set on either side of his skull. Dark eyes, bright with intelligence, took in the two Darkovans, their native clothing and pale skins. But there was no judgment in that brief glance, only curiosity and good will.

How insular we are,Regis thought, and how little we know about the infinite variety of humankind.

“We have been expecting you,” the nurse said in a musical voice. “Please wait here while I page Dr. Allison.” He returned to his work at the computer console. Regis caught his flicker of amusement at being the object of curiosity.

He knows what it is to be set apart from his kind, to feel different, and yet he has made his peace with it.Regis would have liked to speak further with the man, but just then Jason Allison emerged around the corner. Jason wore a white coat, unbuttoned and flowing, over ordinary Darkovan clothing.

“ DomRegis, Danilo, I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you,” he said in flawless casta, inclining his head but making no effort to shake hands. “Come this way.”

Regis had known Jason since they had worked together on finding a vaccine for trailmen’s fever. He liked and trusted Jason, who had been born on Darkover and lived several years among the nonhuman aboriginals.

They hurried down the corridor that ran behind the nurse’s station and past three or four open doors. Regis glanced in, seeing darkened rooms and empty beds, two to a room. The next door was closed, but Jason entered without preamble.

The first impression Regis had upon entering was that he had stepped onto another planet. The chamber was saturated with light and the clutter of carts and machines. The stink of chemicals masked a miasma of emotions. Before he could raise his laranbarriers, he caught a whiff of curdled fear from the woman on the other side of the bed. She looked up at him with frightened eyes. Regis recognized Dan Lawton’s wife.

From the patient on the single bed, surrounded by machines and a spiderweb of wires and tubing, came the flare of laran, wild and un-shaped. Frantic, barely contained anguish radiated from the man in the corner chair.

The intensity of the emotions and the utter strangeness of the surroundings battered at Regis. Sensations, raw and intense, flooded through him.