“Surely.”

“In a literal way? You think there’s a god of travelers, and a god of fishermen, and a god of farmers, and one who looks after septarchs, and—”

“There is a force,” I said, “that gives order and form to the universe. The force manifests itself in various ways, and for the sake of bridging the gap between ourselves and that force, we regard each of its manifestations as a ‘god,’ yes, and extend our souls to this manifestation or that one, as our needs demand. Those of us who are without learning accept these gods literally, as beings with faces and personalities. Others realize that they are metaphors for the aspects of the divine force, and not a tribe of potent spirits living overhead. But there is no one in Velada Borthan who denies the existence of the force itself.”

“One feels such fierce envy of that,” said Schweiz. “To be raised in a culture that has coherence and structure, to have such assurance of ultimate verities, to feel yourself part of a divine scheme—how marvelous that must be! To enter into a system of belief—it would almost be worth putting up with this society’s great flaws, to have something like that.”

“Flaws?” Suddenly I found myself on the defensive. “What flaws?”

Schweiz narrowed his gaze and moistened his lips. Perhaps he was calculating whether I would be hurt or angered by what he meant to say. “Flaws was possibly too strong a word,” he replied. “One might say instead, this society’s limits, its—well, its narrowness. One speaks now of the necessity to shield one’s self from one’s fellow men that you impose. The taboos against reference to self, against frank discourse, against any opening of the soul—”

“Has one not opened his soul to you today in this very room?”

“Ah,” Schweiz said, “but you’ve been speaking to an alien, to one who is no part of your culture, to someone you secretly suspect of having tendrils and fangs! Would you be so free with a citizen of Manneran?”

“No one else in Manneran would have asked such questions as you have been asking.”

“Maybe so. One lacks a native’s training in self-repression. These questions about your philosophy of religion, then—do they intrude on your privacy of soul, your grace? Are they offensive to you?”

“One has no objections to talking of such things,” I said, without much conviction.

“But it’s a taboo conversation, isn’t it? We weren’t using naughty words, except that once when one slipped, but we were dealing in naughty ideas, establishing a naughty relationship. You let your wall down a little way, eh? For which one is grateful. One’s been here so long, years now, and one hasn’t ever talked freely with a man of Borthan, not once! Until one sensed today that you were willing to open yourself a bit. This has been an extraordinary experience, your grace.” The manic smile returned. He moved jerkily about the office. “One had no wish to speak critically of your way of life here,” he said. “One wished in fact to praise certain aspects of it, while trying to understand others.”

“Which to praise, which to understand?”

“To understand your habit of erecting walls about yourselves. To praise the ease with which you accept divine presence. One envies you for that. As one said, one was raised in no system of belief at all, and is unable to let himself be overtaken by faith. One’s head is always full of nasty skeptical questions. One is constitutionally unable to accept what one can’t see or feel, and so one must always be alone, and one goes around the galaxy seeking for the gateway to belief, trying this, trying that, and one never finds—” Schweiz paused. He was flushed and sweaty. “So you see, your grace, you have something precious here, this ability to let yourselves become part of a larger power. One would wish to learn it from you. Of course, it’s a matter of cultural conditioning. Borthan still knows the gods, and Earth has outlived them. Civilization is young on this planet. It takes thousands of years for the religious impulse to erode.”

“And,” I said, “this planet was settled by men who had strong religious beliefs, who specifically came here to preserve them, and who took great pains to instill them in their descendants.”

“That too. Your Covenant. Yet that was—what, fifteen hundred, two thousand years ago? It could all have crumbled by now, but it hasn’t. It’s stronger than ever. Your devoutness, your humility, your denial of self—”

“Those who couldn’t accept and transmit the ideals of the first settlers,” I pointed out, “were not allowed to remain among them. That had its effect on the pattern of the culture, if you’ll agree that such traits as rebelliousness and atheism can be bred out of a race. The consenters stayed; the rejecters went.”

“You’re speaking of the exiles who went to Sumara Borthan?”

“You know the story, then?”

“Naturally. One picks up the history of whatever planet one happens to be assigned to. Sumara Borthan, yes. Have you ever been there, your grace?”

“Few of us visit that continent,” I said.

“Ever thought of going?”

“Never.”

“There are those who do go there,” Schweiz said, and gave me a strange smile. I meant to ask him about that, but at that moment a secretary entered with a stack of documents, and Schweiz hastily rose. “One doesn’t wish to consume too much of your grace’s valuable time. Perhaps this conversation could be continued at another hour?”

“One hopes for the pleasure of it,” I told him.

When Schweiz was gone I sat a long while with my back to my desk, closing my eyes and replaying in my mind the things we had just said to one another. How readily he had slipped past my guard! How quickly we had begun to speak of inner matters! True, he was an otherworlder, and with him I did not feel entirely bound by our customs. Yet we had grown dangerously close so extraordinarily fast. Ten minutes more and I might have been as open as a bondbrother to him, and he to me. I was astounded and dismayed by my easy dropping of propriety, by the way he had drawn me slyly into such intimacy.

Was it wholly his doing? I had sent for him, I had been the first to ask the close questions. I had set the tone. He had sensed from that some instability in me, and he had seized upon it, quickly flipping the conversation about, so that I was the subject and he the interrogator. And I had gone along with it. Reluctantly but yet willingly, I had opened to him. I was drawn to him, and he to me. Schweiz the tempter! Schweiz the exploiter of my weakness, hidden so long, hidden even from myself! How could he have known I was ready to open?

His high-pitched rapid speech still seemed to echo in the room. Asking. Asking. Asking. And then revealing. Are you a religious man? Do you believe in literal gods? If only I could find faith! How I envy you. But the flaws of your world. The denial of self. Would you be so free with a citizen of Manneran? Speak to me, your grace, Open to me. I have been alone here so long.

How could he have known, when I myself did not know?

A strange friendship had been born. I asked Schweiz to dine at home with me; we feasted and we talked, and the blue wine of Salla flowed and the golden wine of Manneran, and when we were warmed by our drinking we discussed religion once more, and Schweiz’s difficulties with faith, and my convictions that the gods were real. Halum came in and sat with us an hour, and afterward remarked to me on the power of Schweiz to loosen tongues, saying, “You seemed more drunk than you have ever been, Kinnall. And yet you shared only three bottles of wine, so it must have been something else that made your eyes shine and your words so easy.” I laughed and told her that a recklessness came over me when I was with the Earthman, that I found it hard to abide by custom with him.

At our next meeting, in a tavern by the Justiciary, Schweiz said, “You love your bondsister, eh?”